EXPLANATION OF THE TABLE

ON THE

AMOUNT OF FOREIGN EXPENDITURE, &c.

THE Exchanges are affected by two great principles of political economy, namely, by the Foreign Expenditure, and by the amount paid for grain imported. When, therefore, the importation of grain, and the Foreign Expenditure have been great, the Exchange has become unfavorable, and the latter has, vice versâ, increased nearly in the same ratio as the two former have diminished.

In the accompanying Table it will be seen, that each protruding line of demarkation, specifying the variation of the Exchange, has, with very trifling exceptions, a corresponding sinus in the two lines which designate the increase or diminution of the Foreign Expenditure and the amount paid for imported grain.

The result to be inferred is, that the Foreign Expenditure having now dropped from upwards of 26 millions annually down to 2 millions, the exchange will also most probably partake in a great measure of this counteraction, and become gradually higher, especially if the succeeding harvests should fortunately prove so abundant, as to render importation unnecessary.

END OF NO. XXIX.

THE

DEFENCES

OF

THE WHIGS;

A NEW EDITION,

WITH

A PREFACE.

BY

THOMAS, LORD ERSKINE.

LONDON:

VOL. XV.

Pum.

NO. XXX.

T

Ace 200.roig of a side toy etsTatildo llen. attoo Jedi lo erabnetah Jesi eds of emi-godsS1d really sit J0192 boasi shiboyuolod enoitslutet red to wove od swowo Toy lic Queule wello noiqmedo odredil to 1910J8 A REPLY" to the Defences of the Whigs," how published together, has some time ago made its appearance, under specious title of "A DEFENCE OF THE PEOPLE as if there had been a word in either of them by which their rights or liber DE 949 90 1000 19JIT ties were invaded. standing do diwledil 290 The very few remarks I have to offer upon this publication I have chosen, therefore, to make as a Preface to this new 19001 Edition, that whoever collects from it the nature and character of the complaints against me, may, by comparing them with what I have written, be more clearly convinced of their injustice, and that public men may take warning to avoid all political communication with those, who with seeming gratitude acknowledge services to the country, and reward them with the bitterest reproach.

90 TOW

"It was on the 9th of November 1794, says this author in the very outset of his work, that I harnessed myself to the carriage of the Honorable Thomas Erskine, when that disting guished barrister was drawn through the streets of the metropolis, amidst the blessings and the tears of a people whom he had saved from the gripe of oppression. Your Lordship does not praise yourself half enough for the exploits of those days. It

is but a poor description of them to say, that you saved your brother-reformers from being hanged. The English, then, had but one hope left. Their parliament, instead of protecting them, lent aid to the tyrants that conspired their destruction. Nothing remained but to frighten or corrupt the tribunal which held the sword over those whom their mock representatives had delivered bound hand and foot to the bloody servants of the crown. A complaisant jury would have completed the work of a treacherous parliament. It was not the existence of HARDY which was at stake. If you had often before fought for victory in this cause, you then contended for the life of our British liberties. No time, no, nor your Lordship's subsequent conduct, shall obliterate your share in the glorious struggle that gave a breathing-time to the last defenders of their country. The congratulations belonged to the rescued prisoner, but the praise was all your own;-you were the saviour of the innocent, the restorer of liberty, the champion of law, of justice, and of truth. Dazzled by your eloquence animated by your courage-sympathising with your success your fellow-countrymen sunk under their admiration, their gratitude, and their joy; and bowed down before the idol of their hearts."

A writer ought to be perfectly sure of his ground, who prefaces a libel with such enthusiastic praise, since, as in his own avowed opinion I once deserved so exalted a station and character, he is surely bound to establish very serious offences, to justify the sentence immediately following it, in which he addresses me thus:

man should die, who has deserved well of his country, than to forfeit by his misconduct its affection and respect...

The author then proceeds to establish the justice of his sen tence of death against me by long and labored censures of the Whigs from the Revolution downwards; but, as this Preface is not published to support what I have written concerning them, which I shall leave for ever to the publio judgment, I may safely dispose oF THE WHOLE OF IT by only stating, that on the 9th of November, 1794, this writer well knew I had long been a member of the House of Commons; personally attached to Mr. Fox, and supporting the Whig party: he must have known also, that I had approved of the junction with Lord North, which he reprobates, and had supported the Administration formed under it; yet, with this full knowledge of me, he still was harnessed to my carriage, and tells me, even at this hour, that I might THEN have gone down to posterity PURE AND ENTIRE,' Up to this period therefore I am safe, which greatly narrows my remarks.

ལ་ལུང་

From the vehement abuso which still goes on through the whole pamphlet against the conduct of those with whom I have so long acted in Parliament, it is not easy to comprehend, how the desertion of such politicians, which he yet seems eager to impute to me, could at all lessen my reputation, or be any infidelity to the cause of the people; but, knowing that a firm and faithful adherence, not only to political principles, but personally to those with whom they have been maintained, is a great feature in the character of an English gentleman, he endeavours to defame me in that respect; and it is matter of extreme astonishment, that any man should be so rash as to print and publish such a charge without even pretending to have a single fact to support it, since, instead of even assuming one, he, in his forty-third page, after disjointing the Opposition by his own unfounded separation of some of its most eminent members, only from occasional differences of opinion, which :must always exist amongst honest men, puts this strange question to me personally: "And You, my Lord, permit me to ask whether ANY PARTY has counted upon your Lordship for these last years?" To which I readily and confidently answer, in the face of the whole world, YES, THAT PARTY with which I began my public life, with which I have uniformly acted, and against which I never have given a single vote in either House of Par liament, since the Author was harnessed to my carriage. In voting for the continuance of the war, just before its conclusion by the battle of Waterloo (my reasons for which are expressed in the following pages), it is notorious that the Opposition were