Let us, however, proceed according to the course of events. We have first to indicate the principles laid down by the Bank Charter Committee of 1832, and offer a few words explanatory of the panics that occurred up to 1836. But our narrative of the past is incomplete. We have not yet had an opportunity of showing, as fully as the extended working of the measure seems to demand, what the change was which took place in the currency when cash payments were resumed throughout the country; nor have we adverted to some doctrines in connexion with this part of the subject which were unsuccessfully advocated by some Bankers and political economists, - such as the Messrs. Attwood and others.

Severe agricultural distress, as will be remembered by most persons, followed the conclusion of our long continental wars, and became most oppressive from 1819 to 1822. The general fall of prices that took place within that interval was, according to some authorities, the consequence of too much corn, and according to others, of too little money. All parties, however, admitted that the transition from a paper to a specie currency had much to do with the depression, though, as usual, great differences of opinion prevailed as to the precise extent to which prices had been affected by the change. Mr. Ricardo had contended that the return to cash payments would not make a greater difference than five per cent.; when cash payments had actually taken place, he admitted that prices had varied as much as eight per cent.; there were others who maintained that the depression was full twenty-five per cent. Of this last party was Mr. Matthias Attwood, of the firm of Messrs. Spooner, Attwood, and Co., the Grace-church-street Bankers, and now member for Whitehaven, who submitted his opinions to the house upon the occasion in a speech characterised by a good deal of clear thinking, and an abundant store of statistics to illustrate and fortify his position. As no account of the currency can be either fair or complete, from which the views of a practical man, and the organ of a particular party (both of which Mr. Attwood to this day remains, upon the subject), are excluded, I am bound not to overlook his principles, nor the motions he has made in Parliament to enforce them. As, moreover, I do not see that these can be better noticed than by allowing Mr. Attwood to speak for himself, I propose to give some extracts from his speech in 1822, when moving for a committee of inquiry. The matter will be found both curious and strongly put together.

"In the year 1818," said Mr. Attwood, "the average price of wheat was eighty-four shillings per quarter; and if the present price be taken at forty-seven shillings, that is a reduction on wheat of thirty-seven shillings, which is equal to a fall of forty-five pounds in every hundred pounds, or forty-five per cent. The price of iron in the year 1818 appears to have been thirteen pounds: that price is now eight pounds per ton, and is equal to a reduction of about forty per cent. The price of cotton in 1818 was one shilling, and it has sunk to sixpence per pound; and that is a fall of fifty per cent. on cotton. Wool in the year 1818 sold for 2s. 1d., which now sells for 1s. 1d.; and there is therefore in wool a fall of nearly fifty per cent. The fall, therefore, that has taken place since 1818, in iron, in cotton, and in wool, is as great as the fall in wheat. It is forty-five per cent. on an average of the three; and that is precisely the fall in grain. These are our three great staple articles, and this fact of the fall in price they have sustained, I recommend to the consideration of those gentlemen who tell us of an excessive production of corn, and of an excessive cultivation of land. If corn has been produced in excess, if the proof of that is to be found in its fall of price, doubtless there has been an equal excess likewise in the production of these three great staple articles. But I will refer to a paper containing further information upon this subject, and which I am satisfied will be received as exhibiting a correct estimate of the general fall in prices which has taken place on the whole of our production and commodities. The paper to which I refer for this purpose will be found in the Agricultural Report of the last session. It was delivered to the committee by Mr. Tooke, and contains a list of the principal articles of commerce and manufacture, thirty in number, selected by that gentleman for the purpose of information respecting prices; and the prices of each commodity are given for several successive years, in the month of May in each year. I have caused the prices of these articles to be added to this table, for the month of May in the present year also. The result which this table exhibits is, that since May, 1818, a great and general fall in these articles has taken place; which fall cannot, on the whole, be taken to be less than the fall in the price of agricultural produce which has accompanied it. Of these thirty articles there are only two that have experienced no fall. These are indigo of two kinds, and their price has been supported, as I understand, by circumstances of an extremely peculiar nature. The fall which has taken place between May, 1818, and May, 1822, in the prices of the articles contained in this table, indigo excepted, is, if we take the lowest price marked in the table in each period, and take away the direct tax which exists on some of these articles, exactly forty per cent.; and if we add to this forty per cent. five per cent. more for the difference between prices as marked in tables, and those for which commodities can really be sold in the market, when the market is depressed and falling, that will give us an average fall of forty-five per cent., which is precisely similar to the fall in grain.

"There is no truth, therefore, in the opinion that any fall in prices peculiar to agricultural produce has taken place. The fall in prices has been universal, and not particular. The leases of the tenants, the mortgages of the land owner, taxation pressing heavily upon agricultural labour, but which the machinery of the manufacturer lightens; all these will render the difficulties of the agricultural community more permanent, perhaps, than those of the mercantile and manufacturing community; but they have not been more severe. Let the house consider what difficulties, as this table shows, our mercantile and manufacturing industry has been exposed to. In the midst of this fall in prices, what operation in business could proceed without loss or ruin? There has been no form in which the capital of the merchant, none in which the capital of the manufacturer could be invested, without the half of it being sacrificed during this calamitous period. We have been thrown back upon a condition of society in which all industry and enter-prize have been rendered pernicious or ruinous, and where no property has been safe, unless hoarded in the shape of money, or lent to others on a double security.