awful fruits in England!-as well as under other foreign governments to which it has alone furnished, by the unrighteous mortgage of the labour and property of unborn generations, the means of carrying on the wars, and sustaining the military establishments, with which they have desolated provinces and kingdoms. And within the past ten years in our own country, extravagantly as we have used it, what good have we derived from it? Useful or useless, good or bad, our internal improvements constructed within that period-is it the money which has been borrowed on the strength of state credit that has called them into being? Far, very far from it. We have gone into debt to European capital to an amount of nearly two hundred millions of dollars, on which, independently of the principal, which will soon begin from time to time to fall due, we must pay an annual tax on our whole industry and wealth of about twelve millions of dollars,--but does the simple reader suppose that it is money we have been borrowing, through all this period? If he does, we beg leave to undeceive him. It is no such thing, though we have been most ingeniously made to believe such to be the fact; and that the surplus wealth of European accumulation was thus seeking a mutually advantageous investment in our public works of improvement, at rates of interest attractive to the foreigner, while lower than the value of the use of capital among us. The truth is, that though we have contracted so enormous a debt, expressed in figures, and payable, principal and interest, in real money, we have actually received scarce a dollar of it from Europe. The process has been simply this. We have imported an excess of imports about equivalent to the amounts of public stocks we have sold to the European market. We have eaten, and drunk, and worn, and in various ways consumed them. Little if any trace of them now remains, except the debt which we have thus contracted to pay for them, and which must itself be paid by the sweat of our own and our children's brows. An inflation of our own paper currency at home, and an unhealthy expansion of private commercial credits, have represented the amount of money presumed to be brought into the country as the proceeds of the sale of these public stocks. And if any one wishes to trace out the ultimate sequel and result of the whole, and ascertain what has become of the nominal amounts of European wealth brought to our shores by this stock-jobbing financiering, he will find them so soon as the bankrupt laws goes into effect, like the fairy money which the next morning converts into dry leaves, standing in imposing array of figures and ciphers, among the worthless assets of many broken bank and ruined speculator.

To some of our readers the proof of the assertion here made will be necessary to enable them fully to realize its truth. It can easily be drawn from a comparative view of the exports and imports of the country, taken in connexion with the simultaneous issues of state stocks, within the period referred to. It was in the course of the year 1839, that the European money-market for American stocks may be said to have been destroyed. No considerable amounts have been sold since the summer of that year, putting out of view the mere hypothecations which may have been made of some amounts in the possession of the bank of the United States, and some few other institutions. The heavy issues of state stocks may be said to have commenced about 1830. The amounts created prior to that date had been comparatively small, though after that they went, up to and including 1838, rapidly crescendo. We use the tables compiled by an able hand, in the fall of 1839, from authentic official

sources.

The amount of stock authorised to be created by eighteen States, in each period of five years, from 1820 to 1838, was as follows-viz :

From 1820 to 1825,

"C 1830 to 1835,

66 1825 to 1830,

1835 to 1838 (say 3 years)

$12,790,728

13,679,689

40,002,769

108,223,808

$174,696,994

And the following are the objects for which these debts were authorised by the respective legislatures to be created-viz :

An examination of the imports and exports, as shown by the annual reports of the Secretary of the Treasury during the same time, furnishes the following results. For the sake of the comparison between them, it is divided into two periods, the first from 1820 to 1830, and the second from 1831 to 1838, both inclusive :

$869,780,304

$675,460,384

$194,319,920

From this table we see that the total excess of imports over exports (all kinds included) in the first period, eleven years, was $37,662,959, or an annual average of only three million four hundred thousand dollars.

In the second period, eight years, the same excess rises to the enormous sum of $194,319,920, or an annual average of more than twenty-four millions of dollars. In order to ascertain the actual surplus importations of merchandise within these periods, it is necessary to deduct from these sums the respective surplus imports over the exports of the precious metals within the same periods. A view of the latter is presented by the following table, similarly divided as before by the year 1830:

IMPORTS AND EXPORTS OF GOLD AND SILVER COIN.

Total Exports.

Excess of Exports. $2,413,169

Excess of
Imports.

1821

$8,064,890

$10,478,059

1822

3,369,846

10,810,180

7,440,334

6,372,987

1,275,091

7,014,552

$1,365,283

8,797,055

2,646,290

4,098,678

2,782,288

8,014,880

136,250

8,243,476

753,735

1829

7,403,612

4,924,020

2,479,592

From this table we see that there was an excess of exports over imports of gold and silver in the first of these periods of $1,788,015, or an annual average of about a hundred and seventy-nine thousand dollars.

In the second period there is an excess of imports over exports of gold and silver amounting to $53,345,172,—or an annual average of about six millions six hundred thousand dollars.

Comparing together these tables, and confining our view to the commerce of merchandise alone, it appears that in the first period the excess of the imports of merchandise over the exports of the same, was $39,450,974,—or an annual average of $3,586,452.

