Peel's policy contracted the paper currency at the very time that he sent the metallic abroad in quest of food, that he has brought such calamities on the State.

The Right Hon. Baronet's defence of his policy is mainly to be found in the following paragraph of his late able speech, in the close of the currency debate:

"I think there has been some misapprehension as to the objects contemplated by the Act of 1844. I do not deny that one of them was the prevention of the convulsions that had theretofore occurred

in consequence of the Bank of England not taking due precautions as to the regulation of its issues. I did hope, after the experience of former crises, that the Bank of England would adhere to those prin ciples of banking which the directors acknowledged to be just, but from which they admitted they have departed. (Hear, hear, hear.) I am bound to admit that in that hope, and in that object, I have been disappointed; and I also admit, seeing the number of houses that have been swept away-some of which, I fear, were long insolvent (Hear, hear) and others which, being solvent, have suffered from the failure of other houses-I am bound to say that in that object of the Bill I have been disappointed. (Hear, hear.) It was in the power of the Bank to have, at an early period of the distress, raised the rate of discount, and to have refused some of the accommodation they granted between 1844 and 1846. (Hear, hear, hear.) I cannot, therefore, say that the defect is exclusively, or mainly, in the Bill (Hear, hear)-but my belief is, that executive interference might have been given without the necessity of the authority of the noble lord."- Morning Post, Dec. 2, 1847.

The observations which have now been made, show that these remarks are not only unfounded, but precisely the reverse of the truth. Had the Bank of England drawn in their discounts, and raised the rate of interest between 1844 and 1846, at the very time when the railway and freetrade work, into which Sir Robert Peel had plunged the nation, was at its height, what must have been the result? Nothing but this: that the catastrophe which has ensued would have come on two years sooner than it has actually done. The Right Hon. Baronet would have been prevented from making his emphatic

speech on the admirable effects of his policy, and the diminution of crime, in the opening of the Session of 1846; he would have found the jails and the workhouses full enough, at the period of that glowing eulogium on free-trade policy and its effects. By making liberal advances to railway companies in 1844 and 1845, the Bank of England, and the other banks which followed its example, only enabled the country for a time to do the work upon which Sir Robert Peel had set it. By enabling, by similar advances, the manufacturers for two years longer than they otherwise could have done, to send a large export of manufactures abroad, the Bank, for catastrophe which must ensue in a that period, averted or postponed the commercial state, when its imports, for a series of years, have come greatly to exceed its exports. It is because the contraction of the currency, rendered imperative on the Bank by the Right Hon. Baronet's bill, has disabled our manufacturers from carrying on their operations to their wonted extent, that the import of the raw materials employed in manufactures, has decreased during the last eighteen months to such an extent, our export of manufactures declined in a corresponding degree, and the drain of specie abroad to pay for the enormous importations simultaneously introduced, increased to such a ruinous extent.

Sir R. Peel reminds us of the great catastrophe of December 1825, and cannot be ascribed to his Bank observes that that disaster, at least, Charter Act, and that it arose from the everlasting tendency to overtrading in the people of this country. Again we thank the Right Hon. Bart. for reminding us of that disastrous epoch, which, in the still greater suffering with which we are now surrounded, had been well-nigh forgotten. We entirely agree with him as to the magnitude of that crisis, and we will tell him to what it was owing, and how it was surmounted. It was owing to Mr Secretary Canning, in pursuance of liberal principles, "calling a new world into existence," by violating the faith and breaking through the duties of the old one. arose from the prodigious loans sent

It

from this country to prop up the rickety, faithless, insolvent republics of South America, and the boundless incitements held out to wild speculation at that period by "Mr Prosperity Robinson," especially in South American mining speculations. It arose from all this being done and encouraged by the government, at the very time when the act of 1819, introduced by Sir R. Peel, compelled the Bank, -though drained almost to the last guinea, by the prodigious quantity of gold sent headlong to South America to support these speculations, induced or fostered by the government,-to pay all its notes in gold. This was what induced the crisis. And what arrested it? Lord Ashburton has told us it was the issue of £2,000,000 of forgotten bank-notes, drawn out of a cellar of the Bank; but which sum, inconsiderable as it was, proved sufficient to arrest the consequences of the gold being all sent away to South America, in pursuance of liberal principles, to prop up "healthy young republics," carved out of the dominions of an old and faithful ally. Sir R. Peel, twoand twenty years afterwards, has repeated the same error, by sending the gold to North America in the midst of great domestic transactions for grain, but he has not repeated the same remedy.

