meritorious class of his fellow-subjects, and
one whose exposures and actual losses called loudly for relief of
this nature. As I closed the letter I could not help dwelling with
complacency on the zeal and promptitude with which I had acted--the
certain proof of the usefulness of the theory of investments.

The second communication was from the manager of an East India property,
that very happily came with its offering to fill the vacuum left by the
failure of the crops just mentioned. Sugar was likely to be a drug
in the peninsula, and my correspondent stated that the cost of
transportation being so much greater than from the other colonies, this
advantage would be entirely lost unless government did something to
restore the East Indian to his natural equality. I enclosed this letter
in one to my Lord Say and Do, who was in the ministry, asking him in the
most laconic and pointed terms whether it were possible for the empire
to prosper when one portion of it was left in possession of exclusive
advantages, to the prejudice of all the others? As this question was
put with a truly British spirit, I hope it had some tendency to open the
eyes of his majesty's ministers; for much was shortly after said, both
in the journals and in parliament, on the necessity of protecting
our East Indian fellow-subjects, and of doing natural justice by
establishing the national prosperity on the only firm basis, that of
free trade.

The next letter was from the acting partner of a large manufacturing
house to which I had advanced quite half the capital, in order to
enter into a sympathetic communion with the cotton-spinners. The writer
complained heavily of the import duty on the raw material, made some
poignant allusions to the increasing competition on the continent and
in America, and pretty clearly intimated that the lord of the manor
of Householder ought to make himself felt by the administration in a
question of so much magnitude to the nation. On this hint I spake. I sat
down on the spot and wrote a long letter to my friend Lord Pledge, in
which I pointed out to him the danger that threatened our political
economy; that we were imitating the false theories of the Americans (the
countrymen of Captain Poke), that trade was clearly never so prosperous
as when it was the most successful, that success depended on effort, and
effort was the most efficient when the least encumbered, and in short
that as it was self-evident a man would ju