The Sun.
London, England, 1839-07-04 00:00:00

ready to believe, and we intimated an opinion to that
effect on Wednesday. But the question remains unan-
swered, who is to afford the protection required ?
That Mr. Wilder as the agent of Humphreys and Bid-
dle, and acting under a general authority from them,
is willing to make the customary advances. upon cotton
shipped to their house upon the usual terms, is proba-
ble enough ; but that he, or any combination of merchants
with which be may be connected, is in a condition
to advance ten cents. per pound on two or three
hundred thousand bales of cotton, and to hold that
cotton " until prices vigorously rally," we must take
leave to doubt ; and, notwithstanding Mr. Wilder's
avowal of the circular, we still look upon it in no
other light than as a desperate effort to prop up
declining prices by holding out hopes of assistance
which can never be realised. Any man who reads the
circular carefully will see that the object of the writer
throughout was to produce an impression without dis-
tinctly stating the fact, that the United States Bank
and the firm of Humphreys and Biddle were parties to
the scheme. That the impression thus sought to be
produced was a false impression is now distinctly ad-
mitted ; that this circumstance alone is quite sufficient
to dispose of any credit which the circular might other-
wise have commanded.
It will be seen that, in a communication to the New
York Morning Courier, which we have given with other
extracts, and which, no doubt, emanates from the
parties connected with the circular, the course recom-
mended in that document is defended on the ground
that a powerful combination exists in England to de-
press the price of cotton ; and the writer refers to and
quotes a paragraph which originally appeared in the
Guardian of the 1I th of May, giving the names
of the firms in Ashton, Staleybridge, and the
neighbourhood, who had entered into an en-
gagement to work not more than four days per week ;
and the writer asks—" Does it not become justifiable and
necessary to meet such a combination by measures
adapted to that end ?" The plain answer to this ques-
tion is, that the measure adopted by the spinners and
the manufacturers were forced upon them by the con-
sequences of previous speculative proceedings on the
part of the Southern Banks, whose interference with the
view of bolstering up prices was so fully described in the
circular of Mr. Vincent Nolte, from which we gave co-
pious extracts a few weeks ago. That interference has
been productive of the most serious consequences to the
cotton manufacturers, not so much by actually raising
the prices of cotton, as by creating a general distrust of
prices amongst the purchasers of goods and yarn. If there
had been no extraordinary interference of this kind, prices
might have been higher than they have lately ranged,with•
out either producing any such distrust, or causing any seri-
rous diminution of consumption ; but the knowledge of
what was going on amongst the speculative bankers of the
Southern States with the avowed intention of giving an
artificial support to prices, caused a general failure of
confidence amongst all parties connected with the trade.
The buyers of cotton goods, fearing that a sudden with-
drawal of the artificial support might at any time cause a
serious decline in prices, have held back from the markets,
and purchased only to supply their immediate and press.
ing wants. The necessary consequence has been such an
absence of demand as has driven the spinners and ma-
nufacturers to those measures for limiting the production
which the circular writers at New York quote as a
justification for further speculative proceedings. Very
fortunately, these parties are, as we believe, quite
unable to carry their schemes into practice; and, if
they had the power of doing what they propose, the
only result would be the production of a still greater
distrust of prices in this country, and a consequent
diminution of consumption to a far greater extent than
at present.

As every thing relating to the supply of cotton must
be interesting to a large number of our readers, we
give a copy of a circular from New Orleans, which ap-
pears in the New York Herald of the lath inst., and
from which it appears that the crop of cotton is likely
to turn out a little larger than the speculators are wil-
ling to acknowledge, and that considerable parcels are
still arriving at New Orleans. Indeed, when we con-
sider the general character of the southern planters
and speculators, and the strong temptation which they
have had to keep down the supply, we may reasonably
expect to find that a considerable quantity of cotton
has been withheld from the ports, with the view of con-
cealing, up to the latest moment, the real amount of
the crop. Connected with this part of the subject is a
circumstance which has caused some surprise, and ex-
cited no little suspicion on our exchange. On com-
paring the usual account of the receipts of cotton at
the ports since the 30th September last, which ap-
pears in the New York Price Current of the 12th
June, with that appearing in the same publication on
the sth June, instead of an increase there appear= to
be a diminution of about a thousand bags ; the quan-
tities being stated--
On the sth June bags 1,282,237
On the 12th June bags 1,281,248
On comparing minutely the two accounts, we find the
following unexplained incongruities :

sth June. 12th June.
Receipts at Savannah 191,184 187,831
Ditto at South Carolina 198,721 191,302
making a decrease at the two places of 10,772 bags,
which, of course, is an absurdity. It will be seen
from the New Orleans circalar, which we copy from
the New York Herald, that the receipts of cotton into
the ports are there stated at 1,324,020 bags, or nearly
43,000 bags more than the amount stated in the New
York Price Current to about the same dates. We
cannot pretend to reconcile these wide and palpable
contradictions ; but they are certainly calculated to cast
great suspicion on the general correctness of the Ame-
rican accounts of the crop.