Precession

“ For the probably receipts of the next year I refer you to the statements which will be transmitted from the Treasury, which will enable you to judge whether further provision be necessary.
The great reduction in the price of the principal articles of domestic growth which has occurred during the present year, and the consequent fall in the price of labor, apparently so favorable to the success of domestic manufactures, have not shielded them against other causes adverse to their prosperity. ”

“ I would never have disposed of the Concession as a speculator disposes of a valuable right to a company—for cash and shares, to grow rich eventually if possible, but at any rate to put some money at once in his pocket. ”

“ To promote this disposition to exchange lands which they have to spare and we want for necessaries, which we have to spare and they want, we shall push our trading houses, and be glad to see the good and influential individuals among them run in debt, because we observe that when these debts get beyond what the individuals can pay, they become willing to lop them off by a cession of lands. ”

“ Thirteenthly, The Law that is in use among them for transference of Bills for Debts from one man to another: This is of extra-ordinary advantage to them in their Commerce; by means whereof, the can turn their Stocks twice or thrice in Trade, for once that we can in England; for that having sold our Foreign Goods here, we cannot buy again to advantage, till we are possest of our Money; which it may be we shall be six, nine, or twelve Months in recovering: And if what we sell be considerable, it is a good man's work all the Year to be following Vintners, and Shopkeepers for Money. ”

“ I am the more strongly impelled to ask for the fulfilment of the contingent expectation, because, in addition to the Treasury’s demand and your Lordship’s exercise for economy, there is, from time to time, a manifestation of some disappointment in the public mind. ”

“ At this time we behold, sir, seven great nations of the world tendering us their securities bearing from 5 to 7 percent, while the great commercial bodies all around us of an industrial nature—in many respects of the highest class—heretofore yielding splendid profits, tender their securities bearing from 5 to 7 percent. Yet our people demonstrate their confidence in the administration here in government ”

“ It is, therefore, possible to trace the normal growth and expansion of British finance as one of the aspects of the nation’s history.
The primitive financial institutions of England centre round the king’s household, or, in other words, the royal economy precedes the national one. Revenue dues collected by the king’s agents, rents, or rather returns of produce, from land, and special levies for emergencies form the elements of the royal income, which gradually acquired greater regularity and consistency. ”

“ Even when these vestiges of natural economy had passed away and payment in money had been introduced, the terms of exchange were frequently the subject of regulation. There was often a recognised rate at which dues in service, or in kind, could be commuted for money; or attempts were made to determine the prices of goods and the rates of wages by authority, either in the interest of the consumer or, at other times and places, in that of the producer. ”

“ Suddenly, agriculture raised her drooping head, for commerce beckoned her to prosperity. Your people began to pay their debts and to become rich. Public credit was restored; the Treasury began to fill readily. Sources of revenue were explored, certain of continually increasing, equally certain of being never exhausted, except by folly and madness. Indeed, sir, so perfect was the financial machinery that it admitted of no improvement. ”

“ As to the fourth, that the longer the negotiation is delayed, the larger will be the demand; this will depend on the intermediate captures: if they are many and rich, the price may be raised; if few and poor, it will be lessened. ”

“ But before commerce can attain a solid basis, other changes equally important are required, among which new regulations for the recovery of debts is not one of the least. At the present day, no fixed or regular period of payment, can be said to exist. ”

“ Digest the whole, public and private, Dutch, French and Spanish, into a table, showing the sum of interest due every year, and the portions of principal payable the same year. Take the most certain branch of revenue, and one which shall suffice to pay the interest, and leave such a surplus as may accomplish all the payments of the capital, at terms somewhat short of those at which they will become due. Let the surplusses of those years, in which no reimbursement of principal falls, be applied to buy up our paper on the exchange of Amsterdam, and thus anticipate the demands of principal. ”

“ Several merchants are now advancing considerable sums of their own property, rather than the service should suffer, by which I am sensible they must lose greatly, unless some method is taken to raise the credit of our coin, or a fund be sent to Orleans, for the payment of the expenses of this place, which should at once reduce the price of every species of provision; money being of little service to them, unless it would pass at the ports they trade at. ”

“ What buys land, will buy every thing the land produces; and what buys the product of land, will buy [Pg 193] all other goods whether home or foreign. if wine is brought from France, the merchant designs to lay out his money on goods, at interest, or on land: the commission does not receive silver money, so he cannot have a bond from the commission, unless he give the value in paper; and many of the landed men won’t take silver for their goods or lands, having occasion for paper to pay the commission. ”

“ They should be prepared to expect, that in the beginning of this commerce, more money will be taken by us than after a while. The reasons are, that our heavy debt to Great Britain must be paid, before we shall be masters of our own returns; and again, that habits of using particular things are produced only by time and practice.
That as little time as possible may be lost in this negotiation, I will communicate to you at once, my sentiments as to the alterations in the draught sent them, which will probably be proposed by them, or which ought to be proposed by us, noting only those articles. ”

“ The history of the staple is an important part of the history of our early foreign commerce, of which it in some degree illustrates the growth and gradual extension from the progressive development of the resources of the country, as well as the artificial bonds and incumbrances against the pressure and entanglement of which the principle of that natural growth had to force its way. We now proceed to quote some further instances of the perplexities, the blunders, and the generally oppressive or annoying character of our ancient commercial legislation. ”

