THE NEW YORK 150425 ASTOR, LENOX AND 1899 HOY WH CHARLES WOOD AND SON, PRINTERS, Poppin's Court, Fleet Street. PREFACE. THE Introduction to the following Treatise comprises most of those topics on which an author usually enters into an explanation with his readers, and would have precluded the necessity of this brief preface, had it not been for one circumstance, which could not well be noticed elsewhere. It was originally announced to be the intention of the writer to include, with the present Essay, a shorter dissertation on "Vicissitudes in the Value of Money, as they affect National Industry and Pecuniary Contracts." The general opinion, however, of the advisers whom he consulted being against the combination, in one work, |