measure of government. If they were a compact, fall. country from Havre de Grace to Basle, through Paris, by one road, and returned by another; and in all the distance I see nothing that marks a neglect of agriculture, or a want of hands to labor; on the contrary, the earth is covered with all the usual variety of crops, all promising abundance, if the approach of harvest be warm. Up to the time that I left the country, we had too much rain and cold, which have extended also to this country. Another circumstance struck me forcibly; I mean the very few beggars I met with. Formerly, whenever a The following passage is not only curious for carriage stopped to change horses it was surrounded its general spirit of prophecy, singularly fulfilled by half a dozen, and often by a whole one, of mis- by the event, but exhibits what seems to have been erable objects who assailed you in the name of God, a dumb feeling in the respectable part of American and whose appearance bore but too forcible a testi- society, at a time when in this country, and probmony to the justice of their fervent applications. I ably throughout the world, Americans were suphave now passed many, very many post-houses, without meeting a single mendicant. This and some posed to be animated by the fiercest opposition other observations convince me that the condition against Great Britain, and desirous of her downof the lowest classes of society is improved, perhaps as much as that of the rich is declined; so that, with all the horrid scenes which have passed, and all the accumulation of wretchedness which has overwhelmed the upper orders of society, I am disposed to believe that the sum of human happiness has rather increased than diminished. This, to be sure, is no apology for those who have drenched the cities in blood; and we can only regard them as we would a pestilence-as horrid instruments in the hand of Providence to scourge, and ultimately to purify, the corruption of men. Again, I have seen the city of Paris exhibit an example of patient fortitude, which I did not expect from such a mass of ignorant and profligate people. I have seen them week after week receive the miserable pittance of two ounces of bad bread to a person a day; and sup-iaries. I shall not believe, therefore, until I see it, port this privation with fewer instances of riot, impatience or murmur, than you would have expected from a race of philosophers." There was a doubt at the time whether America might not have been driven to hostilities with France, on account of the intrigues and insolence of the directorial government and agents. G. CABOTT ON ENGLAND AND FRANCE. “But after all, my greatest reliance is that Great Britain will keep the monster at bay until he destroys himself, or becomes less dangerous to others; and I cannot believe that any vicissitudes in the internal affairs of England will sensibly diminish their naval strength, or divert its application, as long as France remains formidable. England certainly possesses abundant means of every kind to defend herself against France and as many of the powers on the continent as France can compel to act as auxil that England will yield in the present contest. Mr. Erskine, Mr. Waddington, and some thousands of others, will try at every period of misfortune to disThe late plea of the Philadelphians for the non- as well as other property of the nation, the weight place the ministers; but the governinent, the landed payment of their debts was, that the foreign set of character, and essentially the body of the nation, tlers, chiefly Germans, outnumbered the "drab-must, and do hate France, and will, under all circolored men." From various passages in the cumstances, fight France as long as they can. correspondence it would seem that the Philadelphians did not rank very high half a century ago. The following is a sketch of them by Wolcott, junior, in a letter to his father. It must be remembered that it was not only a new government, but a new constitution that was just set up and had to work. "The indications of the public sentiment with respect to the new government are very equivocal. The northern states, and the commercial and moneyed people, are zealously attached to it. The state executives and officers cannot be considered as good friends; many of them are designing enemies. "This state, [Philadelphia,] though very officious in obtruding their opinions, will have but little influence. The power and respectability which persons not acquainted with their affairs attribute to them, is ideal. A great portion of the members are ignorant men; they are collected from all nations under heaven; many have smarted under the scourges of European tyranny, and act under the influences of old prejudices and habits, though their present condition is entirely different from any which they formerly experienced. Zeal for liberty, the principles of which they do not understand, and envy of abilities and industry which they cannot emulate, induce them to raise objections to every Farewell. G. CABOTT." Peace, were popular with the respectable republi- cans of America. CHAUNCEY GOODRICH ON EDMUND BURKE. "We have received two celebrated letters written by Mr. Burke against the ministry for entering on