In the second period, the excess of the imports over the exports of merchandise is in like manner seen to be $140,974,748,- -or an annual average of $17,621,843. The amount of State stocks issued within the first period, we have seen to have been $26,470,417. In the second we have seen them to rise to $148,226,577.

The total excess of imports in the first period having been, as above stated, $37,662,959, about $20,000,000 may be assumed as the legitimate excess of imports, representing the commercial profit; the balance of that sum being a moderate allowance for the proceeds of so much of the State-stocks issued as were sold in the foreign market. When issued thus moderately, it is probably that a considerable proportion of them found purchasers at home. To double that amount would then be a large allowance for the corresponding commercial profit within the second period of eight years; the deduction of which from the total excess of imports, as above stated, would leave about $154,319,920. Deduct from this about six millions as probably taken up on this side of the Atlantic, and we show the unnatural and unhealthy excess of imports (with a proper allowance for the commercial profit) corresponding exactly with the amount of the sales of the public stocks abroad. Who, then, will pretend that the issue of the stocks has done anything more than simply to run up this enormous amount of debt, for this enormous amount of extravagant consumption, upwards of a hundred and fifty millions of dollars in excess above our exports, after full due allowance for the commercial profit?

This system is now, we trust, at an end. After the bitter experience which so many of our states have reaped of its fruits, we hope that there is none now in which the people will tolerate any further issues of public stock,-whatever may be the delusive pretences by which their advocates may seek to recommend them to sectional interests, or to the cupidity of the present generation, which is thus made so dishonestly and oppressively to saddle posterity with debt for the indulgence of its own present extravagance. We should rejoice to see a prohibition inserted in the constitution of every state of the union, against the legislative power of contracting a public debt for any purpose whatsoever. If we were willing to except the case of war and the public defence, it would be a reluctant and dissatisfied concession to existing popular delusions too strong to be immediately contended with. Taxation, direct taxation, by the voluntary action of the people themselves, is the only true and just and proper mode of raising whatever funds may be necessary for any of the legitimate duties of government. Taxation, direct taxation, we mean, for the whole amount wanted for the principal,-not for the mere provision of the annual interest, to be paid to the foreigner as a virtual tribute of financial slavery. Shall we read in history of the devotion with which the citizens of besieged towns, or invaded kingdoms, have poured their wealth into the public treasury, unstinted and unregretted, for the public defence—when even woman has not only exulted in offering

on the altar of patriotism the last jewel or ornament of gold which bound her hair, but has even delighted to weave the flowing beauty of those locks themselves into bow-strings for the public service-shall we read of such things, we repeat, and yet doubt the readiness and the lavish abundance with which our people, when attacked by insolent and unjust foreign aggression, if we will only trust to them and appeal to them, will furnish every necessary to carry the country safely and honourably through any such crisis, however suddenly it may come? We repeat that we see no necessity for public borrowing, even in such great public emergencies as this; and no war ought ever to be undertaken by this country, unsustained by such a public sentiment as would make the people fully prepared to contribute, both by direct taxation and voluntary service, all the means necessary to enable the government to maintain the national "cause with honour and success. The ancients waged their wars without public loans; and Bonaparte bequeathed no debt to posterity, to pay for all his gigantic military operations. After deducting the large contributions which he forced from allied and conquered nations, there remains an enormous amount which, sustained as he was by the enthusiasm of the nation, he was easily able to extract directly from the industry and resources of France itself. In the case of public improvements, there is still less reason for having recourse to borrowing, to obtain the money for their construction. If they are worth constructing, they are worth paying for. Satisfy the people, or the parties interested, on the former point, and there will be no great difficulty on the latter. It is always, in these cases, the present generation which expects to reap from them an advantage equivalent to their cost, in the development of resources, the opening of markets, and the enhancement of the value of property. Though posterity may, indeed, eventually inherit the whole, yet a regard for the benefit of posterity is very far from being the impelling motive to their construction; nor is there any reason or right in transferring to posterity, in the form of stock debt, not only the actual payment of their cost, but the entire risk of possible failure. If state governments will go on constructing works of internal improvement, instead of leaving them to the enterprise of private interest and sagacity, let them at least place this restraint upon their constant tendency to excess, by the obligation of imposing a simultaneous direct tax on the people, to the amount of their cost. There will be little danger then of any other works being undertaken, than those which may be pretty safely relied upon to defray their own cost, and which will be indeed demanded by the public interest and will of the whole people. While, when cut off from their present habitual reliance upon the state government and the state credit, the different particular sections which may desire the construction of local improvements, will have no difficulty in effecting their object, either by the private action of their principal citizens, or by combining their respective public resources for the purpose, in some mode of voluntary selftaxation, for which it would be easy to make the requisite legal provision.

ISABEL'S BRIDAL.

BY MRS. EMMA C. EMBURY.

