THE deficiency in our annual supply of corn is here stated at one-third of the usual produce; (the Committee of the House of Commciis stated it at two-seventlis) and the greatest supply ever procured by importation is stated to have been 1,200,000 quarters, or sufficient for the consumption of six weeks; thus leaving a deficiency of ten weeks, or two millions of quarters. This statement is made with a view to enforce the necessity of internal есопотпу,

and the opulent are called upon to forego entirely the use of bread, in order that the poor may be supplied with it. The piety of the author is manifest in all that he says; but why, in the name of justice and common sense, when he thus appeals to the rich, and deplores the high price of provisions, does he not also appeal to the farmer and corn-dealers and call upon them to reduce its price? There is not one reason that can be fairly urged upon the former that may not be pressed with tenfold force on the latter. Besides, it should never be forgotten, that a high price has never diminished the consumption, nor will a moderate price ever increase it.

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Brief Observations on a late Letter addressed to the Right Honourable William

Pitt. The Second Edition, with additional Notes; and a Preface, contain, ing Remarks on the Publication of Sir Francis Baring, Bart. By Walter Boyd, Esq. M. P.!!! 8vo. Pp. 186. 55. Wright. 1801.

WE have read the additions which Mr. Boyd has made to his letter with the same attention which we bestowed on the letter itself; and we have found no cause whatever to alter the opinion which we had formed of the publication, on our first perusal of it, and which, with the reasons on which it was foundet, we submitted at large to our readers. We still think that the publication can have no other good effect than to procure a favourable reception for the author in the metropolis of France, fouid he retain his disposition to revisit it, and perhaps to obtain for him, at some future period, the office of Ministre des Finances to the Gallic Republic!

The preface, consisting of 56 pages, applies almost exclusively to the pamph. let of Sir Francis Baring, over whom the author appears to us to have no other advantage than what may arise from a repetition of affertions without any additional weight of argument, or, from what, in homely phrase, is term. ed, having the last word. It is but fair, however, to observe, that Mr. B. here explicitly disclaims all intention whatever of impeaching the credit of the Bank, though we cannot but express our surprize that he should have dis. covered any inconsistency in our remark that he had endeavoured to shake the public confidence in bank-notes, while he declared "not only that they do possess that confidence to the fullest possible extent, but that they most continue to possess it." The fact is, that we noticed this as an inconsistency in Mr. B. hinself, the general tenour of whose arguments seemed to us to be at direct variance with this specific declaration. And this is still our opinion of his pamphlet.

As far as we can comprehend his meaning, as detailed in his new preface, it amounts to this : that the Bank have a capital in hand amply sufficient for the payment of their notes in specie ; and yet that the amount of these notes is the cause of the rise in the price of every article of use or consumption. Now where the difference can be to the public—we mean as to its effect on the price of provisions— between the circulation of paper to any given amount, and the circulation of fpecie to the fame amount, we confess our total inability to discover. That either the one or the other, if dif

proportionate

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proportionate to the extent of our trade and manufactures, our exports and imports, would have a tendency to raise the price of provisions and of every thing else, we are not so weak as to deny ; but then such rise could only be considered as the natural and almost inevitable consequence of the increased wealth and prosperity of the country; and to impute it to any other cause would be something worse than weakness. If then Mr. Boyd's declarations, respecting the solvency of the Bank, be well-founded, all his reasoning on the effect of its paper must be fallacious; and if his declarations be erroneous, what credit can be due to his arguments ?

In adverting to his opponents, ámong whom he classes us, for he quotes us, though he do not condescend to name us, he assumes the language of contempt, and represents them as venal. To us it is perfectly immaterial what opinion Mr. B. may entertain of us; but prudence, at least, should have led him to avoid the use of a word which might, with very great appearance of justice, at least, be retorted

upon

himself. We shall only observe that if he means to say, that we are capable of being led by interest to conceal or disguise our sentiments, he either infers the nature of our disposition from a knowledge of his own, or wilfully and wantonly belies us.

Mr. B. has also either wilfully or stupidly misunderstood the author of “ Brief Observations, on a late Letter, &c.” reviewed in our Number for January, of whom he says that “the observation respecting the increased price of bread must have been intended to prove that the increase of price required an increase of paper,” and upon this imputation, which has not the smallest foundation in fact, he enters into a strain of triumphant ridicule. We should have conceived it impossible for any man of common sense, fo to have mistaken that writer, whose object in shewing the increased price of bread was 20,800,000l. and the increased issue of bank paper 3,475,3971. avowedly --and manifestly was to prove nothing more than that the latter could not, as Mr. B. had afferted, poliibly produce the former!

On one point we fully agree with the author-the evil consequences of excessive speculation ; and we very readily admit that no man in the kingdom is more competent to judge of that subject than himself. Experientia docet ; but how he can reconcile this notion with his reprobation of legislative interference for checking speculation, we know not.

A letter is subjoined from a most respectable correspondent, who writes much as Mr. Tierney speaks, and who, of course, considers Mr. B. as a paragon of wisdom.

