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• Note
• Introduction
• Bibliographical Notes
• Introduction
• An Enquiry Into the Nature and Effects of the Paper Credit of Great Britain (1802)
• Chap. I
• Chap. Ii
• Chap. Iii
• Chap. Iv
• Chap. V.
• Chap. Vi
• Chap. Vii
• Chap. Viii
• Chap. Ix
• Chap. X
• Chapter Xi
• Appendix I: The Evidence Given By Henry Thornton Before the Committees of Secrecy of the Two Houses of Parliament On the Bank of England March and April 1797
• Appendix II: Manuscript Notes By Henry Thornton to Lord King’s Thoughts On the Effects of the Bank Restriction ( April 1804)
• Appendix III: Two Speeches of Henry Thornton, Esq. On the Bullion Report May, 1811

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

A. The Works of Henry Thornton.—The Enquiry into the Nature and Effect of the Paper Credit of Great Britain was published in February or March 1802‡ by J. Hatchard, of Piccadilly, as an octavo volume of 320 pages (I-XII and 13-320), price in boards 7s. An American edition appeared in Philadelphia, 1807, 272 pp., and it was reprinted by J. R. McCulloch in A Select Collection of Scarce and Valuable Tracts on Paper Currency and Banking, London, 1857, pp. 137-340. A French translation was undertaken, at Bentham’s suggestion (see p. 50 above), by P. E. L. Dumont, and six extracts of this translation appeared in the Bibliothèque Britannique ou Receuil, vol. xxi, pp. 408-499, vol. xxii, pp. 25-75, 145-216, 301-332, and 413-464, and vol. xxiii, 3-31. This translation was then published in book form under the title Recherche sur la nature et les effets du credit du papier, etc., Geneva, 1803 and seems now to be exceedingly rare. A German translation by L. H. Jakob, with notes and appendices, appeared under the title Der Papier Credit von Grossbrittannien, Halle 1803.

The Substance of two Speeches of Henry Thornton, Esq., in the Debate in the House of Commons on the Report of the Bullion Committee on May 7 and 14, 1811, were also published by Hatchard, as an octavo pamphlet of vii + 79 pages.

The Catalogue of the Library of the British Museum and the Dictionary of National Biography ascribe to Henry Thornton also the authorship of an anonymous pamphlet On the Probable Effects of the Peace, with Respect to the Commercial Interest of Great Britain, London (Hatchard), 1802. There seems, however, to be no ground for this ascription and internal evidence makes it rather unlikely that this pamphlet should be by Henry Thornton, since it deals largely with the effects of the peace on particular commodities in which Henry Thornton was not likely to be interested The author may, however, well have been one of the merchant members of the Thornton family.

Apart from unsigned and mostly unidentified* contributions to the Cheap Repository tracts and the Christian Observer, Henry Thornton appears to have published nothing else. But after his death the following religious writings were edited by the guardian of his children, R. H. Inglis.

Family Prayers, by the late Henry Thornton, Esq., M.P., edited by R. H. I., London, 1934, xii + 164 pp. This reached its 31st edition in 1854, and it has been said that “indeed the use of that book was the distinctive sign of true Evangelism” (G. W. E. Russell, The Household of Faith, London, 1902).

Family Commentary upon the Sermon of the Mount, London, 1835.

Family Commentary on Portions of the Pentateuch, in Lectures, with Prayers adapted to the subject, by Henry Thornton, edited by R. H. I., London, 1837.

The volume entitled Works of the late Henry Thornton, Esq., M.P., is a consecutively paginated reprint of the three works last named (856 pp.) of which only twelve copies were issued.

The Lectures on the Ten Commandments contained in the Commentary on the Pentateuch were originally written for Hannah More’s Cheap Repository, and later also reprinted separately with prayers by R. H. Inglis, London, 1843.

Finally, a series of seven articles which Thornton had contributed to the Christian Observer were republished under the title Three Female Characters, London, 1846.

