When we look at the long period of tranquillity which this country has enjoyed since the peace—when we reflect upon the extension of trade, the increase of our colonies, the apparent accumulation of wealth at home, the development of industry, and the enormous social improvements which have resulted from the progress of science—it seems almost miraculous that any combination of circumstances should so rapidly have involved us in financial embarrassments. Those embarrassments are marked by the price of money and its fluctuations, by the difficulty of accommodation, by the unprecedented decline in the value of every kind of property, by the amount of unemployed labour in the market, and by the long list of bankruptcies. We ask for an explanation of these phenomena, and we are referred to a failure of the potato crop! The political economists will not acknowledge the share they have had in the production of such lamentable results—but, fortunately, they cannot alter dates; and one thing at least is incontestible, that the commencement of the period of decline corresponds exactly with that of Sir Robert Peel’s fiscal and currency measures. It may have been that we were previously in danger from the want of these, but the country neither knew nor felt it. The change was made, and since then our prospects have been dark and gloomy. Parliament has utterly failed, during last session, to suggest any remedy for the general distress. It must fail so to do, until it is called together under the auspices of a Cabinet imbued with patriotic principles, aware of the responsibility of their situation, and thoroughly resolved to release themselves from the trammels of a system which has fraud and selfishness for its foundation, and which seeks to aggrandise a few at the sacrifice of the industrious many. May Heaven grant that such men may speedily be called to the supreme councils of the nation, and that this may be the last session, the futilities of which it is our duty to record, under the imbecile and slovenly administration of the Whigs! TO A CAGED SKYLARK, REGENT’S CIRCUS, PICCADILLY. BY B. SIMMONS.