It now only remains for us to fulfil our promise by making some brief observations, on a letter which appeared in the Times of February 7, in which we are violently abused for our review of Mr. Boyd's pamphlet. In the first paragraph of this letter, which is a master-piece of impudence and folly, we are accused of having asserted that Mr. Boyd's misfortunes (by which we suppose the writer means, his bankruptcy) were occasioned by his speculations and unbounded expences. This is a wilful falsehood; we have no where made

any

such assertion, as our readers well know, and as any man, by a reference to the article, may easily ascertain. We certainly said, that Mr. B.'s {plendour was unrivalled, and his expences unbounded, and of the truth of this assertion we could, if it was necessary, produce the most convincive proofs, but we did not ascribe his bankruptcy to those causes. How far his bankruptcy was occasioned by his speculations is, indeed, another question, about which, we apprehend, there are not two opinions in the commercial world. By one loan, the House of Boyd and Benfield cleared 380,000l, (if our memory do not

foil us) as appeared by their books; and fo elated were they by their success, and so much, in the true spirit of commercial avarice, did their desire of accumulation increase with their wealth, that they took the whole of another loan on themselves, and refused to admit any partners in it; and to this very circumitance, we believe, may the origin of their misfortunes be referred. To Mr. Benbeld, indeed, this connection has proved a real misfortune, for the enormous amount of his capital was well-known; it is more difficult to ascer. tain the extent of M. B.'s misfortune, as the amount of his capital we do not profess to know.–So much for the queftion of speculation !

We are next told by the Letter-writer, that “ the article on which the ANTI- JACOBIN principally refts to prove that Mr. Boyd has published his better as an enemy to his country," is the anecdote respecting the House of Walquiers at Hanburgh. Now, in the first place, we professed to prove no such thing as is here imputed to us; in the second, we laid no stress whatever upon that anecdote, as proving Mr. Boyd's intent in publishing his pamphlet; and, thirdly, we never connected the anecdote at all with Mr. Boyd. Nay, after relating the anecdote, we expressly faid (and this blunder. ing blockhead even quotes

our words though they prove his own folly and his own falfhood) we are well convinced that even Mr. Boyd himself would condemn a {peculation of this nature, and deem it a proper object for the cognizance of the law." Yet his fagacious friend immediately adds" This article from beginning to end is false,” which is to fay, that Mr. B. would not condemn such a speculation. We snall leave the two friends to settle this poirit in a tête-à-tête. But Mill, blundering on, the Letter-writer concludes by observing, that in faying what we never did say, we “published a very anfamous falle bood."' As to the anecdote itself, which he states to be false, and which he defies us to produce any authority for, it may be found almost Ectidem verbis, in the True Briton of April 29th, 1796. We are aware of the contradiction of some part of it in the fame paper of the Monday folo lowing, May 2; but, knowing that that contradiction proceeded from a party interelted in the supprefion of the truth; and who betrayed his interest by the very mode which he adopted for procuring its suppression; and knowing also, that the statement itself was made on the authority of a British merchant, of undoubted veracity, who was at Hamburgh at the time when Walquiers failed; we shall ftill continue to believe the substance of that article to be

At all events, the writer of the Letter has himself been guilty of “ very infamous falsehood" in asserting that we had not any quthority for pub. lihing it. The fame attention to truth is displayed in the affirmation of this man, that “ Walquiers never established a house at Hamburgh;" for the person who supplied the contradiktion in the True Briton, whom he must know, expressly Caid that Walquiers had formed an establishment at Hamburgh; and it will Scarcely be denied that, in the language of the commercial world, a house and an fiablishment are the fame thing, and indeed they are used by this very person as synonimous terms, for, speaking of this establishment of Walquiers, and two other establishinents of the same name, he calls one of the latter, “ third House." We could expose many other paltry evafions, and wilful perversions of this doughty champion of Mr. Boyd ; but we are sensible that some apology is already due to our readers, for having fai even thus much on a mat. ter of this nature, and we shall, therefore, not trespass farther on their patience, A Twelve penny Answer to a Three Shilling and Sixpenny Pamphlet, intitled,

" A Letter on the Influence of the Stoppage of Illues in Specie at the Bank of England,” c. 8vo, Pe. 30. Richardson, 1891,

true.

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IN this twelvepenny answer, which Mr. Boyd treats with fovereign contempt, there is much more plain sense, and plain truth, than in his own three and fixpenny, or even in his five shilling, book. We do not, indeed, precisely agree with the author in his ideas respecting the cause of the present high price of provisions, because he leaves avarice, extortion, combination, and monopoly, entirely out of the question ; but we think him fully successful in shewing the fallacy of those of his opponent, of whom he shrewdly observes, that “ the Bank had no share in his ruin ;. on the contrary, the opinion of the commercial world, we believe to be, that his ideas were so wild, so monstrous, so unsolid, that if fufficient power (Archimedes like) could have been supposed, he would have overturned the Bank. He certainly began his mercantile career in the two great capitals of Europe, * under the most

auspicious circumstances, The expectations of his friends have been blafted. He seems ftill to dream that his opinions are buoyed up by their partiality, and by the applauses of ad. miring parasites. Let us pity him.”

