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that the amount of notes still in circulation, of a date prior to the period then named, was so inconsiderable, as to make it a matter of perfect indifference to the Bank, whether they were paid in specie or not. It was also known before the meeting of Parliament had thrown any light on the views of administration, that the amount of Bank of England paper in circulation was very great. It was known, too, that, encouraged by this plentiful issue, the country banks had been very liberal in their discounts;that the body of private artificial circulating medium was probably as great at it had ever been during the most flourishing years of the restriction;-and that, in consequence, ministers would, when discussion on this delicate point should become inevitable, propose a farther enlargement of the term granted to prepare for the resumption of cash payments. It is of great importance to attend to these apparently isolated facts.

The actual press of money, unfortunately for the country, remaining unemployed in the hands of large capitalists in London, first caused a rise in the Funds last summer. Urged by an unextinguishable principle of human nature,-men would rather take the chance of placing their money, where, from a sudden reverse, it might probably be locked up for a season,-with the certainty of receiving five or rather more than five per cent.-than keep it disengaged for the chance of such commercial investments, as a state of profits, by no means inviting, seemed to promise,-with the certainty that, in the interval, it should produce no increase. In this originated the first actual rise in the funds. Money was plenty. That was undeniable. But the plenty was a dead glut arising from causes always to be deprecated in a commercial country:-a preternatural declension in the effectual demand for capital a low rate of the profits of stock. Following as a consequence on the first demonstration of a steady rise in the funds, it would happen that all those who had real property to offer in pledge, could not fail of obtaining discounts at the Bank of England. More money was thus thrown into the market,—and more speculators introduced into CapelCourt. The funds advanced; and it was found convenient to quote their rise as a proof of national prosperity.

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It would be worse than useless to repeat arguments which have been a thousand times illustrated with every degree of evidence and authority by ingenious and scientific men. But it is quite safe to aver, with Mr Grenfell, that the speculations in the funds are now solely caused by the unrestrained issues of the Bank. And who can justly blame the Directors of that institution? Profit is fairly and avowedly their aim. They are furnished, by a special act of the Legislature, with the most tempting facilities, because the restraint of that common prudence which makes every other contractor of an obligation look before him, is taken off them,-and they are protected from the immediate consequences of a stagnation in their trade, and a rigid construction of their current obligations,-by a legalized impunity. To say that, while the restriction lasts, they shall ever know or care for knowing a wholesome limit to circulation, is weak and credulous and absurd. Very few bodies of men have ever been so wise as to prefer a contingent and ultimate safety to a present profit. No body of men, when profit was actually the immediate and open question, have ever preferred general to particular interests. Let the return of the Bank to cash payments come when it may, it must be accompanied with an enormous decrease of their profits,and necessarily, with considerable derangement to their private and company concerns. They cannot return gradually, unless the Chancellor of the Exchequer were bringing on, from session to session, gradual reductions of the dividends on 3, 4, and 5 per cents. It would then be found that these dividends, and the funds to meet them, had attained equal relative values. It would then, and it will not till then, be found whether an efficient currency made up of, or exchangeable into, the precious metals which are the measure of exchange, the standard of value, and an object of commerce, with all civilized nations, can coexist with a nominal and real amount of taxation, equal to that now levied in Great Britain.

With regard to the practical effects of this unrestrained circulation, they cannot be more forcibly illustrated, than when taken in conjunction with the operation of our usury laws. A man is willing to lend a certain sum

of money for a certain period of years. Bank circulation is low. He foresees that, whenever this circulation shall spread wider, he will, of necessity, be subjected to receive in payment, a sum of money considerably less in effective value than what he lends. He wishes, rightly, to obtain such a premium, in the meantime, as may be, in some degree, a previous insurance against a very probable loss. The lender is willing to meet this expence. But, it is either doubled to him by the disingenuous precautions which the usury laws necessarily impose,-or his circumstances do not permit of the sacrifice. An irreparable injury is here inflicted on both parties. The free and secure enjoyment of property is grievously curtailed to the first individual. From the other, a natural and most operative spur to industry is taken away. Look at the reverse of this case. The Bank circulation is high. The price of gold has risen, and notes are at a discount. A person wishes to borrow asum of money, and procures the loan at 5 per cent. or, more probably at 7 or 9. Circumstances change. The Bank decreases its issues. Notes and bul

lion are at par. The unfortunate debtor, when he is called on to refund his loan, pays in paper of the effective value of a pound in gold, that advance which was made when 20s. in paper were as 17s. or 18s. in gold, and which, in effect, was worth no more to him for the purpose which led him to borrow! See how the usury laws, and an unrestrained circulation of Bank paper, protect the unwary or necessitous borrower! It is clear that, in both these instances, an irreparable injury is inflicted on individuals. The diffusive evil, however, is general: And its effects are much more widely reaching, and have actually a more powerful and pernicious influence on the frame and aspect of society, than is commonly believed or attended to. It is clear, that, by the joint operation of these two laws, small capitalists, of the industrious classes, who would turn money to the most productive use, are precluded from getting it at a marketable rate. But this is not all. The money does, at last, fall into the hands of desperate prodigals, who dissipate it in contemptible extravagancies; or upstart speculators, with a little property, but with more cupidity and rashness, who expend it

