The Sun.
London, England, 1844-03-25 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, MONDAY MORNI NG, MARCII 25, 1844.

lation of the great commercial crises which have, on
three or four subsequent occasions, filled London with
mourning and desolation, and diffused insolvency, and
discontent to the remotest corners of the land. The
idea of a single bank of issue for a country like this
—of such intrinsic wealth, with so enormous a mass
of invested capital, and the daily operations of whose
domestic intercourse, home trade, and foreign com-
merce, are represented by so vast a floating circula-
tion such an idea seems fraught with in-
herent absurdity. It is not the less consistent
on that account, however, as one of the regulating
principles of any scheme of currency that may
be, projected by the artificer of that glittering cheat—
the gold standard legislation of 1819. We re-pub-
lished, yesterday, a portion of an article in the
Bankers' Circular of the 16th ultimo, containing a
well-deserved eulogium on the merits and services
of that fine example of a first-rate English merchant
and an upright public man, the late Mr. JEREMIAH
HARMAN :--" He it was," says the writer of the ar-
ticle in question, " who composed and tendered that
celebrated remonstrance against the impending mis-
chief with which the Act of 1819 was charged, and
which drew forth the undignified sneers of Lords
GRENVILLE and LtvEarooL, and Mr. Hysaissori—
presumptuous men, who dealt with a case of which
they were totally ignorant, in defiance and contempt
of the remonstrances of those who practically knew
all." This premature determination of the case by
such judges, on incomplete and unqualified testi-
mony, formed the subject (we well remember) of the
honest and manly, protest against the currency mea-
sure, then about to be debated, which the father of the
Premier, the first Sir ROBERT PEEL, pronounced in
the House of Commons, on presenting the petition of
the merchants and bankers of London against it. In
alluding to the evidence taken before the Currency
Committee, the late Sir R. PEEL said (May 24, 1819)
The men best qualified to judge of the matter had

not been consulted Looking at the re-

port, he had found only witnesses who were not
likely to give the Government any information. The
most able had been left out, not consulted, and totally
disregarded."
.The Banters' Circular, therefore, might justly
have added the present Sir ROBERT PEEL to his
" presumptuous" trio of surely the most unfortunate
" money brokers" and " money changers" (Heaven
knows !) who ever dealt with the whole scheme of
a country's currency. Our Premier, too, was one of
the economic philosophers of Lord LIVERPOOL'S
school, which session after sessiork, arraigned the
bounty of PROVIDENCE ital4,l".)s..eiwging on re-
dundant production add eicesiive harvests," those con-
vulsive and fatal derangements of our domestic pros-
perity, which-'eve solely'.!AtfibutalA to their em-
pirical, crotcheti..fr-:'44,'.f#100 peOlon;for drugging
the country WiWrieir*ii,i4kile44iostruna. The
country, like a' stout ji6mlin-patieije; was never
better than when the State quacks of the day com-
pelled him to swallow . their "gilded pills." He was
never worse than when his " system" had become
thoroughly imbued with the pestilent medicine which
had been forced upon him.
Ha man will only consider the state of our trade
and commerce in the year 1818 ; the abundance of
money circulated in the United Kingdom ; the re-
munerating prices obtained without difficulty for
ail descriptions of our manufactures ; the fair wages
earned by industrial labour in all its departments ; the•
scope given to the enterprise of capital, and its prodi-
gious energy of reproduction under the encouraging
influence of the times ;—if he will only bear in mind
the absurd fallacy of the assumptions founded by
the bullionists on adverse foreign exchanges (which
seven years before, Mr. HORNER had demonstrated,
in a paper in the Edinburgh Review, might be no-
niinally reported at 17 per cent. against this coun-
try, and yet be practically 7 per cent. in our favour') ;
if he will compare the buoyancy of private credit
and public confidence, the ready advances and rapid
returns of capital, and the generally thriving condi-
tion of all classes in the kingdom at the same periods
with the disastrous fear, the distrust, and displace-
ment which have affected the owners an the owner-
ship of money and property since 1819-20 ;—if he
will do this, we say, any man of ordinary reflection
must find it all but impossible to justify the conduct
of those who in 1819 ventured to pull down the
whole monetary fabric under which, or with which, or
by means of which (the distinction is immaterial),
our unexampled previous prosperity had been ob-
tained. To so gratuitous an abandonment of the
certain elements of present safety and steady and
progressive elevation in the scale of national great-
ness, for an ambitious, but untried, unproved,
and delusive theory of speculative finance a
vision of impracticable adjustment between gold at a
fixed unalterable price, and paper of very fluctuating
quantity, according to the fluctuating quantity of all
commodities, the value of which it was to represent
-L-we are at a loss to find a parallel. Nothing
short of the unfortunate Mr. Cocumo's suicidal
determination to cut the company of Mr. GREEN,
whose balloon had so agreeably buoyed him
up, and to sail away in a newly-invented, never-
tested apparatus in which he committed him-
self--deaf to the remonstrances of his friends and
well-wishers—to his untimely fate, can be properly
compared to the Pren;der's desperate expedient of
1819. But he has had, at least, a happier fate than
the not less obstinate aeronaut. Will he tempt ship-
wreck again by propounding "a single bank of issue ?"
A project for one imperial wine and liquor store, from
whence, only, bottles, Treasury corked, may be drawn
for the consumption of all Great Britain, in all time
to come—one legislative oven, destined to supply ex-
clusive batches of loaves (or statutes) for the refection
of all her MAJESTY'S subjects—one national vat, into
which the great brewings of IltacLA.v and PERKINS,
TRUMAN and BUXTON, and WHITBREAD and Co.,
must be all absorbed in a sort of ".Three per Cent.
Stock' Entire" for the universal consumption of the
people—all or any of those projects would not be
more practicable, or less ridiculous, than this pro-
posal to have but one bank of issue for the United
Kingdom.

