When in London, the speaker of the house of assembly and Mr. Palmer called the attention of Earl Grey to the state of the currency, and his lordship subsequently addressed a despatch to the lieutenant-governor on the subject. He alluded to the practice of the local government issuing treasury warrants for small sums of money, and treasury notes for still smaller sums, for the purpose of meeting the ordinary expenses of the government, as tending to depreciate the currency below its nominal value. Two remedies presented themselves: first, whether it would be proper to endeavor to restore this depreciated currency to its original value; or, secondly, whether it would not be better to fix its value at its present rate, taking the necessary measures for preventing its further depreciation. He recommended the latter course, as more injustice was usually done by restoring a depreciated currency to its original value than by fixing it at the value which it might actually bear. To prevent further depreciation, he recommended that the legislature should pass a law enacting that the existing treasury warrants should be exchanged for treasury notes to the same amount, and that these notes should be declared a legal tender; that it should not be lawful to make any further issue of treasury notes, except in exchange for the precious metals, the coins of different countries being taken at the value they bore in circulation, and that the treasury notes should be made exchangeable at the pleasure of the holders for coin at the same rate. In order to enable the colonial treasurer, or such other officer as might be charged with the currency account, to meet any demands which might be made upon him for coin in exchange for treasury notes, it might be necessary to raise a moderate sum by loan, or otherwise, for that purpose. Though these suggestions were not entirely carried out, yet an act was passed in the session of 1849, which determined the rates at which British and foreign coins were to be current, and how debts contracted in the currency of the island were to be payable. The year 1848 was not remarkable for any historic event in the island,—the taking of the census being the most noteworthy, when the population was ascertained to be 62,634. But it was a most memorable year in the history of Europe, for in that year Louis Philippe, the King of the French, vacated the throne, and fled to England for protection, an event which occasioned a general convulsion on the continent of Europe.