refer here to the power which it gives of taking fleets into action, or of making more rapid sail to the localities where their services are required, although the effect of this power is incalculable in value. We allude merely to the advantage which we shall derive in such struggles from the vastly increased rapidity and regularity with which we are at present supplied with information of an enemy’s movements, from all quarters of the world. We shall no longer have to witness the spectacle of rival fleets seeking each other in vain—proceeding from sea to sea only to discover that they have missed each other on the way. Traversed as the ocean is now in every direction by fast-sailing steamers, there can be little fear of such fleets, if their commanders are really anxious for an engagement, being unable to procure tolerably accurate information of each other’s whereabouts. We shall no longer require the aid of powerful fleets as convoys of our merchantmen, in seas where it can be so readily known that an enemy is not to be met with; and, as another result, we shall probably see an end put to the injurious system of privateering. Few parties will be found to risk life and property in assaults upon the commerce of a powerful maritime country, with the certainty before them that every movement which they make must be so promptly made known, and every offence which they commit must bring down upon them such speedy punishment. There is, however, one element of commercial mischief which may make itself felt during the coming struggle, although such mischief, if it unfortunately should occur, could not be attributed properly to the mere fact of the existence of a state of war. It may, and very probably will, be proved that we cannot carry on a free-trade system, which involves the necessity of providing for enlarged imports concurrently with expensive military and naval operations both in the north and south of Europe, and possibly in Asia as well, with a currency restricted as ours is by the mistaken legislation of 1844. Already the note of alarm of this danger has been sounded from a quarter whose authority cannot be treated lightly on such a subject. Mr William Brown, the eminent American merchant, and member for South Lancashire, emphatically warned her Majesty’s Government, during the recent debate on the Budget, of the probability, and almost certainty, of a severe monetary crisis as the consequence of persistence in carrying out in their full stringency the measures passed, at the instigation of Sir Robert Peel, in that and the following year. But for the operation of those measures, Mr Brown contended that the calamity of 1847 would never have occurred. The country, he says, was paralysed by the effect which they produced; and the seven or eight millions sterling in bullion, held at the time in the coffers of the Bank, “might as well have been thrown into the sea,” as retained there unproductive during a period of pressure. Should the same