The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-11-09 00:00:00

STATE OF TRADE

MANcHtsTER, Nov. 6.—We are unable to note any im-
provement in the general cloth market ; for, notwithstanding
the news from the States is of a highly satisfactory character,
whether as regards business or politics, shirtings and print-
ing cloths, the latter of which particularly are sold in great
quantities to the transatlantic traders, continue as dull, and
depressed in price, as ever; and no quantities can be moved
but at rates quite unprecedented for lowness. The heavier
descriptions of goods continue to move off pretty freely, and
are firm in price; in some instances a slight advance on do-
mestic cloth has been demanded. Superfine cotton velvets
too, for the American markets, are in great request, and the
makers have large orders before-hand, and others pressed
upon them, at advanced and advancing rates. We should
think this, at any rate, a most profitable business ; and long
may it so continue. The yarn market has not been quite so
active as previously noted, and but few fresh orders have been.
given by the German buyers. The Russian houses are out
of the market. Prices, however, are steady, and stocks of
yarn uncommonly low ; indeed, several large concerns at
Rochdale, and elsewhere, are working over-hours, in order
to get their orders executed with as much despatch as pos-
sible, as there are tokens of approaching frost, and marine
insurances will shortly be on the advance.

BRADFORD. THURSDAY.—The demand has become more
limited for piece goods ; manufacturers are again producing
fewer of them ; and they seem resolved not to produce a sin-
gle piece more than the legitimate demand requires. There
is no stock for hoarding up. Yarns appear to be stationary
in value, and most of the mills are working short time. There
is not any advance on wool of any kind.

THE CORN LAWS NOT THE CAUSE OF DIS-
TRESS, BUT THE CURRENCY.

The intelligent author of " The Circular to Bankers" has
in his publication advanced an arguthent in favour of the
graduated scale of duties, which we do not recollect any pre-
vious writer has used in its defence, and which neither Mr.
Cobden, Mr. Acland, Mr. Sturge, Rev. Baptist Noel, nor
all the corn-law leaguers and advocates combined together,
can refute or upset.
" In the months of July or August last," he says, " one
of the themes upon which some of the public journals dis-
coursed most frequently and most confidently was the inevi-
table difficulty into which the Bank of England was about to
be thrown by the imports of foreign corn. The imports
were, we believe, greater in amount of value within the two
months between the 20th of July and the 20th of September,
1841, than ever before took place between the same space of
time. This extraordinary fact furnishes a valuable test, by
which to estimate the worth of various dogmas which are
always handled by the ablest and most conspicuous free-trade
advocates, as though they were admitted as indisputable
truths of universal acceptation ; among these is, that the
uncertain operation of our corn laws restrains the produc-
tion of wheat on the continent, so that when a large quantity
is suddenly required for English account, it is scarcely pos-
sible to obtain it, and not at all without paying enormously
high prices for it. The cor❑ law is still in force ; the opera-
tion of the graduated scale gives as much uncertainty to the
proceedings of the produce and the transactions of the mer-
chant as ever ; and yet, on a sudden emergency, which bad
weather at the approach of harvest alone created, we have
been able to import two millions of quarters of old wheat,
three-fourths of which, we learn on diligent enquiry, were
laid into British ports at a price not exceeding, on the average,
48s. per quarter, after paying freight and assurance. And
notwithstanding this sudden and extraordinary draught upon
the continental stores, we have this day seen a sample of
very fine white wheat offered at a price which, after paying
all expenses, except duty, would enable the merchant to sell
it in London with a profit, at 565. the quarter.
" So much for one dogma which has been current ever
since Mr. Jacob published the result of his journey of in-
vestigation on the continent, concerning the corn trade.
" Another dogma is, that the large and sudden imports of
foreign corn necessarily and inevitably cause a great and dan-
grous draught on the metallic treasure of the Bank of Eng-
land to pay for it ; and this had taken such firm bold on the
minds of her majesty's late ministers, that they actually in-
serted it in the Queen's speech delivered to her parliament
on the 26th of August last. _ .

