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for a length of time upon its internal state, so that the debt and the taxes may have their full undisturbed operation. It is the opinion of many distinguished political economists here, that the debt, however large, is no burthen upon the nation, because they consider the nation both as debtor and creditor. The nation, say they, owes to itself. A more correct view of the subject seems to be that the result of the debt is to make one-half the nation debtors to the other, and the government is the mere agent of the creditor for the collection of the payment. The burden of taxation has evidently become insupportable to the debtor part, and the rejection of the proposal to continue the property tax at a reduced rate is the first unequivocal indication of that fact. But the relief from immediate pressure has been obtained only by postponing the attempt to obtain any permanent relief. The sinking fund now pays off but twelve millions. of the debt yearly by the loss of the property tax, and the war tax on malt. The government is compelled to add by loans or by issuing Exchequer bills fifteen millions to the debt. But as there is reason to expect that the remaining revenue will yield three millions more this year than it did the last, the sum of debt will probably be at the end of the year about the same that it was at the beginning. Much is said by the ministers in Parliament to represent the actual state of things as an intermediate stage between war and peace, and they hold out the prospect of being able to reduce their expenditures six or five millions lower the next year than this. That however is a very precarious promise. Upon the principles on which they found their naval and military establishments for the present year, it is more likely they will find the want of increased expenses for the next, than that they will think themselves enabled to make further retrenchments. There is therefore little reason to

expect for years to come any alleviation of the national debt; but there is nothing in the present condition of the nation that demonstrates inability to bear it. The distress which is represented as pressing upon the nation is in point of fact limited to a small, though important, portion of the people. It is even unbalanced by a corresponding augmentation of the wealth of another part of the community; and however afflictive the operation of this process may be upon individuals, and however it may be justly taken for the symptoms of a deep and most dangerous disease in the state, it would be an utterly erroneous conclusion to infer from it that it has any effect to impair the present strength or resources of the nation.

The general aspect of affairs in Europe seems to promise a durable tranquillity. No solid confidence can, however, be placed in it so long as France shall remain in her present forced and unnatural condition. By the treaties this is to continue at least three, and contingently five years. If the people of France should for that length of time submit to this new and extraordinary form of government, it may be foretold with the most undoubting confidence, that the necessity for keeping up the same guaranty to maintain the authority of the Bourbons will, at the end of the five years, rather be greater than less than it was when the arrangement was made. Even if the present king, the least obnoxious to the French people of the whole family, should live through the period of this royal servitude, he will certainly need the foreign armies to protect his authority; so that it will be impossible for him to dispense with them. To his legitimate successors they will be still more necessary than to him. But even should the course of nature change in their favor, and should they feel their hold upon the affections of the nations to be so strong that they can ven

ture to dismiss their allied guardians, it may be doubted whether England, Austria, Prussia or Russia, will be equally convinced of the expediency, either of withdrawing their troops or of restoring the fortresses which place France so completely under their control. From the duress under which France is now held there appear to be only two possible issues. One by the dissolution of the European alliance against her, of which hitherto there is not the slightest prospect; and the other by the impatience and desperation of the people of France breaking out in abortive insurrections, which would inevitably lead to further dismemberment and to the final partition of the country. The elements of civil society in France are dissolved. Her military power is annihilated. The conflict of political opinions and of individual interest is inveterate, irreconcilable. There is no real government. No genuine tie of allegiance from the subject to the sovereign, or of protection from the sovereign to the subject. Religion itself, after losing all its salutary control, has yet just influence enough left to be the cause of deadly dissension. It is scarcely possible that France should escape the fate of Poland. The manner in which this event is to be consummated and the distribution of the spoils will form perhaps for some years the great subject of negotiation and discussion among the European allies. I am, etc.1

1" Mr. Fry [of Glennie, Son and Company] entertained me with melancholy prophecies of great and numerous approaching failures in America. He says there will be enormous, overwhelming losses upon all the late commercial speculations from America to every part of Europe and to India; and indeed that he shall be afraid to hear from 'The States.' He says also that the repeal of the discriminating duties, according to the commercial convention, though it appears upon paper to be fair, will operate entirely against America; that the American vessels cannot stand a competition for freight with the Scotch; that the Scotch can navigate their vessels at half the expense, and feed their sailors at half the cost. I asked him how the speculations upon British manufactures to America now answered. He said, he

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TO EDWARD WYER

LONDON, 13th April, 1816.

SIR:

I ought perhaps in candor to inform you that shortly after I had the pleasure of meeting you at Gothenburg, several letters written by you accidentally fell into my hands open. They contained animadversions upon the persons then commissioned on the part of the United States for the negotiation of the peace which I thought unsuitable, and which the event has happily proved to have been illfounded. I was not individually named in those remarks, but neither was I excepted from them. You had delivered to me at Gothenburg several letters of recommendation from worthy and most respectable friends of mine in America, and you had expressed to me sentiments of regard which I thought inconsistent with the general censure passed upon all the commissioners in your letters written at the same time, and should however have overlooked everything that merely concerned myself. But there was in two or three of the letters a charge of the foulest corruption upon the present administration of the United States, a charge which I hope you are now convinced was rash and utterly groundless, a charge which I then thought and still think unbecoming in the letters of a person bearing a commission under that very administration. If you have copies of those letters you can recur to them, and if not, you will doubtless recollect

did not know. They did not meddle with the dry goods line. Young Glennie said they had declined executing many orders that they had received to purchase goods, knowing that if they should send them, they would sell to a loss." April 8, 1816. Ms. Diary.

the substance of them. If you have any explanation to give concerning them I shall be happy to receive it, and to find it such as to justify the confidence of those gentlemen who so strongly recommended you to mine.1 Meanwhile I remain, etc.

DEAR SIR:

TO SAMUEL DEXTER

LONDON, 14th April, 1816.

Some months since Captain Stuart upon his arrival in this country with Colonel Aspinwall delivered to me your favor of 14 October, which I received with much pleasure. I have found in Captain Stuart an agreeable and intelligent acquaintance. He has lately left England with some others of our countrymen upon a tour to France.

Nothing could be more gratifying to me than your obliging suffrage to the usefulness of my services since my present residence in Europe; but in the sincerity of my heart I assure you that they are not to be compared to the services which during the same time you have rendered to our common country. My path of duty has been clear. Whatever success has attended it must be attributed, first, to a wiser disposer of human affairs than any of us, secondly, to the glorious energy of our countrymen upon the ocean and upon the land-an energy which neither our foreign enemy, nor those wise men of the east who built their system of politics upon contempt for the American character had

1 In replying Wyer stated that his "severity on the commissioners was occasioned by the very unhandsome conduct I had received from Mr. Russell; and from the vile behavior of Mr. Barker, captain of the cartel Chauncey." He denied intending to make any charge of corruption against the administration. Wyer was United States consul at Riga.

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