UrJIVERolTY OF 
 ILLINOIS LIBRAF.Y^^^, 
 
 O « /%w*VO
 
 A 
 
 ^ 
 
 SECOND LETTER 
 
 TO THE 
 
 (iPtritov of tje (iBlrinfiuruJ »eeMi) JountaT, 
 
 FROM 
 
 MALACHI MALAGROWTIIER, Esq. 
 
 ON THE 
 
 PROPOSED CHANGE OF CURRENCY, 
 
 AND 
 
 OTHER LATE ALTERATIONS, 
 
 AS THEY AFFECT, OR ARE INTENDED TO AFFECT, 
 
 THE 
 
 KINGDOM OF SCOTLAND. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 EDINBURGH : 
 
 FOR WILLIAM BLACKWOOD, EDINBURGH : AND 
 T. CADELL, STRAND, LONDON. 
 
 1826.
 
 LETTER SECOND, 
 
 ON THE 
 
 PROPOSED CHANGE OF CURRENCY. 
 
 TO THE EDITOR 
 OF THE EDINBURGH WEEKLV JOURNAL. 
 
 Dear Mr Journalist, 
 When I last wrote to you, I own it was with 
 the feeHiigs of one who discharges a painful duty, 
 merely because he feels it to be one, and with- 
 out much hope of his endeavour being useful. 
 Swift says that kingdoms may be subject to po- 
 verty and lowness of heart as well as individuals ; 
 and that in such moments they become reckless 
 of their own interests, and contract habits of sub- 
 mission, which encourage those who wish to take 
 advantage of them to prefer the most unreason-
 
 4 THE CURRENCY. 
 
 able pretensions. It was when Esau came from 
 the harvest, faint and at point to die, that Jacob 
 proposed to him his exorbitant bargain of the 
 mess of pottage. There is a deep and typical 
 mystery under the scriptural transaction ; but, 
 taken as a simple fact, the sottish facility of the 
 circumvented heir rather aggravates the unfeel- 
 ing selfishness of the artful brother, to whom he 
 was made a dupe. The " whoreson Apoplexy" 
 of Scotland may be rather a case of repletion 
 than exhaustion, but it has the same dispiriting 
 effects. 
 
 Yet, into whatsoever deep and passive slum- 
 ber our native country may have been lulled 
 from habits of peaceful acquiescence, the Go- 
 vernment have now found a way to awaken her. 
 The knife has gone to the very quick, and the 
 comatose patient is roused to most acute posses- 
 sion of his feelings and his intellect. The hea- 
 ther is on fire far and wide ; and every man, 
 woman, and child in the country, are bound by 
 the duty they owe to their native land, to spread 
 the alarm and increase the blaze. 
 
 ■ Jam proximus artlet 
 
 Ucalegon-
 
 TH15' CURRENCY. 5 
 
 The city of Edinburgh has uttered a voice be- 
 comiug the ancient Queen of the North. The 
 Law Bodies, and the Gentry of J\Iid-Lothian, 
 have set the example of petitioning Govern- 
 ment, and proclaiming their sense of the mea- 
 sure designed ; it has been followed in other 
 counties, and I trust to see it soon spread into 
 the smallest burghs, into the most wild districts 
 of Scotland. There are none which the impend- 
 ing misery will not reach — there are no Scotch- 
 men so humble that they have not a share in a 
 national insult, so lowly that they will not suf- 
 fer from a national wrong — none that are unin- 
 terested in maintaining our rights both indivi- 
 dually, and as a people — and none, I trust, that 
 have not spirit to do so, by all legal and peace- 
 able means. 
 
 I congratulate you, sir, on the awakened spi- 
 rit of our representatives in the two Houses of 
 Parliament. Our true-hearted Duke of Athole, 
 and Lord Lauderdale, whose acuteuess and 
 powers of thinking and reasoning may, without 
 disparagement, be compared with those of any 
 statesman now living, have set an example not 
 to be forgotten ; and we know that the slender 
 proportion of aristocracy, which Scotland was
 
 6 TFIE CURRENCY. 
 
 left in possession of at the Union, entertain the 
 same patriotic sentiments. We are equally as- 
 sured of the faith of our representatives in the 
 Lower House, and they on their part may be- 
 lieve they will not serve an ungrateful public. 
 Scotland expects from them the exertions cor- 
 responding to their high trust — a trust of which 
 they must render an account to their constitu- 
 ents, and that very shortly. Let every body of 
 electors, from Dumfries to Dingwall, instruct 
 its representative upon their own sentiments, 
 and upon the conduct which they desire he 
 should hold during this great national crisis ; 
 and let the Administration be aware, that if any 
 of our Members should desert the public cause 
 on this occasion, they are not like to have the 
 benefit of their implicit homage in the next Par- 
 liament. Burns's address to them in jest, is 
 language which may now be held to the Scottish 
 representatives in serious earnest : — 
 
 Does ony great man glunch and gloom, 
 Speak out and never fash your thumb ; 
 Let posts and pensions sink or soom 
 
 Wi' those wha grant them ; 
 If honestly they cannot come, 
 
 Far better want them.
 
 THE CUERENCY. 7 
 
 I have been told by some cautious friends, 
 that the time for such remonstrances as I do 
 most earnestly recommend to our Scottish re- 
 presentatives, would be now more unfavourable 
 than formerly — so unfavourable, that they re- 
 present the case as desperate. Admitting all I 
 had said in my first Epistle, these douce men 
 see no resource but in the most submissive ac- 
 quiescence to the commands of those in whose 
 breasts, they say, is now lodged the uncontrolled 
 power to listen to reason, justice, nay, compas- 
 sion, or to prefer the exercise of their own plea- 
 sure to the dictates of them all. Your birth- 
 right, proceed these Job's comforters, will be ta- 
 ken from you at all events by supeiior numbers. 
 Yield it up, therefore, with a good grace, and 
 thank God if they give you a mess of pottage 
 in return — it will be just so much gain. These 
 desponding persons explain the state of total in- 
 significance into which, they say, we have fallen, 
 by a reference to the Irish Union, which has 
 added an hundred more Members to Parlia- 
 ment ; so that the handful assigned to Scot- 
 land, (which never possessed a very influential 
 power in the House, so far as numbers go,) must
 
 -/ 
 
 E CUBREXCY. 
 
 now altogether lose consideration, in opposition 
 to the ma^rities of a peremptory JNIinister, who, 
 like the " merciless Macdonald," 
 
 from the Western Isle, 
 With Kernes and Gallow-glasses is supplied. 
 
 It requires but little arithmetic to compute,, 
 that the fated number, forty-five, bears a less 
 proportion to six hundred and thirteen than to 
 five hundred and thirteen, the number of the 
 House of Commons at the time of the Scottish 
 Union. Yet, sir, I am not altogether discou- 
 raged with this comfortless prospect. I think 1 
 can see means of relief arising even out of the 
 very difficulties of the case. Let us regard the 
 matter somewhat more closely. 
 
 In the first place, I will consider what we can 
 do by our present Scottish representation, — our 
 own proper force. Next, I will have a friendly 
 word or two with those same auxiliaries of 
 Ireland, whom, perhaps, the Sassenagh may 
 find less implicit followers in the present case, 
 than my chicken-hearted advisers apprehend. 
 Lastly, I will address myself to the English 
 Membersj and especially to such who, on great
 
 THE CURRENCY. 9 
 
 occasions^ prefer the exercise of their own under- 
 standing to an absolute and obsequious defer- 
 ence to the dictates of an Administration, how- 
 ever much they may respect the statesmen of 
 whom it is composed, or are disposed to acquiesce 
 in the general principles on which they act. 
 
 Upon the first point I beg to remind you, that 
 much greater effect is derived from the decided, 
 conjoined, and simultaneous exertion of a com- 
 paratively small force, than from the efforts of a 
 more numerous body, not bound together by the 
 same strong ties of duty and necessity. Battles 
 have been often gained, and political measures 
 have been as frequently carried, by the deter- 
 mined urgency, or no less determined resistance, 
 of a comparatively insignificant number. 
 
 iVb<y numerus sumus^ is a logical argument 
 perfectly understood by an English Minister, 
 and has had great weight in the scale. I will 
 give a ludicrous instance of this. There was of 
 old a certain Nobleman, who, by means of cer- 
 tain boroughs, sent certain members to West- 
 minster, which members, being there, were cer- 
 tain to hold the same opinions with the Noble 
 Lord, and to vote in the House of Commons
 
 10 THE CURRENCV. 
 
 exactly to the same tunc as his Lordship iu the 
 House of Peers. The Great Man, who was the 
 animating soul of this Holy Alliance, had oc- 
 casion to ask some favour of Government. It 
 was probably something very unreasonable— at 
 any rate, it was so disagreeable to the Minister, 
 that, I am told, he would as soon have relished 
 the proposal of giving silver for a twenty-shil- 
 ling note of the Bank of Scotland. The Mi- 
 nister made civil excuses — the Peer observed iu 
 reply — We are seven votes. — The Minister 
 stopped, cleared his throat, changed his argu- 
 ment.7— TVe are seven voices, was again the only 
 answer. — The Great INIan, usually flattered, be- 
 came flatterer in his turn — he conjured — he even 
 threatened. — The Peer was as unassailable, in 
 his numerical proposition, by entreaty or argu- 
 ment, as the sweet little rustic girl in a poem 
 which it is almost sin to parody — 
 
 Wliate'er the Minister could say, 
 The Noble Lord would have his way, 
 And said, iVoy, we are seven. 
 
 They parted on these terms. The Minister 
 retired to rest, and dreamed that he saw the per-
 
 THE CURRENCV. 11 
 
 tinacious Peer advancing to storm the cabinet, 
 after having, like the great magician Kehama, 
 broke himself up into seven sub-divisions of equal 
 strength, and by means of this extraordinary 
 process of multiplication, advancing to his daring 
 enterprise by seven avenues at once. The vision 
 was too horrible — and a " private and confiden- 
 tial " note gave the necessary assurance to the 
 Noble Lord, that the magical number Seven had 
 as much weight in Saint Stephen's, as Dr Slop 
 assigns to it in the Catholic mysteries ; so the 
 seven planets continued to move regularly in 
 their political orbit. 
 
 This is a strong proof, sir, of the vis unita for- 
 tiori and contains a good lesson for our liepre- 
 sentatives upon the present occasion. It would 
 be strange indeed, if they, to whom their coun- 
 try has given her confidence, should hesitate to 
 save her from dishonour and deep distress, which 
 may approach nigh to ruin, [I will make my 
 words good before I have done,] when it is only 
 necessary that they should be as determined and 
 inflexible, where the safety of an ancient king- 
 dom is concerned, as the selfish old borough- 
 jobber and his political friends showed them-
 
 12 THE CURRENCY. 
 
 selves pertinacious, in pursuit of some wretched 
 personal object of private advantage. 
 