" No position of political economy ought to be introduced
into a royal speech, as a ground for recommending a legisla-
tive measure, which is not absolutely and invariably true.
An occasional import of foreign corn may or may not de-
range our currency, according to given circumstances. It
appeared to us in the month of August last (and the writer
quotes two passages from his Circular of the 20th of that
month, to shew, that he then entertained the same opinion
that he does now) that those circumstances were not to be
found in the then present state of commercial and financial
affairs, which would justify a reliance on the predicted ar-
rangements of the currency ; and notwithstanding the im-
ports of foreign corn have amounted to two millions more
than it was then generally expected they would amount to,
the event has proved that our conclusion was right ; for the
reduction of the stock of bullion of the Bank of England has
amounted to no more than about £400,000, although the im-
ported corn must have cost twelve times that sum. The
bank's return of the 17th August stated the bullion to be
£ 5,106,000
4,713,000

Ditto on the 12th Oct.

These figures exhibit the extreme point of additional pres-
sure produced on the Bank of England by the imports of
corn ; because the exchanges have for some weeks past been
gradually improving."
If these facts are not a poser for our free traders and po-
litical quack economists, we know not were to find one.
The writer then goes on to show another mistake into
which the free traders have fallen in regard to the alteration
that has taken place of late years in the nature of exchanges
and the balance of trade. From these novel truths, at which
none but an individual who devoted his whole time and at-
tention to such intricate, complicated, and abstruse subjects,
could arrive, we can only find room for the following :
" A. perfectly new element of fearful weight and signifi-
cance
was introduced into exchange transactions, when the
credit of governments or public bodies was made an article
of mercantile tragic between one country and another, which,
as far as our recollection or knowledge enables us to speak,
has been utterly disregarded by all the leading political
economists of the present day ; it would not have escaped
the observation of the eminent fathers of the science. The
introduction of this new element in these important affairs
shows, according to our judgment, more glaringly than any
" circumstance, the egregious m ror of making the circulating
medium of ingland in any material degree dependant upon
the exchanges, which may be affected by the sale of the credit
of foreign governments in the London money market. Such
a state of things cannot last; the corn-leagures, with their

more discreet abettors on the one hand, and the strong-
headed men of Birmingham on the other, will break down
the system. It will be futile, and for himself suicidal, for
Sir liobert Peel to attempt any important alteration of the
eorn-law without at the same time placing our currency on a
safe and independent basis."
In conclusion, among other views taken by the writer as
cause's accounting for the extraordinary and striking fact, that
contemporaneously with the greatest import of foreign corn
ever known within the same space of time, the amount of
bullion in the Bank of England should have remained undis-
turbed and the bank at comparative ease, is the following
startling one :
"4. Because—the most important of all the concurring
causes—the restricted issues of paper money in England
have made its currency of high value, and prices of com-
modities, and especially of manufactured goods, extremely
low. A ton of pig iron can now be bought for 21.58., or
2s. 3d. the cwt. This is a thing which requires no mean
capital, great outlay for machinery, costly instruments,
manual labour, and carriage of materials before it can be
produced ; and every single ton of it requires five tons of
coal to have been consumed before the furnace can deliver
its product in pig iron. So that a man for 2s. 3d. can buy
one hundredweight of a commodity which is in universal use
in all countries, and in the producing of which five hundred-
weight of coal have been consumed. Of course he will take
the iron and carry it to countries where he can obtain wheat
at the lowest value, and which wheat when brought to Eng-
land, will exchange for five times its own weight in pig iron
at the iron works. A pound weight of manufactured cotton
cloth can now be bought at a lower price than a pound weight
of raw cotton could be bought for in the year 1835, when a
then eminent Liverpool merchant recommended, by circular
letters, purchases to be made in that raw material, on a con-
viction, that the price could not fail to rise 50 per cent.
higher. These extraordinary and destructive changes in the
value of manufactured products, caused by expansion and
contraction of the circulating medium, must inevitably break
down the prosperity of any people and their moral character
along with it.
" We have shewn, that low prices succeeding to high
prices is the main cause ;—assisted this year by the co-opera-
tion of others ; of the comparative ease of the Bank of Eng-
land, and the steadiness of the exchanges notwithstanding
the large imports of foreign corn. But those consequences
which have excited so much astonishment are purchased at
the cost of the ruin of merchants and manufacturers, and the
distress of the people."

WHIG-RADICAL INCENTIVES TO
INCENDIARISM.

