smaller continent, and from it partially back again to the parent source, follows, like fluids, the laws of equilibrium. The rich, but almost unexplored, regions of central Asia and Africa, form smaller insulated basins, possessing slight intercourse with the coasts, and, consequently, with general commerce. Under the influence of western civilization, however, from Nertsckinsk, the Altai, and Ural, and beyond the Atlantic from the Missouri, there exists a continual flow in the intercourse of the precious metals; the exchangeable value of which, whether we consider the metals in relation to each other, or as the standard of the price of wares, is by no means entirely or principally determined by the increase or diminution in metallic production. This exchangeable value (I here repeat it) is affected in an equal degree by the complicated arrangements and fluctuating relations of modern society; by an increasing and decreasing population, and its progress in civilization; by the demand (regulated by the population) for an increased circulating capital; by the frequently recurring necessity of remittances of bullion, as well as their destination; by the unequal wear and tear of the two precious metals ; by the amount of paper money, as part of the circulating medium; all acting upon the existing metallic medium of exchange. A rise in the relative value of gold as compared with that of silver, may as easily occur during a general increase in production, as a temporary depression of the barometer, and an increased elevation of temperature, with a strong north-east wind. In the meterological changes of the atmosphere, as well as in the general exchange of the precious metals, many disturbing causes are contemporaneously at work. The effect of each individual cause, in raising or depressing prices, is determinable; not, however (in the infinite number of accumulating disturbances), the amount of partial compensations, the nature and amount of the aggregate influence. Any increase in the production which our imagination could call into existence, would appear infinitely trifling compared with the accumulation of thousands of years now in circulation, were we to consider these existing in coin or wrought up for useful purposes. Every increase, however inconsiderable, certainly produces its effects in the long run; but as an accumulating population, with increased acquirements, has occasion for a greater circulating capital, so, notwithstanding the influx, by too frequent repartition, a sensible deficiency may be brought about. Before the important discoveries on the eastern side of the Ural, which began to produce their effects in the years 1823 and 1824 only, the exchangeable value of silver, as compared with gold, in the important market of Hamburgh, was, taking the average of the years 1818 to 1822, as 1 : 4;; while, subsequently it fell, on the average of the five years from 1830 to 1835, to 1 : only. In the same interval, in order to restore the metallic currency in England, as I have already stated, 1,294,000 marks were brought into circulation. What share, therefore, has the diminished exportation of precious metals from the New World, had upon this alteration in the exchangeable value? It is scarcely necessary to take into calculation the Brazilian gold washing, since its annual supply, during that period, scarcely amounted to 1700 marks. Now if we assume that, in the twelve years immediately subsequent to the revolution, the production of Spanish America had sunk to below one-third of what it had beeen during its last flourishing period (1800-1806), still the twelve years diminution only amounts to 83,200 kils. Now the Ural, in the years 1823 to 1827, has already furnished compensation to the amount of 19,300 kils; so that the diminution in the quantity of gold received in Europe only amounts, for the whole of these twelve years, to 286,000 marks. I have purposely selected an example presenting tolerably exact numerical elements. The result is, a decrease in the importation of gold, amounting to between one-fourth and one-fifth of the quantity coined, during the twelve years, by the London mint. If, therefore, we consider the exchangeable value of the precious metals, freed from the inconsiderable local casualties-the value of gold bars at Hamburg, namely-we shall be unable to discover, between 1816 and 1837, either the influence of the Asiatic mines, or the diminished production of Spanish America. The maximum which the exchangeable value of gold attained in 1827, has been maintained, with trifling variations, till 1832; at which period a gradual, but regularly progressing, depreciation is observable. The Russian gold, from the Ural and Siberia, has partially contributed to this result. We must not, however, forget that the entire produce of Russia, whatever importance we may attach to it in other respects, in the years 1823 to 1837, only amounts to about 302,000 marks-one-nineteenth less than the diminished production of Spanish America, in the years 1816-1829. And even at the present moment, the renewed working of the gold mines in the free states of South America, has not been so general as that of silver. Besides, the North American states, scarcely recovered from their financial difficulties, have occasion for considera ble remittances of bullion from Europe. This causes a drain to the westward, which, together with the other continually acting causes, may have brought about the effects which we are disposed to attribute to the increased produce of Asia alone. The principal ground, however, of the inconsiderable influence produced by the contributions from the Ural and Northern Asia lies, as I have already remarked, in the relative insignificance of the influx, compared with the quantity of precious metals already existing. The exports to Asia, which, in another place and at different periods, I have had occasion to examine, are decidedly on the decline. In the year 1831 Jacob still estimated