To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. SIR, TH THERE is no opinion more frequently broached in the works of foreigners, and the phantasmagoric representations of financiers, than the wealth of England. I am unfortunate enough to think, that this opinion is, in a very great degree, fanciful, and that what is called the wealth of England, is not in much of it actual capital, but a mere phantom, composed of industry and banking. This affirmation I shall endeavour to prove, sented, is no more than the above phantom, created by the industry and taste for luxuries, in the inhabitants: and hence it follows, as a corollary, that the quantity of current paper, and the ratio, in which the banking system prevails, are no bad tests of the industry and coinmerce of a country. Adam Smith establishes a position, which has, I believe, not been controvèrted, viz. that whenever a paper currency exceeds the demands of the country, it reverts upon the issuer. I merely make use of this axiom, to prove, that a paper currency does arise from the demands of a country, if wanted: but is it necessary to prove it. We will suppose the industry of a country to be very great, such as that of England, and that it is directed to various articles of convenience and luxury. One person wants to enjoy these conveniences and luxuries; another to have the capital to establish the manufactures. Suppose it an infant nation, as all are at first, and to consist only of land-owners. Suppose then, to create a capital necessary for these respective wants of creation and consumption, a system of banking to arise, by means of bills; founded upon the credit of the landed property of the bankers; the deficiency of a capital is then supplied. But though this capital passes for wealth, it is not money; the securities or estates, having no increase of value whatever, in consequence of becoming such securities, nor the agricultural product a grain more. The actual wealth consists, beyond the mere stock at any time in band, of nothing more than the industry of the inhabitants, and a quantity of paper, which from confidence, and general consent to take it as money, passes as such, but is of no actual value, further than as it can procure money's worth, in goods: in goods, I say, for were there no demand beyond the specie, which demand is created by industry, and a taste for luxury, it would revert upon the issuer, and specie alone circulate. Suppose this paper on a sudden to become of no value: what remains? no more than what just as much existed before it was issued: viz. a quantity of territory, some specie, and some stock of raw or wrought goods. All the actual wealthi which this mass of paper repre Suppose a banker employs his money in government securities, or advances to tradesmen. The principal lent to government is spent, in consumable and transient necessaries; and the interest alone renders the principal capable of being realised in no other form, than by transfer, and it circulates, till it stops, where a buyer is content to live upon the interest, as estate. If it be advanced to tradesmen, it is spent upon consumable commodities, or in payment of labour; and there is no capital, beyond the stock at any time in hand, realised. Banking augments the powers of the landed people to spend : and the bankers, by means of the government securities, obtain a power of spending still further; the money advanced in a loan is imaginary, being only a transfer of old wealth; but the new securities, in the form of interest and taxes, create a new and imaginary capital, and a new power of spending, still further; and this is probably one reason, why trade is found to flourish in despight of taxes: nothing can be more self-evident, than that every new loan creates a new quantity of stock: that what is given for the purchase of that loan, is only old wealth, actually existing in the country before, but the omnium still remains marketable, and through the interest is the actual creation of a new in come, and by consequence of a new power in the country of spending more. When we are told that the property tax, customs, &c. increase, notwithstanding our burdens, this is in my opinion one reason. This species of wealth is, I think, the real wealth of England, beyond the land, stock, and specie. Wherever industry is predominant, and a market is open, banking generates a capital, and government, by its necessities, finds out securities for its investment; still were the French to invade Great Britain to-morrow, and take it, the acquisition would be by no means, what they expected. The confidence and the security being gone, the powers of spending forty millions per annum, which the stockholder possesses, all the powers of spending also, derived from the profits of the bankers, bankers, and numerous tradesmen and F. For the Monthly Magazine. NARRATIVE of a TOUR through BENGAL, BAHAR, and OUDE, to AGRA, DELHI, and other PLACES in the INTERIOR of HINDUSTAN, undertaken in the YEARS, part most remote from his game, and proceeds in his operations with the greatest silence and circumspection; the bag is fastened round his middle, in such a manner that it may hang down before him; he then slips gently into the water up to his chin, and covers his head with the earthen pot, the sides of which had previously been perforated with several holes, to admit the air, as well as to en the pot is covered with the clods of earth able him to see his way; the outside of 1794, 1795, 1796, and 1797. and the green boughs, which gives it the (Continued from p. 444, vol. 26.) resemblance of a detached fragment of WING to the delay in the morning, the bank. Thus disguised, he creeps along and the fatigue of the Dandies, our towards his game, taking care not to go progress this day was not great; at sunset beyond his depth; the unsuspecting we brought to in a kind of cove, which ducks gambol