"Holding it to be clear that, under the free trade system, a very large importation of grain into these islands may be looked for now, even in ordinary seasons, and an _immense one in bad harvests_, it is essential that the country should look steadily in the face _the constant drain upon its metallic resources which such a trade must occasion_. Adverting to the disastrous effects of such an exportation of the precious metals in 1839, from a _single year_ of such extensive importation of foreign corn, it is impossible to contemplate without the most serious alarm the conversion of that drain into a permanent burden upon the specie of the country. As the change now to be made will undoubtedly depress agricultural industry, it is devoutly to be hoped that, as some compensation, the _expected increase_ of our manufactures for foreign markets may take place. But this extension will, of course, require a proportional augmentation of the currency to carry it on. And how is that to be provided under the metallic system, when the simultaneous import of foreign grain is _every day drawing more and more of the precious metals out of the country, in exchange for food_?"--(_England in 1815 and 1845_, third edition, _Preface_, page xi. published in April 1846.) But let it be conceded that the government and the _Times_ are in the right on this point; that the importation of grain, coexisting with the absorption of capital in the railways, was more than so poor a nation as Great Britain could bear, and that the dreadful crisis which ensued was the consequence--we would beg to ask, _who has made us so poor_? We shall lay before our readers a few facts in regard to the resources of this miserably poor nation--this poverty-stricken people, who have eaten up their little all in the form of 10,000,000 quarters of grain and 176,000 live cattle, imported in the last nine months. We shall show what they were before the free trade and fettered currency system began; and having done so, we shall repeat the question,--"Who has made us so poor?" This miserable poverty-stricken people, in the years 1813, 1814, and 1815--in the close of a bloody and costly war of twenty years' duration, during which they raised £585,000,000 by loans to government, and, on an average, £50,000,000 annually by taxes, from a population, including Ireland, not in those last years exceeding 18,000,000 of souls--made the following advances and contributions to government for the public service:--