(From the Worcestershire Guardian.)
With deep and painful solicitude we call the attention of
the public to the melancholy fact that our columns this day
teem with the harrowing details of incendiary fires, almost at
our own doors, and in various other parts of the country.
Dreadful and distressing as these occurrences are in them-
selves, they are not worse nor more mischievous in their
effects than is the abominable conduct of the radical press,
in its base and calumnious ascription of them to the conser-
vative government which now happily rules the destinies of
this mighty empire. The moral torpitude of the hireling
fellows who scribble daily slanders, and exert all their puny
ingenuity to pander to the depraved appetites of a lawless
mob of soi disant liberals, who, like the Athenians of old,
are incessantly panting " to see or to hear some new thing,"
must be, to the mind of every man who will give himself the
trouble to think upon the matter without bias and without
prejudice, of an infinitely deeper dye than that of the igno-
rant wretches who, in committing the crimes and atrocities
which it is our painful duty to record, merely obey the im-
plied commands of their leaders. Can anything, we would
ask, supply a more striking and forcible commentary upon
the recent radical exultations over the prospects of a bad
harvest, than the diabolical attempts (unhappily in many
cases too successful) to destroy the product of that harvest,
with the reports of which we are compelled in the faithful
discharge of an important public duty this week to stain our
pages ? We do again say that we attribute far more crimi-
nality to the radical press, which instigates These outrages,
than to the wretched and deluded creatures who are the
more immediate instruments of them. This judgment may,
perhaps, at first sight appear to be somewhat harsh; but let
any reasonable man peruse and consider the following pas-
sage, which appeared in a print published in this city on
Wednesday last, and which we need not farther indicate, and
then say whether our judgment, harsh as it may seem, is not
strictly just. The print to which we refer, speaking of these
same incendiary fires, says—
" There is too much reason to fear that these acts are com-
mitted in dreadful and unavailing retaliation, by men who
have been crushed into utter insensibility to mercy and right
beneath the iron heel of oppression. Despite the remon-
strances of starving multitudes, the tories prorogued parlia-
ment without showing the slightest indications of compassion
for the prevalent distress, or of an intention to devise, at an
early period, measures for its relief. It would seem that this
tory neglect of the prayers of a long-enduring people has
stung them into madness. The counsels of rage have super-
seded the calm dictates of reason and reflection. Swing
west out with the tories ; he returns to welcome their ad-
vent to power with bonfires raised of homesteads and corn-
ricks. While it gives us unfeigned sorrow to notice these
atrocities, we cannot conceal our belief that they are owing in
no small degree to the cold neglect with which the popular
cry of distress has been met by the tories. With an ascend-
ing corn-market, an indifferent potato crop, and the exceed-
ingly high price which the chief necessaries of life continue
to bear, combined with the lamentable decrease of trade,
and consequent want of employment for our artisans, we
tremble to anticipate the miseries and crimes of the coming
winter."

GOLDFINCH'S NEST.--A few days since a young man (T.
Forrest, jun. in the employ of Mr. D. Nicholson, auctioneer,
of Wandsworth) was looking over an old chest which had
been sent to the auction-room for sale, he noticed a peculiar
joint which excited his curiosity ; upon a closer search he
discovered what appeared to be a block of wood, but which
turned out to be several pieces, glued, screwed, and nailed
together, upon breaking open which out tumbled £lOO, sup-
posed to have been concealed there 15 or 20 years. Much
to the young man's credit he gave up the money to the owner
of the chest, who handsomely rewarded him for his honesty.

ri atiltrpoot gPtanbatt.

TUESDAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 9, 1841

" I have the satisfaction to believe that on my part
no undue means have . been employed ; that the con-
test has been conducted with clean hands, in a manner
which an honest man and a Christian need not blush
to acknowledge."
From whose pen does the reader imagine that this
precious sentence emanates? Who is the rejected
PURIST who is thus lachrymose and self-laudatory ?
What eminent patriot is it whose effort to wriggle him-
self into our Town Council " has been conducted with
clean hands," and who " does not blush to acknow-
ledge" the means with which he has worked? Reader,
that man is William Rathbone—the rejected of Great
George's ! the rejected of North Toxteth !! the
rejected of Pitt-street 1! ! —he does not blush to ac-
knowledge the manner in which he has fought this
battle ! We must then blush for him. We blush for
his corruption ; we blush for his shamelessOess ; we
blush more than all for the impenetrable obduracy
which will not see, and which cannot feel, how immea-
surably beneath contempt he has fallen, and how infi-
nitely that contempt is heightened by this unblushing
bravado !