negotiations of peace. Though but lately put to the press, they have run to the eighth edition. He considers the republic of France as an Algiers in the centre of Europe, with whom the civilized world can hold no communion. Whether he be correct or sentiment relative to the Jacobins in England, France not in his main point, the pamphlet is full of original and the world, highly valuable to every country, and to ours as much as any one. There are but one or two here; I hope they will be soon reprinted." The text and the original letters in these volumes must be received with allowance, as the representations of writers on a side. Still, with every allowance, they do not show many leading politicians of the "model republic," as any better in its infancy than in its youth-manhood it has not yet reached. Whether Randolph, in 1795, applied PUBLIC CHARACTERS OF PHILADELPHIA, 1796. "Chauncey Goodrich to Oliver Wolcott, senior. The little to Fauchet, the French ambassador, with the a revolution prevented. It was simply the exercise treasonable purpose of fomenting an insurrection of the power inherent in the organization of society against the government of which he was a mem-with its well-being. It was in the outset a revolt, to resist the enforcement of authority inconsistent ber, or whether, as we rather think, he attempted based on the same principles, advocated by the same to trick the Frenchman out of money for his pri-men, as those which had distinguished and mainvate uses on a public pretence, it is clear that an tained that against Charles. The course of events American secretary of state applied to a foreign made it, indeed, a war of independence; but there ambassador for funds to be ostensibly used against was in its tone nothing revolutionary, nothing subthe ministry of which he was a member. Monroe versive of the established order of things. Some and other Americans at Paris betrayed, if not their leaders, more far-seeing than the rest, had predicted country, yet the government they were serving, took up arms to get, was not some new privilege, the result; but what the people wanted, what they for party objects. Mr. Gallatin and some others some new liberty, but the security of rights, priviwere untainted by mercenary baseness, but they leges, and immunities, which they had always had. allowed faction to carry them on to treason; and Once committed, they were indeed driven to indeas for the respectability of smaller men, here is a pendence for safety's sake. Even the abolishment picture of the " just men" of one city. of royalty they had not originally intended; for abstract royalty, with three thousand miles of deep water between it and them, troubled them little, so only that they had their own legislatures, and were taxed by those alone. What we find in their speeches, what we read in the writings of those days, has much about birthright and inheritance, charters and the privileges of English-born subjects, and very little about the rights of man. of this that came in afterwards was not of native growth, nor indigenous to the soil. New England, the New England yeomanry, the representative of that stubborn orderly race of resistants which had laid the foundations of Old England's liberties, was little given to speculation. Certain definite and distinct ideas the people had touching rights which were the privilege of Englishmen everywhere, and in their view not necessarily the privilege of any other nation; indeed, they rather claimed the exclusive monopoly of them. To maintain these as their inheritance they considered due to their posterity; to maintain them their fathers had cut off the head of one king by sentence of a high tribunal and had deposed another by act of parliament; to maintain them still they were ready to rebel against the usurpations of the throne, or if need be of parliament itself. The doctrine of the divine right of kings was exploded even in England. One protector and two dynasties of monarchs had reigned by divine right of parliament. The principle that government was intended for the good of the governed, was to them self-evident; the consequence, that the governed were to prescribe how it should be exercised, was equally plain; and the attempts of parliament to violate the principle were subjects of resistance as well as those of the throne. This it was that they fought for, and in this there was no revolution-the revolution came afterwards. "Philadelphia, Dec. 13, 1796. "I place under cover to Frederic, a paper of yesterday, in which you will find Governor Mifflin in his address has done the government of Connecticut the honor of particular mention. It merits and I presume will meet only with contempt. A few days after this display of patriotism and a holy zeal against speculation, the president and cashier of the State Pennsylvania Bank had been guilty of an embezzlement of its moneys or malversation. The president had by connivance taken from the bank one hundred thousand dollars and more, without consent of the directors, which, though charged, he kept without interest. He and the cashier are both displaced. It was yesterday rumored that Governor Mifflin, whose son-in-law was cashier, had in the same way taken fifteen thousand dollars, and that he had given his security for restitution. I believe the story; but a few days will make it more certain, and in the mean time no mention need be made of it. This place furnishes indication of great depravity. Bankruptcies are frequently happening. Mr. Morris is greatly embarrassed. 