the annual loss in balance of trade by the Cape of Good Hope at £2,000,000 sterling. As far as I can recollect, this was also the opinion of that great statesman, Huskisson, so prematurely taken from us. Notwithstanding the general use of coffee, tea, sugar, and cocoa-articles unknown in the fifteenth century -the trade in spices is still a considerable article in the passive commercial balance of Europe. In the states of the German Union, the consumption of spices, according to the most recent official enquiries, has increased, during the years 1834, 1835, and 1836, from In France, the consumption in the same years was only 5,476,000 In the whole of Europe, however, with a population of at least 228 millions, it is probably not less than fourteen to sixteen millions of dollars, two-thirds of which consist of vanilla, nutmegs, pepper, and cinnamon. When we reflect how considerable must be the amount of the value of spices in the present consumption of Europe, compared with what it was at the conclusion of the fifteenth century, though constituting the most important part of the then existing commerce, we shall discover another remarkable example of the potency of the metals, when exercising their concentrated force on a narrow space (at that time, the shores of the Mediterranean and western Europe). The trade in spices accidentally caused the discovery of the new continent; it led the Portuguese round the southern extremities of Africa to India, as it had the Greeks " and Romans to Taprobane. At the time when Christopher Columbus sought to "reach the east through the west," Paul Toscanelli, of Florence, writes to him, as early as the 24th of June, 1474, "I am rejoiced to hear that you are approaching the accomplishment of your great and laudable desire, to reach, by a nearer route, there, where spices grow, 'onde naccen las especerias.' With what complaints do the writings of the Italians abound, what imprecations are heaped upon the Portuguese, because they had penetrated by sea to India, and threatened to annihilate the spice trade of the Venetian, Pisan, and Genoese merchants! Cardinal Bembo calls it a "malum inopinatum," and seeks for philosophical grounds of consolation. Petrus Martyr d'Anghiera writes to his learned friend, Pomponius Latus, "Portugalenses trans æquinoctium aliamque arcton, aromatum commercia prosequuntur, Alexandrinos ac Damascenos mercatores ad medullas extenuant." The opinion propagated by the Genoese, that the new route by the Cape of Good Hope would soon be relinquished, because the spices suffered from the sea air in the long transit, found but little credence; and the long calumniated Amerigo Vespucci (only three years after Gama), with his usual acuteness, detected the right point of view here also. He observes, in a newly-discovered letter, written to Lorenzo Pietro de Medici, 4th June, 1501, from the Cape de Verde islands, on meeting the remains of Cabral's fleet, on its return to the Tagus, "You will soon hear great news from Portugal. The king has now a rich and most important commerce in his hands (grandissimo traffico e gran richezza). May Heaven lend its blessing thereto [Vespucci was at that time in the Portuguese pay]! Now will the spices go from Portugal to Alexandria and Italy, instead of (as hitherto) from Alexandria to Portugal. Such is the way of the world (Cosi va el mundo) !"* Berlin, June, 1838. A pud is equal to thirty-six pounds weight. The kilogramme is about two and a quarter pounds weight. The mark of silver is two pounds two shillings sterling; the mark of gold, eight ounces. The piastre is four shillings and fourpence sterling. 205 A PAPER ON JUDICIARY STATISTICS. BY WILLIAM WILLS, Esq.* We must renounce some of the surest conclusions of the understanding, supported by the judgment of the most enlightened philosophers of every age and country, before we can entertain a doubt that there exists a permanent order in moral events, and that moral causes operate with an uniformity equal to the stability of physical laws. It must be admitted that there is apparently more of uncertainty and confusion in moral than in material phenomena; but this is a circumstance sufficiently accounted for when we consider the latency and subtlety of mental operations. Since human nature is essentially the same in every latitude and under every variety of social condition, the slightest reflection would lead us to conclude that moral facts are subject to the operation of the law of great numbers, which prevails with respect to facts of all other kinds within the sphere of our observation, however intractable they may, on a superficial view, appear to be. Nothing, for instance, to all appearance, is so purely indiscriminate and exempt from any definite rule, as the occurrence of death; yet, when the subject is closely surveyed, we find that what we should otherwise be disposed to call the chance of death is governed by a law as certain and immutable as that which brings a missile to the surface of the earth. If we take a given number of lives of the same age, a geometric curve may be drawn, which shall represent the course of death amongst those lives, and the times of their gradual and total extinction. Equally precise results have been developed by the application of this law to the shifting and evanescent fluctuations of the atmosphere and the tides, and even to the subtle influences of temperature. Analogy, the safest foundation of philosophical conjecture, naturally conducts us to the conclusion that moral events dependent upon the passions, the knowledge, and the will of man, are all subjected to the dominion of the same general rule Angeville, in his Essai sur la Statistique de la Population Française, says, would seem as if the free will of man existed only in theory, and as if every society contained within its bosom germs of evil which must "It • Read at a meeting of the Birmingham Literary and Philosophical Society, on the 1st of July, 1839. VOL. X., NO. XXIX. 27 |