Clean hands, William Rathhone ? Why, of what a
forty doeskin thickness must be the gloves which have
kept those hands from defilement ! Were thy protector
allies drenched only by eau de cologne last Monday
morn ? Were there no dirty garments—no smeared
faces—no whisky-filled, bloodshot eyes, with whose
owners this immaculate was required to fondle ? Was
it purity which paid the rates of the illustrious occu-
pants of so many cellars and courts—so many styes
and stews ? For shame, William Rathbone ! Be
silent, beaten and baffled and fallen Radical ; and,
as "an honest man and a Christian," tell us no more,
even in the pages of your kindred Mercury—your
chosen oracle—of your consummate cleanliness and
your "unblushing" purity !

We could laugh—nay, we have laughed—at this
farrago of superlative insolence and ignorance. And
yet, of laughter it is scarcely so provocative as of pity
and contempt. For fallen indeed must be the spirit of
the man—once eminent amongst his party, once Mayor
of Liverpool—who could permit his wounded self-love
to obtain so great a victory over common sense and
truth as is displayed in the sentence which we have

just quoted.
We cannot, however, pitiable as is the position in
which this would-be great man exhibits himself, allow
one material sentence of his objugatory address to
escape our fellow-townsmen. Listen, Electors of Great
George's Ward, and Electors of Liverpool, to the
accompanying expression of his opinion of your ability
to comprehend his astounding merits and those of his
fellow patriots.
" It is not to be denied or concealed, that a majority of
those who have recorded their votes, though not forming a
majority of the household constituency of Liverpool, have
declared in favour of monopoly. How this has been accom-
plished it is not difficult to say. It is owing to the ignorance
of the constituency as to what are their true interests; to
the virulent bigotry of their clerical and political leaders ;
and, I am sorry to add, to the want of principle, which has
made too many of them the consenting victims of bribery
and intimidation."

A majority of you, in rejecting William Rathbone—
the rejected of Pitt-street and the rejected of North
Toxteth—"a majority of those who have recorded their
rotes, though not forming a majority of the household
constituency of Liverpool," have—done what ? " De-
clared in favour of monopoly !" Shocking and mon-
strous declaration ! Rathbone and monopoly, be ye
henceforth antagonist names. Anti-monopoly and a
collarless coat, be ye henceforth synonymous ! Brutal
constituency of Great George's—" ignorant of your
true interests," unable to perceive the identification of
this " honest man and Christian" with liberty, virtue,
and good government—be ye henceforth anathema-
tised ; for " sorry" is your rejected wooer " to say,"
that it is not folly alone—not your incapacity to see
his transcendant abilities; but that "want of principle
has made too many of you the consenting victims of
bribery and intimidation."

A black prospect, however, is before you ; for " not
many months," exclaims your oracle, " will pass over
your head before the results of this declaration in
favour of monopoly" (and against William Rathbone)
"will be felt, in all their appalling consequences, in the
general sufferings of the country !" Fudge, William
Rathbone ! Keep a quiet tongue. Be modest, and let
your ire evaporate. Believe us, there is no more danger
to be feared from your rejection by the Electors of
Great George's Ward, or from the rejection of all the
tribe of you by the Electors of Liverpool, than there is
from blowing the froth off a pot of. beer or removing
the beaver of a superannuated quaker.

The Liberal journals give many tokens of late, that
a violent apprehension has taken possession of them,
lest the Tory party should use their power to lay re-
strictions on the employment of machinery. They
charge their opponents with being downright haters of
mechanical inventions, and ready, with truculent arm,
to combat windmills, to shiver spindles, or overturn
powerlooms ; as seeing, in such contrivances, only so

many instruments for dispensing with human labour,
and aggravating the amount of human misery. The
alarm, it is true, may be only simulated ; but the lan-
guage is that of men who are not quite at ease in their
own consciences. Why should they be so excessively
nervous for the preservation of their darling machi-
nery, before they have been furnished with some clearer
evidences of a meditated attack upon it, than any
which they are at present able to point to ? A fussy
proclamation of virtue before a specific charge has
been made of wickedness or vice, is commonly looked
upon as a circumstance of suspicion rather than of in-