 The Scottish Members of Parliament should 
 therefore lose no time — not an instant — in uni- 
 ting together in their national character of the 
 Representatives of Scotland. If the scene were 
 to be the British Coffee-House, the hour half 
 past six o'clock p.m., and the preliminaries of 
 business a few glasses of claret to national toasts, 
 I should not have the worse opinion of the sense 
 of the meeting. Their first resolution should 
 be, to lay aside every party distinction which 
 can interfere with the present grand object, of 
 arresting a danger so evident, so general, so im- 
 minent. It may be at first an awkward thing 
 for Whig and Tory to draw kindly together ; 
 for any of the natural Scottish spirit which is 
 left among us has been sadly expended in feed- 
 ing a controversy in which we must always play 
 a subordinate part, and these party distinctions 
 have become far too much a matter of habit to us 
 on both sides to be easily laid aside. Indeed, we 
 poor Scotsmen are so conscious that our civil 
 wars are but paltry and obscure episodes in the 
 great political quarrel, that we have usually en-
 
 THE CURRENCY. 13 
 
 deavoiired to attract attention, and excite an 
 idea of their importance, by the personal violence 
 and noisy ferocity with which we wage them. 
 We, the Whigs and Tories of Scotland, have 
 played in our domestic quarrels the respectable 
 part of two bull-dogs, who think it necessary to 
 go by the ears under the table, because their 
 blue-sleeved beef-eating masters have turned up 
 for a set-to. The quadrupeds worry each other 
 inveterately, while not a soul notices them till 
 the strife of the bipeds is appeased or decided, and 
 then the bleeding and foaming curs are kicked se- 
 parate by their respective owners. We play among 
 the great dramatis personce the part of Moh on 
 both sides, who enter and scuffle in the back 
 scene, and shout so that their cries at least may 
 be heard, since no one will attend to anything 
 which they say in articulate language. You 
 may have been a bottle-holder of this kind, Mr 
 Journalist, to one or other of the great parties. 
 I am sure I have, and I daresay may have some- 
 times made mischief, though I have oftener en- 
 deavoured to prevent it : for, like the good knight 
 Jacques de Lalain, " Defeu houter ne voulois- 
 je eire consentant. Still, however limited my
 
 14 THE CURRENCY. 
 
 share may have been in those jars, I liave lived 
 to see the day when I must regret bitterly my 
 having had the slightest accession to them, 
 could I conceive the opinions of so obscure an 
 individual may have added gall to the bitter- 
 ness which has estranged Scotsmen from each 
 other. Let these follies be ended ; and do not 
 let us, like our ancestors at Falkirk, fall to jea- 
 lousies among ourselves, when heart, and voice, 
 and hand, should be united against the foreign 
 enemy. I was about to eraze the last word ; 
 but let it remain, with this explanation — that 
 the purpose of this invasion of our rights is ac- 
 knowledged to be kind and friendly ; but as the 
 measure is unauthorized by justice, conducted 
 without regard to the faith of treaties, and con- 
 trary to our national privileges, we cannot but 
 term the enterprise a hostile one. When Henry 
 VIII. dispatched a powerful invading army to 
 compel the Scots to give the hand of their young 
 Queen Mary to his son Edward, an old Scot- 
 tish nobleman shrewdly observed, " He might 
 like the match well enough, but could not brook 
 the mode of wooing." We equally arc sensible
 
 THE CURRENCY. 15 
 
 of England's good will, wc only do not relish 
 the mode in which it is at present exhibited. 
 
 The Scottish Members having thus adopted 
 a healing ordinance, reconciled their party quar- 
 rels, or laid them aside for the time, would by 
 that very act decide the fate of their country ; 
 and when drinking to concord among Scotsmen 
 of all political opinions. 
 
 In the cup ai\ Union shall they throw 
 Better than that which four successive kings 
 In Britain's crown have worn. 
 
 Thus united, sir, their task will be a very easy 
 one. Let eacb, in his own style, and with the 
 degree of talent, from plain common sense up to 
 powerful eloquence, with which he chances to 
 be gifted, state to administration the sentiments 
 of his constituents, and those of his own breast ; 
 let it be perfectly understood that the Repre- 
 sentatives of Scotland speak in the name of their 
 country, and are determined, one and all, to see 
 the threatened and obnoxious measure departed 
 from, and till that time to enter into no public 
 business, — I cannot help thinking that such a 
 remonstrance, in a case of vital importance to 
 Scotland, and of such trifling consequence to
 
 16 THE CURRENCY. 
 
 England, would be of itself perfectly sufficient. 
 But if not, our Representatives must stand firm. 
 I would advise that, to all such intimations as 
 are usually circulated, bearing, " That your pre- 
 sence is earnestly requested on such an evening 
 of the debate, as such or such a public measure 
 is coming on," the concise answer should be re- 
 turned, " We are five-and-fortij ;" and that no 
 Scottish Members do on such occasions attend 
 — unless it be those who feel themselves consci- 
 entiously at liberty to vote against Government 
 on the division. Is this expecting too much 
 from our countrymen, on whom we have devol- 
 ved so absolutely the charge of our rights, the 
 duty of stating our wrongs ? We exclaim to them 
 in the language of the eloquent Lord Belhaven 
 — " Should not the memory of our noble prede- 
 cessors' valour and constancy rouse up our droop- 
 ing spirits ? Are our brave ancestors' souls got 
 so far into the English cabbage-stock and cau- 
 liflower, that we should show the least incli- 
 nation that way ? Are our eyes so blinded — 
 Are our ears so deafened — Are our hearts so 
 hardened — Are our tongues so faltered — Are 
 our hands so fettered, that, in this our day — I
 
 THE CURRENCY. 17 
 
 say, my countrymen, in this our day, we should 
 not mind the things that concern the well-being, 
 nay, the very being, of our ancient kingdom, be- 
 fore the day be hid from our eyes ?" If there is, 
 among that chosen band, a mean-spirited Scots- 
 man, who prefers the orders of the Minister to 
 the unanimous voice of his Country, imploring 
 the protection of her children, let England keep 
 him to herself. Such a man is deaf even to the 
 voice of self-interest, as well as of patriotism. He 
 cannot be a Scotch proprietor — he hazards his 
 own rents ; he cannot be a Scotchman employed 
 in commerce — he undermines his own trade ; 
 he cannot be a professional person — ^he sacrifices 
 the law of his country ; he cannot be a Scottish 
 man in spirit — he betrays the honour of Scot- 
 land. Let him go out from among us — he is 
 not of us. Let him, I say, remain in England, 
 and we wish her joy of such a denizen. Let 
 him have his title and his pension — for the cur 
 deserves his collar and his bone. But do not let 
 him come back to Scotland, where his presence 
 will be as unwelcome to us, as our reception 
 may be ungratifying to him. 
 
 It is needless to say, that what Scotland de- 
 
 B
 
 18 THE CURRENCY. 
 
 mands from her representatives in the House of 
 Commons, she expects, with equal confidence and 
 ardour, from the small, but honourable portion 
 of the Upper House, who draw their honours 
 from her ancient domains. Their ancestors have 
 led her armies, concluded her treaties, managed 
 her government, served her with hand and heart, 
 sword and pen ; and by such honourable merit 
 with their country, have obtained the titles and 
 distinctions which they have transmitted to the 
 present race, by whom, we are well assured, they 
 will be maintained with untarnished honour. A 
 Scottish Lord will dare all, save what is disho- 
 nourable ; and whom among them could we sus- 
 pect of deserting the Parent of his Honours, at 
 the very moment when she is calling upon him 
 for his filial aid ? Sir, I pledge myself, ere I am 
 done, to give such a picture of the impending 
 distress of this country, that a Scotsman, and 
 especially a Scottish nobleman, would need to 
 take opium and mandragora, should he hope to 
 slumber, after having been accessary to bringing 
 it on. If the voice of the public in streets and 
 highways did not cry shame on his degeneracy, 
 even inanimate objects would find a voice of re- 
 probation. The stones of his ancient castle would
 
 THE CURRENCY. 19 
 
 speak, and the portraits of his ancestors would 
 frown and look black upon him, as he wandered 
 in his empty halls, now deprived of the resort of 
 the rich, and the homage of the vassal. But I 
 have no fear of this. A little indolence — a little 
 indifference — may have spread itself among our 
 young men of rank ; it is the prevailing fashion 
 and fault of the day. But the trumpet of war 
 has always chased away such lethargic humours ; 
 and the cry of their common Country, that invo- 
 cation which Scotland now sends forth from one 
 end of the land to the other, is a summons yet 
 more imperious, and will be, I am confident, as 
 promptly obeyed. 
 
 It may be said, that the measures which I 
 venture to recommend to our Scottish represen- 
 tatives, of tacking, as it were, their Petition of 
 Rights, to every other measure, and making it, 
 so far as they can, a sine quo non to their ac- 
 commodation with Government, may be the 
 means of interrupting the general business of 
 the empire. 
 
 To this objection I reply. First, that I only 
 recommend such a line of conduct as an ultimum 
 reniedium, after every other and milder mode of 
 seeking redress shall have been resorted to, and
 
 20 THE CURRENCY. 
 
 exhausted without effect. Secondhfy In case of 
 need it cannot be denied, that the plan proposed 
 is a Parliamentary remedy, and corresponds with 
 the conduct of patriots upon former occasions, 
 when they conceived that the magnitude of the 
 object in view warranted their making the most 
 vigorous efforts to obtain it. Thirdly ^ It will 
 not be difficult to demonstrate, that, whatever 
 prejudice may be suffered from a temporary de- 
 lay of other business, it will be incalculably less 
 than the evil, which will infallibly ensue upon 
 the obnoxious measure in question being adopt- 
 ed ; an evil, the effect of which cannot be con- 
 fined to Scotland alone, (for no component part 
 of the empire can have sufferings so local, that 
 the consequences do not extend to the others,) 
 but must reach England and Ireland also. When 
 a limb of the human body is disjointed or bro- 
 ken, the whole frame must feel the effect of it. 
 
 But to return to the opinion of my cautious 
 friends, who believed that the proportional 
 numbers of the Scottish Members being so 
 small, compared to those of England and Ire- 
 land, no good issue could be hoped from their 
 exertions, however united, however zealous. I 
 reply, that their country is entitled to expect
 
 THE CURRENCY. 21 
 
 from them resistance in her behalf, not only 
 while a spark of hope remains, but when that 
 last spark is extinguished. There is no room for 
 compromise or surrender. Our statesmen of to- 
 day must be like our soldiers in ages past — 
 
 They must fight till their hand to the broadsword is glued, 
 They must fight against fortiine with heai't unsubdued. 
 
 If they do so, not only will they play the part 
 of true men and worthy patriots, but they will 
 procure that sort of weight with their constitu- 
 ents, which will enable them to be useful, and, 
 with the blessing of God, effectual mediators, in 
 what, I fear, is likely to prove a very distracted 
 time and country. 
 
 But besides this, I can tell my timorous 
 friends, as Hotspur does his cautious correspon- 
 dent, — " Out of this nettle Danger we pluck 
 the flower Safety." I do not think the Imperial 
 Parliament, consisting, as it now does, of depu- 
 ties from every kingdom of the Union, is so 
 likely to take a hasty and partial view of any 
 appeal from Scotland, as it might have been 
 when we had to plead our cause before the Par- 
 liament of Great Britain only. I trust we should 
 in no case have been treated unjustly or harshly.
 
 22 THE CURRENCY. 
 
 and I will presently state my reasons for think- 
 ing that we should not ; but, arguing the ques- 
 tion on the illiberal and almost calumnious idea, 
 that, if not confuted in argument, we were in 
 danger to be borne down by force of numbers, I 
 should derive hope, not fear, from the introduc- 
 tion of the third Kingdom into the discussion. 
 
 Betwixt Scotland and England, Mr Journal- 
 ist, there have been, as you are aware, ancient 
 causes of quarrel, lulled to sleep during the last 
 fifty years, until of late, when a variety of small 
 aggressions, followed by the present seven- 
 leagued stride, show that perhaps they have not 
 been so fully forgotten by our neighbours, as we 
 thought in our simplicity, and that the English 
 Ministers may not be indisposed to take the op- 
 portunity of our torpidity to twitch out our fang- 
 teeth, however necessary for eating our victuals, 
 in .case we should be inclined, at some unlucky 
 moment, to make a different use of them. Or, 
 the line of conduct of which we complain, may 
 be compared to a well-known operation resorted 
 to for taming the ferocity of such male animals 
 as are intended for domestication, and to be em- 
 ployed in patient drudgery. The animal be- 
 comes fat, patient, sleek, and in so far is bene-
 
 THE CURRENCY. 23 
 
 fited by the operation ; but had his previous 
 consent been required, I wonder what the poor 
 Scotch stot would have said ? 
 