In truth, the system now established in regard to the bank by the acts of 1819 and 1844, necessarily induces that very feverish excitement in periods of prosperity, and sudden contraction in those of adversity, of the consequences of which Sir R. Peel so loudly complains. When the bank is obliged to accumulate and keep in its vaults so prodigious a treasure as £15,000,000 in prosperous times, and £9,000,000 or £10,000,000 in those of adversity, lying dead in its possession; how is it to indemnify itself for so vast an outlay, without, whenever an opportunity presents itself, pushing its circulation to the utmost? The very interest of this treasure amounts, at 5 per cent., to above £700,000 a-year; at 7 per cent., the present rate, it will reach a million. How is this sum to be made up, the expense of the establishment defrayed, and any profit at all realised for the proprietors, if paper, to a

large amount, is not pushed out whenever an opportunity presents itself for doing so to advantage? Again, in adverse times, when there is a heavy drain upon the establishment for buying foreign grain, or discharging adverse exchanges, how is the bank to avoid insolvency, without at once, and suddenly, contracting its issues? The thing is unavoidable. Undue encouragement speculation in prosperity, and undue contraction of credit in adversity, is to the Bank, since the acts of 1819 and 1844, not merely an essential preliminary to profit, but in trouble the condition of existence. Yet Sir R. Peel complains of the Bank doing that which his own acts have rendered indispensable to that establishment.

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Sir R. Peel asserts that many of the houses which have lately become insolvent, have done so from excessive imprudence of speculation; and he succeeded in eliciting some cheers and laughter from the House of Commons, by contrasting in some extreme cases the amount of the debts brought out in bankruptcy with the assets. Without deeming it necessary to defend the conduct of all the houses, the affairs of which have been rendered public by the vast corn trade and railway speculations into which he plunged the nation, it seems sufficient to observe, that all fortunes made by credit must, if suddenly arrested in the course of formation by such a contraction of the currency as we have lately experienced, exhibit the same, or nearly the same, results. Fortunes, with the magnitude of which the Right Hon. Baronet and Mr Jones Loyd are well acquainted, might possibly, if they had been thrown on their beamends suddenly, by such a tornado, have exhibited, when in growth, not a much more flattering feature. But the "Pilot who weathered the storm" was then at the helm, and he weathered it for their fortunes not less than for those of the country. He aided commercial distress in adversity by increasing, instead of aggravating it by contracting, the currency. It is credit which has made us what we are, and credit which must keep us such. Had the monetary system of Sir R. Peel

been adopted forty years ago, as the bullion committee said it should, we shall tell the Right Hon. Baronet what would have been the result. Great Britain would have been a province of France the fortunes of all its merchants would have been destroyed: the business talents of Mr Jones Loyd would probably have procured for him the situation of cashier of the branch of the Bank of France established in London; and possibly the rhetorical abilities of Sir R. Peel might have raised him to the station of the English M. De Fontaine, the orator on the government side in the British Chamber of Deputies, held under an imperial viceroy on the banks of the Thames.

Sir R. Peel admits his bill has failed in checking improvident speculation in the nation; nor could he well have maintained the reverse, when the most extravagant speculations on record, at least in this island, succeeded, in the very next year, the passing of his bill. Experience has proved that it required to be suspended by the authority of the executive when the disaster came; and the effect of that suspension has already been to raise the three per cents from 79 to 86. It is ineffective during prosperity to check imprudence; it requires to be suspended in adverIsity, because it aggravates disaster. This is all on the Right Hon. Baronet's own admission. What good then has it done, or what can be ascribed to it, to counterbalance the numerous evils which have followed in its train?