If the Tories should come forward as ac-
cusers, they ought to be permitted to do so without a
prejudice being raised against them on purely fictitious
grounds; and if the machinery party are " armed so
strong in innocency," and their case be so 'sound in
itself, they should be silent till they are accused, or till
the accusation assume a tangible shape, and then re-
joiced that the law was about to take its course, rather
than complainers at being brought into court. They
may make themselves quite easy, however, on the sub-
ject; the spindles and looms are perfectly safe. The
Tories will never visit the sins of the millocracy on
their guiltless iron subjects; their complaint is not
against machinery itself, but against those who have
misused it, and the evils, hitherto insufficiently.guarded
against, which have, not necessarily perhaps, but in
point of fact have, accompanied its employment. Will
the Liberals refuse to allow the distinction ? They are
not so obtuse in ordinary matters. However, they
may as well take things quietly ; for this machinery
question must be investigated, whether they like it or
not; it is deeply, intimately connected with the cry for
free trade and cheap corn. Evils connected with ma•
.
ehmery there certainly are ; the question has become
urgent, how are they to be remedied ? .
There an interesting paper in Blackwood of this
month, in which many new facts are brought together
to increase our wonder at the astonishing progress
made in Lanarkshire, and in the city of Glasgow espe-
cially, in manufactories, population, wealth, crime, pro-
fligacy, and—pauperism. Well did Goldsmith, long

nocence

since, write—
" 11l fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay."
With this state of things, machinery has had the
most direct and immediate connection. It has been
the main instrument both of the wealth and the pe-
nury—the external splendour and the inward decay;
and similar effects, if not in extent, certainly in degree,
have attended its introduction elsewhere. Now what
is it the machinery party want ? Why, to hide or dis-
guise the evil. They cannot bear the suggestion that
it is possible for machinery to go too fast ; over-pro-
duction is a word which they reject from their vocabu-
lary; a ten-hours factory-hill is an abomination in their
eyes ; and as to the demoralization and degeneracy en-
tailed upon manipulators in crowded factories, we will
do them the justice to say, that they make no hypocri-
tical pretence of caring a straw upon the subject. All
these objections, they allow, are but the mental off-
spring of interested monopolists.
" Machinery increases employment for the labouring
classes,", say they; " every new machine invented
-causes two to be employed, where but one was employed
before ; it is machinery which sets the whole country
in motion, and gives it all its wealth; who would check
its progress is his country's enemy. Only give us a
clear stage and no favour, free trade and markets, and
there will be no complaining in your streets, neither
will you find in us anything but the best friends to the
agricultural and all other classes." If the selfish cla-
mour and reckless impatience of this party were to be
attended to and gratified, it is much to be feared that,
for a while, the evils now more particularly contempla-
ted would be lost sight of. The manufacturing and
machinery system would obtain a fresh stimulus, trade
might revive for the moment, and, in the whirlwind of
the time, no voice would be heard or countenance re-
garded that did not sound, or look like it; but would
the evils of the machinery system be mitigated, or in
any way provided against in the interim ? We fear
not. It would be the ague in its hot fit—the cold
would soon supervene—and then the distressing disco-
very would be made, that the disease had become more
extensive and more inveterate. The present is a very
suitable time for making ample inquiry into the work-
ing of the factory and machinery system, with a view
to diminish or obviate its evils. As it is acknowledged
that much of the distress to which the operatives are
liable is occasioned by their own improvidence and im-
moral habits, education and moral culture, of course,
suggest themselves as the most appropriate remedy for
these evils, and they have not been applied by any
means to the extent required ; but, without other aids,
it is to be feared they will be insufficient of themselves
to stern the muddy and murky torrent which they have
to encounter.

Would that those " liberal" and exclusively enlight-
ened people, whose sympathies are just now so entirely
with the slave-dealing and slave.-holding planters of
South America, would but turn their eyes for a mo-
ment, and seriously contemplate the glorious field
which, we trust, is at length opening for British in-
dustry in our own emancipated colonies ! Let them
glance over the extent of these noble possessions, and
estimate the vast sources of wealth which lie there
undeveloped ;—let them see there fertility running to
—the luxuriant gifts of a bountiful Providence
unreaped and uncared for ;—and say, after the survey
of such lands, capable of supplying the whole world
with their teeming riches, and of absorbing in return
such vast quantities of the products of British indus-
try, whether it is not fitting that all our energies
should be put forth to rescue them from their compa-
rative unproductiveness, and to raise them to that
degree of prosperity and usefulness for which they
were intended by the hand of Nature !
We have again and again urged upon our readers
the pressing importance of this subject, and pointed
to the measures by which the object which we have in
view is to be attained. By the extension of a liberal
system of IMMIGRATION into these colonies,—now
languishing only for the want of an adequate supply
of labour to gather in their inexhaustible riches,—the
curse of slavery would be put down at once throughout
the world, and a source of unparalleled commercial
greatness for England—vast sources of employment for
her manufacturing population—for her merchants, her
shipowners, and her seatnen—would at once be opened
out. Already the enterprise of our colonists them-
selves has done much to point the way, at least, by
which this great boon to our country and to the hu-
man race can be accomplished. Already, by the mere
opening of their ports to the free labourers of other
states, they have shown what might be done for the
British West Indies, (and in their prosperity, let it be
borne in mind, is at stake the great question of negro
slavery throughout the world,) were the hands of the
British legislator stretched forth in an earnest and will-
ing spirit to aid their efforts. May we hope that the
lesson which these efforts have, so far, taught, may not
be lost upon the present government ? We trust that
it will not.

