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37.: ricardo to malthus1 - David Ricardo, The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 6 Letters 1810-1815 [1810]

Edition used:

The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, ed. Piero Sraffa with the Collaboration of M.H. Dobb (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2005). Vol. 6 Letters 1810-1815.

Part of: The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, 11 vols (Sraffa ed.)

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


37.

ricardo to malthus1

My dear Sir

I intend leaving town this evening for Ramsgate, where I think I shall stay about a fortnight, so that I cannot accept your kind invitation for saturday next; but I hope it will not be long before I bend my steps towards your hospitable roof. —If on saturday the 19th. of Septr. you should be quite disengaged, and it should be every way convenient to you and Mrs. Malthus I shall be glad to take tea with you on the evening of that day. I shall be obliged to quit you on the monday morning. I hope I need not say that I shall be exceedingly sorry if I put you to the least inconvenience, and that it will be equally agreeable to me to visit you on any saturday after the 19th if I am not engaged to go to Ramsgate.

Perhaps you will be so good as to write a few lines directed to the Stock Exchge. a few days previously to the 19th. as I shall certainly be in town at that time. I am obliged to you for the interest you take in the price of Omm.,—it appears to be in a very thriving condition.2 Mr. Goldsmid3 informs me that at the period of the improvement in the exchge. about Xmas last there were no importations, as far as he knows, of gold from France. A small quantity was imported from Lisbon. I have consulted Wetenhall’s list and the following appear to be the variations in the exchge. and the price of gold about Christmas last.

    Exchge. with Humbh.DoubloonsPortge. gold
1811            
Nov. 2924£4. 15. -pR. OZ.    
Decr. 324. 6    £4. 18. 6
624. 64. 14. 64. 18. 6
1325 -4. 15. 6    
2025. -    4. 19. -
3127. 6        
1812            
Jany. 327. 64. 14 -4. 18. 6
3127. 6    4. 18. 6
feb. 2128    4. 17
March 2029. -    4. 15. 6
3129. 44. 14. 64. 13. 6
April 2129. 44. 17. 64. 17. 6
June 528. 6    4. 18. 6
July 3128. 94. 19. -5. - -
Aug 2828. 95. - -    

The price of dollars yesterday was 6/3½ pr. oz higher by one penny than any price ever yet quoted, I should think that a very trifling rise more will send the tokens out of circulation. We will speak on our old subject when we meet.1 I am now in great haste and must therefore conclude. Pray make my kind compliments to Mrs. Malthus and believe me

My dear Sir Y rs. very truly

David Ricardo2

[1 ]Addressed: ‘The Revd. T. R Malthus / East India College / Hertford’.

MS at Albury.—Letters to Malthus, XI.

[2 ]The Omnium, or Scrip, of the Loan of £22,500,000 for England, Ireland and the East India Company, which had been contracted by Ricardo and others on 12 June 1812, was now at 6 premium.

[3 ]Aaron Asher Goldsmid or Isaac Lyon Goldsmid, partners in the house of Mocatta and Goldsmid, bullion brokers to the Bank of England.

[1 ]‘We quite agree that taxation will re’ is del. here.

[2 ]Malthus writes at the end in pencil ‘Was any bullion imported from Hamburgh in March.’