 Patrick, my warm-hearted and shrewd friend, 
 how should you like this receipt for domesti- 
 cation, should it travel your way ? You have 
 your own griefs, and your own subjects of com- 
 plaint, — are you willing to lose the power of 
 expressing them with energy ? You have only 
 to join with the Ministry on this debate — you 
 have only to show in what light reverence you 
 are willing to hold the articles of an Union not 
 much above a century old, and then you will 
 have time to reflect at leisure upon the conse- 
 quences of such an example. In such a case, 
 when your turn comes, (and come be sure it 
 will,) you will have signed your own sentence. 
 You will have given the fatal precedent to Eng- 
 land of the annihilation of a solemn treaty of in- 
 corporating Union, and afforded the representa- 
 tives of Scotland vindictive reasons for retaliating 
 upon you the injury which you aided England 
 in inflicting upon us. Whereas — step this way, 
 Pat — and sec there is nobody listening — why 
 should not you and we have a friendly under- 
 standing, and assist each other, as the weaker
 
 24 THE CURRENCY. 
 
 jiarties, against any aggressions, which may be 
 made upon either of us, " for uniformity's sake ?" 
 —Your fathers are called by our Scottish Kings, 
 " Their ancient friends of the Erischerie of Eir- 
 land," and for my part I have little doubt that 
 IMalachi, who wore the collar of gold, must haye 
 been an ancestor of my own. Now, what say 
 you to a league offensive and defensive, agiainst 
 all such measures as tend to the suppression of 
 any just right belonging to either country, in 
 virtue of the Articles of Union respectively ? — 
 You are a scholar, Pat — 
 
 " Ttia res agitur, proxima cum paries ardet." 
 
 Between ourselves, Patrick, John Bull is, not 
 unnaturally, desirous of having rather more than 
 his own share in managing the great national 
 coach-and-six. He will drive four-in-hand ; and 
 though he has hitherto allowed you a postilion 
 of your own, yet in some scheme of economy he 
 may dismiss him if you do not look sharp, and 
 drive the whole set of six horses himself. It is 
 different portions of their ancient independence 
 which are reserved to Scotland and Ireland by 
 their respective treaties of Union. Scotland re- 
 tained her ancient laws, and Ireland a typical
 
 THE CURRENCY. 25 
 
 representation of her national sovereignty. But 
 both rights are held by the same tenure, and 
 if Ireland set an example, by aiding a gross in- 
 fringement of the Scottish Union — if she aid 
 England, in destroying for mere humour — I 
 beg pardon, for mere " uniformity's sake," — 
 every little mark of independence which is left 
 us — if she countenance the obvious desire which 
 exhibits itself to break down all peculiar privi- 
 leges due to the separate nations of the Union, 
 to engross the whole management in Boards, 
 which, sitting in London, and begirt by Eng- 
 lishmen, are to dispense the patronage, and 
 direct the improvements, of another nation 
 of the Union, Ireland will accelerate her own 
 then unpitied degradation. What is our case 
 to-day, brothers of Erin, will be yours the in- 
 stant you have got a little tranquillity — are 
 caught napping — and are in condition to have 
 the aforesaid ceremony practised upon you with- 
 out danger — I mean danger to the operator, for 
 peril to the creature itself is of no consequence. 
 I see you grasp your shilela at the very thought ! 
 Enough ; we understand each other : Let us be 
 friends. Patrick aids Saunders to-day ; Saun- 
 ders pays back Patrick to-morrow, or I will
 
 26 THE CURRENCY. 
 
 throw away niy thistle, burn my St Andrew's 
 cross, and disclaim my Country ! 
 
 But what do I talk of to-day or to-morrow ? 
 The cause of Ireland is tried along with that 
 of Scotland. She stands, at this very moment, at 
 the bar beside her Sister, and the prohibitory de- 
 cree passed against the system of currency, which 
 has spread universal fertility through Scotland, 
 is extended to Ireland at the very moment when 
 she proposed to have recourse to it, as well suit- 
 ed to the improvement of her rich soil, and pro- 
 mising the extension of means of cultivation, 
 where cultivation is so greatly wanted, and would 
 be so productive in the return. I am certain 
 that I am correct in saying, that, in the course 
 of last summer, there were several Banking 
 Companies on the Scottish plan on the point of 
 being established in different parts of Ireland, 
 and Scotsmen of experience, capable of under- 
 standing and directing such establishments, were 
 eagerly sought for, and invited over to act as su- 
 perintendants. Whether the system which had 
 been so eminently successful in Scotland might be 
 found quite as well qualified for the meridian of 
 Ireland, it would be great presumption in me 
 to decide. But it is very likely that success
 
 THE CURRENCY. 27 
 
 would ensue, provided too much were not ex- 
 pected at once, and that the requisite discretion 
 were used in bounding the issue of notes, and 
 the grants of credit. More or less probable, it 
 was at least an experiment which Ireland had 
 apparently a perfect right to make, an experi- 
 ment by which she might reasonably hope to 
 profit ; and if she was willing to undertake it at 
 her own risk, I can conceive nothing more unjust 
 than preventing her from doing so — excepting 
 always the still greater iniquity of interdicting 
 in Scotland a system, the benefit of which has 
 been proved by a century's experience, during 
 all which period it has been attended with ad- 
 vantage, but in the last fifty years with the most 
 brilliant success. 
 
 Ireland is therefore called upon to interfere 
 on this occasion, not merely by the chance of 
 standing, at some no very distant period, in the 
 very predicament in which Scotland is now 
 placed, but from the stake which she herself has 
 in the question at issue. She cannot but re- 
 member that Rome subjected the free states 
 around her much less by the force which was 
 actually her own, than by the use which she 
 made of those whom she had rendered her tools
 
 28 THE CUllRENCY. 
 
 under the name of auxiliaries. The Batavians 
 were employed in the conquest of Britain, the 
 flower of the Britons were carried off from their 
 native country, that they might help to subju- 
 gate the Germans. But such a policy, were it 
 entertained, is not likely to deceive nations in 
 the present age, when statesmen are judged of 
 not more by the measure which they mete to 
 countries less capable of resistance, than by that 
 which they use in dealing towards one upon 
 whom it may not be immediately convenient to 
 inflict the same unjust terms. 
 
 Ireland may read her future fate in that of 
 Scotland, as in a mirror. Does she still continue 
 to entertain any wish of imitating the Scottish 
 system ? the measure of interdiction about to be 
 passed against her renders it impossible. — Does 
 she still expect to be occasionally consulted in 
 the management of her own affairs ? She may 
 lay aside for ever that flattering hope, unless she 
 makes common cause with her sister of Scot- 
 land, where every human being in the nation is 
 entreating and imploring that dearest privilege 
 of a free country. — Finally, let us have a word 
 of explanation with England herself 
 
 And first let me say, that although the urgent
 
 THE CURRENCY. 29 
 
 necessity of the case requires that it should be 
 pleaded in every possible form which its advo- 
 cates can devise — although I press upon Scot- 
 land the necessity of being importunate, steady, 
 and unanimous — although I show to Ireland 
 the deep interest which she also must feel in the 
 question at issue, yet it is to England herself, 
 and to her representatives in Parliament, that, 
 taking upon me, however Unworthy, to speak for 
 my Country, when the task is perhaps an ob- 
 noxious one, I make my most immediate, and I 
 trust not an ineffectual appeal. 
 
 The motto of my epistle may sound a little 
 warlike ; but, in using it,* I have only employed 
 the summons which my countrymen have been 
 best accustomed to obey. Saunders, if it please 
 your honours, has been so long unused to stand 
 erect in your honours' presence, that, if I would 
 have him behave like a man, I must (like Sir 
 Lucius O'Trigger backing Bob Acres) slap him 
 on the shoulder, and throw a word in every now 
 
 ' It was the following versa of an old song : — 
 
 When the pipes begin to play 
 
 Tutii taittk to the drum. 
 Out claymore, and do^vn wi' gun, 
 
 And to the rogues again I 
 
 I have laid it aside in this edition, some cautious friends 
 thinking it liable to misinterpretation.
 
 80 THE CURRENCY. 
 
 and then about his Jwnour. But it is not a 
 hostile signal towards you. The drums beat 
 to amis and the trumpets sound Heraus, as 
 well when the soldiers are called out for a peace- 
 ful as for a military object. And, which is more 
 to the purpose, the last time the celebrated 
 Fiery Cross was circulated in the Highlands, 
 (it was in the country of the Grants,) the clans- 
 men were called forth not to fight an enemy, but 
 to stop the progress of a dreadful conflagration 
 which had been kindled in the woods. To my 
 countrymen I speak in the language of many 
 recollections, certain they are not likely to be 
 excited beyond the bounds of temperate and con- 
 stitutional remonstrance, but desirous, by every 
 effort in my power, to awaken them to a sense 
 of their national danger. 
 
 England — were it mine to prescribe the forms, 
 my native country ought to address nearly in 
 the words of her own Mason, mangled, I fear, 
 in my recollection — 
 
 " Sister, to thee no ruder spell 
 Will Scotland use, than those that dwell 
 In soft Persuasion's notes, and lie 
 Twined with the links of Harmony." 
 
 Let us, therefore, my countrymen, make a pro-
 
 THE CURRENCY. 31 
 
 per and liberal allowance for the motives of the 
 Ministers and their friends on this occasion. We 
 ought not to be surprised that English states- 
 men, and Englishmen in general, are not alto- 
 gether aware of the extent of the Scottish pri- 
 vileges, or that they do not remember, with the 
 same accuracy as ourselves, that we have a sys- 
 tem of laws peculiar to us, secured by treaties. 
 These peculiarities have not, by any question 
 lately agitated, been placed under their view 
 and recollection. As one race grows up, and 
 another dies away, remembrances which are che- 
 rished by the weaker party in a national treaty, 
 are naturally forgotten by the stronger, and 
 viewed, perhaps, as men look upon an old bound- 
 ary stone, half-sunk in earth, half-overgrown 
 with moss, and attracting no necessary attention, 
 until it is appealed to as a proof of property. 
 Such antiquated barriers are not calculated im- 
 mediately to arrest the progress of statesmen in- 
 tent upon some favourite object, any more than, 
 when existing on the desolate mountain in their 
 physical shape, such a bound-mark as I have de- 
 scribed, always checks the eagerness of a stranger 
 upon the moors, in keen and close pursuit of his 
 game. But explain to the ardent young South- 
 ern sportsman that he trespasses upon the manor
 
 32 THE CURRENCY. 
 
 of another — convince the English statesman that 
 he cannot advance his favourite ohject without 
 infringing upon national right, — and, according 
 to my ideas of English honour and good faith, 
 the one will withdraw his foot within the bound- 
 ary of private property, with as much haste as if 
 he trod on burning marie ; the other will curb 
 his views of public good, and restrain even those 
 within the limits which are prescribed by public 
 faith. They will not, in either case, forget the 
 precepts so often reiterated in Scripture, fenced 
 there with a solemn anathema, and received as 
 matter of public jurisprudence by the law of 
 every civilized country — " Remove not the old 
 land- mark, and enter not into the fields of the 
 fatherless." The high and manly sense of jus- 
 tice by which the English nation has been ho- 
 nourably distinguished through the world, will 
 not, I am certain, debase itself by aggression to- 
 wards a people, which is not indeed incapable of 
 defending itself, but which, though fearless of 
 inequality, and regardless of threats, is yet will- 
 ing to submit even to wrong, rather than ha- 
 zard the fatal consequences to be incurred by' 
 obstinate defence, viafacti, of its just rights. 
 We make the sense of English justice and 
 honour our judge ; and surely it would be hard
 
 THE CURRENCY. 33 
 
 to place US ill a situation where our own sense 
 of general mischief likely to ensue to the empire, 
 may be the only check upon the sentiments 
 which brave men feel, when called on to defend 
 their national honour. There would be as little 
 gallantry in such an aggression, as in striking a 
 prisoner on parole. 
 
 It is to explain more particularly to the Eng- 
 lish nation, the real and deep reason which 
 Scotland has to combat the present purpose of 
 Ministers, that I have chiefly undertaken this 
 Second Epistle. 
 
 I have stated in my former Letter, that the 
 system respecting the currency, which is now 
 about to be abrogated, has been practised in 
 Scotland for about one hundred and thirty years^ 
 with the greatest advantage to the country and 
 inhabitants. I have also shown from the Treaty 
 of Union, that it cannot be altered, unless the 
 preliminary is established to the conviction of 
 Parliament, that the alteration is for the evi- 
 dent ATiY A^TAG^ of the suhjccts ill Scotlfind. 
 No advantage, evident or remote, has ever been 
 hinted at, so far as Scotland is concerned : it has 
 only been said, that it will be advantageous to 
 England, to whose measures Scotland must be 
 
 c
 
 34 THE CURRENCY. 
 
 conformable, as a matter of course, though in 
 tlie teeth of the article stipulated by our Com- 
 missioners, and acceded to by those of England, 
 at the time of the Union. I have therefore 
 gained my cause in any fair Court. 
 