waste—

By a copy of the Guiana Times, which is now before
us—(dated September 22nd, and received by the
last packet)—we have the following intelligence,
which we quote as confirming the predictions in which
we have ever indulged with respect to the success of
immigration, if once fairly tried, in the British co-
lonies :

" The arrival of the Superior. with 224 Africans on board,
has once more attracted general notice to our prospects of
IMMIGRATION FROM SIERRA LEONE. When this vessel,
which is admirably fitted up, left the African coast, there
were, the commander says, a thousand people who would
have come in her had there been room for them. Many
thousands more expressed a wish to follow."
Nor is such an inclination tile result of any system
of crimping on the part of our colonists, as we would
fain be made to believe by the organs of the anti-sla-
very party and the revilers of our West Indian inte-
rests. On the contrary, we are satisfied that it is a
spontaneous effort on the part of the immigrants
themselves,—the only inducement used by the planters
having been to send back amongst their fellow-coun-
trymen a number of those who had previously emi-
grated, to communicate the observations which they
had made during an extensive perambulation through
the country.
" We observe," continues the same journalist, " that
English writers in the anti-slavery interest are impressing on
the minds of the English people a sense of the propriety of,
as they term it, keeping a sharp look-out upon our planters.
The sharper the better, say we. Having nothing to conceal,
our planters may submit all the arrangements on their pro-
perties to the nicest eye, and we do trust that those steamers,

which are to he started nest month, will bring out a host of
visitors and tourists, to ascertain, by personal inspection, the
condition of our peasants, instead of trusting to the repre-
ientations of individuals, who draw their inferences as to the
free system from the heartburnings that prevailed during the

apprenticeship."
In the above hope we need not say how cordially we
agree. Let the English 'people—let the anti-slavery
porticn of it even—once be able to look upon the con-
dition and prospects of our West Indian colonies, in a
dispassionate spirit ; and they will be the first and the
loudest to cry out for the aid of government to he ex-
tended, largely and freely, to afford them a supply of
free labourers, as the true and most efficacious means
of putting down that odious system of slavery which
exists in the colonies of other countries.

From the Exchequer bills' fraud to a war with
China, it is all the same—the Whigs have laid the egg,
their successors, the country, and posterity enjoy the
felicity of tending the produce. Pray heaven, there
be not many more of them to hatch ; bad Whigling
eggs are extremely insidious, and time alone can assure

us as to the extent of the breed. The China differ-
ences having cracked the shell, have risen from a little
to a now great war. That great Whig diplomatist,
Elliot,, returns home with all his blushing honours
thick upon him, having accomplished this astonishing
feat, for which his country can never feel sufficiently
grateful. He deserves a cordial welcome on his re-
turn, on the same principle that some men who leave
their country " for their country's good," naturally
draw after them the most sincere wishes that favour-
ing gales may speed their progress to a distant land.
We ought to be rejoiced to see the captain relieved
from all his labour of filling broken cisterns in the
China waters. We augur better things from his suc-
cessor Sir Henry Pottinger ; his system is, at all
events, directly the reverse of that of the illustrious
captain. Most people will be of opinion that he had
no choice left but that which he has evidently adopted.
Our relations with the empire had been brought (as
Sir Henry expresses it in his notification) to so
" anomalous and unsettled a state," that no honour-
able retreat by the way of negotiation remained for us.
The only subject of regret is, that a mode of exit so
manifestly hopeless from the first, should have been
so long persevered in. Behold us then in full posses-
sion, or nearly so, of one of our Whig legacies—
namely, a war with the celestial empire ! With regard
io the eventuations of such a conflict, it would be pre-
sumptuous to offer one's speculations in a tone of con-
fidence ; but we own it does strike our humble judg-
ment that the Celestials will be more easily taught to
sing small than protocolists of the Elliot school would
have us suppose. Experience up to the present time
has clearly shown that in the affair of war, the
Chinese mind is in an absolutely infantile state, and it
is scarcely within the bounds of probability that it will
arrive at maturity, before its peaceful and mercantile
developments will have been brought to a more reason-
able state than they were in at the time of the whole-
sale destruction of the opium, or have settled down to
since. We look for great events among this extraor;-
dinary people. The time of their isolation is most
likely drawing to a close, and, although we may not
feel quite complacent as to the precise event which has
brought our forces among them, we cannot regret that
England is the country selected to put an end to a
sequestration which has endured for almost countless
ages.

