There now remains for consideration the probable effect of the measures we have proposed, in meeting and providing for those great commercial crises, which have hitherto invariably produced severe disasters, and the periodical recurrence of which, under the existing system, can be predicted with almost scientific certainty. We have indeed already in part anticipated this inquiry, but its pre-eminent importance to the pecuniary interests of the whole trading community, demands an ampler treatment at our hands. And if it should be found that the system we propose would not be calculated to alleviate the evils produced by such calamities, or if at least it cannot be shown that it would prevent their unnecessary aggravation, we shall be perfectly willing to abandon it as unworthy of adoption. For we fully unite with those who maintain that the merits of a system of currency are not to be tested by its operation during the ordinary course of trade, but by its adaptibility to those periods of convulsion when the machinery of commerce is subjected to the severest dislocations. Now we think it will be generally admitted, that nearly every monetary crisis arises either out of some deficiency or excess in the circulating medium, or else out of some circumstance that is intimately connected with such deficiency or excess. And if this be admitted, it will clearly follow that the principal object that ought to be kept in view in the regulation of a system of currency, is the prevention of any undue increase or diminution in the amount of the circulating medium, and the immediate restoration of a state of equilibrium, wherever the balance may have been, through whatever cause, disturbed. Unfortunately, however, it is the peculiarity of the present system, that whenever the money market is tending either to an excess or a deficiency, the inevitable effect of the Act of 1844 is to aggravate and not to neutralize the tendency. It may at first sight appear extraordinary, if not incredible, that the same system should at different periods produce results apparently so opposed to each other; but a little consideration will show that this is undoubtedly the fact. And we shall first take the case in which the tendency is towards an excess of circulating medium.