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CHAPTER X.

X.

1819.

1.

of the ob

Liberal

party in

England.

DOMESTIC HISTORY OF ENGLAND, FROM THE PASSING OF THE
CURRENCY ACT OF 1819 TO THE DEATH OF LORD LONDON-
DERRY IN 1822.

THE Contest between parties in France was directed CHAP. to different ends, and was of an entirely different character from that in Great Britain. At Paris the object was to overthrow a dynasty, in London it was to gain a Difference subsistence. The contest in the one country was politijects of the cal, in the other it was social. All the discontented in France, however much disunited upon ulterior objects, France and were agreed in their hatred of the Bourbons, and their desire to dispossess them. The multitude of ambitions which had been thwarted, of interests injured, of glories tarnished, of prospects blasted, by the disasters in which the war had terminated, and the visions which it had overthrown, rendered this party very numerous and fearfully energetic. In England, although there were, doubtless, not a few, especially in the manufacturing towns, who desired a change of government, and dreamt of a British or Hibernian Republic, the great majority of the discontented were set upon very different objects. The contest of dynasties was over: no one thought of supplanting the house of Hanover by that of Stuart. Few, comparatively, wished a change in the form of government there were some hundred thousands of ardent republicans in the great towns; but those in the country

X.

1819.

who were satisfied, and desired to live on under the rule CHAP. of King, Lords, and Commons, were millions to these. But all wished, and most reasonably and properly, to live comfortably under their direction; and when any social evils assumed an alarming aspect, or distress prevailed to an unusual degree among them, they became discontented, and lent a ready ear to any demagogue who promised them, by the popularising of the national institutions, a relief from all the evils under which the country laboured.

2.

in the

causes

duced dis

the two

From this difference in the prevailing disposition and objects of the people in the two countries, there resulted Difference a most important distinction in the causes which, on the opposite sides of the Channel, inflamed the public mind, which proor endangered the stability of existing institutions. In content in France, the objects of the opposition in the Chambers, countries. the discontented in the country, being the subversion of the Government and a change of dynasty, whatever tended to make the people more anxious for that change, and ready to support it, rendered civil war and revolution more imminent. Hence, general prosperity and social welfare, ordinarily so powerful in allaying discontent, were there the most powerful causes in creating it; because they put the people, as it might be said, into fighting trim, and inspired them, like a well-fed and rested army, with the ardour requisite for success in hazardous enterprises. In England, on the other hand, as the contest of dynasties was over, and the decided republicans who aimed at an entire change of institutions were comparatively few in number, nothing could enlist the great body of the people, even in the manufacturing towns, on the side of sedition, but the experience of suffering. So strong, however, is the desire for individual comfort, and the wish to better their condition, in the Anglo-Saxon race, that general distress never fails to excite general disaffection, at least in the great cities; and whatever tends to induce it, in the end threatens the public tranquillity. Thus, in

X.

1819.

3.

change in the mone

tary laws.

CHAP. France at that period, at least, general prosperity augmented the danger of revolution; in England, it averted it. A cause, however, had now come into operation, which, Great ef- more than any other recorded in its modern annals, profects of the duced long-continued and periodically returning distress among the British people; and at length, from the sheer force of suffering, broke the bonds of loyalty and patriotism, and induced a revolution attended with lasting and irremediable consequences on the future prospects of the empire. It need not be said what that cause was: a great alteration in the monetary laws, ever affecting the life-blood of a commercial state, is alone adequate to the explanation of so great an effect. The author need not be told that this is a subject exceedingly distasteful to the great bulk of readers: he is well aware that the vast majority of them turn over the pages the moment they see the subject of the currency commenced. He is not to be deterred, however, by that consideration from entering upon it. All attempts to unfold the real history of the British empire, during the thirty years which followed the peace, will be nugatory, and the views they exhibit fallacious, if this, the main-spring which put all the movements at work, is not steadily kept in view. History loses its chief utility, departs from its noblest object, when, to avoid risk to popularity, it deviates from the great duty of furnishing the materials for improvement: the nation has little shown itself prepared for self-government, when in the search of amusement it forgets inquiry. Enough of exciting and interesting topics remain for this history, and for this volume, to induce even the most inconsiderate readers to submit for half an hour to the elucidation of a subject on which, more than on any other, their own fortunes and those of their children depend. It may the more readily be submitted to at this time, as this is the turning-point of the two systems, and the subject now explained need not be again reverted to in the whole remainder of the work.