. It may be, however, that the Premier, who, like
some of the Pharisaical ministers of CROMWELL, is a
great " waiter upon Paovmmict," has not yet given
his sanction to the preposterous design imputed to
him by our ,Contemporary. It may be that he lies
by, intending to avail himself of the best means
which accident may present to him for retracing
some of his steps from the fatal point to which they
tended in 1819, for retrieving his future reputation,
we will say, as a Minister, from the damage to which
the working of his favourite measure has ever since
subjected it. In this hope we shall address ourselves,
in our next, to the consideration of Mr. JOHN GLAD
STONE'S Letter to the Times, entitled "Considerations
connected with the renewal of the Charter of the
Band of England."

Madrid papers of the 15th have been received, but
bring no news of importance. A letter from Cartha-
gena states that a deputation from the insurgents had
waited on General RONCALI, to propose terms of ca-
pitulation, but it does not mention the result. The
Gazette publishes an order of the Minister of War,
addressed to the Captain-General of the sth district,
dated Aranjuez, March 13, in which he commends
his conduct in putting to death four of his prisoners
at Lugo.
The Three per Cents. were done at 33/ for
cash, and at 34/ at 60 days ; and the Five per Cents.
at 22/ for cash, and 231 at 60 days.

The Paris papers are chiefly occupied with the
controversy between the clergy and the University.
Nearly all of them blame the former. The France,
however, is an exception, and calls upon the Church
to be 'moderate and firm, and they will triumph. It
would appear, however, that the bishops need. no
such advice ; they have set the law at defiance, and
treat with mockery the solemn opinion expressed by
the Chamber on the question last Tuesday ; for on
the following day the Bishop of VALENCE wrote a
letter to the Abbe COMBALOT even in stronger terms
of praise and sympathy than that condemned by the
Chamber. The letter is a great curiosity, and runs
thus:—" Your defeat, my dear Abbe COMBALOT, is a
victory in the eyes of Catholic and religions Prance.
The cause which you have maintained will thereby
advance and increase. It will ennoble the iron bars
a
which are to immure you in a prison for fifteen days.
'w‘ iCthumtheinwtiksedresutaytusou
will not,
(
H ewas numbered
nbeegrreedt therefore,
regret