But to descend in our flight, not from Lombard-
street to a china orange, but from a Chinese war to a
bill forgery—from the Celestial Empire to Exchange-
alley ! What a sublime notion does it give us of
Lord Monteagle, and the business habits of Whig
officials, to discover the facilities they afforded to for-
gers, public gamblers, fraudulent dabblers in public
securities, and ingenious gentlemanly robbers of such
description ! The heads of departments under that
pleasant regime were so intent upon accomplishing

jobs of their own, that they had no leisure to look

after those of their inferiors ; and Beaumont Smith,
M. Salari, Ernest Rapallo, and such worthies, could
play at Exchequer-bills to an unknown amount in Sc-

curity. " The fact is quite clear," says the correspon-
dent of a daily paper, " that the business of the Ex-
chequer-bill-office has been conducted loosely, care-
lessly, on false principles, and in an improper manner,
by men unacquainted with the forms and requirements
of business, and that in future the system must he al-
tered. Business documents meant to be transferable,
require business men to manage them; these should
be on the spot, to answer questions and to resolve
doubts. Had such men been in the Exchequer-bill-
office, and such office in the city, this fraud could
scarcely have been committed—most certainly could
not have been carried on for such length of time."
The memory of Whig Chancellors and Whig Con-
trollers must certainly be sweet in the nostrils of those
who suffer by their negligence. Government will not
pay the bills, it is said, because the name " Mont-
eagle " is a forgery ; but the case of the defrauded is
surely a hard one, for the hills are genuine in all other
respects. It was supposed at one time that even his
lordship's signature was genuine to bills not otherwise
regular, and that the counterfoil was the only criterion
left by which the goodness of the surreptitious issue
could be determined ; but it is now alleged that this is
an error. But, even on this hypothesis, is it not a
hardship that, where so many aids were given to the
practice of deception, and the forms made use of were
abstracted from the Exchequer-office, and consequently
the difficulty of detection was so great, innocent hold-
ers of these seemingly unexceptionable documents
should suffer a total loss ?
0 Lord Monteagle ! Well did a certain gentleman,
whom you very well know, once call you—Lord
Mount-kite ! Great truly has been the controul exer-
cised by you in your office ; and yet we make no doubt
that this worthy Whig, and most peerless peer, will
continue to draw his salary as usual—just as if he had
been the best of public servants, and deserved well of
the republic !

The new. farce of " O'Connell, Lord Mayor" obtains
a prodigious run in the sister country, and keeps the
City of Dublin in a roar. When the entertainment
was first announced, and people generally did not know
what they had to expect, many were apprehensive that
it would be rather of a serious turn, or that the shade
of politics might be so strong as to prevent the gaieties
from appearing to advantage, and producing the desired
effect; but the actual exhibition has relieved all such
fears—laughter may now hold both her sides, and
indulge without the least restraint. Of a truth, Dublin
has had many Lord Mayors, but never before so
amusing a one as Daniel O'Connell. We hope an.
historian brother of his reign, may be found ; it will
form a chapter in the world's history which ought by
no means to be lost. Hitherto his " lordship" has
acquitted himself to admiration. 6' One man," says
our great poet, " in his time, plays many parts" ; but
Daniel plays an infinite number all in one day. He
sits as judge; he acts as counsel ; he is Daniel Lord
Mayor—of no party; he is Daniel the Repealer—a
most decided partisan ; he is a most loyal and dutiful
Chief Magistrate, bearing the Queen's Commission;
he is a demagogue and revolutionist, sympathising with
American rebels, and seeking to separate the kingdom;
in short what is he not between morning's prime and
dewy eve? Punch, Sancho, (in the isle of Barrataria)
Caleb Quotem—a second Daniel come to judgment—
every thing ! Lord de Grey would find a formidable
rival in so Protean en adversary, if his lordship were
unfortunately moved with the ambition of collecting a
crowd, and exciting the wonder of the town; in such a
competition, we know of no man that would have
any chance against Sir Daniel at the present moment.
We wish him joy of his new occupation, and only
would that all his fooleries were as harmless. The
Times 'of Saturday had a long article gravely arraigning
the merry old gentleman as the " curse of Ireland ;"
the Times may have reason for calling him so, but not,
say we, in his capacity of first buffoon on the Dublin
boards. In that character we would uphold him, for
he has afforded us therein a vast deal of excellent sport.

