Ricardo’s tract _The High Price of Gold Bullion a Proof of the Depreciation of Bank-Notes_ (1809) prepared the way for the Bullion Committee of the House of Commons (1810), and through them for our own Bank Charter Act (1844). Malthus played a more quiet part. His chief writings on the subject of the currency were two magazine articles, one in the _Edinburgh Review_ of February 1811,[642] and another in the _Quarterly Review_ of April 1823. The first treats of _The Depreciation of Paper Currency_, and is a review of pamphlets by the leading advocates and assailants of the principles of the Bullion Committee’s Report. The Committee had inquired into three subjects: the high price of gold bullion, the state of the currency, and the state of the foreign Exchanges. As to the first, they found that, while an ounce of standard gold was converted at the Mint into £3 17_s._ 10½_d._ (which sum was therefore the Mint price of gold bullion), the said ounce could not in the years 1806–8 be bought by the Mint for less than £4 in bank-notes, or in 1809 for less than £4 10_s_. The market price had risen to that extent above the Mint price, of gold bullion. As to the second, they found that guineas had gone out of circulation, and were practically replaced by small notes between £1 and £5. Finally, as to the third, they found that from the end of 1808 the Exchanges had become more and more unfavourable to England, till in 1809–10 they were with Hamburg nine, with Amsterdam seven, with Paris more than fourteen per cent. below par. After examination of witnesses and consideration of their evidence, the Committee resolved “that there is at present an excess in the paper circulation of this country, of which the most unequivocal symptom is the very high price of bullion, and next to that the low state of the Continental Exchanges; that this excess is to be ascribed to the want of a sufficient check and control in the issues of paper from the Bank of England, and originally to the suspension of cash payments, which removed the natural and true control.” The effects had been very serious, especially on the wages of common country labour (_Report_, p. 73); and the Committee recommend a speedy return to the principle of cash payments, whether the nation be at peace or war, though caution demands that this take place gradually, in the space of two years. It took place, not in two years, but in more than ten, namely on 1st May 1821,[643] Parliament not agreeing to the change till 1819.[644] Cobbett’s venture (to be broiled on a gridiron when the Bank paid in gold) seemed a perfectly safe one.