I. A local rise in the value of bullion, confined to this country, would no doubt account for a greater quantity of banknotes being required here, where the rise had taken place, to purchase the same quantity of bullion. But it will not account for bank-notes being exchanged in Rotterdam, Hamburgh, and other places, where, according to this theory, bullion had not risen in price, for 13s., 14s., and 15s. This fact we hold to be quite conclusive as to the depreciation of paper; for if Bank of England notes had not experienced a loss of value, why should they have been sold, where bullion had not risen, for 14s. and 15s.? II. A local rise in the price of bullion, confined to this country, and continuing for years at the rate of 20, 30, and even 40 per cent., is itself a phenomenon which it would be very difficult to explain. The price of a commodity can hardly continue for any length of time higher in one country than in another, unless either its exportation or importation be prohibited; and, even in this case, the irresistible attraction of a higher price is frequently found to render nugatory the strictest regulations. The exportation of the precious metals from Spain and Portugal was formerly prohibited, under all the terrors of a severe police. But experience proved, that no greater quantity of those metals could, by the greatest vigilance, be confined within these countries, than was found necessary for their internal circulation. So great was the temptation of a better market, that the gold or silver which was not wanted at home, was, in spite of all impediments, forced abroad, where it could be laid out to greater advantage. If then, in this case, it was found impracticable to produce, by all the violence of artificial restraints, a local degradation in the value of the precious metals, it is difficult to believe that a local rise in their value could have taken place in Britain, and could have even continued for years, though they might have been all the while freely imported from those countries, in which the supply was more abundant. If gold had been 20 or 40 per cent. dearer in this than in any other country; if it could have been laid out to so much greater advantage in the purchase of British produce,—it is contrary to every known principle to suppose, that we should have continued so long unsupplied with this necessary commodity.

III. In comparing, by means of the exchange, the bullion of this country with that of other countries, we find, at the time when its price in bank-paper was so high, that its real value, so far from being higher, was lower in Britain than on the Continent. It was stated in evidence before the Committee of the House of Commons, by different merchants and bankers, that at the time when bullion was selling at 57. 10s. per ounce in bank paper, a pound of it, paid to a banker in London, would not have pro

cured a bill on Hamburgh for the same quantity, without the addition of a premium at the rate of 5 per cent. A pound of bullion in Hamburgh was, therefore, more valuable than a pound of bullion in London; for, if it had been more valuable in this country than on the Continent, who, in that case, would have paid a premium for transferring it from the better to the worse market?

IV. It does not very clearly appear, how the great foreign expenditure of this country should have raised so enormously the value of specie, since it was not with specie that it could have been discharged. The foreign expenses incurred in Portugal and Spain, were of course for the maintenance of the armies acting in that quarter. They amounted, according to the accounts laid before the House of Commons,

Now, supposing that all these sums had been remitted to the army in specie, the money must have been instantly reexported for a supply of arms, warlike stores, provisions, clothing, and such other articles as armies generally want. In place of remitting specie, therefore, it appears to be the simpler process, to supply the army at once with such articles as it may require; and we find, accordingly, that this was the plan adopted; and that, of the great expenditure for which this country had to provide in Portugal and Spain, a very small portion was discharged by remittances of specie. According to accounts laid before Parliament, the following appears to have been the amount of the sums remitted in that form.

Several subsidies were, besides, granted during the years 1813 and 1814, to such of the Continental powers as were at war with France; but it does not appear that any great proportion of these loans was paid in specie. Of the sum of 5,000,000l. voted to our European allies, not more than 300,000l. was sent in specie. The remainder was partly discharged by drafts on the Treasury from abroad, which would be finally settled by an ex

portation of manufactures, and partly by supplies of arms, military stores, &c. which were sent out to the value of 2,243,9731. Such being the comparatively small quantity of specic required for the discharge of our great military expenditure abroad, it is not easy to explain how its price should have been raised so enormously, in order to provide for so inconsiderable a demand. Specie has frequently before been exported from this country in greater quantities, without any rise in its price. In the years 1790, 1791 and 1792, exportations of specie took place to the amount of 1,571,364l., 1,338,742l., and 2,250,1217.; and in the years 1803, 1804 and 1805, it was exported by the East India Company to the amount of 2,068,3997., 1,088,2937. and 2,258,7491. But neither the collecting nor the exporting of this treasure, occasioned any perceptible rise in the price of bullion; and why therefore should the demands of Government to a similar extent, occasion such an enormous difference of price? Why should the same cause, in a few years afterwards, produce such very different effects? Before it can be admitted that the foreign expenditure of the country was the cause of the rise in the price of bullion, and of the unfavourable exchange, some explanation must be given of the facts here stated; for, otherwise, this doctrine would only involve the subject in endless perplexity and contradiction.