X.

1819.

4.

views on

The great father of political economy has well explained CHAP. the principles of this subject, and was himself more than any other man alive to their importance. "Gold and silver," says Adam Smith, "like every other commodity, vary Mr Smith's in their value, are sometimes cheaper, sometimes dearer, this subject. sometimes of easier, and sometimes of more difficult purchase. The quantity of labour which any particular quantity of these can purchase or command, or the quantity of other goods it will exchange for, depends always upon the fertility or barrenness of the mines which happen to be known about the time when such exchanges are made. The discovery of the abundant mines of America reduced, in the sixteenth century, the value of gold and silver in Europe to about a third of what it had formerly been. As it cost less labour to bring those metals from the mine to the market, so when they were brought there, they could purchase or command less labour; and this revolution in their value, though perhaps the greatest, is by no means the only one of which history gives some account. But as a measure of quantity, such as the natural foot, fathom, or handful, which is continually varying in its own quantity, can never be an accurate measure of the value of other commodities; so a commodity which is itself continually varying in its own value, 1 Wealth of can never be an accurate measure of the value of other book i. c. 5. commodities."1

Nations,

fects of any

of the stand

If debts, taxes, and other encumbrances, could be made 5. at once to rise or fall in their amount, according to the Great of fluctuation of the medium in which they are to be dis- variation in charged, any changes which might occur in the exchange- the value able value of that medium itself would be a matter of little ard of value. practical importance. But the experience of all ages has demonstrated that this is impossible. The transactions of men, when they become at all extensive or complicated, absolutely require some fixed known standard by which they are to be measured, and their discharge regulated, without anything else than a reference to that standard

CHAP. itself.

X.

It never could be tolerated that every debtor, after having paid his debt in the current coin of the 1819. realm, should be involved in a dispute with his creditor as to what the present value of that current coin was. Hence the necessity of a fixed standard; but hence also the immense effects of any material alteration in the value of that standard, and the paramount necessity, so far as practicable, of preventing any considerable fluctuations in it. If the standard falls in value, the weight of all debts and encumbrances is proportionally lessened, because a lesser quantity of the produce of labour is required for their discharge; if it rises, their weight is proportionally augmented, because a larger quantity is required for that purpose. So great is the effect of any considerable change in this respect, that it has occasioned, and can alone explain, the greatest events in the intercourse of nations of which history has preserved a record.

6.

of this from

times.

The great contest between Rome and Carthage, which Examples Hannibal and Scipio conducted, and Livy has immorformer talised, was determined by a decree of the Senate, induced by necessity, which postponed the payment of all obligations of the public treasury in specie to the conclusion of the war, and thereby created an inconvertible paper currency for the Roman empire. * More even than the slaughter on the Metaurus, the triumph of Zama, this decree determined the fate of the ancient world, for it alone equipped the legions by whom those victories were gained. Rome itself, saved in its utmost need by an expansion, sunk in the end under a still

* "Hortati censores, ut omnia perinde agerent, locarent ac si pecunia in arario esset: neminem nisi bello confecto, pecuniam ab ærario petiturum esse.”—Liv. lib. xxiv. cap. 18.-On one occasion, when in a party in London, composed chiefly of Whigs, opponents of Mr Pitt's Currency Act of 1797, the dangerous effects of this measure were under discussion, the late Lord Melbourne, whose sagacity of mind was equal to his charm of manner, quoted this passage from memory. "The censors," says Arnold, " found the treasury unable to supply the public service. Upon this, trust monies belonging to widows and minors, or to widows and unmarried women, were deposited in the treasury; and whatever sums the trustees had to draw for were paid by the quarter in bills

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