 But protesting that I have done enough to 
 entitle mc to a judgment, I have no objection to 
 go a step farther ; and, taking on myself a burthen 
 of proof, which could not be justly imposed on 
 me, I am willing to explain in a general and 
 popular manner the peculiar nature of the paper 
 currency in Scotland, and especially the guards 
 and protections by which it is secured against 
 such evil consequences as have resulted in Eng- 
 land from a system the same in name, but ope- 
 rating very differently in practice. 
 
 The people of Scotland are by no means, as 
 a hasty view of their system of currency might 
 infer, liable to be imposed upon, or to suffer loss, 
 through the rash and crude speculations of any 
 man, or association of men, who, without ade- 
 quate capital and experience, might choose to 
 enter into a Banking concern, and issue their 
 own notes. 
 
 The Banking Companies of Scotland, who 
 ake on themselves the issuing of notes, are, no
 
 THE CURRENCY. 35 
 
 doubt, independent of each other so far as they 
 severally contract with the public ; but a certain 
 course of correspondence and mutual understand- 
 ing is indispensable among themselves, and, in 
 that respect, the whole Banks and Banking 
 Companies in Scotland may be said to form a 
 republic, the watchful superintendence of the 
 whole profession being extended to the strength 
 or weakness of the general system ?.t each par- 
 ticular point ; or, in other words, to the manage- 
 ment of each individual Company. 
 
 No new Banking institution can venture to is- 
 sue notes to the public, till they have establish- 
 ed a full understanding that these notes will be 
 received as cash by the other Banks. Without 
 this facility, an issue of notes would never take 
 place, since, if issued, they could have no free or 
 general currency. It is not the interest of the 
 established Banks to raise rivals in their own 
 profession, and it is directly contrary to that in- 
 terest to accept of payment in the notes of a new 
 Company, to whose responsibility there occurs 
 any shadow of doubt. They, therefore, only agree 
 to give currency to such new issues, where sa- 
 tisfactory information has been obtained of the 
 safety of affording it. The public have, in this
 
 36 THE CURRENCY. 
 
 manner, the best possible guarantee against rash 
 and ill-concocted speculations, from those who 
 are not only best informed on the subject, but, 
 being most interested in examining each new 
 project of the kind, are least likely to be betray- 
 ed into a rash confidence, and have the power of 
 preventing a doubtful undertaking at the very 
 outset. 
 
 The circulation of a Scottish Banking Com- 
 pany, when once established, cannot maintain 
 itself a week without redeeming its pledge to 
 the Banks which receive its notes, by taking 
 them up, and replacing the value either in the 
 notes of such Banks reciprocally, or in specie. 
 A check is thus imposed, which is continually 
 in operation, and every Bank throughout Scot- 
 land is obliged to submit its circulation, twice 
 a-week, in Edinburgh, to the inspection of this 
 Argus-eyed tribunal. Satisfactory information 
 that any distant Banking Companies were leaving 
 the safe and moderate walk of commerce, and 
 embarking their capital in precarious specula- 
 tions, would very soon draw upon them the sus- 
 picion of the moneyed interest at large, and cer- 
 tainly put a period to their existence before it 
 could injure the public. 
 This important species of check is unknown
 
 THE CURRENCY. 37 
 
 to the practice of Englantl ; nay, it is probably 
 impossible to establish it there, since the metro- 
 polis, which is naturally the common point of 
 union, is nearly inaccessible to the notes of pri- 
 vate Banking Companies. In stating a circum- 
 stance, not perhaps generally known, I may 
 perhaps remove some of the prejudice which has 
 extended towards the Scottish system, as if ex- 
 posed to the same inconveniencies with that of 
 the sister kingdom. 
 
 The Cash-Credits, as they are called, are a 
 most important feature in our Banking system, 
 and, as I believe, entirely peculiar to it. 
 
 The nature of the transaction is the simplest 
 possible. A person, either professional, engaged 
 in commerce or manufactures, or otherwise so 
 situated as to render an occasional command of 
 money convenient, obtains a Cash Account to 
 an extent proportioned to his funds, either by 
 pledging his house, shop, or other real property, 
 or by giving the Bank two sufficient sureties to 
 be answerable for the balance, if any, which shall 
 be due to the Company when the Account is 
 closed. The holder of the Cash-Credit is then 
 entitled to draw on the Banker for such sums as 
 he may occasionally need, within its limits. He 
 lodges, on the other hand, with the Bank, such
 
 38 THE CURRENCY. 
 
 cash as he may from time to time receive from 
 the returns of his business, or otherwise. Interest 
 is calculated on the advances drawn from the 
 Bank at five per cent, on the customer's deposits 
 at three per cent only, and the account is finally 
 balanced twice a-year. The interest varies ac- 
 cording to the general rate of the money-mar- 
 ket. I have stated it upon the general and legal 
 rate, which it never does or can exceed. 
 
 This very simple accommodation is so general 
 through Scotland, that no undertaking of the 
 slightest magnitude is entered into without suf- 
 ficient funds being provided in this manner, in 
 order that the expense may be maintained with- 
 out inconvenience until the profits come round. 
 By means of such credits, the merchant carries 
 on his trade, the agriculturist manages his farm, 
 the professional man discharges the advances 
 necessary in his business, and the landed gentle- 
 man maintains his credit, and pays his way, while 
 waiting for the tardy return of his rents. The 
 trustees who conduct public works have recourse 
 to the same accommodation. Scarce any one 
 who is not too rich to need an occasional ad- 
 vance, (a case very rare in Scotland,) or too poor 
 obtain credit, but is provided and acts upon
 
 THE CURRENCY. 39 
 
 some Cash Account of this kind, being a sort of 
 fluctuating system of borrowing and lending. In 
 the former case, the customer borrows of the 
 Bank the advances which he needs, in such sums 
 and at such times as they are necessary ; where- 
 as, without such mutual accommodation, the 
 loan must have been borrowed in an entire sum, 
 and paid up at once, though in the former case 
 it included more money than was immediately 
 wanted ; and, in the latter, the settlement of the 
 whole demand at once might be untimely and 
 inconvenient. 
 
 Supposing the money lodged to exceed the 
 amount of the credit, the customer becomes a cre- 
 ditor to the Banker for the balance due to him, 
 and receives a stated interest for it ; while, at the 
 same time, it lies, as in an ordinary deposit ac- 
 count, at his immediate command. This system 
 is, no doubt, liable, like everything earthly, to 
 abuse. But the general prosperity of the coun- 
 try, managed almost entirely on such an ar- 
 rangement betwixt those who deal in capital, 
 and those who need the use of it, has shown that 
 the partial abuse bears no proportion to the uni- 
 versal advantage. The system has, in its exer- 
 cise, been, as Shakspearc says of Mercy, " twice
 
 40 THE CURRENCY. 
 
 blessecV It has prospered both witli the giver and 
 the taker ; and while the holder of the Account 
 has been enabled to derive wealth from schemes 
 which he could not otherwise have executed, the 
 increasing funds of the Banker, and his addi- 
 tional power of serving the country, and aiding, 
 in similar instances, the progress of general im- 
 provement, add to the sum of national riches. 
 
 It is also to be observed, that the intimate 
 connexion between the Bankers who grant, and 
 the respectable individuals who hold cash-cre- 
 dits, from L.lOO to L.IOOO and upwards, tends 
 greatly to the security of the former. These 
 customers, of whom each thriving Bank pos- 
 sesses many, are the chief holders and dispo- 
 sers of notes ; and, linked as they are with the 
 Banks who grant the accommodation, by mutual 
 advantage, they have both the interest and credit 
 necessary to quash any unreasonable alarm, and 
 secure the Company against what is called a Run, 
 a circumstance to which Scottish Banks have 
 never been materially exposed, and which is not 
 very consistent with the character of the people. 
 
 These undeniable facts afford, so far as Scot- 
 land is concerned, a decisive confutaLiou to an 
 argument which lias been advanced, for abroga-
 
 THE CURRENCY. 41 
 
 ting the issue of small notes. It has been al- 
 leged, that such issues being chiefly in the hands 
 of the lower classes, these were agitated easily 
 by rumours, and they became the occasion of the 
 Runs above-mentioned, by which the Banking 
 Companies are ruined ; as men are crushed to 
 death in a crowd, when those around them are 
 agitated by some cause, very likely a vain one, 
 of panic terror. In itself, it seems, that de- 
 priving men of a lucrative branch of their pro- 
 fession, merely because, under certain circum- 
 stances, it may become dangerous to their stabi- 
 lity, is very like the receipt of Sheepface in the 
 farce, who kills his master's sheep to prevent their 
 dying. But, in Scotland, there exists not the 
 least approach to the disease, which it seems 
 necessary to anticipate in so desperate a manner ; 
 for the apprehended Runs on Scotch Banks, by 
 the holders of small notes, have never taken 
 place, and, from the assigned reasons, are never 
 likely to do so. But should such an event occur, 
 the interference of the Banks' customers, parties 
 so much in teres teil, would stop 3ucli a headlong 
 movement, as a strong and well-ordered police 
 would prevent the fatal agitations of a mob, ere 
 they trod each other to death. 
 
 The general principle of th,. Crcditf. thus
 
 42 THE CURRENCY. 
 
 granted, is one which, in a poor country at least, 
 or among poor traders, is highly desirable. It 
 affords the farmer, trader, or country gentleman, 
 a convenient and equitable means of pledging 
 their property for a fund of credit to conduct 
 their undertakings. It resembles in principle, 
 though on a much more equitable and liberal 
 footing, the impignoration of moveables, which 
 affords facilities, without which the small, yet 
 indispensable branches of traffic, could not be 
 carried on. Let us, in due humility, follow 
 out a comparison at which our pride might 
 be justly revolted. In London, and other great 
 cities, the market-women, and persons of that 
 description, are constantly in the practice of 
 raising a small credit, by pledging their little 
 articles of value, whether ornaments or wearing 
 apparel, or the like, on which they maintain 
 their trade till Saturday brings the weekly re- 
 turns, when the ornaments are redeemed from 
 the pawnbrokers, worn perhaps on the Sunday, 
 and returned to lavender (as the phrase goes) 
 on the next Monday. It is now many years 
 since some well-disposed and benevolent per- 
 sons, becoming aware of this practice, were shock- 
 ed and scandalized at the extent of the interest 
 exacted from these poor people, and made or
 
 THE CURRENCY. 4l 
 
 proposed a law for rendering this course of 
 pawnbroking illegal. Sir, the general mass of 
 misery which was about to attend on the well- 
 meant interference of the legislature, was so evi- 
 dent and so alarming, that the measure was 
 either departed from ere it was completed, or 
 repealed immediately, I forget which. 
 
 Pcmllo majora — The principle is in effect 
 ^he very same on which, to restore public credit, 
 t he Bank of England itself is about to advance 
 t hree millions of money on the security of mer- 
 cantile commodities. 
 
 In the same way, we have in Scotland got 
 into the regular habit of pledging our credit in 
 the manner above described, for the purpose of 
 raising a disposable capital. The advantage ob- 
 tained by both parties is very equitably balanced ; 
 but, were it as iniquitous as that of the most 
 grinding pawnbroker, still habit and manners 
 have rendered it absolutely indispensable to us ; 
 and, when a general source of credit is forci_ 
 bly snatched from a country which has relied on 
 it so long, you literally wrest the crutch from the 
 infirm, because, in your mind, it is not of a hand" 
 some fashion. 
 
 After all, is it not just that we, the party con-
 
 44 THE CURRENCY. 
 
 cerned, should be admitted to have a preponde- 
 rating vote in this matter ? If we are eventually 
 losing by adhering to an old and tried system, we 
 can blame no one, but must suffer for our own 
 obstinacy ; but if Scotland is to be reduced to 
 distress by having a system forced upon her 
 which she is unable to maintain or carry on, 
 who is to answer for the evils it may bring upon 
 us? 
 
 It is by the profit arising upon issuing their 
 small notes, that the Bankers are enabled to make 
 the beneficial advances which custom has now 
 rendered nearly indispensable to the carrying on 
 business of almost any kind in Scotland. Above 
 all, without that profit, the Bankers could not, 
 as hitherto, continue to allow a rateable interest 
 on money deposited in their hands. Let us take 
 a hasty view of some of the advantages attached 
 to this peculiarity of the system. 
 
