every mortgagee will be driven in desperation to recur upon his debtor, and every landlord upon his tenant; while the whole landed interest, high and low, though chiefly, no doubt, the middle and smaller proprietors and tenants, will be compelled to curtail their expenses to the lowest sum, and those who have already but a narrow margin of surplus, be reduced to beggary and ruin. But would this confusion and distress affect the landed interest alone? No; the same alarm which involved that interest in ruin, would soon extend to manufactures, by striking at their foundation, CREDIT. Already, from a singular and unhappy combination of causes, a period of restricted circulation and of high interest for money, has begun to follow on one of unlimited accommodation: distrust seems ready to take the place of confidence: gigantic schemes in progress are paralysed or threatened with abandonment: the country appears to be trembling on the brink of one of those commercial crises which from time to time, and unavoidably, arise out of the spirit of speculation. Let but this additional element of confusion--the distress of the agricultural classes, _and all that depend upon them_--be thrown into the already wavering scale, and who can pretend to estimate the amount of ruin which a week may produce? The paradise of free-trade in corn may indeed be obtained, but it will be reached through the purgatory of a general bankruptcy. But is free-trade to be confined to corn? Are the agriculturists alone to be deprived of protection, the manufacturing interests retaining the advantage of those protecting duties which exclude the competition of foreign markets? That is plainly impracticable. The silk, the wool, the iron, the manufactures of the Continent--the "main articles of _food and clothing_," according to Lord John Russell's letter--are also to be admitted into our markets at rates with which native industry cannot contend. Is this likely to raise wages, or to keep them as they are? Will it better the condition of the working classes? Or is the condition even of the higher classes in the mercantile circles to be made more comfortable by that immediate increase of the income-tax, which must be imposed, to balance the loss of revenue arising from the deficiency of our customs, if national faith is to be preserved, or the government of the country conducted. In every view of the case, and to every interest in the state, we believe that absolute free-trade, such as appears to be contemplated by the late leader of the Whigs, would be fraught with ruin. The letting loose of such a storm upon the State, _with the hand of Lord John Russell to hold the helm_, is a contingency from which we believe the very boldest will draw back.