It may be that the extent to which that unlimited currency was pushed, has since had disastrous results. If unwisely permitted without control or regulation, it was, as we think, contracted in a manner even more unwise; and the practical consequence has been an enormous addition to the weight of the public debt. But without a currency of very large extent—without the credit which that currency created—Great Britain could not have continued the struggle so long, nor brought it to a triumphant issue. It was this that stimulated both agriculture and manufactures, the latter having, in addition, the inestimable privilege of the command of the markets of the world, without any interference of a rival. Reclaimed fields and new manufactories were the products of that period; and unquestionably there never was an era in our history when prosperity appeared to be more generally diffused. If prices were high, so were wages. Employment was plentiful, because improvement was progressing on every side, and no jealousy existed between the manufacturer and the agriculturist. During fifteen years, from 1801 to 1815, the average annual quantity of wheat and wheat-flour imported to this country was only 506,000 quarters. Perhaps it may be instructive here to quote the words of an acute observer in 1816, regarding the improvements which had taken place, before any check occurred. The writer of the historical summary in the _Edinburgh Annual Register_ for that year thus expresses himself:— “During the continuance of the last war, many things had conspired to stimulate to the highest extent the exertions of every class of the people of England. Cut off by the decrees of Buonaparte from direct intercourse with some of the richest countries of Europe, the policy which England had adopted in revenge of this exclusion, had greatly increased the action of those many circumstances which naturally tended towards rendering her the great, or rather the sole entrepot, of the commerce of the world. In her the whole of that colonial trade which had formerly been sufficient to enrich, not her alone, but France and Holland also, had now centred. The inventive zeal of her manufacturers had gone on from year to year augmenting and improving branches of industry, in which, even before, she had been without a rival. The increase of manufactures had been attended with a perpetual increase in the demand for agricultural produce, and the events of the two years of scarcity (as they were called) lent an additional spring to the motion of those whose business it was to meet this demand. The increase which took place in the agricultural improvements of the island, was such as had never before been equalled in any similar period of time. Invention followed invention, for economising labour, and increasing production; till throughout no inconsiderable part of the whole empire the face of the country was changed. ‘It may safely