a

a

find forth such miserable nonsense to the world! Experience only could justify our belief of the fact. The nonsense is even tco gross, we.conceive, to i:npose on the credulity of the French public.

In the note to page 71, the author accuses the Bank Directors of having, by an ingenious device, produced the confiderable rise which took place, of the exchange with Hamburgh, in the ten months which followed the foppage of payments, in specie, at the Bank. This rise was certainly a fumbling-block in his way, and he has very ingeniously leaped over it. But, if an incrcafed circulation of paper was to be the cause of a fall in the exchange, as he himself afferts, it would have been out of the power of the Bank Directors, by any posible opera. tion of theirs, to produce a rise in the Exchange for the long term of ten months,

Ve could point out many more contradi&tions, perversions, and ab. surdities of a similar nature; but we have already exiended our re. marks so far, that we must neceffarily bring them to a conclufiop. Twn or three more passages ony sa'! we notice.

Mr. Boyd is a rigid disciple of Adam Snith's; he treats monopoly, forestalling, and regrating, as chimeras; calls our judges to account for the opinions which they have delivered on the subject from the bench; and rejects the idea of regulating speculation by law. This will'n't appear surprising to those who recollect the boundleis speculations of Mr. Boyd, who projected the establishment of a Ban, in opofition to the Bank of England, and laboured to monopolize all the loans in the country. But we conld state a fact or two to our readers, which would, we apprehend, convince them of the pecessity of imposing some bounds, at leaft, on the specuJations of men. One will suffice for our present purpose. In an early part of the French Revolution, a house was established at Hamburgh, by one Walquiers, for the express purpose of supplying the French armies with corn. Several persons applied to the House, whose connections were very extensive, for cargoes of corn for the English market; but they were constantly refused, by Walquiers, who had no scruple to state, that he would fooner throw his corn into the sea, than tend it to England. Mr. Walquiers's confidence in the rulers of the French Republic was very properly rewarded. He became a bankrupt, in 1795, when it was proved that a British House, in the city, had been connected with him in this scandalous traffic, and suffered materally by his failure. A hint of this connection was given in one of the public prints, and a full account of the transaction was promised; but an immediate application to the proprietor of the paper, accompanied by an offer of 50001. in the new Joan (which produced a profit of 2001.) prevented any further notice of the fact. We are weil convinced, that even Mr. Boyd himself would condemn a speculation of this nature, and deem it a proper object for the cognizance of the law.

The raih and unwarrantable censures which are inflicted by the author, on the Bank Directors and the Chancellor of the Exchequer are of fuch a nature as to be referred only to private pique and disappointment. The ane may bave limited their discounts too much; the other way bave suggested plans which Mr. B. might have withed him to adopt. Hinc iræ hinc Lacryme. But when Mr. Boyd ventures to allert, that he has, " in some instances, been the victim of the errors of the adminiftration," his arrogance and presumption become too intolerable to pass without chattisement. And his ingratitude is still more conspicuous than either; for never, we will affirm, was any private individual under to inany obligations to a Minister as Mr. Boyd has been under to Mr. 'itt, who, from the persuasion that his fall would be felt, in a certain degree, by the whole mercantile world, carried his protection and supe port of him to an extent which was scarcely justifiable, and which under no other circumstances would have been excuseable. But there are some minds of insatiate as to deem any thing thort of an absolute compliance with every demand, an insult which cancels all patt obligations, and authorizes a display of resentment. Haply Mr. Boyd's mind may be of this description, in which cate he may, poflibly, consider it as a crime in his Majesty's Chancellor of the Exchequer to have rejected the offers of an infolvent debtor, to be. come the subscriber of millions to a public loan !

But the wild centures of this arrogane writer are not confined to individuals, nor yet to corporate bodies ; they extend to the Legislature itself, and even to the public, at large, who are modestly catechised, for «