We have thus endeavoured generally to state the causes of the distress in which the country is involved; and we shall now only add, that the enormous taxation by which it is burdened, appears to be the chief obstacle to the restoration of its commerce and credit. For several years past, the immense annual contribu tion of between 60 and 70 millions, has been collected in Britain for the public service; and the renovating power of industry, assisted as it is with all the refinements of art, can scarcely provide resources to answer such exorbitant demands. Taxation is now pushed to such an excess in this country, that as it can no longer be paid out of revenue, it begins to encroach on capital; and new and more severe methods of exaction are at the same time resorted to. The system is thus beginning gradually to lose the character of fair and equal contribution; and taxes are imposed, not because they are equitable-but because they will be productive.

Rem, si recte possis; si non, quocunque modo, rem. This extravagant taxation is the weight which pulls the country downwhich slackens the pace of commerce and of industry, by abstracting the funds destined for their support, and which finally tends to deaden that active principle of exertion by which nations, in spite of the prodigality of their rulers, are borne forward in a course of continual improvement. In these circum

stances, it is vain to propose any plan of relief which does not include a reduction of the taxes. Lighten the load of taxation, and the country will start forward as before; but if the present taxes, and more especially if the war taxes are continued, its movements must be heavy and incumbered. There never perhaps was a period, in which it was more necessary to practise moderation abroad, and economy at home. The time is now come, for the people rigidly to canvass the utility of all those projects of continental warfare in which their rulers are always so forward to embark; for it cannot be concealed, that, in such projects, all our present burdens have originated. It is now proposed to maintain, during peace, an immense military establishment, for the purpose of protecting Louis XVIII. against the hostility of his own subjects! and, for this purpose, it is expected that the people of this country will submit to a greater load of taxation than Mr Pitt himself would have ventured to propose, while we were fighting for our own independence. The rejection of the Property-tax, the tidings of which have reached us since these observations were prepared for the press, induces us to hope better things; and to look for the return of those wholesome days, when the people of England actually kept the purse in their own hands, and, by the vigorous and effective exercise of that power, impressed their own character upon the councils of their rulers.

ART. VII. Conchiologia Fossile Subapennina con Osservazioni Geologiche sugli Apennini e sul Suolo adiacente. Di G. BROCCHI. Ispettore delle Miniere, &c. Milano, 1814. 2 vol.

4to.

THIS appears to us to be a work of very great value and merit. Its chief object is to describe the fossil shells that are found in the clay and gravel, of which the hills that skirt the base of the Apennines are composed, and to compare them with their prototypes now existing, either in the adjoining or more distant seas. As an introduction to these details, the author gives a general view of the structure of the Apennines, together with a minute account of the physical constitution of the Subapennine hills themselves; pointing out their extent, the materials of which they are composed, and the order in which these materials are distributed. He also describes the vast collections of fossil bones that are found in different parts of Italy; and enters into some very interesting details on the formation of the great plain of Lombardy, and the alluvial depositions of the Po.

Although there is not, we think, any reason to suspect that

the facts have been in the slightest degree distorted, for the purpose of adapting them to some favourite system, we should have been glad to have had, in this Introduction, the descriptions, and the author's reasonings upon them, less mixed up together; it would have rendered both more intelligible to the reader, and would have saved some occasional repetitions. We are by no means of opinion, that the geologist ought to confine himself to a bare narration of facts, and that he ought to abstain from all theoretical speculations upon them: This is a doctrine that is, we think, rather too much insisted on in the present day; for although the geologist cannot be too much on his guard against the influence of theory in his observations of nature, and ought as carefully to abstain from the use of theoretical terms in his descriptions, it must be admitted that theory is the ultimate object of all geological researches. There are too many instances, it is true, where the love of theory has obscured the visual organs, and, we fear, also has prevailed over the fidelity of the geologist; yet there is no excitement which brings out so much truth, in matters of science as well as in every thing else, as a little controversy. Until the publication of the Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory, perhaps the most eloquent work on science in our language, geology was scarcely known in this country; and to the attention which that work excited, and the controversies that arose from it, we are in a great degree indebted for the knowledge we possess of the physical structure of our island. We cannot express ourselves better on this subject, than in the words of our author.

Nothing is more common, than to hear people rail against systems, and to see those common-place remarks brought forward, which are usually resorted to on such occasions-That the number of well ascertained facts is yet very limited; that it is impossible to establish any general axioms; that the most important thing we have to do, is to observe the phenomena with accuracy, and to record them with fidelity; abstaining from all comments and applications of them. These remarks may, within certain limits, be all very true; but it is no less true, that many persons allow themselves to be deceived, by laying down principles such as these; and, while they are declaiming against the abuse of hypotheses, they seem to be ignorant of the use of them. My own opinion is, that had it not been for geological systems, the knowledge we should now possess of the structure of the globe would be scanty indeed; and that to these more or less ingenious theories, such at least as have not been mere speculations, we owe in a great measure that accumulation of facts which may be said to constitute the true capital of the science. Many of those details, respecting the nature and the differences of rocks, their reciprocal connexions, the order of their super