Estimated Year. Expenditure. 1847 £64,000,000 1848 70,000,000 1849 47,000,000 1850 10,000,000 [18] That this statement is not exaggerated will appear evident from the following returns:-- Corn, flour, meal, live animals, &c., 1845. 1847. imported to October 10, £4,410,091 £31,241,766 This of itself, coupled with the simultaneous contraction of the currency and fall of the exports, will explain the whole catastrophe. [19] The following table of the prodigious advance in the importation of two articles alone, tea and sugar, will show how rapidly they have increased in the three last years, at the very time that our exports were diminishing:-- 1845. 1846. 1847. Sugar, cwt. 4,413,969 4,469,772 6,510,693 Tea, lb. 36,825,461 41,432,794 44,912,880 1846 to 1845. 1847 to 1845. Sugar, cwt. 55.803 incr. 2,096,724 incr. £4,193,448 Tea, lb. 4,607,278 incr. 8,087,419 incr. 803,741 ---------- £4,997,189 [20] --Mr Newdegate's Speech, _Morning Post_, December 2, 1847. [21] Parliamentary Paper, 30th July, 1843. [22] Viz. in round numbers:-- England, £14,000,000 Country Banks, 8,000,000 Ireland, 6,400,000 Scotland, 3,300,000 ------------- £31,700,000 [23] _Mémoires de Fléchier sur les Grands-Jours tenus à Clermont, en 1665-66_: publiés par B. Gonod, Bibliothécaire de la Ville de Clermont. Paris 1844. [24] These letters were addressed to a young Norman Lady, Mademoiselle Anne de Lavigne, who wrote sonnets in the Scudéry style, and with whom Fléchier kept up a gallant and high-flown correspondence in mingled prose and verse. As far as can be ascertained the _liaison_ was an innocent one; it is quite certain that it caused no scandal at the time. Most of the letters bear date three or four years subsequently to the _Grands-Jours_. [25] _Voyage en Auvergne_, and _Resumé de l'Histoire d'Auvergne_.