WHEN I was a very little girl I was frequently taken by a maiden aunt to visit an old lady who lived in a tall narrow house in Pearl Street, long since swallowed up in an enormous counting-house. Young as I was, the many weary hours I was obliged to spend in Miss Rachel Maybe's small back parlour have impressed every object upon my memory, and doubtless the dark tints in which all things were necessarily painted have contributed to their preservation in my mind, since the remembrance of dull scenes will long outlast that of gay ones, even as sombre colours will adhere to the canvass, while bright ones fade beneath the touch of time. Miss Rachel was a maiden lady of small but independent fortune. She inhabited the house in which her parents had lived and died, and antiquity was stamped upon every article of furniture. I can almost fancy that I see now the fantastic Turkey carpet, which eked out with a border of green baize, covered the floor; the straight-backed mahogany chairs, with their white chintz covers, the thin-legged tables, the bright brass fire-irons, the square japan cabinet, curiously inlaid with mother-of-pearl, the tall, perpendicular firescreen worked in worsted, the device, an enormous cat with a mouse in her paw; and I am sure I shall never forget the quaintly carved ivory hand, with its curved fingers and long slender handle, which always hung at the side of that firescreen. I am afraid

the old lady's ghost would rise and reproach me if I were to tell the uses of that fairy hand, but many a time have I seen her take it from its place and carefully insert it between her well-starched kerchief and the back of her neck.

Miss Rachel was not one who pined in single blessedness. Her complexion still bore some traces of the roses and lilies which had once adorned it, and her rotund figure had gained in dignity what it had lost in youthful grace. Her attire was characterised by extreme neatness. Her dark silk dress always looked as glossy as if just from the hands of the mantuamaker, her book-muslin neckerchiefs, though starched as stiff as buckram, were as transparent as glass, and as for her caps-we see none such now-a-days. They were not manufactured of trashy bobbinet or worthless blonde lace; no-they were handsome round-eared caps with high crowns, made of rare India muslin and bordered with costly thread lace, plaited as if by rule and compass, and finished by a broad white satin riband which encircled her head, terminating in a bow directly in front. Even the tie of that riband was characteristic of the old lady's precise habits, for the loops of the bow were exactly alike, the ends of just the same length, and always pointed (as I then thought) due east and west.

A pleasant cheerful body was Miss Rachel Maybe. Seated in her high-backed rocking-chair, with the tall screen protecting her good-humoured face from the heat of a blazing wood fire; her knitting-needles in her hand and an embroidered satin bag hanging on the arm of her chair, out of which she continually drew the wellspun thread of her discourses, she was a perfect picture of contentment. Everybody liked her, and she was a very useful woman in her way. She was an old-fashioned Christian, whose genuine piety and unostentatious benevolence were visible in her daily life, but never emblazoned with newspaper paragraphs. To the poor who could work she gave employment, and thus kept alive the feeling of independence, which is the last treasure left the unfortunate. To the sick and infirm she rendered effectual aid, not by bestowing money only, which their very necessities would prevent them from using to advantage, but by appropriating her time as well as her means; by making comfortable garments and preparing wholesome food with her own hands; by visiting them in their wretched homes; by teaching them lessons of gratitude and contentment, which pensioners on the world's bounty can never learn from the almoners of associated charities.

I have said that in my childhood I spent many a weary hour in the old lady's company. Miss Rachel and my aunt would sit discussing the merits of the last sermon, talking over the frailties of the congregation to which they were attached, or debating points of theological differences, while poor little I was left to amuse myself as I best could. I used to set the mandarins on the chimney-piece nodding, and watch them until I almost dropped asleep from sympathy. Then I would try to count the birds of Paradise which dropped their long tails over the paper on the wall, until "thought was lost in calculation's maze.' Sometimes I resorted to the books which lay on the table, but alas! "Baxter's Call," and "Taylor's Holy Living and Dying," had but little attractions to a merry child, who was content to enjoy existence, even as the birds and butterflies, without thinking at all about it. I remember, however, a few pleasant scenes which I enjoyed through Miss Rachel's kindness and mirthful spirit. Once she took us to an upper room, and, unlocking a huge trunk, amused my aunt very much by displaying innumerable suits of babylinen, the frocks of fine cambric, with long pointed stomachers, stitched full of whalebone, the caps worked in lace-stitch but without borders, which Miss Rachel's mother, out of a kind regard to the welfare of posterity, had made for her future grandchildren when her only daughter was but a romping girl. The old lady little thought, that the lapse of more than half a century would find her daughter fading in single blessedness, and the neatly-made garments untouched save by the hand of time. On another occasion Miss Rachel opened her India cabinet, to display some antique love-tokens, and I was wild with delight at being allowed to rummage among the paste shoe-buckles and the gold sleeve-buttons which had belonged to her father and brothers, the mourning rings and jet lockets which were all that remained of the loved of earlier days, the broken ornaments and antique jewellery which had formerly shone in many a brilliant scene of gaiety. Once too I found Fox's Book of Martyrs lying on the deep window-seat, and so long as it was allowed to remain there, I lacked not occupation. I revelled in its horrors even as I had done in the supernatural scenes of the Mysteries of Udolpho, and there was something in the atmosphere of that gloomy room, from which a neighbouring wall shut out the cheerful sunlight, and in the drowsy ticking of the old clock, peculiarly calculated to