eech in support of the
proposal, showing that the inflation produced by the
small note paper currency had greatly contributed to
cause and aggravate the panic ('Huskisson's Speeches,'
vol. ii. p. 444). Mr. Baring, afterwards Lord
Ashburton, opposed the restriction of small notes, but
with small success. The period allowed for the
contraction of their circulation was, however, extended
to the 10th of October.]

Everybody knows that Huskisson is the real author of the finance
measure of Government, and there can be no greater anomaly than
that of a Chancellor of the Exchequer who is obliged to propose
and defend measures of which another Minister is the real though
not the apparent author. The funds rose nearly two per cent, upon
this alteration in the Bill before the House, on account of the
prospect of an abundance of money. Still it is thought that
nothing will be sufficient to relieve the present distress but an
issue of Exchequer bills. So great and absorbing is the interest
which the present discussions excite that all men are become
political economists and financiers, and everybody is obliged to
have an opinion.

February 24th, 1826 {p.081}

I have been since yesterday the spectator of a melancholy scene
and engaged in a sad office. Arthur de Ros,[4] who was taken ill
a fortnight ago, became worse on Monday night. After this time he
was scarcely ever sensible, and yesterday, at a quarter-past two,
he expired. After they had given up all hopes they were induced
again to suffer them to revive from the disappearance of the most
unfavourable symptoms; but this was only the weakness which
preceded dissolution, and a few moments after his brother Henry
had told me that he did not despair he came and said that all was
over, and a little while after Rose announced that he had ceased
to breathe. He died tranquilly, and did not suffer at all. I
never saw such a distress. His father, mother, sisters, William,
and his wife went immediately to Boyle Farm. Henry would have
followed them, but I persuaded him to go home. He went first to
Mrs. ----, to whom Arthur had been attached for ten years, and
after a painful interview with her he came to his own house; he
has since been too ill to move. I have never seen grief so
strong and concentrated as his; it has exhausted his body and
overwhelmed his mind, and though I knew him to have been much