in worthless projects. Candour, confidence, and fair dealing, are replaced by something else. Private and public morality are deeply affected. Prudence, economy, and forbearance, are no longer prized as virtues. Caution and deliberate forecast are not held to be attributes of mercantile skill. A reckless gambling habit is substituted for them. A propensity to litigiousness, and a spirit of chicanery, usurp the place of regular industry and fairdealing. Transactions between capitalists, and the industrious and enterprising, cease to be conducted with openness and ingenuity. Bargains, formerly the most onerous, are smuggled, or entered into, commonly, with a secret determination on one side to hold the other in fear of penal consequences,-to cheat in defiance,—or to profit, unfairly, by contingencies not anticipated. Property is, in effect, rendered insecure; and those minute divisions of capital, so desirous in a commercial nation, when they occur without breaking down the accumulated masses which permanently set and keep productive labour in motion, are greatly narrowed.

It is, perhaps, very superfluous to add, that it is not the amount of circulating medium which can give any alarm. All that is wanted to quiet the most timorous, is a circulation referable to one standard. All that can be done to maintain that standard, is to let the relative value of silver and gold remain as it now is, and to repeal, instantly, a law which protects a mercantile body from being liable in its solemn and public engagements. The amount of specie current might be greatly enlarged by an increased output from the mines, and by the temporary payment of commercial remittances in bullion. If the exchangeable value of gold should not be greater elsewhere, it will become comparatively profitable for the merchant to coin his bullion. He would infallibly prefer circulating his bars at home, in the shape of specie, to keeping them locked up in his warehouse, or sending them to a market, when their price could not return the capital, of which, to him, they are the equivalent product;-the expence and risk of transmission,-and the ordinary profits of stock. Then money would become relatively plentier. Prices and wages of labour would rise simultaneously. No ca◄

pitalist could feel the situation of things changed for the better or the worse, except as peculiar and casual circumstances should give to, or take from him a wider command of necessaries and gratifications. No man, whose only marketable equivalent for commodities is labour, and whose only share of capital is formed from the strenuous accumulations of a wise and honest self-denial, could fear then, as now, a sudden blow from puzzling alternations between the adventitious and apparent value of a local curreney, and the permanent value of a general one. Πνευμα.

Edinburgh, 11th March 1818.

BATTLE OF SHERIFFMUIR.

[Though sufficiently accurate accounts of this memorable rencounter have been formerly given to the public, yet few of our readers, we imagine, will be unwilling to peruse another original document on a subject so interesting to national feelings. The present writer, though not entitled to the confidence of an eye-witness, appears to have had access to the best sources of intelligence; and his details are enlivened with some of the vivacity and interest, as well as the natural partiality and exaggeration of a contemporary partizan. The letter, which (according to a common practice in those dangerous times) is without signature, is addressed "To Mr James Neilsone, opposite the Tolbooth, Berwick."

The MS. collection from which we copy this notice, contains many other curious papers, from which we hope, from time to time, to furnish our readers with interesting extracts.]

Edinburgh, Nov. 15, 1715. ARGYLE having formed his small army on Sunday morning last, in very good order, upon ane rising ground or hill above Shirreffmuir, the rebells under the Earl of Marr being formed, marched, and extended themselves in way of circle, as if they desyned to surround our army, which oblidged his G. the D. of Argyle to alter his grounds, and to make a new disposition of his army; and in forming of it the second tyme, the right wing of the rebells attacked the left of ours before they were formed; the forming of the left, as is said, being committed to General Evans, while his Grace formed the right. In this conjuncture, the rebells, as I have said, attacked our left, and not being form

ed, put them in disorder. They first attacked Shannon's regt. of foot, who, to their commendation, briskly repuls ed them, and then attacked that regt. of foot which was Webb's, (and, as I believe, now Morrison's,) and that of Orrary's, who both gave way; and the Highland rebells, consisting of the clanns, who were not only their best men, but of triple the number to our left, went quite thorrow them, and made a considerable slaughter of our men. The two regts. of dragoons of Carpenter and that which was Eccline's, gave way likewise; but indeed intermediat, and supported these foot, and stopt the clanns from further slaughter of these two reg. and carried off our cannon that was on that side alongest with them. But the misfortune was, that these troops retired, for the most part of them, to Stirling. In this action was the greatest loss on our side, besides the losing of our collours and standards.