 The general convenience of the Banker afford- 
 ing interest upon deposits is obvious. It is much 
 more convenient to the individual to receive 
 some interest for his ready cash, than that it 
 should lie idle in his desk ; and its being thus 
 put into a productive state, instead of remain- 
 ing an unproductive capital, must be much more
 
 THE CURRENCY. 45 
 
 useful to the country. This needs no commen- 
 tary. 
 
 It has, besides, tended much to the diminu- 
 tion of crime in Scotland. We have forgot the 
 period preceding the Banking system, but it is 
 easily recalled. Look at the old magazines or 
 newspapers, during the time when the currency 
 was chiefly maintained by specie, a ready tempta- 
 tion to the ruffian — the murder of graziers and 
 dealers returning from fairs where they had sold 
 their cattle, was a not infrequent occurrence. 
 Farm-houses of the better class, as well as gen- 
 tlemen's baronial residences, were defended by 
 bars on the windows, upper and under, like those 
 of a prison ; yet these houses were often broken 
 open by daring gangs, to possess themselves of 
 the hoards which the tenant must have then 
 kept beside him against rent-day, and his land- 
 lord, for the current expense of his household. 
 At present — Ccmtahit vacuus — the drover or 
 grazier has a Banker's receipt for the price of 
 his cattle, in the old almanack which serves him 
 for a pocket-book, and fears no robbery — while 
 the farm-house, or manor, is secure from the at- 
 tack of ruffians, who arc like to find no metal 
 there more precious than the tongs and poker. 
 Passing over the tendency of the present sys-
 
 46 THE CURIIENCV. 
 
 tem to prevent crime, I come to its influence in 
 recommending industry and virtue ; and I am 
 confident in stating, that the degree of morali- 
 ty, sobriety, and frugality, which is admitted 
 to exist in Scotland, has been much fostered, 
 though certainly not entirely produced, by the 
 Banks' allowing interest on small sums, which, 
 if the present prohibitory measure passes, they 
 will be no longer in a capacity to afford. I^et 
 the effect of such a violent change be considered 
 merely in respect to the lowest order of deposi- 
 tors, who lodge in the Bank from the sum of 
 ten pounds to fifty. The first motive to save, 
 among petty tradesmen, mechanics, farm-ser- 
 vants, domestics, and the like, is the delight of 
 forming a productive capital ; and in that class, 
 the habit of saving and of frugality is the foun- 
 dation of a sober, well-regulated, and useful so- 
 ciety. Every judicious farmer scruples to repose 
 perfect reliance in a farm-servant or a labourer, 
 till he knows that he is possessed of a capital of 
 a few pounds in some neighbouring Bank ; and 
 when that is once attained, the man becomes 
 tenfold steady and trustworthy. Instances have 
 occurred, to my certain knowledge, before the 
 time of the Saving-Banks, where the master,
 
 THE CURRENCY. 47 
 
 to liasten this advantageous step in his depen- 
 dent's Hfe, would advance a servant of character 
 a little money to complete a deposit, when the 
 man's savings did not amount to ten pounds, 
 which is the least sum received by the Banks. 
 And, by the way, it is not easy to see how these 
 excellent institutions, the Saving-Banks them- 
 selves, can be continued in Scotland, if interest 
 is no longer allowed by the general Bank ; for 
 we are at too great a distance to avail ourselves 
 of the Public Funds for that purpose. 
 
 At any rate, the cessation of payment of in- 
 terest by the Banks, attendant on the abolish- 
 ing the issue of small notes, would greatly in- 
 jure, if not effectually destroy, the formation of 
 those virtuous and frugal habits, which are as 
 essential to the class of society a little richer 
 than that to which the Saving- Banks apply, as 
 to the inferior description to whom these inva- 
 luable institutions afford encouragement and 
 protection. 
 
 What is a poor hind or shepherd to do with his 
 L.20 or L.30, the laborious earnings of his life, 
 and which he looks to, under God, for keeping 
 his widow and family from the parish, if Bankers 
 can no longer afford him some interest for the
 
 48 Tin-! CURRENCY. 
 
 use of it ? Where is he to get decent security 
 for his petty capital ? He will either be swin- 
 dled out of it by some rascally attoraey, or coax- 
 ed to part with it to some needy relation — in 
 either case, never to see it more. It is difficult 
 enough, even at present, for masters, who take 
 an interest in their servants' welfare, to get them 
 to place their money safe in the Bank ; if this 
 resource is taken away, where is it to be lodged, 
 with any chance of security ? But I think I can 
 guess its fate, friend Journalist. The Banks will 
 be forcing back on the hands of the shepherd 
 or farm-servant his deposit, just at the time when 
 they are unwillingly distressing his master for the 
 balance on his Cash Account, called up before his 
 well-judged, but half-executed improvements, 
 undertaken on the faith of the continued credit, 
 have become productive. The farmer will, in 
 the hour of need and pressure, borrow the petty 
 capital of his servant ; he will be unable to re- 
 pay it ; and then, when the distress becomes 
 chin-deep, they may turn beggars together — for 
 uniformity's sake. 
 
 If that settling day should ever come, Mr 
 Journalist, when the Bankers, dunned for de- 
 posits in their hands, are compelled to be as 
 
 1
 
 THE CURliENCY. 49 
 
 rigorous with those who have received advances 
 from them — tliat awful day, when the hun- 
 dreds of thousands, nay millions, hitherto divi- 
 ded between the Banks and the Public, must be 
 all called up at once, and accounts between them 
 closed — ^that settling day will be remembered as 
 long in Scotland as ever was the Mirk Mon- 
 day ! 
 
 But what can the Bankers do ? Their whole 
 profession must undergo a universal change, that 
 discounts and every species of accommodation 
 may be brought within the narrowest possible 
 limits. At present, the profits divided among 
 the profession, upon perhaps a Million and a Half 
 of small notes, enable them to advance liberally 
 to individuals upon any reasonable security. But 
 if the Banker's occupation is henceforth to con- 
 sist in stocking himself with a great abundance 
 of gold, and for that purpose engaging in an 
 eternal struggle, not to preserve (for that is 
 impossible), but to restore an eternally vacilla- 
 ting proportion betwixt the metallic circulation 
 and the wants of the country, such expensive 
 labour ALONE will be likely to prove quite enough 
 for his talents and funds. 
 
 The injury done to the Bankers, by depriving 
 
 D
 
 50 THE CURRENCY. 
 
 tliem of such a principal and profitable branch 
 of their profession, is not to be passed over in 
 silence. The English are wont, in other cases, 
 to pay particular heed ere they alter any peculiar 
 state of things, upon the faith of which property 
 has been vested in a fixed and permanent line of 
 employment. But this proposed enactment will 
 go as far as the in-calling of One Million and a 
 Half of notes can do, to destroy the emoluments 
 of the profession. You deprive them of those 
 very notes which travel farthest from home, and 
 which return most slowly ; nay, which, from va- 
 rious causes, are subject not to return at all. It 
 is therefore in vain to say that thus the profes- 
 sion is left uninjured, when it is limited to the 
 issue of notes of five pounds and upwards. It 
 might be as reasonably stated in a case of muti- 
 lation, that a man was left in the entire and un- 
 injured possession of his hand, the prisoner ha- 
 ving only cut off his five fingers. 
 
 If, therefore, the proposed measure shall take 
 place, the Bankers' profession must suffer greatly, 
 nay, in its present form, must cease to exist. We 
 cannot, as a nation, afford to be deprived of such 
 an honourable and profitable means of settling 
 our sons in the world. We cannot afford to lose a
 
 THE CUHIlENCy, 51 
 
 resource, which has proved to so many respect- 
 able and honourable families a means ad re- 
 tsdificandum antiquam domum^ and which has 
 held out to others a successful mode of elevating 
 themselves, by liberal and useful industry, to the 
 possession of wealth, at once to their own advan- 
 tage and to that of Scotland. Thus it must needs 
 be, if the proposed measure should pass ; and 
 when we come to count the gains we shall then 
 have made, by change from a paper circulation to 
 one in specie, I doubt it will form a notable ex- 
 ample of the truth of the proverb, " That gold 
 may he bought too dear." 
 
 The Branches established by Banks in remote 
 parts of Scotland must be given up. The parent 
 Banks would vainly exhaust themselves in en- 
 deavouring to draw specie from London, and to 
 force it, at whatever expense, into more fertile 
 districts of Scotland, which, of course, would re- 
 ceive it in small quantity, and pay for it at a 
 heavy charge. But as to the remote and sterile 
 regions, it must be with the Highlands and 
 Isles of Scotland, as it is now in some remote 
 districts of Ireland, where scarce any specie ex- 
 ists for the purpose of ordinary currency, and 
 where, for want of that representative for value.
 
 52 THE CURRENCY. 
 
 or paper money in its steail, men are driven back 
 to the primitive mode of bartering for evei7thing 
 —the peasant pays his rent in labour, and the 
 fisher gets his wages in furnishings. Misery is 
 universal — credit is banished — and with all the 
 bounties of nature around them, ready to reward 
 industry— the sinews of that industry are hewn 
 asunder, and man starves where Nature has 
 given abundance ! 
 
 Great Britain would be then somewhat like 
 the image in Belteshazzar's dream, London, its 
 head, might be of fine gold — the fertile provinces 
 of England, like its breast and arms, might be of 
 silver — the southern half of Scotland might ac- 
 quire some brass or copper — but the northern 
 provinces would be without worth or value, like 
 the legs, which were formed of iron and clay. 
 What force is to compel gold to circulate to 
 these barren extremities of the island, I cannot 
 understand ; and, when once forced there, I fear 
 its natural tendency to return to the source from 
 which it is issued will render all efforts to detain 
 it as difficult as the task of the men of Gotham, 
 when they tried to hedge in the cuckoo. Our 
 Bankers, or such as may continue in the profes- 
 sion under the same name, but with very differ-
 
 THE CURRENCY. 53 
 
 ent occupation and prospects, will be condemned 
 to the labour of Sisyphus, — eternally employed 
 in rolling a cask of gold up a Highland hill, at 
 the risk of being crushed by it as the influence 
 of gravity prevails, and it comes rolling down 
 upon their heads. 
 
 Mrs Primrose, wife to the excellent Vicar of 
 Wakefield, carried on a system of specie, with 
 respect to her family, at a much cheaper rate than 
 that at which Scotland will be able, I fear, to 
 accomplish the same object. " I gave each of 
 them a shilling," says the good man, speaking of 
 his daughters, " though for the honour of the 
 family it must be observed, that they never went 
 without money themselves ; as my wife always 
 generously let them have a guinea each to keep 
 their pockets, but with strict injunctions never 
 to change itr Our state is not so favourable, 
 Mr Journalist. We shall be obliged to lay out 
 our guinea every morning of our lives, and to 
 buy back another every evening, at an increasing 
 per centage, to pay the expense of the next day. 
 Moreover, Mrs Primrose was more reasonable 
 (begging pardon for the expression) than our 
 English friends ; for, although she enforced the 
 specie system in her own family, wc do not hear
 
 54 THE CURRENCY. 
 
 that she was ever desirous to intrude it into that 
 of Neighbour Flam orough. •if 
 
 I do not mean to enter into the general ques- 
 tion of the difference betwixt the circulation of 
 specie and of paper money. I speak of them re- 
 latively, as applicable to the wants and wishes 
 of Scotland only. Yet, I must say, it seems 
 strange, that, under a liberal system, of which 
 freedom of trade is the very soul, we should be 
 loaded vnth severe restrictions upon our own na- 
 tional choice, instead of being left at liberty to 
 adopt that representative of value, whether in 
 gold or paper, that best suits our own conve- 
 nience ! 
 
 To return to the remote Highlands and Is- 
 lands, Mr Journalist, I need not tell you that 
 they are inhabited by a race of men, to use Dr 
 Currie's phrase, " patient of labour and prodigal 
 of life," for succouring whose individual wants 
 the tenth part of an English coal-heaver's wages 
 woiJd be more than enough, but yet who are 
 human creatures, and cannot live absolutely 
 without food— who are men, and entitled to 
 human compassion — Christians, and entitled to 
 Christian sympathy. But their claims as men 
 and Christians are not all they have to proffer
 
 THE CUmiENCY. 55 
 
 to administration and to England. The distress 
 to which they are about to be exposed will return 
 upon the state at large in a way very little con- 
 templated. 
 
