is to issue certificates for sums of one pound, five pounds, and any greater denomination, upon a deposite of gold of equal amount; and such fixed proportion of the gold so deposited, as may be ascertained, from experience, to be the amount that may, with the most perfect safety, be withdrawn by exportation from the metallic portion of the currency, is to be immediately invested in the public funds, by commissioners appointed for that purpose. By this process, the following results will be effected:

First. The mixed currency, after the exportation of the gold above referred to, will be precisely equal to the quantity of coin that would have existed in the country, had there been no mint certificates.

Secondly. The country would derive the profits resulting from the employment of a certain amount of capital in commercial pursuits, which would otherwise have been unprofitably employed as currency.

Thirdly. The public, and not private corporations, or individuals, would enjoy a profit resulting from the circulation of the paper money, precisely equal to the accruing interest on the public debt held by the commissioners; and,

Fourthly. The country would be entirely exempted from any fluctuation in the currency, other than that to which a metallic currency is liable; it being necessarily incident to the plan, that whenever mint certificates should be returned for payment in gold, the commissioners should obtain in the market, by a sale of public securities, an amount of coin precisely equal to that which was invested, on the issue of the notes so returned.

Against the soundness of this plan, I am not able to see any objections. How far a general panic, arising from war, or domestic disturbance, might render it difficult to sell public securities in a time of emergency, you are better able to judge than I am. Certain is it, however, that no depression of the stock market could result from a reaction of an expanded state of the

currency, the most frequent cause of depressions at the present day, for, as there would be no expansion, there could be no reaction.

Before parting, I can not omit the occasion to say to you, that, although the political horizon is, at this moment, somewhat over cast, I can not persuade myself that two countries like Great Britain and the United States, so peculiarly adapted to supply each other's wants, and whose mutual interest it so manifestly is to maintain an eternal friendship, can, at this enlightened day, be guilty of the folly of going to war. And now, wishing you a safe and expeditious voyage, I subscribe myself, very truly and respectfully, Your friend and servant,

CONDY RAGuet.

22*

F.

Imports and Exports of the United States, from the 1st of October, 1789, to the 30th of September, 1838, taken from documents accompanying the Secretary of the Treasury's annual Report to Congress, of the 3d of December, 1839.

For the early years the aggregate of the value of imports does not appear on the official statement, and has been estimated at different amounts by different persons, and thus that column will not always correspond with former reports. But the difference will not be found so great as to affect materially any general result. [In former reports it is stated, that prior to the 1st of October 1820, the official returns do not show the value of imports. Previous to 1796, the returns of exports did not discriminate between domestic and foreign productions.-Author.]

* The imports and exports, for 1839, are estimated thus by the secretary, the exact returns not having been received by him.-Author.

G.

ON UNLIMITED LIABILITY.

By James Cox Esq. of Philadelphia.

THE question of the extent of the liability of individuals, and of their natural right to limit that liability, is one which, in its moral as well as in its economical aspects and relations, is of the highest interest and importance, and the satisfactory solution of which is intimately connected with the investigation of those general and fundamental principles of justice and of expediency, which should form the basis of all positive enactments.

Prominent among the many plausible yet shallow fallacies which have, with a zeal and a perseverance worthy of a better cause, been urged in favor of the device of a limitation of individual liability-of a restriction upon personal responsibility-is the vain and contradictory assumption that the adoption and extension of this system of restraints is required by an enlightened adherence to the doctrines of the free trade theory-a theory in the general truth of the conclusions of which there is, as we think, no sufficient reason to doubt.

What would be the condition of individuals living in a state of the largest liberty consistent with the protection of each in the enjoyment of his natural rights, and under the control of no laws except such as might be necessary to enforce that performance of engagements which is required by a regard to the paramount obligations of morality, and to the demands of justice? A. B. and C. would, as it is perfectly manifest, trade with each other upon the condition of the natural and unlimited liability of each. And