114. So that, when they were turned out of office, hypocritical as the pretence for turning them out was, foul as were the motives of their rivals, and well as all these were understood by every man of sense in the kingdom, their expulsion from office was a day of jubilee to all England: those who were deluded by the cry of "no popery," rejoiced at an imaginary escape from a return of the fires in Smithfield; and those who had too much sense to be thus deluded, rejoiced at the mortification. inflicted on hypocrisy, perfidy, and insolence, such as few men in the world had ever before witnessed.

115. For these reasons, the return of PERCEVAL and his colleagues to power, may be said to have been hailed as a blessing by the nation in general, and by the parliamentary reformers in particular, who saw clearly, that, as long as the Whigs retained their power in the then state of things, there was not the smallest hope of any reform at all, much less of such a reform as would hold out to the people any fair expectation of a redress of their manifold grievances. They knew, indeed, that PERCEVAL and his party were full as much opposed to reform as the Whigs; but they also knew that the Whigs, as soon as they were turned out of power, would return into the ranks of reform, and, with this assurance in their minds, that, without a reform of the parliament, by which they would place the people at their back, they never would enter the paradise of power

again. So that the joy was general when they were chased from that paradise, the wide world before them, and reform for their only hope.

116. Having thus brought the history of the party intrigues, the history of these two celebrated factions, down to the month of February, 1812, we must now step back a little, and take a look at those money affairs, the management of which, during the career of PERCEVAL, laid the foundation of all those changes, all those troubles, all those important events which have taken place since the year 1810. The restriction, as it was called, on the Bank of England, but which was, in reality, a stoppage of the bank, which took place in the month of February, 1796, had made paper money, that is to say, bank notes, the legal tender of the country; its sole medium of exchange; its sole measure of value. The history of the reign of GEORGE the THIRD, up to the time of the commencement of the regency, will be found to contain a detail of all the contrivances by which the circulation of gold was supplanted by that of paper-money; the detail of all the acts of parliament; of all those numerous financial tricks by which the country was drained of its gold, and by which its money-affairs were kept going without any real measure of value. But, in the year 1810, PERCEVAL being minister, first lord of the Treasury, and Chancellor of the

Exchequer, and VANSITTART being his secretary of the Treasury, the Whigs, joined by CANNING, HUSKISSON, and some others of the PITT party whom PERCEVAL had kept out of power on account of their evident desire to supplant him; the Whigs, thus joined by these disaffected Tories, made and carried a motion for the appointment of a committee to make inquiry into the causes of the depreciation of the paper-money, compared with bullion. That is to say, to inquire into the causes why a one-pound note would sell in the market for no more than about fourteen shillings in silver of due weight and fineness; or, to state it the other way, why a guinea in gold would sell for seven-and-twenty shillings, which was actually the case when this committee of the House of Commons was moved for and appointed. We must bear in mind, that this committee was called the BULLION COMMITTEE; because, as we shall see further on, it was this committee that laid the foundation of a series of measures, producing, at several stages of the twenty years which have since elapsed, greater confusion in the affairs of the civilized world, greater fluctuation in the nominal value of property of every description, more transfers of property from hand to hand, a greater and more sudden change in men's fortunes, a greater degree of injustice and of suffer ing, than ever was before produced by any power whether of kings, of emperors, of legis

lative bodies, of general councils; and whether producing war, pestilence, or famine, as its ultimate effects.

117. The paper-money having depreciated in the degree before described, and the coin of the realm having, of course, disappeared, it came into the minds of this bullion committee, who chose one THOMAS HORNER, a Scotch lawyer, and an Edinburgh reviewer, as their chairman; it came into the heads of this committee, of which CANNING and HUSKISSON were two, to make, in the spring of the year, 1810, a report to the house, recommending that the Bank of England should be compelled by law to resume its payments in specie, according to the terms of its charter; that is to say, that it should be compelled, at the end of two years from the date of the act which it proposed to be passed, to pay its notes on demand in the current coin of the realm. This report was made to the house, as I have observed before, in 1810; but it did not come on to be discussed until the winter of 1811, when there took place that which will be remembered during the lives of those who were alive at that time and acting on the scene; but which, if related to posterity, will hardly be deemed to be possible. PERCEVAL and his party contended against the passing of the proposed act. Well they might; for to execute the act would have been absolutely impossible without putting a

Loon to the var vien vas a pig i ita rate more extensive can ever i vithout, noresvez, Hungng the vole kingiem into conFusion ur heir cleston vas founded on an issection of the nost neudent fusefood that wer vas izcepted to temposed mon my jor• tion of mankind. PERCAYAL and is party contender that the mrer-ncher had not depreciited: tatt vas he gold that had risen in pre. after many lays of tebating upon the Ebject, PAXSITTART proposed a resolution to the house, which vas this: That the promissory notes of the said company Bank of England] have hitherto been, and re, at his time, held in public estimatione quirient to the legal con of the reaim, and generally accepted as such, In all pecuniary transactions to which such coin is legally applicabie." Our children will hardly believe that a legislative assembly, all bound by oath to do their duty to his majesty and the people, could be brought to adopt this resolution, in the face of a report of their own house, founded on the evidence of numerous merchants, bankers, and traders, that a guinea would sell for seven-andtwenty shillings in bank notes; and that, of course, it required a one-pound note and seven shillings in silver to purchase a guinea in gold. Yet did this house, consisting of six hundred and fifty-eight members, actually pass this resolution by a majority of three to one; though it was