Sir R. Peel says the experience of the last half century proves, that every period of prosperity is followed by a corresponding period of disaster,

and that it is under one of the latter periods of depression that the nation is now labouring. We agree with the Right Honourable Baronet that for thirty years past this has been the case, and we will tell him the reason why. It is because for that period his principles have been in operation. But there was a period before that when no such deplorable alternations of good and evil took place; when the nation in prosperity was strong without running riot, and the government in adversity checked disaster, instead of aggravating it.

It was the period from 1793 to 1815, when a currency adequate to the wants of the nation was supplied for its necessities, and our rulers had not yet embraced the principle that, in proportion as you increase the work men have to do, and enlarge their number, you should diminish their food. It was the period when Mr Pitt or his successors in principle were at the helm. Three commercial crises came on at that time, all occasioned by the abstraction of specie for the use of the great armies then contending on the Continent,those of 1793, 1797, and 1810. In the first, the panic was stopped by Mr Pitt's advance of £5,000,000 exchequer bills; in the second, by the suspension of cash payments; in the third, when gold was so scarce that the guinea was selling for twentyfive shillings, by the issue of banknotes to the extent of £48,000,000. That last period, which under the present system would at once have ruined the nation, was coincident with its highest prosperity: with the Torres Vedras campaign, and a revenue raised by taxes of £65,000,000 yearly. All the panics on record have arisen from the abstraction of gold in large quantities, and have been cured by the issue, sometimes speedy, sometimes tardy, of a corresponding amount of paper. Sir R. Peel's policy doubles the evil, for it at once sends abroad the cash under his act of 1846, even in the finest seasons, to buy grain, and, under the act of 1844, at the very same moment contracts the currency, by the increase of which alone the evil could be remedied.

Sir R. Peel, however, has completely, as already noticed, instructed us in the true principles of the currency. It is his policy which has brought them to light. He contracts the currency when gold is scarce, and expands it when it is abundant.. The true principle is just the reverse: it is to contract the paper when gold is abundant, and an expansion of the currency is therefore little needed; and to expand it when it is scarce, and therefore an addition to it is imperatively called for. The price of gold will at once tell when the one or the other requires to be done.

THERE is an ancient mansion we often go to, just where the hills of Herefordshire rise confounded with those of Radnor, built in the reign of James I., but in a style that tells of the traditions of rather an earlier epoch, and, as common report goes, due to the genius of Inigo Jones. It is erected in a long line east and west, with the principal fronts north and south; on either side of the mansion prim-looking gables rise over the windows of the third storey, and stately chimneys keep guard on the roof above. The windows are all ample, well and fitly monialled and transomed. The colour of the stone is a rich warm-tinted gray, passing on the southern front into orange-shades of glorious hue; and the whole edifice wears the aspect of nobility and good taste. Ample gardens with terraces and lawns are spread around, and the tall avenue of limes that leads down from the ancient gates on the main road, is answered by a goodly belt of contemporaneous oaks and beeches circling round the gardens, and shutting them out from the rest of the estate. When you enter the great hall, you observe large square bay windows, and, in the recesses, deer-skins spread out for carpets, with halberts and other arms filling up the corners. The lower rooms are all wainscoted with black oak, and the furniture, mostly as old

as the mansion itself, is of that solid stately kind which befitted the dignified style in which our ancestors gloried to live. As you mount the ample stairs, you find yourself amidst an endless series of portraits, from the time of the bluff tyrant King Hal, down to the homely age of good king George,-stiff gentlemen and ladies in doublets and ruffs, others with cuirasses and long flowing hair, and black dresses and love-locks, be-speaking the well known cavalier principles of the House in the times of the rebellion; and ever and anon gentlemen in long three-quarter frames, with many a square yard of pink or blue velvet for their coats, cuffs turned up to their elbows, waistcoats big enough to make surtouts for any of us degenerate moderns; the forefinger and thumb of one hand on the pummel of the sword, the other gently placed on some gilded table,-the head turned disdainfully aside, or else courting with graceful pride some comely dame in a green negligé, or habited as a shepherdess,-the Corydon and Chloe of the court of Queen Anne. The staircase leads to an enormous drawing-room, that looks as if some three

