Mr. Samuel Jones Loyd's principles and pamphlets on the currency - Corrects the mistaken views of Messrs. Harman and Dorrien, by those of Messrs. Ward and Horsley Palmer - Character of the latter - His safety-rule for regulating the currency, propounded in 1836 on behalf of the Bank directors without qualification, and admitted in 1840 to have had weak points, which were known - His pamphlet in 1837 on the causes and consequences of the pressure upon the money-market - Mr. Jones Loyd impugns the views of Mr. J. B. Smith and the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, as to the effects of the administration of the Bank of England - Publishes in 1839 the best account of the progress of opinions relating to the currency, and attacks the Bank management of that year - Loan of 2,500,000l. from the Bank of France - Double functions of the Bank of England incompatible - The foreign exchanges - Examinations of and exceptions to Mr. Jones Loyd's doctrine respecting them - The effects of a two years' struggle to enforce it, etc. etc.

The influence I conceive Mr. Ricardo to have possessed as a monetary economist, has been indicated by the notice I have thought it right to take of his principles and publications. Since the period at which he was a leader of the Bank reform party, no individual has enjoyed so large a share of public regard and attention as Mr. Samuel Jones Loyd, of whose useful and vigilant labours I am now about to offer a brief account. Mr. Jones Loyd, like Mr. Ricardo, has the advantage of being at once a practical authority and an abstract reasoner upon the subject of money: it is his business as a merchant, his study as a scholar. Like Mr. Ricardo, too, he has added considerably to the weight his opinions are so well calculated to carry, by several well-timed and well-written pamphlets, and by repeated examinations as a witness before parliamentary committees. Having never been a member of Parliament, he has had no opportunity of inculcating his doctrines, and leading a great political party or the public to adopt them, by speeches in the House of Commons. There is another respect in which he differs from Mr. Ricardo: he has not been a discoverer, and has neither set up new principles nor propounded new rules of action. On the contrary, the cardinal point on which he lays the main stress of all his arguments and the weight of all his facts, - the one great hinge upon which he would turn the complicated machinery of our monetary system, to make it move smoothly and securely, - was developed before he became either a witness before Parliament, or a writer upon Banking. In truth, his chief care, ever since he has addressed the public, seems to be, not so much to show what his own views are, as that others have preceded him who proved, long ago, the case he advocates, and carried conviction even to those whose greatest censure it is, that they have mismanaged the currency in the teeth of that conviction.

Mr. Samuel Jones Loyd made his first public appearance, I believe, as a leading witness and authority upon Banking and Currency, before the Bank charter committee of 1832. The house of which he is the junior partner had been represented, in the inquiry of 1819, by his father, Mr. Lewis Loyd. There are but faint traces in his early evidence, of that firm breadth of opinion and correctional superiority, by which he has since then so highly distinguished himself. We recognise in 1832 the fulness of his information, his strong mind and cautious judgment, and note in him a better style of expression than men of his class generally attain; but we find him speaking, if not very favourably, still leniently, of the Bank administration; and not as we have repeatedly seen him of late, inculpating its management with decision and severity, and tracking to their source with keen sagacity, the mischiefs of which that management has proved the too abundant source. About the strongest things he said, as far as I have remarked, against the Bank on that occasion, are embraced in the answers to questions 3466 and 3471; where, adverting to the convulsion of 1825, he thought, "A good deal of the mischief was originally attributable to errors on the part of the Bank and the Government.....The previous state of things, the general excitement and enterprise, and the unguarded condition in which both mercantile and Banking concerns were found, had been in a great degree caused by imprudent transactions on the part of the Bank, urged principally by the Government. I allude in a great measure to the increase of issues; for instance, the purchase of the dead weight, advances upon mortgage, and other similar transactions."

This character of moderation may be said to pervade all that has fallen from Mr. Loyd, as a witness before Parliament from 1832 to 1841. When he writes he is quite another man: on paper he is a censor and instructor of superior ability and irresistible influence. It is as a pamphleteer, therefore, that we are to measure his powers and force as an antagonist of the Bank of England. For whether it is that there is something inherently discursive in the mode of examination; or, that the tone of a Parliamentary committee, reflecting the urbanity of the circle of good society, in which the members composing it move, subdues and refines the manner and form of putting and answering questions, and the matters they embrace; or whether it is, again, that there is something incurably soft, forbearing and inefficient in the secret nature and artificial composition of the inquiring body; certain it is that Mr. Loyd's pamphlets have a degree of strength, point, and completeness, which is not found in his viva voce evidence. To his pamphlets, accordingly, I shall refer for an outline of the strong case he has so clearly made out, and so vigorously maintained against the Bank of England; and for this purpose I select his "Reflections suggested by a perusal of Mr. J. Horsley Palmer's pamphlet in 1839;" his "Letter to J. B. Smith, esq. president of the Manchester chamber of commerce, 1840;" and his "Remarks on the management of the circulation," etc, published somewhat later in the last named year.