The injuries produced by these fluctuations were deep, complicated, and irreparable. From the year 1810, when the great rise of prices, occasioned by the increased issues of the Bank, set in, to 1815, when it attained its climax, every person interested in a contract bearing a preceding date, or to whom money was due, - the land-owner whose estate was on lease, the fund holder, and all annuitants, - were not allowed to raise the amount of their claims in proportion to the fall in the real value of money, and were consequently plundered year after year to the extent of the depreciation already set forth. If in 1815, for instance, our condition had been the reverse of what it really was, - healthy and prosperous, had Government suddenly issued a new coin more base than the standard, to the extent of twenty-five per cent., the fraud upon the public might have been more palpable, but could not have been more effectual than that really accomplished, when payment of all moneys due was made compulsory in a paper worth twenty-five per cent. less than the currency in which the original obligation was contracted.

Nor did the action of the mischief end here: one course had been no sooner run than another set in. He, for instance, who lent 1000l. in 1800 and was repaid it in 1814, lost 250l. by the difference in the value of the currency. If we suppose him, for any purpose, to have borrowed the amount of his loss, repayable in 1816, the discount on banknotes then being only 11. 8s. 7d. per cent., he would again, if he paid in the latter year, be a loser to the amount of 23l. 11s. 5d. per cent., or 68l. 19s. 9d. out of the 250l. If to the hardships superinduced by such changes as these in the debts and credits of the community, - if to the numberless private fortunes overthrown, and an impenetrable mass of commercial, agricultural, and manufacturing bankruptcies beyond the art of computation, we add the wrong inflicted upon the country; by compelling us to pay millions of national debt in gold, which was borrowed in one-pound bank-notes worth 14s. or 15s. each; and if we further bear in mind that the salaries of all public officers, the pay of the army and navy, and the general expenses of government, and the national institutions, were augmented when the value of money became so sensibly reduced, and that no corresponding abatement took place when the currency returned to its proper standard, we shall be in a situation to form an idea - very faint and imperfect it is true - still an idea of the distresses inflicted upon the country, and the gross injustice committed on all the great classes of the community, including both the highest and the lowest, by these fluctuations, a bare recital of which is enough to fill the mind with mingled feelings of amazement and despondency.

In noting the moving causes of the calamities of 1816, we should bear in mind that the cessation of hostilities on the continent was an established condition of the long promised resumption of cash payments. Much of the panic then excited is re-ferrible to a proposal for carrying that measure into effect in 1818. The Bank made some preparation for the change, by a partial contraction of its issues. But the depression of all the leading interests of the country was too intense, and the notion was quickly abandoned. The year after, the Bank increased the currency by nearly two millions. About the same time Government began to coin gold largely, seven millions of which were thrown into circulation in 1817 and 1818; but the harvest failed in the latter year, and all the new money was drawn off to pay for foreign corn. An immediate contraction of the Bank paper took place; public opinion set strongly in favour of a metallic currency; and in 1819, another panic broke out, the effects of which were not less destructive and extended than those of 1816. Having already spoken of that, it would be a twice-told tale to enter into particulars of the other, which, however, had this peculiarity in it - the gold was drawn off with such extraordinary rapidity, that in the fear of losing our last guinea an act of Parliament was passed by both houses in two days to restrain the Bank from paying away any more of it!

We are now touching upon events which led to a crisis of still greater magnitude and intensity, a crisis certainly then unprecedented, however it may have been subsequently approached. The return to cash payments having been decreed, the year 1822 was fixed upon for that purpose. But 1822 proved a year in which everything was flat, stagnant, and depressed; a further postponement was thought necessary, and 1825 was substituted. At the same time one material condition of the meditated system, namely, the suppression of the country Banks' circulation of one-pound notes, was held over for eleven years; a proceeding, by-the-by, full of grave error and extensive mischief. The work of preparation, however, both upon the part of the Government and the Bank, was begun in 1820, and was continued for four years, with some vigour it is true; but without either regularity, discretion, judgment, or success.

All this is seen in the general result; for at length the goal was reached, the great consummation was realised; and after all our conflicts of opinion, and every form and mode of chopping and changing, we settled down with a currency convertible, as of old, into gold. The year of years, the ever memorable 1825, set in, and while every face was flushed with fortune and no man dreamed of danger, a fresh example of the wretched instability of our monetary system was given, and proved so unexpected and tremendous, as to bear no inapt resemblance to the convulsions of an earthquake, that in a moment sweeps from the face of the earth, a sunny region of luxuriant fertility, and leaves a barren desert of dry cinders in its place.

The parliamentary session began as usual in February, and the speech from the throne assured both houses of the gratification the king derived from "the continuance and progressive increase of that public prosperity," upon which they had been congratulated at the opening of the preceding session of Parliament. "There never was a period,"we were told, "in the history of the country, when all the great interests of the nation were in so thriving a condition, or when a feeling of content and satisfaction was more widely diffused through all classes of the British people.11 The speech described the "flourishing condition, and progressive improvement of the revenue," and especially dwelt upon "the continued improvement in the state of the agricultural interest, the solid foundation of our national prosperity." Viscount Dudley and Ward, on moving the address, said, that "his Majesty's Government, his Parliament, and his people, now reaped, in honour and repose, all that they had sown in courage, in constancy, and in wisdom." "There was a prosperity extending to all orders, all professions, and all districts; enhanced and invigorated by the flourishing state of all those arts which minister to human comfort, and by those inventions by which man seems to have obtained a mastery over nature by the application of her own powers, and which, if any one had ventured to foretel it only a few years ago, would have appeared altogether incredible; but which now realized, though not yet perfected, presented to us fresh prospects and a more astonishing career." The Earl of Liverpool congratulated the house in a tone of peculiar triumph, upon the completion of that great measure: "the return to a sound metallic currency." "The task," he added, "had been a Herculean one; but we had accomplished it, and were now enjoying our reward. England had reached a state of prosperity, greater than any other country enjoyed, nay greater than she herself, at any antecedent period, had ever attained."