 Those sterile and remote regions have been 
 endowed by Providence with treasures of their 
 own, gained from the stormy deep by their hardy 
 inhabitants. The fisheries in the distant High- 
 lands and Isles, under the management of an 
 enlightened Board, have at length accomplished 
 what was long the warmest wish of British pa- 
 triots, and have driven the Dutch out of all ri- 
 valry in this great branch of national industry. 
 The northern fisheries furnish exports to our co- 
 lonies and to the Continent, exceeding half a 
 million of money annually, and give employ- 
 ment to a very great number of hardy seamen. 
 The value of such a plentiful source of prospe- 
 rity, whether considered as supplying our navy 
 or affecting our manufactures, is sufficiently ob- 
 vious. Now observe, Mr Journalist, how these 
 fisheries are at present conducted. 
 
 The branches of those obnoxious establish- 
 ments, the Scottish Banks, maintained at con- 
 venient and centrical points in the north of 
 Scotland, furnish all the remote and numerous
 
 56 THE CURRENCY. 
 
 stations where the fisheries are carried on, with 
 small notes and silver for payment of the actual 
 fishers' labour, and in return accept the bills 
 of the fish-curers upon the consignees. This 
 they do at a moderate profit ; on which prin- 
 ciple alone private industry, and enterprise, 
 and capital, can be made conducive to the pub- 
 lic good. The small notes thus circulated in 
 the most distant parts of Scotland, return, in- 
 deed, in process of time, to the Banks which 
 issued them ; but the course of their return 
 is so slow and circuitous, that the interest 
 accruing on them during their absence amply 
 reimburses the capitalist for the trouble and risk 
 which attend the supply. But let any man who 
 knows the country, or will otherwise endeavour 
 to conceive its poverty and sterility, imagine if 
 he can, the difficulties, expense, and hazard, at 
 which gold must be carried to points where it 
 would never have voluntarily circulated, and 
 from whence, unless detained in some miser's 
 hoard, (a practice which the currency in specie, 
 and disuse of interest on deposits, is likely to 
 revive,) it will return to London with the cele- 
 rity of a carrier-pigeon. 
 The manufacture of Kelp, which is carried
 
 THE CURRENCY. 57 
 
 on to an immense extent through all the shores 
 and Isles of the Highlands, supporting thousands 
 of men with their families, who must otherwise 
 emigrate or starve, and forming the principal 
 revenue of many Highland proprietors, is near- 
 ly, if not exactly, on the same footing with the 
 fisheries ; is carried on chiefly by the same me- 
 dium of circulation ; and, like them, supplied by 
 the Bankers with small notes for that pur- 
 pose, at a reasonable profit to themselves, and 
 with the utmost advantage to the country and 
 its productive resources. 
 
 Referring once more to the state of misery 
 in the distant districts of Ireland, I must once 
 more ask, if these things be done in the green 
 tree, what shall be done in the dry tree ? If the 
 want of circulation creates poverty and misery 
 in the comparatively fertile country of Ireland, 
 what is to become of those barren deserts, where 
 even at present the hardest labour which the hu- 
 man frame can endure is necessary to procure 
 the most moderate pittance on which human life 
 can be supported ? The inhabitants are now heal- 
 thy, enterprising, laborious ; and their industry, 
 producing means of existence to themselves, is 
 of immense profit to their country. If their
 
 58 THE CURRENCV. 
 
 means of obtaining the payment of their labour 
 is destroyed, nay even interrupted, the state 
 must either feed idle paupers, who once flou- 
 rished a hardy and independent race of labour- 
 ers, or it must be at the expense of transport- 
 ing the inhabitants to Canada and New South 
 Wales, and leaving totally waste a country, 
 which few but those bound to it by the Amor 
 patrice will desire to reside in, even if the means 
 of procuring subsistence were left unimpaired. 
 
 Can anything short of the utmost neces- 
 sity justify an experiment, which threatens to 
 depopulate a part of the empire, and destroy the 
 happiness of thousands ? and how can such a 
 necessity exist, without the least symptom of 
 its having been felt or suspected during the 
 last hundred and thirty years, when the present 
 system has been in exercise ? 
 
 Destroy the existing conduit, and let me again 
 inquire, what forcing-pump, what new-invent- 
 ed patent pressure, were it devised by Bramah 
 himself, is to compel specie into those inacces- 
 sible regions ? The difficulty of conveying the 
 supplies is augmented by the risk of carrying 
 wealth unguarded through the regions of po- 
 verty. I know my countrymen are indifferent
 
 THE CURRENCY. 59 
 
 honest, as Hamlet says ; yet I would not ad- 
 vise the Genius of the specie system to travel 
 through Scotland, moral as the country is, after 
 the fashion of the fair pilgrim, " rich and rare," 
 in Moore's beautiful melody, just by way of try- 
 ing the integrity of the inhabitants. Take my 
 word for it, the absence of temptation is no value- 
 less guardian of virtue. If convoys of gold must 
 be sent through lonely mountains, I venture to 
 say, that smugglers will be converted into rob- 
 bers, and that our romance-writers need not 
 turn back to ancient times for characters like 
 John Gunn, or Rob Roy Macgregor. 
 
 This I am sure of, that if the mere authority 
 of a legislative enactment can force a sufficient 
 quantity of gold into those parts, to carry on the 
 fishery and kelp manufactures, it can do a great 
 deal more in favour of the poor but hardy inha- 
 bitants. Why should our statesmen be so stint- 
 ed in their bounty, if it depends merely on legis- 
 lative enactment ? Why not enact, that where- 
 as the dress now worn by his Majesty's loving 
 inhabitants of the Lewis, Uist, Harries, Eddera- 
 chyles. Cape- Wrath, and Loch Horrible, is scan- 
 ty, thin, and indecorous, each inhabitant of those 
 districts should in future wear a full-trimmed 
 suit of black silk, or velvet ; and, as his only
 
 60 THE CURRENCY. 
 
 1-epresentative of wealth has been hitherto a 
 crumpled dog's-ear'd piece of Scotch paper, that, 
 in future, he never presume to stir out of his 
 cabin without having, and bearing about his 
 person, the sum of at least five golden sovereigns? 
 The working the stuffs may be a means of re- 
 lieving the starving weavers of Spitalfields, and 
 the clothes could be conveniently enough for- 
 warded by the escorts who are to protect the 
 chests of specie. 
 
 It is not amiss to observe that this violent 
 experiment on our circulation— demanded by no 
 party in Scotland — nay, forced upon us against 
 the consent of all who can render a reason, 
 fraught with such deep ruin if it miscarry, and 
 holding forth no prospect whatever of good 
 even should it prove successful, — can only be 
 carried on at a very considerable expense to 
 England. She must coin for the service of Scot- 
 land at least a million and a half of specie — 
 sustain the loss of tear and wear — the chance 
 of accident and plunder — of disappearance by 
 pilfering and hoarding — and be at the expense 
 of supplying this immense quantity of precious 
 metals, not for the benefit, but for the probable 
 ruin, of our devoted country. It is fairly for- 
 cing gold down our throats, as little to our ad-
 
 THE CURRENCY. 61 
 
 vantage, as when the precious metal was sent in 
 a molten state down the gullet of Cyrus, or 
 Crassus, — I forget which. 
 
 No argument has been alleged by the Eng- 
 lish statesmen for pressing this measure, but 
 that of " uniformity ;" by virtue of which prin- 
 ciple, a little more extended, they may intro- 
 duce the Irish Insurrection Law into England 
 to-morrow, and alter the whole national law of 
 Scotland the day after. This argument, I there- 
 fore think, proves a little too much, and is, in 
 consequence, no argument at all. In absence of 
 avowed motives, and great darkness as to any 
 imaginable cause, men's minds have entertained 
 very strange and wild fancies, to account for 
 the zeal with which this obnoxious measure is 
 driven forward. Some, who would be thought 
 to see farther into a mill-stone than others, pre- 
 tend the real reason is to soothe the jealousy of 
 the Bank of England, by preventing the possi- 
 bility of Scots notes passing in England. It is 
 easy to see how people must be puzzled to dis- 
 cover the semblance of a possible motive, when 
 they have recourse to such figments as this. 
 Can it be conceived that our dearest interests 
 are to be tampered with for such an object ? — 
 It is very true, that in the adjacent counties of
 
 62 THE CURRENCY. 
 
 England, innkeepers for courtesy, and drovers 
 and others dealing at Scots fairs, on account of 
 convenience, readily accept of Scots notes in 
 payment ; but that notes, which nobody is obli- 
 ged to accept, and which the English Banks re- 
 fuse to change, can circulate to such an extent 
 as to alarm the Bank of England ! — why, sir, 
 I will as soon believe, that, during the old wars, 
 the city of London beat to arms, called out their 
 Trained-bands, and manned their walls, because 
 the Teviotdale Borderers had snapped up a herd 
 of cattle in Northumberland. What becomes 
 of the comparative excellence of the specie cir- 
 culation to be established in England, if appre- 
 hensions are entertained that it cannot stand its 
 ground against the reprobated paper system of 
 Scotland ? In God's name, are they afraid people 
 will prefer paper to gold — leaving, like Hamlet's 
 misjudging mother, the literally golden meads 
 of England, to batten on a Scottish moor ? It 
 is like the ridiculous story told, that there is a 
 bye-law, or at least a private understanding, 
 that no Scotsman shall be chosen a Director of 
 the Bank of England, lest our countrymen 
 engross the whole management in the course 
 of a few years. — Why, sir, these opinions re- 
 mind one of the importance attached to the
 
 THE CURRENCY. 6S 
 
 fated Stone in Westminster Abbey, of which it 
 is said, that the Scots shall reign wheresoever 
 it is carried. But, sir, we must not swallow 
 such flattering compliments. The Bank of Eng- 
 land jealous of the partial circulation of a few 
 Scottish notes in the north of England ! ! ! Sir, 
 it would be supposing the blessed sun himself 
 jealous of a gas-light manufactory. 
 
 A few general observations on England's late 
 conduct to us, and I will release you. 
 
 A very considerable difference may be re- 
 marked, within these twenty-five years, in the 
 conduct of the English towards such of the 
 Scotch individuals, as either visit the metropolis 
 as mere birds of passage, or settle there as re- 
 sidents. Times are much changed since the 
 days of Wilkes and Liberty, when the bare sus- 
 picion of having come from North of the Tweed, 
 was a cause of hatred, contempt, and obloquy. 
 The good nature and liberality of the English 
 seem now even to have occasioned a re-action 
 in their sentiments towards their neighbours, 
 as if to atone for the national prejudices of their 
 fathers. It becomes every Scotsman to acknow- 
 ledge explicitly and with gratitude, that what- 
 ever tenable claim of merit has been made by his 
 countrymen for more than twenty years back.
 
 64 THE CURRENCY. 
 
 whether in politics, arts, arms, professional dis- 
 tinction, or the paths of literature, it has been 
 admitted by the English, not only freely, but 
 with partial favour. The requital of North Bri- 
 tain can be little more than good wishes and 
 sincere kindness towards her southern Sister, 
 and a hospitable welcome to such of her chil- 
 dren as are led by curiosity to visit Scotland. 
 To this ought to be added the most grateful ac- 
 knowledgment. 
 
 But though this amicable footing exists be- 
 tween the public of each nation, and such in- 
 dividuals of the other as may come into com- 
 munication with them, and may God long con- 
 tinue it — yet, I must own, the conduct of Eng- 
 land towards Scotland as a kingdom, whose 
 crown was first united to theirs by our giving 
 them a King, and whose dearest national rights 
 were surrendered to them by an incorporating 
 Union, has not been of late such as we were 
 entitled to expect. 
 
 There has arisen gradually, on the part of 
 England, a desire of engrossing the exclusive 
 management of Scottish affairs, evinced by a 
 number of circumstances, trifling in themselves, 
 but forming a curious chain of proof when 
 assembled together ; many of which intimate a
 
 IFIi: LURRENCV. 05 
 
 purpose to abate us, like old Lear, of our train, 
 and to accustom us to submit to petty slights and 
 mortifications, too petty perhaps individually to 
 afford subject of serious complaint, but which, 
 while they tend to lower us in our own eyes, 
 seem to lay the foundation for fresh usurpa- 
 tions, of which this meditated measure may be 
 an example. 
 