that you have one trait of resemblance with our divine
model." On this strange production the Constitu-
tionnel thus remarks :—" The souls. of those insur-
gent devotees are not turned to the point of honour ;
chastisement alone affects them, and puts an obstacle
to their outbreaks, and if some one goes farther. and
deserves prison, he is likened to JESUS CHRIST him-
self. Suppose that all French citizens, following
each his passions, his interests, should imitate the
example, which the heads of the clergy give them;
suppose they study the penal code, in order to take it
to the letter as the rule of their conduct towards the
State, in order to advance boldly in their under-
takings to the extreme limit where punishment
begins, what anarchy, what universal demoralisa-
tion would there be !" The very boys at school are
rising up against these ecclesiastics. " In consequence
of a revolt," says the Patrie, " which took place this
day at the College Stanislaus, no 'less than sixty
pupils have been expelled. It appears that these
second floor one of the professors, who had given
them offence." All the Professors of that College are
clergymen.
These papers publish a telegraphic dispatch from
Cologne, announcing the death of BERNADOTTE, King
of Sweden ; and, in announcing- the accession of his
son to the throne, declare their opinion that, though
OSCAR may reign, the CZAR will govern;"
The Commerce states that near three hundred non-
commissioned officers and privates 'of the 70th Re-
giment of the Line have been dragged to Algeria, in
consequence of the mysteriouS affair which has lately
occurred in the Paris garrison.
THE BOURSE—THURSDAY, MARCH 21.
First Highest Lowest Last

Price. Price. ' Price. Price.
French Five perCents.exdiv 122 20 •• 122 50 • • 122 20 .. 122 50
Four-and-a-Ralf. •• • 110 50 • 110 50 110 80 .. 110 50
FourperCents. eadiv 105 50 • • 10.5 50 .• 101 50 .. 105 50
Three per Cents.• • • •83 15 • • 83 20 .• 83 .. 83 20
Bank of Franco. •. . • 3190 • • 3190 .• 3183 • .3186
Latlitte Bank, 5,000. f. Bhares.sllo ..5110 • • 5110 .4110
Belgian Bank
Belgian Fives, 1051 • • 1051 • . 1051 • . 1051
1840....••••• 108; • • 108; 1083 .. 108;
1842 • • 109; ,• •• 109; • • 119; • • 109{
Spanish Passive •• • • 61 • • 61 • • 61 • • 61
Threes •••••• • • • • • • 351 • • 35; • • 35; • • 35.1
New Deferred ••. • • 14f • . 141 • • 14f • • 14f
Portngneee Five per Cents 471 .. 471 • • 471 • • 471
Neapolitam lO2 65 .. 102 65 .. 102 6.5 • • 102 65
Roman

RAILWAY SHARES.
Versailles, R. 8.••
L. 8.•.• lBO 180 178 75 .. 178 75
Rouen

Rouen to Havre • • • • ••• • • • • • 687 50 .. 691 25 • • 687 50 • • 691 25

Orleans .•• •• •• •• •• •••• •... 902 50 .• 907 50 .. 902 59 .. 907 50

Strasburg to3ale •
Avignon to Marseilles 775 .. 775 .. 775 .. 775
RAILWAY SHARES, FOR THE ACCOUNT.
Versailles, R. 8..• • • • • ...... 387 50 .. 387 50 .. 387 50 • • 387 50
L. 8.• ••• • • ...... 180 .. 180 .. 177 50 • • 177 50
Rotten •• • • ................ 925 . 930 .. 925 .. 930

Rouen to Havre 667 50 .. 692 50 .. 687 50 692 50
Orleans .......... 205 .. 910 .• 905 .. 910
Strasburg to Bale 248 75 .. 265 .. 248 75 .. 265
Avignon to Marseilles-- 776 25 .. 776 25 .. 773 .. 775

LATER FROM THE UNITED
STATES.

LIVERPOOL, M►RCIE 22.

We have to-day received by the ship Sea, Captain Edwards,
New York papers of the Ist and 2d inst. The ship Sea sailed on
the 2d in company with the packet ship. Oxford (now telegraphed
off the port), the Victoria for London, and the Oneida for Havre.
The papers by this arrival are filled with details of the sad acci.
dent which happened on board the Princeton, of which they contain
some further particulars, but they are not of interest.
The rate of exchange wag 109 to 1081, tending downwards.
The fierce debate upon the notice of motion to put an end to the
joint occupation of the Oregon territory was not brought to a con.
elusion. The advocates of the desperate resolution had given up
all hopes that it would be passed. ,
The House of Representatives, after cancelling on the 28th
their twenty-fifth rule, which recorded the refusal of the House to
receive any abolition petitions or notices, by a strange act of in-
consistency reinstated the said rule on the roll of the House on the
day following. This small step towards liberal action is thus
quickly retraced.
The Oxford has just arrived. She left New York on the 3d
(Sunday), but brings papers of the 2d only.