'Tis said that Nicholson has fled to England; that Judge Wilson has been to gaol and is out on bail. But there are so many rumors I vouch for the credit of neither. Blair M'Clenachan, lately chosen representative, has conveyed his estate to his children, to cheat his creditors." The volumes are well edited, with good tables of contents, and an elaborate index. The historical commentary is also done with knowledge, clearness, and strength; though too strongly impregnated with federalist party views to be taken as an impartial account. Mr. Gibbs appears to have the federalist accomplishments as well as their feelings. The following opinion on American independence may be taken as an example of his style on the larger subjects. "The character and objects of the American war have been often strangely misapprehended. It was in truth what Burke termed it, not a revolution, but "Democracy as a theory was not as yet. The habits and manners of the people were, indeed, essentially democratic in their simplicity and equality of condition; but this might exist under any form of government. Their governments were then purely republican. They had gone but a short way into those philosophical ideas which characterized the subsequent and real revolution in France. The great state papers of American liberty were all predicated on the abuse of chartered, not of abstract rights. The complaints against government were of violation of these." 280 THE BANK ACT OF 1844, AND PRIVATE BANKING INSOLENCE OF SERVILITY. THE BANK ACT OF 1944, AND THE QUESTION | not learned its lesson; since it was only on the 2d OF PRIVATE BANKING. What the public now demand is, such a reform in the direction of the bank as shall introduce men at least capable of understanding that first principle of business which should prompt a trader to regulate the price of his commodity by the existing demand for it; and also shall secure that the parties selected should be men of known solvency— which would probably be the case if their election depended on the proprietors. The arguments for the appointment of a permanent governor rest upon matters of convenience which must be obvious to all; and the only interest that the government can feel in the arrangements must be such as arises from the fact that the issue department is connected with the bank, together with the fact that this corporation is the private banker of the state. Owing to these circumstances, the national repute is liable to be compromised by the utter want of commercial stability which has been manifested during the last twenty years among the directors; and it is on this ground, above all, that the intelligent public call for interference.-Spectator, 2 Oct. of last month that it absolutely lowered the price of accommodation at the very time when its means THE remarks of the Spectator last week on the were again undergoing week by week a most rapid government of the Bank of England have been the diminution, and when everything indicated that this subject of a misinterpretation in some journals, diminution must steadily continue until the gigantic which is now common whenever the purely banking speculations by which it was occasioned should be concerns of that corporation are alluded to. With finally arrested; the consequence of this system of the complaints which have lately been urged against mismanagement being, that when a crash ultimately the efficiency of the bank directors, the act of 1844, arrives, the bank, instead of being in a position to known as Peel's Bill, can have no possible connec- interpose by timely aid, is the chief actor, (as was tion: yet these complaints are incessantly miscon-again exemplified on Thursday and yesterday,) to strued by the opponents of that bill into an admission add to the general embarrassment by adopting that the bill is defective. Now, it must be borne stringent and hurried measures for its own protec in mind-and it cannot at the present juncture betion. too distinctly impressed-that the bank act of 1844 did not profess in the slightest degree to interfere with the operations of private bankers, or to protect the public against such evils as might arise from an injudicious management on the part of those firms. It professed, certainly, to furnish by its action an index by which the private banker might always regulate his concerns with safety; but it did not and could not pretend to guarantee that to this index he would attend. The sole duty of the bill, to which Sir Robert Peel pledged its infallible performance, was that of maintaining, in all times and under all circumstances, the convertibility of the bank-note: and that it has failed to fulfil this function no one will pretend to assert. For the first time, perhaps, in our commercial history, we have witnessed a pressure of the severest character both with regard to its protraction and its extent, without hearing one word of apprehension that, even when it shall come