“ We have no other way of getting money but through the sale of our produce. Gentlemen say that our revenue would fall just as short, supposing the embargo to be raised. That is begging the question, sir. They assume that for a truth which they ought to prove in the first instance. Leave commerce open, and you will soon have money in return for our produce, or that which will procure it. Revenue is the life of Government, and let me suppose gentlemen to be sitting here thirteen months hence, on the first of January, 1810. ”

“ So long as foreign trade, and expence kept equal, exchange was at the par: but when a people imported for a greater value, or had other occasions abroad, more than their export, and the expence of foreigners among them would ballance; there was a necessity of sending out the ballance in money or bullion, and the merchant or gentleman who owed, or had occasion for money abroad, to save the trouble, expence and hazard of sending it out, gave so much per cent to another, as the trouble, expence and hazard was [Pg 39] valued at. thus exchange rose above the par, and became a trade. ”

“ The United States, both as Colonies and as a Country, have had varied and instructive experience with inconvertible paper Money. We will glance at two or three specimens only. The first issue of Treasury Notes, commonly called Greenbacks, given by Congress the quality of legal tender for all debts, public and private, except duties on imports and interest and principal of the national bonds, was made in April, 1862, and was justified in Congress and out solely as a war measure. ”

“ Before the debt was funded, at the moment of the cession of the lands, and by the very terms of that cession, every state in the union obtained an interest in them, as in a common fund. Congress has uniformly adhered to this condition. It has proceeded to sell the lands, and to realize as much from them, as was compatible with the other trusts created by the same deeds of cession. ”

“ I am persuaded that it is a point of true Policy to make these Concessions at a time when they may be received as a matter of favour, and when it is in Our own power to regulate and direct the manner of applying them, rather than to wait till they shall be extorted from us by a necessity which shall neither leave us any discretion in the form nor any merit in the substance of what We give. ”

“ The government advances the purchase-money to the peasant in the form of a five per cent bond, and this the proprietor receives for his land, and the government takes the payment of the peasant by instalments, through a series of years. ”

“ Some accident which excites expectations of rising prices, such as the opening of a new foreign market, or simultaneous indications of a short supply of several great articles of commerce, sets speculation at work in several leading departments at once. ”

“ The competition, too, of our manufacturers and merchants to become possessors of land is shown by the small rate of interest with which they are satisfied, for the outlay of their capital on the soil. ”

“ It would save much trouble if an account were kept of the expence, package, wharfage, and freight of all articles which are expected to be considered as capital, that the bills of the same be forthcoming if called for, and that a correct list be made of the contents of every package belonging to the settler, that he may know the particular box he has to open for any article he may want. ”

“ From business on the Exchange I was barred until after final settlement with creditors. As a matter of fact this was more of a loss to the Exchange than to me. During 1895 our name had appeared on the contracts of fully ninety per cent. of all the business done on the floor, and in the five years immediately following our failure the entire business did not equal that of any two months in 1895. ”

“ As for the natural measures of Exchange, I say, that in times of Peace, the greatest Exchange can be but the labour of carrying the money in specie, but where are hazards [er 1] emergent uses for money more in one place then another, &c. or opinions of these true or false, the Exchange will begoverned by them.
5. Parallel unto this, is something which we omit [er 2] concerning the price of Land; for as great need of money heightens Exchange, so doth great need of Corn raise the price of that likewise, and consequently of the Rent of the Land that bears Corn, and lastly of the Land it self ”

“ It seems to have been, when properly regarded, a revulsion in the midst of a great expansion of industrial power, which expansion produced modifications of the industrial organization which could not well take place without some greater or lesser catastrophes. ”

“ When the railway set the stream of migration moving faster than ever, and cities began to grow like mushrooms, it was natural that speculation in land should feel the Speculation. effects. Sales rose to $3,200,000 in 1831, to $4,000,000 in 1833, to $5,000,000 in 1834, to $15,000,000 in 1835, and to $25,000,000 in 1836. In 1835 the president announced to Congress that the public debt was extinguished, and that some way of dealing with the surplus should be found. ”

“ Yea but, say some men, we have better hopes than so; for th' intent of the Statute is, that as all the forraign wares which are brought in shall be imployed in our commodities, thereby to keep our money in the Kingdom: So we doubt not but send out a sufficient quantity of our own wares over and above to bring in the value thereof in ready money. ”

“ Throughout a great part of the nineteenth century the influence of the commercial classes was strong, the government was conducted on strict business principles, and the Treasury as the representative of those principles was the keystone of the administrative arch, or to change the metaphor, the axle on which the machinery of the state revolved. ”

“ The British board was to have no deposit of government stocks: ours are to have a deposit of five millions, to be converted into money when needed, and to constitute another permanent debt to that amount. 6. The British gave a true title to their exchequer act: we give a false one to ours. They entitled theirs, "An act for regulating the issuing and paying off, of exchequer bills:" we entitle ours, "A bill amendatory of the several acts establishing the Treasury department." ”

“ In the interval between the Restoration and the Revolution the increase of our trade appears to have been both more considerable upon the whole, and more steady in its progress, than in any former period of the same length ”

“ With many disorders and with few political checks upon power, nature had still fair play, the sources of acquisition were not dried up, and therefore the trade, the manufactures, and the commerce of the country flourished. ”