about, and nibble at the rau two or three hundred yards inland, grass on the pot, unconscious of the foe and formed a very convenient and snug lurking beneath: he now proceeds to harbour. It had a cominunication through business, and catching hold of one of some marshy ground, with a large jeeb, or them by the leg, with a sudden, but Jake, covered with water-fowl of various silent jerk, pulls it under water, dislocates descriptions. It is curious to observe the the neck, and then crains it into his bag: precautions they take, to preserve them- the sudden disappearance of the bird selves from danger, particularly the geese excites no alarm in the others, as they and Braminah ducks; the latter are very naturally conclude that it was merely beautiful birds of a deep orange colour, diving in sport: he goes on in this manwith white ruffs round their necks, and ner, until he fills his bag, when he reof a size somewhat larger than muscovytreats with the same caution he advanced, ducks. Before they venture to indulge and carrics his prize to the next station, themselves in the water, they post a cento sell to the Europeans, as birds of every try on the most elevated spot, with as description are held in the utmost abmuch regularity as a guard of soldiers; horrence by the Hindus, as an article of sheep, cattle, and other animals, approach food; and the Mahometans, like the his post without exciting alarm; but no Jews, eat nothing but what has had its. sooner does their grand enemy, man, vital blood shed on the ground, and a particularly an European, make his ap- particular form of prayer repeated at the pearance, although at a considerable time. I did not much like the appeardistance, than the centry gives a signal, ance of the sky at sunset, and the Man which the rest immediately attend to, by gee was of opinion, it prognosticated a leaving off their sports, and preparing storm. I therefore had the boats well for flight. If the person continues to ad- secured, and made every preparation to vance towards them, the centry gives guard against a north-wester. another signal, and springs up into the prehensions were well-founded; for about air, where he is followed by the rest of nine o'clock, one of the most violent the flock, so that it is extremely difficult gales I ever experienced came on; it to get within shot of them. blew with irresistible violence, but the however, hardly worth much trouble, as precautions we had previously adopted, they are in general rank and ill-flavoured; added to the security of our harbour, but the widgeons, duck, and teal, are enabled us to weather it out in a very excellent, and they abound in every part gallant manner; the violence of the gale of the country in astonishing numbers. did not last quite an hour, and it conThe natives have an odd way of catching tinued gradually to abate, until about them, which, on account of its singula-half after eleven o'clock, when the air rits, I cannot avoid mentioning. The became again perfectly serene. sportsman repairs to the scene of action fused uproar a short distance to leeward, early in the morning, before day-light, led me to imagine some unfortunate trawith a bag, an earthen pot, some clods veller had been wrecked in the squawl; of earth and grass, and a few small green I therefore detached my Harcarrah, and boughs; he approaches the lake in the several Dandies to assist the sufferers. They are, Our ap A con The The Harcarrah presently returned, and informed me that a Saheb's boat had been wrecked in the gale, and that he and his people were in great distress. I immediately sent him back with a note to the gentleman, offering him a shelter for the night, and the assistance of all my people to extricate him from his difficulties; presently my gentleman made his appearance, in a very miserable plight, wet from top to toe, and shivering with the cold so violently, that his teeth sounded like a pair of castanets; he told me in very tolerable English, that he was an European Portuguese, proceeding from Calcutta, to Bangilpore, but that his boat (a small Dacca Pulwar) having been lost in the squawl, he was utterly at a loss how to proceed. I soon found that he was among the lowest or der of Portuguese, a class of people I have a strong aversion to, from repeated instances of their depravity; but as he was in distress, I comforted him as well as I could, by supplying his immediate wants of apparel and refreshment, and a promise of taking him in my boat to the place of his destination. We then walked down to examine the wreck, which we found nearly full of water, part of her side and bottom being staved in; the owner of the boat, who was also the mangee, was the principal sufferer, as it did not appear my Portuguese acquaintance had ten rupees worth of property on board, and the little he had was all saved and taken to my boat, and the Signior himself soon lost all recollection of his recent disaster in a sound sleep, in my Palanquin. Next morning he paid his respects to me at an early hour, and, after a few introductory compliments, informed me his name was Lorenzo de Cabral, a native of Alentejo, which he had quitted when a boy, and gone to the Brazils to seek his fortune; but after a trial of some years, finding no prospect of bettering it in that quarter, he had removed to Goa, the principal Portuguese settlement on the Malabar coast; his endeavours there proving equally unsuccessful, he had three or four years back arrived in Calcutta, a city which had been represented to him as the paradise of the world, and where gold mohurs and rupees were to be picked up with very little trouble; but unfortunately he found those pretty things as difficult to be acquired there, as any where else; and after many attempts Saheb is literally a gentleman, but applied more particularly to an European. to gain a livelihood, he had lately removed to the Sunderbunds, where he