not estimating, as it deserved, the important change which the Legislature introduced, when it permitted the bank to i jite, and not to pay, their notes ;"~and still more, “for readily aking lule notes, when deftitute of the quality which originally gave, and ultimately must support, their value, with the same confidence, as when they poffefled that quality ;'--thus removing the apprehensions, but, unfortunately, at the fame time, fullifying the predictions, of Mr. Boyd ; and fo exposing the weakness of his pretensions to fiscal fore, fight, and financial wisdom; if not defeating his schemes, and disa appointing his fpeculations. If the patlage we have quoted be not as daring an attempt as ever was made by mau to dettroy the public confidence, the very fource of our prosperity, the principal means of our commercial and political greatness, our powers of comprehension 'must have loit all their activity, and our judgment hive been totally destroyed. What language, then, çan supply ternis fuffice ently strong to characterize such an attempt at such a period, when the extension of that public confidence is, more than ever, effential to t'le success of our plans, for the defeat of our enemy's schemes, and the preservation of our own independence? If Mr. Boyd withed to make friends in France, he has certainly adopted the beit means of securing them; but if he be anxious to maintain or acquire ihe good opimon of his country men, if he be ferious in his pretensions to public ipirit, and in his profesiions of concern for the welfare of Great Britain, le has taken a means of accompliihing the former, and of de avonstrating the latter, fo ftrange as to be fairly imputable only to the most uraccountable perverseness and obítinacy, or to a temporary deprivation 'of reason.

If we have appeared harsh and severe in our review of this pam. phlet, it has been from a full conviction that its mischievous çendency,

and

and the atter impoflibility of ascribing its appearance to any laudable motive, herh sanctioned and required the use of such harshness and severity. We are in the habit of inferring motives from declarations and actions; and though Mr. Tierney (whom we shrewdly fuspect of having aslifted Mr. Boyd in the composition of this tract, for it con. tains many of those confident assertions which have embellished Mr.

Tierney's speeches, on matters of finance, with much of the same seasoning too, if that can be called reasoning, which consists chiefly of aíiertions, unfupported by proofs and contradicted by facts,) may continue to object to this species of inference we shall continue to use it, until, at least, our minds shall have become as enlightened as his own, But if

any of our readers should still be disposed to accuse us of uncharitableness, we have one instance in reserve, with which we Thall close our observations on Mr. Boyd's letter.

Anticipating the reproach which must have been incurred from the indication of an alarming evil, unaccompanied by the suggestion of an adequate remedy, the author contends that the best and only means of averting all our calamities, is to restore to the bank “ the falutary obligation of paying its notes on demand ;"_and this measure, he tells us, “ is not only proper and praéticable, but indispenfibly necesJary.”-So far he is consistent at least; but what will our readers say, when we apprize them that the measure, the necessity of which is here so strongly enforced, has been before affirmed by Mr. Boyd himself, to be pregnant with the most fatal consequences. Adverting to the increased value of gold (P. 27.) he asserts that the temptation to melt the coin is too strong to be revisted; in the

page,

he farther assures ," while such a temptation exifts, it is in vain to expect that law prevent its going abroad;" and in the next page to that, he speaks with Itill more decision on the subject;

no law of

any
kind
can,

in the present fituation of the exchange, prevent its going out" of the country, Yet, with this conviction so strongly impressed upon his mind, he does not hesitate to insist on the propriety and necefsity of a measure which would have the almost immediate effect of throwing all the fpecie of the kingdom into circulation, and exposing it (unless it produced an alteration in the exchange, which, for reasons before afligned, there are no grounds for expecting) to the certainty of being sent out of, and consequently loft to, the country! We leave our readers to draw their own influence from this fact. We shall only add, that if all the author's arguments were as strong as they are weak; if his motives were as pare as they are fufpicious; and if his reasoning were as true as it is false ; all the evils, which really exist, all which bin fertile imagination has created, and all which he anticipates and pro, feffes to deplore, would be light and trivial when compared with the danger, which must inevitably result, from the adoption of his grand Specific. Brief 03/ervations on a late Letter addressed to the Right Hon. W,

Pitt, by W. Boya, I/9. &c. on the Stoppage of Ifjues in Specie by the Bank of England, 66. g. 8vo. Pp. 36. Debrett, London, 180!.

Confilia

next

any

us, that

can

a

Confilia qui dant prava cautis hominibas,

Et perdunt operam, et deridentur turpiter. THIS is the very appofite motto adopted by the author of these observations which did not fall into our hands until we had completed our review of Mr. Boyd's tract. Had we seen them sooner, we should have been tempted to substitute many of them in the place of our own remarks. The author, with equal fairness and temperance, exposes the fallacy of his adverfary's reasoning, and very properly queitions the purity of his motives. Adverting to the encreased circulation of paper, which Mr. B. states to have been the certain cause of the rise in provisions, for he affirms that the latter is “ the inevitable conjequenos” of the former, he reminds that speculator that the increale, according to his own statement, in the course of five years is only 3,475,3971. whereas the increased price of bread alone, rating it at one Thilling the quartern loaf above its general rate in years of plenty, citimating the population of the country at eight millions, and allowing one quartern loaf in a week to each individual, amounts to no less than £20,800,000! So much for the adequacy of Mr. B.'s first cause!

