ing their issues, to work out the views and experimental fancies of this modern financier, took advantage, as also of the use of the government money, which the Executive by a coup d'etat had transferred from the United States Bank to their keeping, to increase their circulation, and by their sudden expansion, to give encouragement and additional facilities to the most extravagant and ruinous speculations, that hurried on the country to the commercial crisis, that followed in the early part of the year 1837. It ill accords with the promised success of General Jackson's "humble efforts," to restore the "constitutional currency of the country," when we state, that within the very period of his attempting this financial revolution, from the 1st of January 1834, to the 1st of January 1837, the paper circulation of the United States, instead of being contracted or lessened in its amount, had actually increased ninety millions of dollars! The extension or increase in the amount of bank loans and discounts within this period, had also been, from 200,451,214 to 590,892,661 dollars, being an augmentation, of upwards of three hundred and ninety millions!

But, the result of this weak and criminal enterprise, was productive of other consequences--the very opposite of all that was promised in its realisation. Instead of lessening the number of banking institutions with which the country was already supplied to an excess, and over whose issues the Federal Government possessed no possible control, three hundred new institutions, with a capital of 145

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millions, were added to their number, between the years 1830 and 1837, increasing the actual paper circulation of the United States within this period, from the already enlarged amount of 145 millions of dollars, to 290 millions.

A great part of the specie imported by the means we have stated, was received from Europe; a large proportion abstracted from the vaults of the Bank of England, and as it might be expected, produced an immediate effect upon the currency of Great Britain, advancing the marketable rate of interest on unexceptionable paper, from 2 to 5 per cent. per annum. The pressure that it occasioned, extended in its influence to the United States; British merchants were now more cautious in accepting Bills on the shipments of American produce, and restricted their advances, on the security of American stocks, thus cutting off the primary source from whence supplies had heretofore been derived, to carry on the various internal improvements, the trading business of the country, and which with other causes, assisted in expediting the monetary difficulties, that eventuated in the general bankruptcy that ensued in 1837.

The embarrassments occasioned by this event, though inflicting incalculable injury upon thousands, and while leaving the innumerable dupes at this side to lament the excess of folly and imprudence with which they relied for the payment of their large advances, upon the imagined security of the commercial stability-the honour and good faith of the

American citizen, checked for a while the spirit of over-trading-of commercial gambling, with which the United States had been familiarized, by curtailing the opportunities of which most Americans are prepared to take advantage, of investing themselves with the property and resources of others, without considering the means at their disposal, for its discharge or subsequent repayment.

The public mind in America, nevertheless, very soon became reconciled to these difficulties. The fact that British merchants were to be the principal losers on this occasion, that it was upon their shoulders the burden of these recent failures would necessarily fall, lessened to a very considerable extent the mortification, the lament and disappointment of this disastrous and very general bankruptcy. Some of the public prints, the assumed organs of public opinion, on this occasion, instead of deprecating this measure, as one of spoliation— of positive swindling-called loudly for "more failures" to the large numbers that had gone before, urged every man to take advantage of the "crisis," as the speediest means of bringing about a commercial regeneration of the country; and strange as the accusation, and the deduction attempted to be taken from it, may appear, charged the British capitalist and merchant with extending their monied accommodation to their citizens for the extravagant and sinister purpose, of destroying at some future day, the commercial credit and character of these States. The few, who guided by a more

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commendable and honest principle, had ventured to export specie in discharge or payment of their engagements, contracted in England and other parts of Europe, were denounced as inimical to the national prosperity; whilst a secret, though not to be mistaken feeling of general satisfaction pervaded all classes, that but a small proportion of the debt-the enormous foreign capital, and that the most extravagant representations, the confidant assurance of the most satisfactory and uexceptionable security had decoyed to the United States, was ever destined to return to its rightful, or legitimate owners.

The acquisition of wealth by these means, and in the abandonment of every upright and honest principle, and by speculation merely, is mischievous in itself, in its ultimate consequences, and the demoralizing example it affords to others; destroying the barriers—defacing every proper distinction that should subsist between frugality and a laudable exertion on the one hand, and a wild, unrestrained system of profligacy and gambling on the other. Fictitious wealth, it is almost needless to observe, is no wealth all;—yet, is it the base--the principal foundation on which a large proportion of American trade and business is conducted; upon which the fortunes of the American people in great part depend. We hold the principle, that every thing increases, and is determined in its value, according to the measure of its utility and general usefulness; and becomes depreciated in an adverse ratio according to its incapacity to assist man's wants, or

administer to his necessities; such as land, without man's labour to assure its productiveness, or even money, locked up from his control. Against this, we are told, that every article that is convertible into money, is at least worth whatever it may bring in the market. Land, cleared or uncleared-ground lots, and the variety of other similar and unproductive sources, may to-day command a price that will increase on to-morrow, and still multiply on the next. Some sudden, wild, and speculative mania may still attach a further value to their possession, to continue perhaps for a season, of which to be deprived at some future day, according to the inherent and abstract measure of their usefulness. Of such we assert are a large proportion of the securities of our transatlantic friends the property the unreal wealth, on which they have so often claimed advances from British capitalists, or sought monied accommodation in their own country.

The fictitious value- the undue appreciation attached to every species of property within the United States at this period, and which the speculative mania of 1835 and 1836 (induced by the means to which we have referred), had principally given rise, was in no instance more remarkable than in the extravagant competition which it occasioned in the purchase and acquisition of land, which was seized on with the eagerness of desperation, and as if the supply of some two or three hundred millions of acres, at the disposal of government, was near being exhausted. In carrying out the principle of an entire specie circu