It has occasioned us no little surprise, that, prior to
our
aets
present
en
"impartial and pertinent" mayor vacating
his ntoneof our Radical contemporaries have, as
seat,
usual, ventured to sound a trumpet before him. We
expected that the string would have been first touched
by our venerable friend the Mercury, and that it would
have been kept reverberating by the Journal, Chronicle,
and Albion, until Thomas Bolton would have fancied
himself not quite so fallen in the eyes of all right

-•.
Inur,
Ach,
,of d
into
hart
shat
Lig"

thinking men as he has been represented. What can
be the reason of this omission ? How happens it that
the press which sang so loudly the praises of a Currie,
a Walinsley, a Rathbone, a Hornby, and one or two
others, is struck so dumb when the exemplary conduct
of a Bolton claims its gratitude ? We did hope that
the solitary consolation of reading these accustomed
offerings would have cheered the retirement from office
of Mr. Bolton, but there seems a stinging conviction
on the part of our Radical friends that the remarks in
the council chamber, in reply to the vote of thanks,
were not quite so groundless as they have vainly en-
deavoured to exhibit. We need not say one word to
84, the justice and propriety of those remarks, for
the silence of the friends of Mr. Bolton is sufficiently
significant, and is pregnant with that sort of meaning
Ivhich, we fear, will considerably enhance the chagrin
and disappointment with which the chief magistrate
will quit the civic chair. We may, however, refer to
a letter from a correspondent in another column, ad-
ducing some further proofs of Mr. Bolton's impartiality
beyond those which have already been made public.

"Notwithstanding the efforts of most of our contem-
poraries to sow the seeds of dissension amongst the
Conservatives on their attaining a majority in the
council, we need scarcely say that their endeavours
have proved abortive. They will meet to-day a
Phalanx of united, determined, and honest men, and
the first result of their deliberation will be, the ap-
pointment of John Shaw Leigh, .Esq. as Chief Ma-

Ristrate of our loyal town for the ensuing year. We
believe not the slightest hesitation has ever taken place
(in this subject, arid we expect Mr. Leigh will be con-
ducted to the chair without the slightest opposition, as
the radicals must know it to be worse than useless.

perhaps we cannot do better than refer here to a corn

tnunication which appears elsewhere, signed Fidus
Achates, and to which we allude more for the purpose
131 drawing attention to the promised remarks of our
intelligent correspondent on the School question. We
have reason to know from our acquaintance with him,
that anything proceeding from him is worthy the
Lighest attention.

This morning, immediately after the election of
Chief Magistrate, the Council will proceed to the ap-
pointment of eight aldermen, in the place of those
"hose six years tenure of office expires to-day. A list
of gentlemen, whom it is said the Conservatives will
submit to the approval of the Council, has been pub-
lished by several of our contemporaries; but we have
the best authority for saying it is not to be relied upon.
Though we do not feel justified in making public the
'lames of any gentlemen which have reached us, we
regret it the less, as, in the course of a few hours, all
Speculation—and until then every statement is nothing
else—will be set at rest.
We are not prepared to say that the list, to which
We have alluded, is incorrect in every instance; but it
6 sufficient to say that as to several names it is so.

Reports were current yesterday that Mr. Alderman
tvans had signified his intention to resign the honours
with which, some six years ago, his co-liberals invested
hnn. We have heard several .reasons assigned for this
rather unexpected determination. One is, that seeing
the post of honour, which a little week ago seemed
within his grasp, disappear and vanish from before his
longing sight, he has not sufficient philosophy to sus-
tain pangs of disappointment. Another reason is, that
15ristitutional irritability will not permit him to co-
°Perate with an adverse majority. No higher motives
than these are supposed to exist for the Alderman's
nlagnanimous resolve. We do not undertake to vouch
f°r the truth of the rumour; but if it be true, we can
°nly say that Mr. Evans, at mature age, is playing the
Part of a spoiled child.