34 ^' ^- ^7^3- 



economical arrangements formed by liim in the civil and military de- 

 partments, were mentioned with great applaufe. 



December 17"' — Notwithftanding the violent oppofition made to 

 them, the bills were carried through the houfe of commons : but they 

 were rejeded by the houfe of lords. 



Such was the effed of the opinion, gone forth, of the company's 

 funds being in a bad way, that their flock fold in November (when 

 there was a dividend nearly due) fo low as 120, and fome even at 119. 

 The government funds at the fame time fell greatly belov/ the prices 

 they had been at in September. The fall in both may be, at leaft part- 

 ly, afcribed to the great extenfion of our commerce after the peace, and 

 the infufficiency of the circulating money to fupport the increafed ex- 

 portation, which obliged many people in trade to fell out of the funds *. 

 Owing to the fame caufes there was alfo an extraordinary drain of caQi 

 from the bank, efpecially in the month of Odoberf. 



The king of Pruffia is faid to have expended two millions of crowns 

 annually for twenty years pafl in improving his country, eftablilhing 

 manufadures, and encouraging commerce and navigation. An account, 

 drawn up by one of his minifters :{:, fays, that the number of Pruffian 

 veflels, which pafled the Sound in the courfe of this year, and navigated 

 the different feas of Europe as far as the Straits of Gibraltar, approach- 

 ed that of the five great maritime powers, and even furpaffed the num- 

 ber of merchant fhips of all the reft of Europe taken together — It 

 will, perhaps, not be amifs to make fome allowance for exaggeration in 

 this minifterial account of the Pruffian navigation. 



The merchants of Glafgow, when their American trade was inter- 

 rupted by the war, extended the Weft-India branch of their commerce, 

 and refumed, or enlarged, their trade with the continent of Europe, 

 which their convenient fituation for the trade with America had made 

 them in fome degree overlook for many years bypaft. A confiderable 

 number of them withdrew their capitals from foreign trade and (hip- 

 ping, in order to employ them in manufadtures, the improvements of 

 which, and the eftabliftiment of new ones, were with good reafon thought 

 to afford a profped of more permanent, as well as more folid, profperity 

 than foreign trade. Some account will afterwards be given of the con- 

 dition of the increafed and new manufactures of Glafgow in a more ad- 

 vanced flage of their progrefs. I ftiall here only obferve, that from about 

 this time the quantity of manufactured goods, fent from Glafgow to Lon- 



* The Dutch merclianls, upon tefuming their J It may be prefumed, that this minifter was 



commercial tranfaftions interrupted by the war, the baron de Hertzberg, who for fome time ufed 



alfo fold out their property in the Britifh funds, to publifli an annual panegyric on the government 



which contributed to the depreffion. of his fovereign in the TranfaSions of the academy 



f It appeared in evidence, that the cafti of the of Berlin, But the language of panegyric is never 



bank was lower in October 1783 than even in the expeftcd to be the faithful vehicle of truth, 

 week preceding the 26"' of February 1797. 