The author truly accounts for the restriction imposed, by Parliament, on the Bank, in the issue of specie, on the cause of which Mr. B. observes a filence which is fomewhat more than suspicious.

“ Amidit many disastrous events of the present war, the impression of that momentous crisis, when the successes of our enemies abroad, and the dispositions of their partisans among ourselves, had alarmed the nation, and filled it with the horrid dread of a revolution, remains in full force on our minds, At that period, when the state of the Exchange afforded no temptation to export gold and filver, the coin of the country was rapidly disappearing. It became necessary to invent some powerful means of anticipating and preventing the ruin with which we were threatened from the want of a cir. culating medium. This is acknowledged to be the reason of the restriction then imposed on the Bank.”

Whoever reads Mr. Boyd's tract should read this also. We have said nothing of either one or the other considered as literary compositions ; they are both of them defective in correct phraseology and grammatical accuracy, but where the matter of discussion was so important, we deemed the manner almost unworthy of notice.

Financial Faets of the Eighteenth Century ; er, a Cursory View, with com

parative Statements of the Revenue, Expenditure, Debts, Manufactures, and Commerce of Great Britain. 8vo.

28. 6d. Wright. London. 1801.

Pp. 92.

WHOEVER wishes to form an accurate judgment of the real situation of the country, and of its ability to maintain the arduous content in which it is engaged, thould read with attention the pamphlet before us ; in which he will find no declamatory rant; no fulsome Hattery; no vague speculations ; no abstract reasoning ; no loose arguing from effects to imaginary causes; no wicked appeals to popular passions ; but solid calculations, just inferences, and incontrovertible facts ; facts that must make every British heart beat high with honest satisfaction, and every British mind regard with contempt the impotent efforts of the combined hostility of our numerous foes. This tract ought to be translated into all foreign languages, and circulated throughout Europe, that

This is not strictly correct : Mr. Boyd began his commercial career in the little town of Oftend, Rey,

the

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be made appa

che extent of our wealth, and the fertility of our resources may rent to all the nations of the Continent; and teach them the value of the homely maxim; honesty is the best policy. .

The author thus itates the object of his publication.

“ The public mind has been long distracted with accounts of our past disasters, and predictions of even greater evils ; miscarriages which human forelight could not provide against, have been most unkindly and unfairly attributed to want of ability in the planners, and want of conduct in the executors of our several enterprises. The transient successes of an enemy have been exaggerated, and even applauded, by men, who forget, while they are indulging in party, that they are in effect the greatest enemies of the state. To play upon the popular prejudices of mankind, to depress the spirit of those who have not the means of contradicting fallacious accounts, to make gloomy impressions on the multiiude, inter vulgos spargere voces, and thereby to give lite and encouragement to the enemy, are acts unbecoming the true character of a patriot. When parties run high, the calm, independent, and dispassionate man, like the mathematician in his closet, will consider subjects of a political nature, by searching for the truth between the two extremes. When the paflions and interests of men are so copiously mixed in the stream, the water cannot remain pure and undisturbed ; it is therefore of use to an unbiaffed writer, in imitation of the experienced chemist, to analyze the properties of matter, and, as it were, decompose the various particles. Without following Junius in charging politicians with having loose principles, the writer of the following sheets has had caufe to know, that the accounts of men in power are not always to be relied upon, nor are their reasonings always well.grounded. He is alco persuaded that conviction is not conftantly produced by mere argu. ments, and will therefore rest satisfied with giving strong facts and accurate calculations, tending not only to shew, but to prove, the real situation of this country, with respect to its relative power and financial ability for a continuation of the conteft, and how far it is adequate to the purposes of meeting the extraordinary hostile confederacy formed against our naval strength and independency as a maritime nation. All the writer requires is, that the reader will bring with him, to the perusal of the following sheets, a mind free from bias and prejudice; and that he will fufpend his judgment, until he has gone through the whole.”

No reader whofe mind is as free from bias and prejudice" can fail to be convinced by the facts here adduced of the folly or the profligacy of those who re. present the nation as tottering on the brink of destruction. The author traces dhe ftate of the revenue, and commerce of the country, from the revolution to the present period, derived from authentic documents, and clearly establishes this conclusion.

So That our exports now, compared with those in the beginning of the eighteenth century, have, from the most accurate computation, increased nearly in a twelvefold proportion; that the aggregate amount of exports and imports has increased in a tenfold proportion; and that the apparent balance of trade in our favour at this period, compared with it a century ago, is aug. mented in the incredible proportion of one hundred and forty fold. It is to be observed, that the annual public sales of teas by the East India Company, did not, in the beginning of the eighteenth century, much exceed 50,000 pounds weight: the Company's annual sales now approach to 20 millions of pounds weight, being an increase of four hundred fold in one hundred years. It is also worthy of remark, that the late tax on imports and exports alone,