 This difference of treatment, and of estima- 
 tion, exhibited towards individuals of the Scot- 
 tish nation, and to the nation itself as an aggre- 
 gate, seems at first sight an inconsistency. Does 
 a Scotchman approach London with some pre- 
 tension to character as a Preacher, a Philoso- 
 pher, a Poet, an Economist, or an Orator, he 
 finds a welcome and all-hail, which sometimes 
 surprises those whom he has left on the north- 
 ern side of the Tweed, — little aware, perhaps, of 
 the paragon who had emigrated, till they heard 
 the acclamations attending his reception — Does 
 a gentleman of private fortune take the same 
 route, he finds a ready and voluntary admission 
 into the class of society for which he is fitted 
 by rank and condition— Is the visitor one of 
 tlie numerous class who wander for the chance 
 
 F.
 
 66 TITK CURRENCY. 
 
 of improving his fortunes, his national character 
 as a Scotsman is supposed to imply the desira- 
 ble qualities of information, prudence, steadi- 
 ness, moral and religious feeling, and he obtains 
 even a preference among the Southern emi)loy- 
 ers, who want confidential clerks, land-stewards, 
 liead-gardeners, or fit persons to occupy any 
 similar situation, in which the quality of trust- 
 worthiness is demanded. 
 
 But, on the other hand, if the English states- 
 man has a point of great or lesser consequence 
 to settle with Scotland as a counfrt/, we find 
 him and his friends at once seized with a jea- 
 lous, tenacious, wrangling, overbearing humour, 
 and that they not only insist upon conducting 
 the whole matter according to their own will, 
 but are by no means so accessible to the pleas 
 of reason, justice, and humanity, as might be 
 expected from persons in other cases so wise 
 and liberal. We cease at once to be the North- 
 ern Athenians, according to the slang of the 
 day — ^the moral and virtuous people, who are 
 practically and individually esteemed worthy of 
 especial confidence. We have become the cater- 
 pillars of the island, instead of its j^illars. We
 
 THE CURRENCY. 67 
 
 seem to be, in their opinion, once more trans- 
 muted into tlie Scots decribed by Churchill — a 
 sharp sharking race, whose wisdom is cunning, 
 and whose public spirit consists only in an illi- 
 beral nationality, inclining us, by every possible 
 exertion of craft, to obtain advantage at the ex- 
 pense of England. 
 
 Sir, the Englishman, just and liberal in his 
 ordinary and natural movements, is prone to fe- 
 verish fits of suspicion, during which he is apt 
 to conceive that those qualities of frankness and 
 generosity render him peculiarly liable to be 
 imposed on. He will always ^ive willingly, but 
 he often becomes shabby and litigious in making 
 a bargain. John Bull is in these points exactly 
 similar to his own Hotspur, who, in his dispute 
 with Glendower about the turning of the Trent, 
 exclaims, — 
 
 '' I do not care — I'll give thrice so much land 
 To any well-deserving friend ; 
 But in the way of bargain, mark ye me, 
 I'll cavil on the ninth part of a hair." 
 
 The Continent has seen John in both these 
 moods ; and not being able to understand the 
 cause of the change, has been apt to suppose
 
 GS THE ClTURKNCV. 
 
 his habits are entirely altered ; whereas they see 
 only the same man in two different and extreme 
 humours ; in one of which he would willingly 
 relieve a begging vagabond, because the rascal 
 must live ; and in the other, will hardly be 
 brought to pay the bill of a poor tradesman, 
 because he is afraid of being over-reached. Tlie 
 ancient and modern mode in which the English 
 travellers did, and do now, pay their ordinary 
 bills on the Continent, are an example of this 
 piebald humour : — Formerly John travelled e}i 
 prince, and even overlooked any species of im- 
 position in innkeepers smA vaJets-de-placey as 
 not worth the care of im homme id que Iv't. 
 Now, he insists upon a preliminary contract — 
 a solemn treaty for his coutelet and his vin de 
 pais — and, neither for love of money, nor for 
 want of money, but from a feverish apprehen- 
 sion that he may possibly be cheated in a reck- 
 oning, goes so miserably to work, that all the 
 world cries " Shame on him !" * 
 
 To the better, more natural, more predoiiiiii;)- 
 
 * See tlie amusing- work, oallp<l " The Eng-lisli in Italy."
 
 THE CUllllENCY. 69 
 
 ting disposition of our neighbours, I am well dis« 
 posed to ascribe the many marks of partiality 
 tmd kindness shown to individual Scotsmen by 
 the English at large — to the latter suspicious, 
 dogged, illiberal determination to have the best 
 of the bargain, — that ungracious humour, which 
 forgets even justice as well as liberal feelings, for 
 fear their goodnature should be imposed upon, — 
 I am compelled to ascribe much of their recent 
 behaviour in international discussions. In sucli 
 fits of jealousy, men are like those vi^ho wear 
 green spectacles. Every object they look upon 
 is tinged with the predominant colour, which 
 exists not in the objects themselves, but in the 
 medium through which they are viewed. Talk 
 to an English statesman of the fairest, the most 
 equitable proposal for the advancement of Scot- 
 land as a nation, the most just and indisputable 
 claim on behalf of her public establishments or 
 functionaries, the idea of a Scotch Job starts up 
 like an apparition, and frightens all power of 
 equitable decision out of the Minister's head. 
 It is in vain urged, that even the expense of the 
 proposed measure must be discharged by Scot- 
 land herself— her Sister is ready with the school-
 
 70 THE CURRENCY. 
 
 boy's answer to his Fag, — " All that is yours is 
 ourSi and all ours is our own." Let the scales of 
 Justice be trimmed with the nicest exactness it' 
 you will, but do not let Authority throw the 
 sword into the scale from mere apprehension, 
 lest, after having done her utmost to secure the 
 advantage, she be cheated in the weighing. 
 
 In an old Scottish law, to be convicted of be- 
 ing an Egyptian, or gipsy, was equivalent to 
 conviction that the party was a common and 
 notoripus thief. And truly the English seem 
 to think, (in public matters, though by no means 
 in private relations,) that being a Scotsman is 
 equivalent to being an embezzler of public 
 money, a jobber, and a peculator. But when they 
 suppose that we are able and willing in all such 
 cases to impose on them, they do injustice alike 
 to their own shrewdness and our integrity. 
 
 It arises out of this unhappy state of feeling 
 towards us, more than to any actual desire of 
 giving us offence, that England has of late aba- 
 ted our establishment in many respects, in which 
 our rank as a kingdom of the Union is in some 
 degree compromised. 
 
 Last year a bill, deeply affecting the national
 
 THE CURllENCV. 71 
 
 iiilerests of Scotland, by altering many most im^ 
 {)ortant points in our judicature, was depend- 
 ing in Parliament. Grave objections appeared 
 to the Law Bodies and others in Scotland, to at- 
 tach to some particular arrangements thereby 
 proposed. They required, not that the bill should 
 be given up, but that it should be suspended at 
 least, till the country in which it was to ope-f 
 rate, and which alone was to be hurt or bene- 
 fited by the enactment, should have time to con- 
 sider the measure in all its bearings, and to ex- 
 press their national sense upon the subject. Can 
 it be believed that it required the strongest pos- 
 sible remonstrances of the great Law-officer of 
 the Crown with his Majesty's Ministers to ob- 
 tain a few months' reprieve, as if the demolition., 
 or alteration at least, of our laws, was a matter 
 as little deserving a month's delay, as the exe^ 
 cution of some flagrant criminal, justly and 
 fully convicted of the most gross crimes ? Take 
 one or two instances more. 
 
 Till of late, there was generally an Admiral 
 on this station ; but since the gallant Sir John 
 Beresford struck his flag, that mark of distinction 
 seems to have been laid aside, probably for ever
 
 72 iilE t'UllUKNCV. 
 
 Our army establishment isclvvindled to a shado\r. 
 scarce worthy of being placed under tlie com- 
 mand of the distinguished ]\Iajor-General who 
 now holds it, although he only connnands the 
 forces, instead of being, as was commonly the 
 case till of late years, a Commander-in-Chief, with 
 a Lieutenant-General, and two Major-Geuerals, 
 under him. I need hardly say, that I would 
 wish this abatement of our dignity, in some 
 measure at least, amended, not by the remot'uly 
 but by the promotion of the gallant General. 
 
 It may be replied that we are complimented 
 in being thus left to ourselves — that we are a 
 moral people, therefore do not require a mili- 
 tary force to keep the peace — a loyal people, 
 therefore do not need an armed force to put 
 down tumult — that we have our own brave 
 yeomanry, who, at no distant period, showed 
 themselves capable of affording their country 
 protection in the most desirable manner, anti- 
 cipating mischief by their promptitude, and pre- 
 venting evil before it had come to a head. But 
 have these yeomen, who twice in a few months 
 abandoned their homes at a few hours' warn- 
 ing, marched many miles, and by their demon-
 
 THE CURRKNCV. 73 
 
 stratioii of readiness, put au end to a very se- 
 rious affair, and what might have been a very 
 disastrous one — have they, I say, since that pe- 
 riod, received the countenance due for their good 
 will from the Government, and which should 
 have been rendered alike in policy and justice ? 
 I am informed they have not. I am informed 
 that they are, at least particular troops of them 
 are, refused the small allowance made on the 
 days when they are called out for exercise, and 
 must either discharge the duty of training, al- 
 ways sufficiently expensive and inconvenient, 
 entirely at their own expense, as some of them 
 have done for two years, or suffer their disci- 
 pline to fall into decay. Can it be that our 
 English brethren have taken a notion that 
 sabres are only curved broadswords, and that 
 these are unhappy weapons in the hands of 
 Scotsmen? I acquit them of such meanness. 
 But they despise us a little too much. 
 
 Sir, Discontent is the child of Distress, and 
 Distress is the daughter of ill-timed Experi- 
 ment. Should we again see disorderly associa- 
 tions formed, and threats of open violence held 
 out — should such a winter and spring as 1821
 
 74. THE CURRENCY. 
 
 return, it may not, in the event of the measure 
 with which Scotland is threatened being inflict- 
 ed on us, be quite so easy, as at that period, to 
 assemble on a given spot, within a day or two, 
 twelve or fourteen hundred yeomen to support 
 the handful of military left within Scotland. 
 That general spirit of loyalty will, I am sure, 
 be the same. But when proprietors are embar- 
 rassed, tenants distressed, commercial people in 
 doubt and danger, men lose at once their zeal, 
 and the means for serving the public. This is 
 not unworthy of serious consideration. 
 
 I mentioned in my former Letter another cir- 
 cumstance, of which I think my country has 
 reason to complain. It is that sort of absolute 
 and complete state of tutelage to which Eng- 
 land seems disposed to reduce her sister coun- 
 try, subjecting her in all her relations to the 
 despotic authority of English Boards, which 
 exercise an exclusive jurisdiction in Scottish af- 
 fairs, without regard to her local peculiarities, 
 and with something like contempt of her claims 
 as a country united with England, but which 
 certainly has never resigned the right of being 
 at least consulted in her own concerns. I men-
 
 THE cuiiiiENcy. 75 
 
 tioned the restrictions, and, as I conceive them, 
 degrading incapacities, inflicted on our Revenue 
 Boards, — I might extend the same observations 
 to the regulations in the Stamp-Office ; — and I 
 remember, when these were in progress, that it 
 was said in good society, that the definitive in- 
 structions (verbal, I believe) communicated to 
 the able officer upon whom the examination and 
 adjustment of the alterations in that depart- 
 ment devolved, and who was sent down hither 
 on purpose, were to this purport : — " That he 
 was to proceed in Scotland without more regard 
 to the particular independence of that country 
 than he would feel in Yorkshire." These, how- 
 ever, were matters interesting the general reve- 
 nue — the servants of the Crown had a right 
 to regulate them as they pleased. But if they 
 were regulated with a purposed and obvious in- 
 tention to lessen the consequence of Scotland, 
 throw implied discredit on her natives, as men 
 unworthy of trust, and hold her recollections 
 and her feelings at nought, they make links in 
 a chain which seems ready to be wound around 
 us whenever our patience will permit. 
 