to the worst, the solvency of the issue department of the Bank of England can be placed in danger: and thus we escape an evil which if it were added to the distress that now prevails might plunge the nation into almost hopeless ruinnamely, the combination of public with private discredit. It is the management of the banking de- THE servility which pursues individuals of the partment of the Bank of England that has alone"distinguished," "exalted," or royal classes, to been called in question: and over this the act of record their minutest and most trivial actions with 1844 has no more control than it has over the affairs painstaking elaboration, is a very low and base of the London and Westminster Bank, or of Jones instinct at all times; ridiculous at the best, someLoyd and Co., or Glyn and Co., or any other pri- times disgusting and defiling. There is mixed up vate establishment. As far as the question of man- with it a spirit the very reverse of reverential. It agement is concerned, it is as it bears upon this can be no genuine reverence which dogs the footdepartment alone that reform is needed; since the steps of kings and princes to note every paltry issue department is happily self-working, and it is movement and make a wonderment of every out of the power of the bank court, or of any body remark, as though it were surprising that a prince of individuals in the world, to disturb or to avert its should have his faculties about him. A royal count operation. During the whole of the spring, when cannot visit a factory and make an intelligent obserwarnings were daily given, not only by the press vation, but that coryphæus of footmen the court but by the rapid efflux of bullion, the bank directors newsman repeats the saying with applause, as poured forth money from their till in increased nurses do when a baby begins to predicate truisms abundance, just in an inverse ratio to the degree in about its pap or its toys. The homage, we all which the operation of Peel's bill was restricting know, is paid to the "exalted station;" but there their legitimate means of pursuing that course; and must after all be something very humiliating to the that this madness was checked at last, was owing most hardened recipient of such homage in the gross solely to their having arrived at that point at which disparagement which it implies of the individual. their self-acting monitor could no longer be disre- A sovereign has senses like other men; if you tickle garded. But this course might have been pursued him he will laugh; if you show to him suffering by Jones Loyd and Co. just the same as by the humanity he will grieve; if you exhibit before him bank, if the partners had been afflicted with similar good feeling he will be pleased, and will express infatuation. They might have parted from the his pleasure in suitable terms. But these consemoney in their till with increased freedom just as it quences are matters of course. The exalted perwas becoming more scarce; and so might all the sonage behaves as all persons of sense and decent other private bankers of the country: and that they feeling would do; and if you express wonder at the did not do so, is simply owing to the fact that they fact, you must suppose an exalted person to be had the ability to observe the signs of the times, something below human nature. You are regardand to conduct their affairs like prudent men. Even ing the crowned creature with the same feelings as now we see, however, that the Bank of England has the curiosity-hunter who admires an elephant or a THE INSOLENCE OF SERVILITY. THE BOTTLE-IMP OF IRELAND. THE anti-rent movement in Ireland is neither a new occasion for alarm, nor new in its cause, or even in its substance. It is only a new shape in which the evil of Ireland displays itself-the redun monkey for behaving "so like man ;" and while 66 66 That evil is like the last article to be packed into the traveller's carpet-bag-the thing too much, that will not be squeezed into the space readjust the traps" how you will, you cannot contrive to get that one in; whether it is your dressing-case, your clothes-brush, your shooting-shoes, your sandwichbox, your portable bootjack, or whatever else you may in turn leave out in the vain hope of poking it in at the last, there it stands, identical in the one material attribute of being the thing de trop-the realized excess. So the chronicler that waits upon the footsteps of the exalted, and humbly enumerates every gracious smile upon his tally, must needs have his moments of sombre scepticism and irreverent dis- So it is in Ireland: her population is redundant content. Nothing then is sacred from his irrever- as compared with her land and capital, and the ent familiarity. The royal countenance, which has redundancy makes itself apparent in various shapes shined perhaps with too much tolerance upon his-the two and a half millions of beggars, the feversycophancy, is watched with cold stare and insolent ish emigration, the potato-diet, the famine, the puboutspeaking when it does not smile. On the lic works, the excessive poor-rates, the anti-poorqueen's return from Scotland, one of these royalty-rate agitation, the Ribandist hold of pauperism on hunters thus ventures to indulge