The right of our army, (where the D. was,) and the main body, pushed the rebells intirely to a rout before them, and pursued them for some miles to Allan Water: in which the nobility and gentry of the horse volunteers acted worthy of themselves, and without vanity bore their own share in that victory; and even bore their share of the rebells' fire in their attack upon that of Fforffar and Evans's dragoons were in some little Wightman's regiments. And tho' disorder, it was not through occasion of the enemy, but through the deepness of the marish ground which was near to have bogged their horses; but then, in a moment, they rectified themselves by a sudden and short wheeling, and comeing up again to a more proper station or ground, they then performed as could be desired.

In the persuit on the right of our army, of the left of the rebells, our volunteers gott the gentry of them the left quarters. It would seem, by our acc'. that his Grace the D. of Argyle was in the persuit, for which our weell affected criticks blame his Grace: Because that the 4000 of the rebells that retired with Marr to a hill at a myle's distance from the field of battle, and who were to have been of new attacked, was oblidged to be given over; ffirst upon the account that the left had retired as above, which his Grace did not know off, and which

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he must have knowen if he had not been upon the persuite; and next that his Grace had a morrass to pass in order to make the second attack upon that hill.

As to the particulars of the slain and wounded on either side, it is yet uncertain, since wee have had noe intelligence what account Collonell Kerr has returned of the killed; being ordered out wt a detachment to cause buiry the dead on both sides. Tho' perhapps Briggadeer Harrison, (a volunteer,) who is gone express from the D. of Argyle, may carry it with him in his Grace's letters, and who carries in his clogbag the rebells' pretended royall flag. But, at the same tyme, I cannot ommitt to give you what I have collected. That on the rebells' side there is said to be killed, with some certainty, the Earles of Marishell, Strathmore, and Southesk; and, with uncertainty, the Earles of Linlithgow and Aboyn; of their gentry killed, Lyon of Auchterhous, and it is said Sir Rot Gordoun of Gordounstoun, and the Laird of Keirr; and of prisoners, Barrowfeild, as I wrote before, Glengairy, as they say, Logieamond, Murray of Auchtertyre, younger, and many others; of whom both killed and wounded ye shall have account by nixt.

And on our side of note killed are Lieut. Coll Lorroune, Capt. Arnot, and Capt. Armstrong, who was Edicamp to the D. of A Of wounded, that brave and worthy young gentleman the E. of Forfarr, being shott in the knee, did occasione his being taken by the rebells, and who unmercifully, after he had gotten quarter, received eighteen wounds in the head and body; and not being able to carry him off, was brought in to Stirling, and declares that most of the wounds he gott after he was taken prisoner from that ingrained rebell the Viscount of Kilsyth. I pray God he may recover, though there is little hopes; as there is of Coll1 Halley, being shott throw the body; and of Capt. Urquhart of Burdyeyeards, being wounded in the belly, after being made prisoner, soe that his puddings hang out. And wee have it in toun that Capt. Cheisly, after he was taken prisoner, was ript up by the rebells. And of all the volunteers, I doe not hear of any of them that was soe much as wounded, except Mr Charles

Cockburn, the Justice Clerk's son, who is shott throw the arm; for Isla I wrote formerly off him, and the wound he received was through the fleshy pairt of his arm, which likewise slightly wounded him in the side.

On the Munday morning (the left of our army haveing returned) his Grace designed a new ingadgement. But a great many of the rebells did intirely desert and fly upon Sunday, soe the body of them that fought it were, before the break of day, retired towards Pearth; which is all the acco I can give you at present; only that Argyle, with his army, went all in to Stirling on Munday night, after he had sent out severall pairtys in quest of the disperst rebells. And, least I forgott it in my last, its bot little trouble to acquaint you again, that all the rebells' cannon, and most of their standards and collours, were taken. Adieu.

ST KILDA POETRY.

MR EDITOR,

YOUR readers may probably know, that the people inhabiting the small and remote island of St Kilda, have considerable talent for poetical compo sition; but may not have seen any specimens of the productions of that talent. The effusions of natural but uncultivated genius, are not to be expected to satisfy the fastidious mind of the critic; but there are many, I trust, to whom the specimens which I subjoin will afford some gratification. With regard to their authenticity, I can only say, that I brought them from the island in the year 1800, with others of various merit. They were put into the hands of an excellent Gaelic scholar, the late Rev. Mr Campbell of Portree, in Skye, who sent me these two translations; but I have not recovered the remainder, nor the original MS. of these. Accident brought them to my hand a few days ago, and your miscellany occurred to me as a proper repository for their preservation. I am uncertain of the time when the first was composed, but it was not many years before I visited St Kilda. The second was produced only a few months before, in consequence of the visit of a party in 1799. The individual to whom it alludes is now no more; but his fellow travellers are all

242

St Kilda Poetry.

alive, and, should this meet the eye
of any of them, it will bring some cu-
rious adventures to their recollection.
VIATOR.
I am, Mr Editor, yours,
February 1818.