maintained himself by sending faggots to Calcutta for sale. On enquiring his business at Baugilpore, he told me that he was going to visit a countryman settled there in the cloth trade, with a view of trying if he could do any thing in that line himself. The Signior's story appeared so very consistent, and his demeanour so mild, and unassuming, that I felt a good deal interested for him, and frequently admitted him into my cabin, when he used to amuse me with an account of the Brazils, and his various adventures in the Sunderbunds, with tigers and alligators. In this manner we pro ceeded on without any thing remarkable occurring, until we arrived at Raaje Mahul, formerly a considerable town, but now dwindled into an insignificant village. On the south bank of the river, part of a palace belonging to the once great Sultan Sujah still remains in pretty good preservation; the interior of two of the rooms is composed entirely of pure white marble, inlaid with inscriptions from the Koran in black marble; the letters are beautifully formed, and so well fitted in the white ground, as to give them the appearance, even after a close inspection, of having been done with a camel-hair pencil, by a masterly hand; this palace is built on a rock, on the margin of the river about forty feet above its level; in front of the building an open area extends to the brink of the precipice, round which there is a parapet wall breast high, erected a few months before my arrival, in consequence of a fatal accident which happened to a military officer, of the name of Van Ristell. At that time a wooden railing was the only safeguard. Mr. Van Ristell stopped here on his way to one of the military stations, and incautiously leaned on the railing, which not being sufficiently strong to support his weight, gave way, and he fell headlong down the precipice on a projecting part of the rock, where his head was literally dashed to pieces. I shuddered as I looked down on the spot, and fancied some of the blood still remained on the stones. I knew Van Ristell well, and could not but feel some melancholy sensations on viewing the scene of his timely death; his remains were buried in a garden adjoining the palace, and a plain but decent monument erected to his memory. About the middle of the seventeenth century, Raaje Mahul was the seat of the government of Bengal, un under under Sultan Sujah, one of the unfortunate sons of the Emperor Sha Jehan. He governed the eastern provinces of the empire for his father many years, with singular justice and moderation, which endeared his memory to the inhabitants long after his death, which happened by treachery in Arracan, where he sought refuge from the vindictive jealousy and ambition of his unnatural brother, Aurungzebe. The numerous ruins scattered in and about Raaje Mahul, and the great extent of some of them, are strong evi. dences of its former grandeur, and of the splendor and magnificence of Sultan Sujah. The natives have a tradition, that that part of the palace in which the Zenanah was situated, was destroyed by fire at a time the Sultan was in a distant part of the province, and that upwards of three hundred women fell a sacrifice to their extreme sense of female delicacy and modesty on the occasion, prefering the inevitable and painful death which awaited them, by continuing in the Zenanah, to the certainty of saving themselves at the expence only of being seen by the men who were endeavouring to extinguish the flames; such is the prejudice of education. The place dwindled soon after the death of the Sultan ; and as I observed before, is now a paltry village. About two miles from it is the celebrated bridge, built by the same prince over a nullah, a small river called the Ooda; hence, it is generally known by the name of the Oodanullah bridge, and is distinguished as affording an elegant specimen of the Moghul architecture of those days. It has acquired additional celebrity in latter times, by giving name to a victory gained near it by the East India Company's troops, commanded by Major Adams, over the forces of Cossim Alee Khan, in the year 1764. On the opposite side, but lower down the river than Raaje Mahul, are the ruins of Gour, the ancient capital of Bengal; the natives speak highly of its antiquity and magnitude; the latter is evident, from its wide extended ruins occupying a space of about twelve miles in length, by three in breadth; but I have some doubts of its being as they assert, the capital of Ben gal, eight hundred years before the Christian ara, and continuing so until the middle of the sixteenth century, when, they say, it was deserted by the inhabitants on account of an epidemic disorder, which destroyed several thousands. Ma * The Seraglio. jor Rennel, to whose opinion in matters of this kind I should pay the utmost deference, does not positively assert the fact, but merely gives it as a tradition handed down by the natives from which, and the geographical correspondence, he supposes it to be the Gangia Regia of Ptolemy. However this may be, it is not probable that a city of such immense magnitude, as to contain a population of two millions of souls,, would be entirely deserted by its inhabitants at one time: the emigrations must have taken place by degrees, and at periods far more remote than the Hindus affirm, for the Mahometan authors make no mention of its existence, since the introduction of Islamism into the country, which took place about the eighth century after Christ; and it is not likely they would have been silent respecting a place of such reputed celebrity, if there had been any vestige of its grandeur remaining in their days. The scite is now covered with jungle,and infested by wolves and tygers, which make it dangerous to explore the ruins, without being numerously attended and well armed; and after all, the labour is not worth the risk, for there is nothing to be seen