Commercial Si/stem of Great Britain. 



1624.J 



their candles with each gift, and arc 

 admitted to kiss, according to their 

 rank, a hand, or kuee, or toe. Atlaist 

 the principal suitor approaches witli a 

 basiu, in which the pope washes his 

 fingers, then blesses the people, and 

 retires. 



Three illurainations take place in 

 Rome ou the occurrence of a canoni- 

 sation. 



To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. 



SIR, 



BEFORE I saw the article signed 

 S. R. at page 501, in the number 

 of your Magazine for the present 

 month, I had concluded on sending 

 you a further illustration of the com- 

 mercial system of Great Britain, in 

 substantiation of tiie inferences de- 

 duced from the Statement at pa^e 316 

 in your number for November last ; 

 but I will now, in the first place, 

 although exceedingly aversfe to con- 

 troversy, offer a few observations in 

 reply to the assuming tone of your 

 correspondent S. R. wlio begins by 

 expressing his surprise that I was not 

 myself startled at what he is pleased 

 to call " the glaring absurdity to which 

 my conclusions had led me, and that I 

 wasnot induced to suspect some fallacy 

 in the documents from which those 

 inferences were drawn." 



If I were disposed or inclined to 

 regard this very consequential, and not 

 very courteous, expression of surprise, 

 as having a personal application, I 

 might answer it, by saying, that I feel 

 myself quite as competent as Mr. S. 

 R., from practical circumstances, as 

 well as from inquiry and invesfigatiou, 

 correctly to \\v\%\\ and to balance the 

 probabilities of the documents in ques- 

 tion, being or not being fallacious. 



I hope, however, that you know me 

 well enough to believe, that 1 should 

 neither have troubled myself, nor ])rc- 

 .sumed to have trespassed upon your 

 attention, on personal considerations, 

 however provoking; permit me, there- 

 fore, to say to Mr. S. K. as the subject 

 of our commercial system stands, with 

 his obscrvalious upon it, that the 

 assumed notions in which he has 

 indulged are (|uito as likely to be fal- 

 lacious, and to lead to erroneous con- 

 clusions, as the inferences which I 

 Lave deduced from what ho rather 

 Bnceringly terms, " these Custom- 

 House Statements," in the use of 

 which expression, Mr. S. R. seems 

 rather to have forgot himself, unaware 

 of (he ddcmnia in which he will proba- 



31 



bly find it involves him. Were Imyself 

 the compiler of those Statements, I 

 might then, like Mr. Bellamy, in 

 hypofheiatiug a crocd, and translating 

 the Hebrew text of the Bible to support 

 that creed, bp charged likewise with 

 hypothecating conclusions, and making 

 up Statements to substantiate them. 

 But the Statements, let it be borne in 

 mind, whet'ier true or false, are not of 

 my fabricating; they are the State- 

 ments of the government of Great 

 Britain, the Staleraents laid annually 

 before the British parliament, as re- 

 presenting the state and condition of 

 the commerce of the nation ; the State- 

 ments, also, be it remembered, refer- 

 red to by his majesty's ministers and 

 their partisans, as evidencing the 

 prosperity of our commerce and ma- 

 nufactures. AVliat then are , the 

 grounds, permit me to ask, on which 

 surprise is so presumingly expressed, 

 that I should not be startled at the 

 glaring absurdity of the conclusions 

 which the Statements led me to draw? 

 I have stated my conclusions, drawu 

 from the Statements in question, to be, 

 " that, since the termination of the 

 war in 1815, more tlian 100,000,000/- 

 value of property, composed of the 

 production and labour of the British 

 people, has been exported, beyond 

 what equivalents, cither directly or 

 indirectly-, in substance or in name, 

 have been received for in return; and 

 I challenge and defy refutation of this 

 conclusion, as far as the o/licial and 

 authorised Statements and accounts 

 of the government and parliament of 

 the nation are concerned. How far 

 the fact of the case may be otherwise 

 is another question, which shall be 

 considered by-and-bye ; but, sup- 

 posing the fact should prove to be 

 otherwise, to what inferences and con- 

 clusions must we then be led? The 

 first inference is, that the Statements 

 in question are really fallacious: but 

 we cannot admit this inference without 

 a character of kjiavery and deci^ptiou 

 being assigned to those who coun- 

 tenance them ; whilst, on the other 

 hand, if they are not fallacious: the 

 conclusions to which I have been led 

 stand incontrovertible; and, it must 

 then be admitted, that those whose 

 duty it is to watch over, protect, and 

 guide, the interests of the country in a 

 right direction, who have sullcrcd such 

 an extensive waste of property to he 

 niad<!, merit, not merely reprehension, 

 but till- severest punisliiiient which can 

 be inlliclcd. The dilemma, therefore. 



