B U L L I 



cue Spain and Portugal from Bonaparte's usurpa- 

 ii, 11. This drain, serious from iti magnitude, was 

 doubly so from its occurring at a time when, by our 

 measures against neutral trade, we had, in a great 

 degree, stripped ourselves of the means of providing 

 for it. The funds which would otherwise nave been 

 supplied from American bills, were now to be fur- 

 nibhcd by the export of new specie ; and it appears 

 by the Appendix to the Report of tin" linllion Com- 

 inittrt; (p. '_'.;.'.) that no less than two millions and 

 a half were sent to the peninsula, between May and 

 December 1808. The transmission of specie, since 

 Its scarcity among ourselves, has necessarily under- 

 gone a diminution, and almost total cessation ; but 

 the luavy expences of the war continue to destroy 

 the equilibrium of the exchange, notwithstanding 

 the vast quantity of stores sent from this country, 

 and paid for by government in bank notes. . 



The third cause which has operated in aggrava- 

 tion of this evil, is the same which, in former years, 

 was productive of so much mischief, we mean the 

 inadequacy of our harvests. From the unfortunate 

 prejudice against leases throughout the greater part 

 of England, the improvement of our agriculture has 

 by no means kept pace with the increase of our po- 

 pulation. Half a century ago, we produced more 

 corn than we consumed, and were in the habit of ex- 

 porting a proportion to our neighbours. Exporta- 

 tion gradually ceased, and, in the course of time, 

 was succeeded by such an excess in our wants above 

 our means, that, since the beginning of the present 

 century, we have annually imported, on an average, 

 near a million and a half of quarters of corn, forming 

 a yearly value of L. 3,700,000, exclusive of occa- 

 sional supplies from Ireland. Our harvests in 180.J, 

 1806, and 1807, yielded their usual produce; in 

 1808, there was a small deficiency, succeeded unfor- 

 tunately by a much greater one in 1809. In that 

 year, as in 1799, a crop, not scanty in itself, was 

 exposed to damage in reaping, by a long continnance 

 of rain. It became necessary, therefore, to have re- 

 course to importation, at a time when, from the 

 causes already mentioned, bullion was at L. 1, 10s. 

 an ounce, and the Hamburgh exchange fifteen per 

 cent, against us. Of the two evils, a farther depres- 

 sion of exchange, or an additional rise in the price 

 of corn, the latter appeared to government the more 

 to be dreaded, and licences were accordingly granted 

 for importation. When we find that the sum paid 

 to foreigners for corn in 1810, amounted, as appears 

 by parliamentary documents, to L.7077,865, we 

 cannot fail to consider this as a great additional 

 cause of the fall of the exchange. The favourable 

 harvest of 1810 came most opportunely to our re- 

 lief ; but the deficiency of that of last year, though 

 only partial, has again reminded us of the necessity 

 of depending on foreign supplies. 



The obbtruction to our continental trade, by the en- 

 forcement of Bonaparte's prohibitory decrees, which 

 to many appear the great and sole source of the evjl, 

 rank only fourth in our catalogue of causes. Serious 

 as these obstructions have now become, their opera- 

 tion has been of much later date than the majority of 



the public arc aware of. Bonaparte felt, at every 

 step, the it jury which they created to himself, in re- 

 venue at in popularity, ana uvd to connive at their 

 evasion, aftrr having nominally enjoined their execu- 

 tion in the most positive terms. The year 1809, 

 though posterior to hii vehement proclamations, was 

 a season of very active intercourse between England 

 and the continent. This intercourse was maintained 

 during the first half of 1810; and it was not until 

 the continued depression of our exchange, and the 

 multitude of our mercantile failures, inspired him 

 with the hope, that a rigorous enforcement of his 

 decrees would complete the measure of our embar- 

 rassments, that he began to act up to the Utter of hit 

 edicts. Accordingly, it was only in the winter of 

 1810 that seizures of British property were made in 

 the Prussian harbours, and that the ridiculous ex- 

 treme of burning our goods was resorted to in his 

 own dominions. If we look to the magnitude of our 

 exports to the continent of Europe, down not only 

 to 1810, but to the present date, we shall have rea- 

 son to be surprised, that they so much exceed the 

 limited calculation, which a sense of the multiplied 

 impediments would lead us to form. Still, however, 

 a trade conducted under such disadvantages of ex- 

 pence and hazard, must be infinitely less productive 

 than if direct and unrestrained. In regard to the ex- 

 change, it will be found, when attentively scrutini- 

 zed, to operate less as an original cause of malady 

 than as a prevention of cure. But free transmission 

 of commodities, which forms the natural remedy to 

 an unequal exchange, is now denied us ; and the evil, 

 when once in progress from other reason;, is main- 

 tained in all its virulence by the effect of these hos- 

 tile decrees. Among the minor causes of the fall of 

 exchange, might be enumerated the heavy sums paid 

 for freight to foreign shipmasters, Bonaparte's pro- 

 hibitions of remitting bills to England, and the un- 

 usual amount of foreign property (L. 1,040,000)* 

 sold out of our funds, and remitted to the continent 

 in 1810. But enough has been brought forward 

 to account for the occurrence of this distressing event, 

 and it now remains to explain its effects on the state 

 of our money system. 



An unfavourable rate of exchange, implying that 

 money is of more value abroad than at home, forms a 

 limit of bounty on the export of merchandise. A 

 slight inequality is thus in general corrected, without 

 the adoption of any other measure than a partial 

 shipment of goods, the nature and amount of which 

 may be safely left to the vigilance of merchants. On 

 the rise becoming greater, and exceeding the expence 

 of the conveyance of specif, bullion is bought up 

 and exported. A continued and farther advance of 

 the exchange, leads to the exportation of the current 

 coin : a practice which no penalties have been found 

 adequate to prevent. Parting with a portion of our 

 coin, however ungracious an expedient, is, in ordina- 

 ry times, an infallible one, since it tends to bring 

 down exchange in two ways, -by paying a part of 

 our debt, and by enhancing the value of our remain- 

 ing coin. It was thus that we corrected, in the end 

 of 1795, the inequality of exchange caused by rhe 



Chalme-s' Confederation* on Commerce and Bullion, p. 72. 



\OL. V. FART . 



