6 Public Distresses and Relief. 
annum, and thirty years’ purchase 
were then given for it, the purchaser 
would lose 15,000/., for prices and rent 
would necessarily fall half, the mo- 
ment the government contractors 
ceased to purchase. Yet this error 
was committed by thousands. The 
operation was, that Parliament, year 
after year, voted 30,000,000/. by loan, 
which loan was advanced as a mort- 
gage upon all public property; the 
ministers then expended the loan in 
the purchase of produce; these pur- 
chases caused the demand to exceed 
the supply, and raised prices: the 
landlords then raised their rents, and 
‘in the rents got the mortgage money, 
which, not understanding to be a mort- 
gage, but considering as so much gain, 
they increased their expenses, and 
thought themselves richer than before, 
till they are now undeceived, by find- 
ing that they have estates which can- 
not pay any rent! What a vicious and 
delusive circle! 
The poverty of that once interesting 
class of society, which flourished on 
rents of land, seems therefore inevit- 
able,—they pledged their fortunes in 
1793 and 1803, and they are gone,—a 
man cannot spend and also continue 
to enjoy an estate. But they were 
‘misled,—they knew not what they did, 
—we sympathize with them, and their 
loss ought, perhaps, to be alleviated, if 
it be possible. 
It is to no purpose that they exclaim 
if we are ruined—you are all ruined ;— 
no such thing—the land, the country, 
its industry, its commerce, its com- 
manding geographical situation, re- 
main,—they have by their own folly 
(and in spite of the warning of those 
whom they persecuted for giving it,) 
lost as individuals their social rank ; 
but their estates will change hands, 
and will prove as productive and va- 
luable to the nation as heretofore. 
May the new proprietors take warning 
by the unhappy fate of. the old ones, 
and never pledge their estates to raise 
the sinews of war, for the purpose of 
covering foreign nations with blood, or 
for any warlike object which is not 
palpably just and necessary ! 
In ‘the struggle which the land- 
owners will make lies, however, much 
portentous evil. Many of them will 
exact rents till they have ruined the 
cultivators. Much land will conse- 
quently cease to be cultivated. Pri- 
vate mortgagees will be involved in 
[Aug. 1, 
ruin with the owners. Families of 
cultivators will be thrown on parishes 
unable to sustain them. The taxes 
will not yield; and if the current ex- 
penses of the government cannot, as 
the ministers declare, be reduced, then 
the fundholder must abate part of his 
interest; and, if part, he will be alarm- 
ed for the whole. In these struggles 
industry and commerce must also suf- 
fer, and foreign nations, notindifferent 
to our condition, will profit by our 
difficuities. 
Such is the true state of the question. 
It is pregnant with difficulties which 
no antiquated doctrines will meet. 
Yet palliatives exist,—the choice is 
among evils, but we are bound to con- 
sider them, and choose theleast. This 
is certain, that nothing has yet trans- 
pired in or out of Parliament so origi- 
nal as to meet the circumstances, or 
relieve the anxieties of the nation. 
The writer of this paper hopes nothing 
from his contributions, because he has 
to influence pride, conceit, and a Pha- 
raoh-like hard-heartedness; but his 
love for his country will stimulate him; 
and in an early number of the Monthly 
Magazine, he will submit bis views to 
the public, and, whether they are adopt- 
ed or not, he shall have done his duty. 
CoMMON SENSE, 
P.S.—Since the preceding article was 
written, I have read a very pompous and 
inconclusive article in the Quarterly Re- 
view, in which the author adopts the vul- 
gar notion, that the Bank of England has 
designedly narrowed its issues; it being 
true that the issues have been narrowed, 
but not that they have been wilfully nar- 
rowed. He speaks of these issues as 
though the Bank made issues at its plea- 
sure, and seems ignorant that issues of 
currency have never been made except on 
demand, and for value received. The 
truth is, that the Bank has discounted 
more liberally since the peace, in propor- 
tion to the quantity of bills presented for 
discount, than during the war; but money 
has not been wanted, owing to the falling- 
off of trade, and of war-contracts, which 
created bills for discount; and, in proof 
of this, the Bank, for the purpose of 
drawing customers, has lately undertaken 
to discount at fonr per cent. Whether it 
is expedient thus to make agriculture de- 
pendant on trade for a supply of currency 
is, however, a question worthy of consi- 
deration. This prominent error of the 
reviewer destroys, however, the foree of 
all his reasonings, and he leaves his 
readers in a greater maze than that in 
which he found them. 
To 