This acute observer foresees, in the original notice of Mr. B. matter of triumph for the French gazettes" and expects “ to see Mr, B.'s opinions retailed in every page of them.” He thinks with us, that when such a work is produced at such a period, " it is natural to inquire who the author is, what have been the circumstances of his life, and with what views he ventures to attack the finance arid credit of his country?” And it appears probable to him that Mr. Boyd may entertain a design of renewing his former business of a banker, at Paris, on the conclusion of a peace. If such be really his intent, he has cer. tainly secured a favourablé reception for himself; and we advise him to associate himself with M. Saladin, * wḥo, in return for the protection which this country affords him, spares no opportunity of panegyrising its enemies, and has lately been employed in propagating, in Germany, calumnies on our government, by fallely itating, that no moderate publications, of a political nature, are tolerated in England, With us, alto, the author is of opinion that refentment may have had a confiderable share in influencing the composition of Mr. B.'s Letter. “ He may, perhaps, have made an application to the Minifer to be enployed as an agent in France, or have requested permission to go thither on his own private affairs. He may also have been refused a compliance with those propositions, and, already dissatisfied with Goyernment, may feel his resentment heightened by such refusals, At all events the public has a right to forin its own notions respecting the object of such a production : and it may possibly inquire whether it proceeds from the zeal of patriotism, or a spirit of resentment."

Whoever reads Mr. Boyd's Iract should peruse these o'servations on it; and then he may say with Cato-The bane and antidote are both before me.'

* The Author of the "Coup d'æil politiqne" reviewed, by us, in a former Appendix,

REVIEWERS

76

The Favowite Village. A Poem. By James Hurdis, D.D. Professor

of Poetry, Oxford. Printed at Bishopstone, Sussex, at the

Author's own Press. 4to. Pp. 210. 6s. Johnson. London. 1800. A Sermon preached in the Chapel of Princes-Street, Westminster,

on Feb. 16, and Essex-Street, Strand, on Feb. 23, 1800. By

Joshua Toulmin, D.D. 18. London. Elements of Christian Theology ; containing Proofs of the Authenticity

and Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures ; a Summary of the History of the Jews; a brief Statement of the Contents of the several Books of the Old and New Testament; a short Account of the English Translations of the Bible and of the Liturgy of the Church of England; and a Scriptural Exposition of the Thirtyzine Articles of Rcligion. By George Prettyman, D.D.F.R.S. Lincoln. Designed principally for the Use of young Students in Divinity. 8vo. 2 Vols. Pp. 550 in each. 14s. Boards. Cadell and Davies. 1799.

TO THE EDITOR.

SIR,

A

YOUNG man just beginning his career in life, a stranger te

the ways of mankind, and unacquainted with the arts of Critic's, would naturally suppose, in reading the two last Numbers of the Monthly Review, that it was his duty to consider Bishop Prettyman and Professor Hurdis, as both deficient in skill as writers, while Dr. Toulmin is a complete model of excellence. For it is singular, Sir, that while those two authors are treated in a manner that is extremely rude and contemptuous, the third is honoured with the most unqualified praise and admiration. What might puzzle and mislead a young man, is to you and me, Mr. Editor, 110 ænigma at all. We have been long aware of the real purposes, for which Reviews have been successively established and carried on. Sometimes we have seen them launched into the world, as vehicles of advertisement, as posts and heralds, which were to announce particularly the works published by the bookseller who was proprietor of the Review, and to give such a character of them as would quicken the sale. But the grand object has been, in the first instance, the propagation of the tenets of Dissenters; and, in more modern times, the circulation of the Jacol inical pus. Such being the views, particularly of the Monthly, Critical, and Analytical Reviewers, it entered of course into their original plan, that the works of Church-ofEnglard-men should be cried down below their merits, while the publications of Dissenters were as much exalted above their merits. Hence originates the difference so perceptible in their remarks on the three authors above-mentioned." Dr. Preityman is a Biskoj sin enough in the eyes of a Monthly Reviewer to obliterate every prertension to merit. Dr. Ilurdis is a Professor in one of our Universities: there is no crime so steat as to be an Oxopian or a Cantab. Neither of them is a Jacobini. worse and worse. One was tutor

to

2