the wandering of his cross-grained imagination the land, the landlord clearances, the anti-rent agitation. These are only so many different forms in which the one redundancy of people exhibits itself and its morbid working. Some of these manifestations are immediately caused by the effort of the redundant people to make the most of the deficient land-such as the potatodiet; some by the effort of the miserable wretches who are extruded to retain a grasp upon the natural source of food, the land-such as the Ribandism, the beggary, and the anti-rent; some by the effort of the landowners to counteract that convulsive pauperism by shaking off the grasp-such as the clearances. But whatever the immediate shape of the tumultuary movement, it is only one symptom of the common disease. "When her majesty alighted from the carriage, she took hold of the Prince of Wales with her left hand, and, drawing her mantle closely round her, proceeded down the quay; Prince Albert walking on her right, and carrying an umbrella above her to keep off the rain. The princess royal was conducted to the boat by one of the royal suite. As the royal party passed along, Prince Albert acknowledged the cheers with which they were greeted; but her majesty's countenance bore none of that joyous look which she sometimes exhibits; and upon the whole, whether from indisposition, the rough sail she had had that morning, or the inclemency of the weather, she seemed very indifferent to the manifestations of her subjects' loyalty. The remedy is obviously to restore the balance She was handed down the stair and into the barge, in the three elements of national prosperity-introwhich was waiting to convey her to the Black duce more capital, or extend the productiveness of Eagle, by Mr. Campbell of Auchindarroch, who the land, or diminish the people. Easier said than likewise lifted the Prince of Wales and the princess done. Capital will not venture into the region while royal into the barge. At this time it was very it is so turbulent. Agricultural systems cannot be wet; and the protection of the umbrella being temporarily withdrawn while her majesty was stepping on board the barge and seating herself, the rain dashed upon her face, and seemed to create a feeling of discomfort in the royal mind, if we may be allowed to judge from the expression of her countenance. As if a face that confronted beating rain ever did wear any look but discomfort! There is something doltish in the wonderment this time. But even if the expression of "discomfort" had been of a less purely physical kind, what right has any one to watch over the countenance of another, however "exalted," in order to note every passing shade? What warrant is there for translating every vague expression, and putting upon it the bad construction of vulgar disparagement? Are all minds so much alike that we can understand each other's feelings, precisely, by looks and gestures? Above all, what man of decent manly feeling will fix his stare upon a woman, of whatsoever station, if he merely supposes that her mind is ill at ease? altered while the redundant population covers the land, any more than you can take up the carpet in your parlor while the whole family is at breakfast. It only remains to diminish the redundancy of the population by depletion. Get rid of that oppressive burden, and you may then so alter the state of matters as to extend the productiveness of the soil, and admit capital to a peaceful reign over universal prosperity. But until you remove the people who are starving because they are de trop, and are savage because they are starving, you will have neither quiet nor room for the effectual amelioration of the country. Ten to one, if you carry in food, the people will attack your messengers, as they have done the relief-officers; or if you were to bring capital, they would probably make a foray upon it, as the new pirates of the west coast did upon the corn-ships. A country with two millions and a half of souls whose redundancy is fatally marked out by their periodical destitution, cannot be still while you cure it and rearrange it. You must get But the courtly newsman has a twofold right-rid of the immediate and exciting cause of irritation the born right pertaining to a mean nature, which before you can apply constitutional remedies.— is "rather his misfortune than his fault ;" and the Spectator, 25 Sept. right conferred by the toleration of the "exalted," whose presence he so often outrages.