All the works of Henry Thornton as well as the Christian Observer were published by John Hatchard, the first bookseller of that name, and “a sound evangelical and resident of Clapham.”

B. The Manuscript Diary of Henry Thornton and other Family Papers.—The main source for the present sketch of the life of Henry Thornton are various manuscripts preserved by members of the family which the author has been privileged to use. Among these is a diary kept by Henry Thornton from January 1795 till February 1796 (i.e. the date of his marriage), containing almost daily entries for the first six months, and somewhat more irregular notes made during the later periods, with a few additions made in 1802, 1803, 1810, 1812, and 1814.

In this diary, the original of which is in the possession of Mr. E. M. Foster, Henry Thornton refers to a connected history of his life, which in 1803 he was writing for the benefit of his children. The original of this does not seem to have been preserved, but a copy of it is prefixed to a copy of the diary proper which is in the possession of Mrs. D. Demarest. It was written at intervals between 1802 and 1809 and most of the longer quotations in the text are from this connected history. As, however, all the quotations used were taken from this copy before it was discovered that it contains copies of two different documents, the reference is throughout to the “MS. Diary of Henry Thornton.” Earlier authors, particularly the sons of Wilberforce in the Life of their father and James Stephen who have used the same documents refer to them as “Private and Conversational Memoranda of Henry Thornton.”

The author has also been able to use MS. Recollections of Marianne Thornton, the daughter of Henry Thornton, written in 1857, and a few family letters, which are all in the possession of Mr. E. M. Forster.

C. Printed Sources on Henry Thornton and the Clapham Sect.—The main printed sources on the life of Henry Thornton are James Stephen’s essay on the Clapham Sect, first published in the Edinburgh Review, vol. 80, 1842, and many times reprinted in his Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography (page references in the text are to the Silver Library Edition, 1907, vol. ii) and J. C. Colquhoun, Wilberforce and his Friends. John Telford, A Sect that Moved the World, London, 1907, the volume on Clapham and the Clapham Sect, published for the Clapham Antiquarian Society by Edmund Balwin, Clapham, 1927, and M. Seeley, Later Evangelical Fathers, 1879, are useful collections of information on the Clapham Sect, mostly from earlier printed sources. The chapter on Henry Thornton in H. R. Fox Bourne, London Merchants, 1869 (second edition 1876) is unreliable. Some information on Henry Thornton is to be found in two memoirs of other members of his family, namely The Book of Yearly Recollections of Samuel Thornton, Esq., edited for private circulation with a Preface and Introduction by his grandson John Thornton and printed by W. Clowes & Sons, Ltd., 1891, and in P. M. Thornton, Some Things we have Remembered: Samuel Thornton, Admiral 1797-1859, and Percy Melville Thornton 1841-1911, London, 1912.

Of the biographies of Henry Thornton’s friends those containing most information are: The Life of William Wilberforce, by his sons R. I. and S. Wilberforce, 5 vols., London, 1838, The Correspondence of William Wilberforce, edited by the same, London, 1840, and The Private Papers of William Wilberforce, edited by A. M. Wilberforce, London, 1897; The Life and Letters of Zachary Macaulay, by his granddaughter Viscountess Knutsford, London, 1901; the Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Hannach More, third edition, 1835, and the Life of Hannah More, by H. Thompson, by W. Roberts, London, 1838.

There are several modern biographies of Wilberforce of which only the one by R. Coupland (1923) need be mentioned. A Life of the elder James Stephen has been written by Sir George Stephen (Victoria, 1875) and sketches of his life will be found in the introductory chapters of the biographies of his son of the same name by C. E. Stephen (1906) and of his grandsons James Fitzjames Stephen, by Leslie Stephen (1895), and Leslie Stephen, by F. W. Maitland (1906). Biographies are also available of T. Clarkson, by J. Elmes (1854) and E. L. Griggs (1936), of Granville Sharp, by Prince Hoare (1820), and E. C. P. Lascelles (1929); of Charles Grant, by H. Morris (1904); of John Shore (Lord Teignmouth) by his son (1843); a Life of John Venn is prefixed to the collection of his Sermons; and a Memoir of John Bowdler to the edition of his Works (1857).