Translation of a Lament, composed by a
disconsolate Father, from under whose
foot, while catching Solan Geese, along
with his two sons, a piece of rock gave
way, and killed one of them.

John, of the light yellow hair, well couldst thou climb the rocks; firm were thy steps on the lofty cliffs of St Kilda. Thy death bereft me of comfort; my support lost; my strength hath mournfully failed. Thou art silent, my son! Though thy wounds were deep, I heard not thy Woe to me; thou couldst not complain. I laid my hand on thy bruised body; alas, it was lifeless and cold.

moan.

Thou stood'st on the tottering crag behind me. I shook with terror lest thy feet might fail, often did I turn, and beheld thy steps with fear;-the slippery rock was unsteady, and my pain was increased. He was skilful in every useful work,-mighty was his strength, and his hands well formGreat cause have 1 to be ed for labour. sad; I grieve because he can never arise. As I looked around, the cliffs had a threatening aspect,-dark rolled the waves below, and gloomy was the face of the sea. Sorrow clouded my sight,-grief sorely stung my soul,-with the throbbing of fear I started ;-I dreaded my all was gone, and that I was left to bewail their fate in anguish.

John! thick grew the fair locks on thy head! The sight of thy father rejoiced thee,-strong was thy arm to support him, -thou wouldst never leave him, his absence gave pain to thy heart. Thy brows were never seen to lower, nor did anger ever frown on thy face. Thou wert faithful to me, my son! Dreadful was the fatal hour which ended the course of thy life, never can I cease to lament! Dreadful was the force of the stone that fell,-it rushed down with a tremendous noise. Unhappy that I am, my foot moved it from its place! It struck at once my beloved son,— it overwhelmed the strength of the brave. But thou art in peace,-I am sad, and alone.

ed his faithful love. His ribbands stream
the day he gave me his heart, and promis-
on my shoulders, they brightly encircle
my head, and bind in ringlets my hair.
Amazing is my love for the youth,-it ex-
ceeds what my song can unfold. Who in
dress can be like him? well it suits his
stately form. Pleasant, my beloved, were
thy witty sayings; Oh, how I rejoiced in
thy mirth!-To thine the jests of others
were trifles,-'tis with thee I would love to
hate all who listen and tell. They delight
be gay ;-I detest them who hearken;-I
to defame,-scandal is for ever their theme,
but I can free thee, my darling, I can free
thee from their spiteful malice, and the
evil reports which they have spread;-I
Thou wouldst not offer to hurt
disdain their wicked tales, and despise their
but to solace and gladden my bosom with
me,-thy pleasure was not to do harm,
the joys and raptures of love. Were I
a letter, to tell my
blest with the power of writing, I would
soon send to

taunts.

love of my state, and inform him how
every tongue speaks to his undoing and
mine. But he comes with revenge, he
comes, and they are silent; unbounded is
the love I bear to thee, the youth I ad-
mire ;-I do not always proclaim it, yet it
dwells warm in my heart, where it glows
When shall I hear
with unceasing regard. With thee I would
fly through the world.
from my love,-when will he rush to my
arms? Though I had for my portion all
the riches possessed by the wealthy son of
Bernera, I could yield it all for thee, and
be happy,I would yield it, my dear, to
live with thee in a desart, where no step
could approach us, and no voice of man
could be heard.

Though I delight to be merry, I will
He who
henceforth shun the young men.
has wooed and won me, to him I will be
faithful. I will not join in their follies,
no more rejoice in their sports. Angus de-
scended from the tribe of Gillies. Angus of
the dark brown locks, once I was thought
to be thine, nor did I spurn at thy suit.
But he, my beloved, came from his Isle;
I will listen no more to thy voice.

Sad am I on the hill ;-I view with sorrow the deep,--with melancholy steps I slowly descend the glen, when I think of the youth I love. Oh how sweet were his lips-how pleasant his speech ;-his words must be true, falsehood cannot Great, mighty, my

Translation of a Love Song composed by dwell in his heart.
Marion Gillies of St Kilda.

I love the youth whose locks are brown;
great is the love I bear to him. I gave
him a kiss in the evening; ah! how he
Happy indeed was
then embraced me.
our meeting, though revilers make free
Is it wonderful that I
with our fame.
should rejoice? Good cause have I to be
gay since first the youth beheld me, since.

beloved, is the affection I bear thee; who does not know my love? I know our hearts burn with a mutual flame. Ah! if they keep us asunder,—if wedlock join not our lots, hard then is our destiny,-cruel, too cruel our fate. They will treat us without mercy;--what will become of me Save me, my love! Defend me from shame! Come, Oh hasten to my arms!

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