 This, sir, is an unwise, nay, an unsafe pro-
 
 76 THE CUURKNCY. 
 
 ceediijg. An old chain, long worn, forms a cal- 
 losity on the limb which bears it, and is endured, 
 with whatever inconvenience, as a thing of cus- 
 tom. It is not so with restraints newly imposed. 
 These fret — gall — gangrene — the iron enters 
 first into the flesh, and then into the soul. I 
 speak out what more prudent men would keep 
 silent. I may lose friends by doing so ; but he 
 who is like Malachi Malagrowther, old and un- 
 fortunate, has not many to lose, and risks little 
 in telling truths before, when men of rising am- 
 bition and budding hopes would leave them to 
 be discovered by the event. The old tree and 
 the withered leaf are easily parted. 
 
 But, besides such matters of punctilio, Mr 
 Journalist, there has been in England a gradual 
 and progressive system of assuming the manage- 
 ment of affairs entirely and exclusively proper 
 to Scotland, as if we were totally unworthy of 
 having the management of our own concerns. 
 All must centre in London. We could not have 
 a Caledonian Canal, but the Commissioners must 
 be Englishmen, and meet in London ; — a most 
 useful canal they would have made of it, had 
 not the lucky introduction of steam-boats — 
 . — Dens ex machina-^~come just in time to re-
 
 THE CURRENCY. 77 
 
 deem them from having made the most expen- 
 sive and most useless undertaking of the kind 
 ever heard of since Noah floated his ark ! We 
 could not be intrusted with the charge of erect- 
 ing our own kirks, (churches in the Highlands,) 
 or of making our roads and bridges in the same 
 wild districts, but these labours must be con- 
 ducted under the tender care of men who knew 
 nothing of our country, its wants and its capa- 
 bilities, but who, nevertheless, sitting in their 
 office in London, were to decide, without appeal, 
 upon the conduct of the roads in Lochaber ! — 
 Good Heaven, sir ! to what are we fallen ? — or 
 rather, what are we esteemed by the English ? 
 Wretched drivellers, incapable of understanding 
 our own affairs ; or greedy peculators, unfit to 
 be trusted ? On what ground are we consider- 
 ed either as the one or the other ? 
 
 But I may perhaps be answered, that these 
 operations are carried on by grants of public 
 money ; and that, therefore, the English — un- 
 doubtedly the only disinterested and public- 
 spirited and trust-worthy persons in the uni- 
 verse — must be empowered exclusively to look 
 after its application. Public money forsooth ! ! !
 
 78 TIIF. CITRRF-XCV. 
 
 1 should like to know whose pocket it comes out 
 of. Scotland, I have always heard, contributes 
 FOUR :mill[ONS to the public revenue. I should 
 like to know, before we are twitted with grants 
 of public money, how much of that income is 
 dedicated to Scottish purposes — how much ap- 
 plied to the general uses of the empire — and if 
 the balance should be found to a great amount 
 on the side of Scotland, as I suspect it will, I 
 should like still farther to know how the Eng- 
 lish are entitled to assume the direction and 
 disposal of any pittance which may be permit- 
 ted, out of the produce of our own burthens, to 
 revert to the peculiar use of the nation from 
 which it has been derived ? If England was 
 giving us alms, she would have a right to look 
 after the administration of them, lest they should 
 be misapplied or embezzled. If she is only con- 
 senting to afford us a small share of the revenue 
 derived from our own kingdom, we have some 
 title, methinks, to be consulted in the manage- 
 ment, nay, intrusted with it. 
 
 This assumption of uncalled-for guai'dianship 
 accelerates the circulation a little, and inclines 
 one to say to his countrymen,
 
 THE CURRENCy. 79 
 
 Our blood has been too cold and temperate, 
 Unapt to stir at such indignities ■ 
 
 You could not keep a decent servant in your 
 family, sir, far more a partner, if you obviously 
 treated such a person as a man in whom no 
 confidence was to be reposed even in his own 
 department. A ludicrous mode has been lately 
 fallen upon of keeping up in appearance, and, as 
 far as the almanack goes, our old list of Scottish 
 offices. First, they deprive a high office of state 
 of all its emoluments, and then they unite it 
 with one to which some emolument is still per- 
 mitted to attach ; so they are doubled, like slices 
 of bread and butter laid face to face — English 
 fashion, as schoolboys used to call it — with this 
 great difference that only one slice is buttered — 
 an improvement which would scarce suit John 
 Bull's taste. The office of Lord Clerk Register 
 is thus united with that of the Keeper of the 
 Signet, with the emolument attached to the 
 last alone.* It was at another time proposed, on 
 
 * The Right Hon. Lord Clerk Register has deserved 
 Avhat he will think better than either office or salary — the 
 solemn thanks of his countrymen, for the frank and decided 
 tone which he has taken in the CuiTencv Question.
 
 80 THE (TTRRF.XCV. 
 
 the same liberal footing, to unite the office ot* 
 the Lord Justice-General, (salary suppressed,) 
 though I believe the bill did not pass. 
 
 This is really, sir, putting the few offices we 
 have left to indicate our ancient independence, 
 on a more ridiculous footing than the Dukes of 
 Normandy and Acquitaine, which imaginary 
 vassals of England used to revive at every co- 
 ronation, and were each of them allowed a whole 
 man to represent them ;* while poor Scotland's 
 high officers of state resemble Coleman's 
 
 Two single gentlemen roll'd into one ; 
 
 or rather remind us of the starvling shifts of 
 a strolling company, in which two parts are 
 performed by one actor, and for one salary. 
 There may be an emblem in the thing though. 
 It is perhaps designed to represent an union 
 between two kingdoms, or an incorporating 
 union, in which one enjoys the full advanta- 
 ges and supereminent authority, and the other 
 remains. 
 
 * The good taste which directed the last august ceremony, 
 dispensed with the appearance of these phantoms. 
 
 11
 
 THE CITRRENCV. 81 
 
 Magni nominis umbra. 
 
 I do not suppose this farce will be continued 
 long. We shall in due time, I suppose, be put 
 all under English control, deprived even of the 
 few native dignitaries and office-holders we have 
 left, and accommodated with a set of English 
 superintendants in every department. It will 
 be upon the very reasoning of Goneril before 
 alluded to : — 
 
 " What need you five-and-twenty, ten, or five, 
 To follow in a house where twice so many 
 Have a command to tend you ? — " 
 
 Patrick, will you play Regan, and echo, 
 
 "——What need ofie?" 
 Take care, my good fellow ! for you will scarce 
 get a great share in our spoils, and will be 
 shortly incapacitated, and put under a statute of 
 lunacy, as well as ourselves. 
 
 But what will England take by this engross- 
 ing spirit ? Not the miserable candle-ends and 
 cheese-parings — these, I dare say, she scorns. 
 The mere pleasiu'e, then, of absolute authority 
 — the gratification of humour exacted by a pee-- 
 
 F
 
 821 THE CURRENCY. 
 
 vish and petted child, wlio will not be contented 
 till he has the toy in liis own hand, though he 
 break it the next moment. Is any real power 
 derived by centering the immediate and direct 
 control of everything in London ? Far from it. 
 On the contrary, that great metropolis is al- 
 ready a head too bulky for the empire, and, 
 should it take a vertigo, the limbs would be 
 unable to support it. The misfortune of France, 
 during the Revolution, in all its phases, was, 
 that no part of the kingdom could think for it- 
 self or act for itself ; all were from habit neces- 
 sitated to look up to Paris. Whoever was up- 
 permost there, and the worst party is apt to 
 prevail in a corrupted metropolis, were, without 
 possibility of effectual contradiction, the uncon- 
 trolled and despotic rulers of France — abisit 
 omen ! 
 
 Again, would.the British empire become strong- 
 er, were it possible to annul and dissolve all the 
 distinctions and peculiarities, which, flowing out 
 of circumstances, historical events, and difference 
 of customs and climates, make its relative parts 
 still, in some respects, three separate nations^ 
 though intimately incorporated into one empire?
 
 THE CURRENCY. 83 
 
 Every rope-maker knows, sir, that three dis- 
 tinct strands, as they are called, incorporated 
 and twisted together, will make a cable ten 
 times stronger than the same quantity of hemp, 
 however artificially combined into a single twist 
 of cord. The reason is obvious to the meanest 
 capacity. If one of the strands happen to fail a 
 little, there is a threefold chance that no imper- 
 fection will occur in the others at the same place, 
 so that the infirm strand may give way a little, 
 yet the whole cord remain trustworthy. If the 
 single twist fail at any point, all is over. For 
 God's sake, sir, let us remain as Nature made 
 us, Englishmen, Irishmen, and Scotchmen, with 
 something like the impress of our several coun- 
 tries upon each ! We would not become better 
 subjects, or more valuable members of the com- 
 mon empire, if we all resembled each other like 
 so many smooth shillings. Let us love and che- 
 rish each other's virtues — bear with each other's 
 failings — be tender to each other's prejudices — 
 be scrupulously regardful of each other's rights. 
 Lastly, let us borrow each other's improvements, 
 but never before they are needed and demanded. 
 The degree of national diversity between dif-
 
 84 THE CURRENCY. 
 
 fereiit countries, is but an instance of that ge- 
 neral variety which Nature seems to have 
 adopted as a principle through all her works, as 
 anxious, apparently, to avoid, as modern states- 
 men to enforce, anything like an approach to 
 absolute " uniformity." 
 
 It may be said that some of the grievances I 
 have complained of are mere trifles. I grant 
 they are, — excepting in the feelings and inten- 
 tions towards Scotland which they indicate. 
 But, according to Bacon's maxim, you will see 
 how the wind sits by flinging up a feather, 
 which you cannot discern by throwing up a 
 stone. Afli'onts are almost always more offen- 
 sive than injuries, although they seldom are in 
 themselves more than trifles. The omitting to 
 discharge a gun or two in a salute, the raising 
 or striking of a banner or sail, have been the 
 source of bloody wars. England lost America 
 about a few miserable chests of tea — she endan- 
 gered India for the clipping of a mustachio. 
 
 But let us humble ourselves to our situation, 
 and confine our remonstrances to the immediate 
 grievance, which surely cannot be termed punc- 
 tilious or iminiportant.
 
 THE CURRENCY. 85 
 
 To England we say, therefore, Let us appeal 
 from Philip intoxicated to Philip sober. Leave 
 out exasperating circumstances on either side, 
 and examine our remonstrance, not in the jea- 
 lous feeling of which we have reason to com- 
 plain, but in the gentlemanlike and liberal 
 tone so much more becoming a great nation, 
 and according, I must say, so much better with 
 your natural disposition. As you mean that 
 a value should be set upon your free public 
 voice by your legislators, allow the natural in- 
 fluence of that of Scotland, in a matter exclu- 
 sively relating to her own affairs, but so inti- 
 mately connected with her welfare, that nothing 
 since the year 1748 has occurred of such im- 
 portance. The precedent is a bad one at any 
 rate ; the consequences will be much worse. 
 
 Prevent — resist it. Let it not be so, 
 
 Lest children's children call against you — woe ! 
 
 Our Scottish Nobles and Gentlemen, I cannot 
 better exhort to resist the proposal at every 
 stage, by the most continued and unremitting 
 opposition — to be discouraged by nothing — to 
 hope to the last — to combat to the last — than 
 by using once more the words of the patriotic
 
 86 THE CURRENCY. 
 
 Belhaven : — " Man's extremity is God's oppor- 
 tunity. He is a present help in time of need ; a 
 deliverer, and that right early. Some unfore- 
 seen providence will fall out, that may cast the 
 balance. Some Joseph will say. Why do you 
 strive together when you are brethren ? Some 
 Judah or other will say. Let not our hand be 
 upon him, he is our brother. Let us up then, 
 and be doing ; and let our noble patriots behave 
 themselves like men, and we know not how soon 
 a blessing may come." 
 
 I am, Mr Journalist, 
 
 Yours, 
 
 Malachi Malaguowther. 
 
 KllINBUIlGH : 
 
 rrinled by James Ballanlyne and Co.