D. Works on the Monetary History and Literature of the Bank Restriction Period.—1. History: In addition to the well-known works on the history of currency, banking, and industrial fluctuations by T. Tooke, H. D. Macleod, R. Bischop, A. Andreades, M. Bouniatian, and A. E. Feaveryear the following should be especially mentioned: E. Cannan, Introduction to The Paper Pound 1797-1821. A Reprint of the Bullion Report. Second edition, London, 1925; R. G. Hawtrey, Currency and Credit, third edition, London, 1928, chapter xviii; W. Smart, Economic Annals of the Nineteenth Century 1801-1820, London, 1910; N. J. Silberling, British Financial Experience, 1790-1830, The Review of Economic Statistics, prel. vol. i, 1919; British Prices and Business Cycles, in the same journal, prel. vol. v, 1923; and Financial and Monetary Experience of Great Britain during the Napoleonic Wars, Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 38, 1924; A. Cunningham, British Credit in the last Napoleonic War, Cambridge, 1910; A. W. Acworth, Financial Reconstruction in England 1815-22, London, 1925; G. O’Brien, The Last Years of the Irish Currency, Economic History (A Supplement to the Economic Journal), vol. i, No. 2, 1927; L. Wolowski, Un chapitre de l’histoire financiere de l’Angleterre, La suspension des payments de la Banque et le Bullion Report, Paris, 1865; M. Phillips, The Token Money of the Bank of England 1797-1816, London, 1900; P. Aretz, Die Entwicklung der Diskontpolitik der Bank von England, 1780-1850, Berlin, 1916; E. Kellenberger, Die Aufhebung der Barzahlung in England 1797 und ihre Folgen, Jahrbücher für Nationalokonomie und Statistik, III. F. vol. 51, 1916; J. Wolter, Das staatliche Geldwesen Englands zu Zeit der Bankrestriktion, Strassburg, 1917; A. M. de Jong, De Engelsche Bank Restriction van 1797, De Economist, 72nd year, Feb.-Apr. 1923.

2. Development of Monetary Theory, J. H. Hollander, The Development of the Theory of Money from Adam Smith to David Ricardo, Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 25, May 1911, J. Viner, Canada’s Balance of International Indebtedness, 1900-1911, Cambridge, 1924; and Studies in the Theory of International Trade, London, 1937; J. W. Angell, The Theory of International Prices, Cambridge, 1926; C. Rist, Histoire des Doctrines relatives au Crédit er la Monnaie, Paris, 1938; A. Loria, Studi sulla valore della moneta, Turin, 1891; G. Krugel, Der Bullion Bericht, Rostock, 1930; H. Leroi-Furst, Die Entwicklung der Lehr von der Zahlungsbilanz im 19. Jahrhundert bis 1873, Archiv fur Sozialwissenschaften und Sozialpolitik, vol. 56, 1926; E. Fossati, Ricardo und die Entstehung des Bullion Reports, Zeitschrift fur Nationalokonomie, vols. iv and v, 1933-4.

AN

ENQUIRY

into

THE NATURE AND EFFECTS

of

THE PAPER CREDIT

of

GREAT BRITAIN.

by

HENRY THORNTON, ESQ.

M. P.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR J. HATCHARD, BOOKSELLER TO THE QUEEN, (Opposite York House)

PICCADILLY;

AND MESSRS. F. AND C. RIVINGTON,

ST. PAUL’S CHURCH YARD.

1802

[‡ ]Cf. The Christian Observer, No. 1, published February 1, 1802, p. 3: “An Essay on Paper Credit by Henry Thornton, Esq., M.P., is expected to appear in a few days.”

[* ]See, however, above.