or four other rooms had been thrown into one, with two bay-windows on one side, and a fireplace-ah! such a fireplace!-on the other. But here no personages more ancient than the

days of George the Second are allowed to show their canvasses on the walls, -the great grandfathers and grandmothers of the present possessors,the men looking like rakish Quakers, the ladies all in flimsy white muslin, straw hats, and powdered locks. They may have more interest for those to whom they are related, but we always consider them much worse company than their progenitors on the staircase, those glories and beauties of an earlier day, whom they are themselves destined to join hereafter, when thrust out from their present quarters by a future squire. A stray Sir Joshua may be seen in one corner of the room, and an early Sir Thomas is by one of the windows. The furniture here is of that remarkable, rickety kind, which our own dads admired so much when this nineteenth century of ours was making its appearance, and which but we may have bad taste herein we would willingly consign en masse to the kitchen fire or the broker's shop.

Not far from the drawing-room door runs off one of the many long corridors of the mansion, and then at the end is the Closed Chamber. It has never been opened since the year 1718, when the young lady, one of the daughters of the house, that used to sleep in it, lost her lover who had been out for the "right cause," and lost his head for his loyalty to a dethroned sovereign; and she, poor girl, walked into the great fish-pond one night, and was found in the tangled weeds by the old gardener next morning. The squire of that day, her disconsolate father, had the pond immediately drained off, and it is now one of the prettiest flower parterres of the garden: but the lady's elm is still pointed out at one end-a shattered withered trunk-'twas under it the poor thing's body lay. And now at nightfall, and in the depth of the night itself, long-drawn sighs and the rustling of stiff silk may be heard along the passage and by her room-door, while within, but no one knows nor even talks of what is within,—all that is really known is, that once in the autumn, 'tis now fifty years ago, when the old housekeeper was alive, on a peculiarly still night, while the master was away up in London, and no one

but two or three servants left in the gloomy mansion, the door of the chamber burst open with a loud noise, and such a crash was heard within, followed by an unearthly shrick, that the people in the servants' hall below nearly went out of their minds through fright. Next morning, when the gardener had called in the village constable and the smith, and all three had mounted the stairs and had come to the mysterious door, they found within a wainscoted room a worm-eaten bed of ancient form, all in a heap on the floor; one of the windows was broken in, the cobwebs were blowing about in the wind that whistled through the apartment; over the chimney-piece was a portrait, so black that it could be hardly made out, only they could see that it had once shown the lineaments of a young and a female face: but there was nothing, absolutely nothing to indicate the cause of the disturbance during the night. It is true that the smith, as he was going out, picked up a ribbon near the chimney, which he maliciously declared he knew to be Betty the housemaid's garter; but nothing more ever came of it, so the window was mended, the shutters were closed, and the door has ever since been fastened up with stout coflin screws. There's not a servant that would go to the end of that passage at night and listen with her ear at the keyhole, (though they all say they would not mind doing it at any other door in the house) no, not for a twelvemonth's extra wages.

We have slept in many a chamber of that goodly and hospitable mansion: there was the bachelor's room, a nice little square apartment, about twice as high as it was broad, all panelled in oak, which, however, some Goth of a squire had painted light blue; with a fireplace that would let not only the bachelor, but eke the bachelor's better half, creep inside on a winter's night; and with a curious kind of a bed, not higher from the ground than your knee, but with thin light posts spiring up some dozen of feet aloft, and supporting a superfluity of green damask, enough to make a tent with. In the panel over the fireplace was an apology for a looking-glass, once deemed no doubt an uncommonly