that bears the least resemblance of a building: some heaps of rubbish, and a few bricks scattered here and there on the surface of the ground, are all that remain to denote that the spot was once inhabited. On my return to the Budgerow, in the evening, from an excursion to Oodanullah, and the environs of Raaje Mahul, I enquired for Signior Cabral, and was told he had gone out soon after me, and taken my double barrel gun. I felt rather offended at his taking such a liberty, but thought nothing more of the matter, and sat down to dinner; soon afterwards Mungloo uttered an exclamation of surprize, and said to me, Sir, have you got your watch? alarmed at the question, I turned round to the wainscot, which divided the dining-room from the bed-chamber, and on which the watch usually hung; but not observing it there, my suspicion was awakened and fully confirmed on further enquiry, by missing a pair of silver mounted pistols, a silver surpoos,* and a pair of new boots, I immediately summoned all my people, and questioned them about the Portu guese, but all in vain; some were in the Buzar at the time he decamped, others cooking their rice, and all employed some *That part of the Hucca which encloses the fire and the tobacco. how how or other, except one stupid Dandy, whose turn it was to be centry; he, it seems, observed the fellow take the gun, and a bundle out of the boat, but supposed he had my permission for doing so. I sent to the Cutwall, to dispatch his myrmidons in all directions, in pursuit of the thief, and wrote myself to Baugilpore, Moorshedabad, Burhampore, and Calcutta, but all to no effect. I have never since been able to hear of Signior Lorenzo de Cabral, although I advertised him in the Calcutta paper above a month. (To be continued.) To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine. A SIR, N effectual cure for the gravel being a very desirable object, I beg leave to call the attention of your readers to a simple and easy remedy, which, though known to many persons, is not so extensively known as it ought to be. That remedy is an Infusion of Wild Carrot Seed; and its efficacy I have fully and happily experienced in my own person. In July and August, 1806, I had several very severe fits of the gravel, each brought on by some little extra exertion in walking; half an hour's walk being sufficient to bring on a fit, which, by its painful and debilitating effects, usually confined me for a whole week. After five or six of those excruciating fits, I fortunately chanced to read, in "Dodsley's Annual Register," for 1766, page 163, a letter, signed, Thomas Butler, containing a very striking and impressive account of an extraordinary cure, effected by the wild carrot seed. I immediately made trial of it, and with the most complete success; for, hardly had I used it above five or six days, when I was almost entirely relieved from the troublesonie and disagreeable symptoms usually atendant on gravelly complaints, which, within a short time after, quitted me al together. It was in August, 1806, that I began to use the wild carrot seed; and, from that time to the present hour, I have (thank God) never once been troubled with the gravel, though I have, several times since, made much greater exertions in walking, than those which before used to bring on the gravel-fits. Previous to my use of this remedy, the bits of gravel which came from me, were all rough and angular, as if forcibly The principal police officer. broken off by bodily exertion: but, since I have been in the habit of taking the infusion, they have always been round and smooth, as if the external parts had been dissolved and washed away. On this difference of appearance, I leave the reader to form his own opinion; my intention here being only to relate facts, without undertaking to philosophise on them. If, however, from the example of sea-pebbles, he should suppose, (as a friend of mine has supposed) that the pieces of gravel have been rounded and smoothed by friction, I would observe to him, that I do not use either much or violent exercise; and that they do not always pass off in numbers together, but, more usually, a single piece at a time, and after long intervals of a fortnight, three weeks, or more. How far these circumstances may accord with the idea of friction, I leave him to judge for himself. The infusion of wild carrot seed, may either be drank cold at any convenient times of the day, or taken warm, with sugar and milk, for breakfast and evening beverage. I practise the latter mode, as being attended with less trouble, and less danger of omission through hurry or forgetfulness. I use, each time, about half an ounce of the seeds, from which I make about a pint of tea, by pouring boiling water on them in a tea-pot: but I am not particularly exact in either weight or measure: and perhaps I use the tea both stronger and in greater quantity than necessity requires; for Mr. Butler (whose letter I earnestly recommend to the rea der's attention) took only half a pint in the morning, and the like quantity in the evening; using, each time, six or seven heads, or clusters of seed. My mode of taking the infusion has, indeed, one inconvenience: the wild carrot seed requiring longer time to infuse than common tea, a delay of breakfast may be experienced, particularly in summer, by gentlemen in chambers or lodgings, and by others under peculiar circumstances. That inconvenience, however, may be easily obviated by one of Loyd's very ingenious and useful patent kettles, which, by means of the flaine acting both within the body of the kettle, and all round its sides, will, with less than a penny bundle of wood, boil the water in four or five minutes; and, while the water is boiling, the tea, previously made, may be warmed in a jug, placed in the mouth of the ket tle. Thus, the evening tea, being made before-hand in the morning, and the next morning's |