parcel of Bahia Cocoa sold at 33s. per cwt.—Nothing done in GINGER or PEPPER, but a small lot of PIMENTO brought 6⅛d. per lb., being an extreme price.—RICE.—No sales of Carolina; 13,000 bags East brought 7s. 6d. for broken, and 8s. 6d. to 9s. 9d. for low to good white, being a decline of fully 6d. per cwt.—RUM is difficult of sale, except at lower prices; the business consists of 200 puns. Demerara, 32 to 37 per cent O. P. at 2s. 2d. to 2s. 4½d. per gallon.” There is a further decline, it will be seen, in every important article; and the most experienced houses, I find, are at a loss to tell at what point it will stop. It is generally admitted that, but for the accommodation which the large holders can command, there must have been a general crash long ere this, which would have overwhelmed half the mercantile community in ruin. This would have reacted fearfully upon the shopkeepers in the interior of the country, whose credits would have been suddenly stopped, whilst their overdue accounts would necessarily have been sternly exacted. In fact the bulk of this class at present stand upon the verge of an abyss, into which a sudden panic may hurry them at any moment. It will doubtless be urged that this state of the produce market is only temporary; that importations, having become profitless, will be discontinued, and the supply thus become equal to the demand. This would be the natural course of things under a sound system; but no sign of cessation of imports is at present to be seen; and it is much to be questioned whether any such cessation can take place, without throwing a large portion of our manufacturing population into very serious distress, if not into anarchy and outbreak. If importation of produce is restricted, exportation must be restricted in proportion. The manufacturer has thrown himself into almost total dependence upon the foreign buyer of his wares. With a flourishing home market for manufactures, a glut of produce might be got rid of without difficulty. But the same cause—an inability of the masses to consume—which depresses the prices of produce, now exists equally with respect to the home market for manufactured goods; and to stop production and exports, with a view to enhance the value of the stocks of produce already received in remittance from the foreigner, would add another element to the perplexity in which the nation is plunged. This portion of the subject, however, it is not for me to discuss here. I only refer to it in order to express the opinions which are beginning to be mooted in influential commercial circles.