-Spectator. From the Spectator. MR. FRANCIS' HISTORY OF THE BANK OF ENGLAND. most important of the other points are at best but the body. This animating spirit will not be found in the pages of Mr. Francis. It is not that his economIr, in the history of a nation, where actions and ical views or his currency doctrines are good, bad, the actors are the first things that attract attention, or indifferent he has none. The currency quesand admit of, if they do not require, narrative or tion scarcely seems to have exercised his thoughts; dramatic exhibition, the principles that lurk beneath and when on great occasions-as the suspension the narrative, causing events and stimulating per- of cash payments in 1797, their restoration by sons, ought to be clearly evolved, how much more Peel in 1819, or the panic of 1825-he cannot is this exhibition necessary in subjects that partake well avoid the subject, he either pins his faith to of the character of science, where the principle is some authority, (mostly the bank directors for the all in all? An extraordinary criminal, a remark- time being,) or takes refuge in the truism" that able suit, a particular decision, or an eccentric much may be said on both sides;" or if venturing clerk of court, may be fitly introduced when they any view of his own, he arrives at the conclusion illustrate a law, or, sparingly, as a relief to drier of the politician in the farce, "that as near as he matters. Such things, however, by no means form can guess he cannot tell." A similar want of a history of law; any more than gossipy partic-financial vocation attends him where facts or regulars or curious anecdotes of philosophers form a ulations are in question. He generally quotes history of philosophy, even if garnished with some statistics, laws, &c., from others. In what may loose accounts of the facts of their discoveries, be termed financial events, he looks less to the exwhile the principles embodied in the facts remain ternals than to the outside. The anxious crowds unobserved. demanding their money in a panic, or the equally anxious dupes demanding permission to subscribe theirs in a mania, are the things that attract his first attention; as some personal characteristics are what he chiefly regards in individuals. Mr. Francis is all for the visible and tangible—the spirit of events is beyond his ken. a They bear From the connection of the Bank of England with the government, its long monopoly of the power of acting upon the circulation of the country, and the principles illustrated in almost every great financial question with which it has been involved, the history of the bank would seem imperatively to require a full exposition of the prin- We need scarcely say that those who look for ciples of currency, such at least as they appear to scientific or statistical history of the Bank of the historian, with an endeavor to show at each England will not find it in these volumes. The great crisis how far the conduct of the directors volumes have, however, a merit of their own: they was influential for good or for evil, and how far are readable, and even interesting-more so, their decisions were guided by true principles or indeed, than might be expected. by any principles. How Abraham Newland "cut about the same relation to a philosophical history up," and the means by which he gained his money of the bank, as the anecdotical accounts of Mr. -the adventurous arts and frauds of Price, the once Heneage Jesse do to Hume's or Lingard's Engcelebrated forger, with his anticipation of Jack land. Courtly, or literary, or personal gossips, Ketch by hanging himself—the forgeries and ex-are numerous enough: Mr. Francis is a bank and ecution of Fauntleroy and others—the rush and business gossip. Had he been born at the Concrush at the doors of the bank when popular loans were to be subscribed for-with biographical notices of governors and directors-are all well enough as gossip, but by no means fitting topics to occupy a prominent place in a professed history of the Bank of England. The formal statistics of the subject the amount of capital at various times, the terms on which the successive charters have been granted, the prices of bank stock, with the dividends thereupon, and the bonuses given to the proprietors, as well as the various runs the bank has encountered, and the financial crises or panics in which it stood conspicuous-are topics more germane to its real history. Still, they are the superficials of the matter. The economical condition of the country at the last-named occurrences- -the causes which produced them-how far they were inevitable, or to what extent they were owing to the conduct of the public-the course which the directors pursued, and the results, with the principles to be deduced from their conduct and the circumstances of the case-are the animating soul of a history of the bank, while the quest and lived till now, and been disposed (a bolder supposition) to cut his reminiscences very short, he might have told his listeners just such a story as he gives his readers, about the persecutions of the earliest money-dealers, the Jews, and, after their expulsion, of the Lombards; how Gresham borrowed money for the Tudors; how Charles the First seized the deposits in the mint; and Charles the Second shut up the exchequer ; the style in which the old goldsmiths did their business; how the bank first opened at Grocer's Hall, and what a poor place the then youngish old lady had in Threadneedle street when she first set up there; what a precious squeeze there was in the Rue Quincampoix when Law was distributing the shares in the Mississippi scheme; how "the quality" as well as the citizens thronged to Broker's Alley and jostled each other during the South Sea mania; how the Frenchmen did jabber and gesticulate, when, instead of gold for their notes, they read a decree of the regent "suspending the payment of them till further orders;" how John Bull roared for parliament to pay and punish, when |