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LETTER XVI.

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AFTER walking some miles, we arrived at a covered walk within a building, where the hum from the groups assembled, with hats passed almost under each others' brims from the eagerness with which topics were discussing, proclaimed some fresh stimulus was at work. "There they are, sly and dry," said L-, "these are the sons of Commerce, merchants of England and other countries, who have been said to constitute in their own proper persons the sources of real wealth and national prosperity. But if so, why does England, the acknowledged Emporium of Commerce, the very focus of public credit external and internal, exhibit such exquisite misery? Politics have been rightly termed, 'the madness of many for the gain of few;' commerce in any nation who needs it not, exportation of necessaries and importation of luxuries, which generally constitute its main features, is the madness of all. If a country cannot grow necessaries enough to keep pace with consumption, it must import from other

regions and if neighbouring states do not grow enough of necessary articles, the former exports to them if she possesses a superabundance; but this mutual intercourse should be founded on the exchange of absolute necessaries, not luxuries. And how few spots are there inhabited by man, which would not, with fair division and culture, yield an adequate support to its tenantry? Is it meant to be contended that Great Britain would not? Medical drugs may be well imported, though it is not quite clear that she does not produce a 'Materia Medica' sufficient to arrest disease, reduced to the narrow aggregate to which a return to Nature would reduce it. Those who have not considered the subject, would scarce credit how few square yards of ground will maintain a man, and his family during the age of nurture, in the full and pure enjoyment which Nature designed for him: but while the aristocratic possessions of one contain as much extent of soil as would suffice to hold thousands in contentment of mind, and satiety of wholesome nutriment, so long will what are called the 'blessings of commerce,' or dealing in the interchange of luxuries, useless and pernicious, with the intervention of the circulating medium to adjust the difference of value, be resorted to as a cure, and resort

ed to in vain. Was the prosperity of any great, (so called) Commercial Nation ever of long standing, permanently general through the whole community? Must it not always set one part of the people in array against the rest? Is not commerce the parent of monopoly, the ultimate curse of the consumers of its freight? Did it ever, or, from its nature, can it, make up for want of fair equalization in superficial tenancy? As to those engaged in it, they have no time to acquire a single idea beyond those of the counting house: they are as much machines as their hired servants, as deeply involved in the artificial system as the other classes. If unsuccessful in mercantile speculation, they blow out their brains, and so end the debate at once; or mope, sad monuments of blighted prospects: if "jolly and thriving," their luxury is unbounded; they become drunk with success, generally backbone Church-and-King men, snorting in Ignorance and Pride. You shall hear one say, after a sumptuous entertainment, the fragments of which some equally pampered menial distributes to the poor, as bones are flung to a dog. "Gentlemen, fill round, if you please; a bumper: here's The King, God bless him:' This is capital! I imported it myself: for my part, I think the times were never

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better: it must be 'ignorant impatience' that makes people complain, which they certainly do without any reason whatever. What the devil do they want? The mobility don't know when they are well treated: one thing I know is, they must be kept well awed, or they will soon be our masters, which, you know, would not be pleasant: they have begun to think, (at least I am told so, for I don't trouble myself about such trumpery,) which they can have no right to do, at any rate: I must speak to the member, my friend Colonel F——, about it."

"In due time he dies; and his prodigal first-born soon knocks down by profligate expenditure every shilling his father raised; and becomes in turn a beggar; for this sort of wealth never lasts long: at farthest, the third generation scatters the main part of it."

"I will," continued L--, "give you one treat more, and then I think, we shall have a sufficient number of instances to serve as data to my proposition, that there is rottenness at the bottom of the combination, the heterogeneous mass we are moving in."

We passed through the courts of a large building, and entered a vast dome filled with persons chiefly of the male sex; which seemed by the tumultuous bustle, the busy care visible

in every countenance, to be the theatre of some important transactions. Here the noise sometimes rose so high, that from sheer inability to hear, the persons engaged held their peace by common consent, and a comparative silence ensued: anon, the tumult, as if strengthened afresh by temporary suspension, swelled in 'hoarse chorus' again, and raged to the very roof. "These," said L, "are the seats of the money-changers; this is what I call Hell in miniature; the very acme of public folly. These tables, thronged with groups, the slaves of avarice and fear, remind me of our Milton's Pandemonium, where the demons are represented dispersed in picturesque parties, playing the devil in earnest :

'Others apart, sat on a hill retired,

In thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high.'

"This is the Bank of England, which our old ladies, who deposit their hoards there, emphatically call the 'Honey-pot;' which, say they, sipping their congou, 'Is as sure as eggs are eggs, for if that goes, we shall go.' A comfortable conclusion this! The schemes pursued here, are the brag of our thick-and-thin literals, who see no further than their own noses; those who ken a degree farther, regard it as the veriest soap-and-water bubble ever

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