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39.: ricardo to malthus2 - 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.


39.

ricardo to malthus2

My dear Sir

I have just time, after a very busy day, to tell you that

I will endeavor to get Mr. Mushet to meet you at my house at breakfast on sunday morning. At any rate I shall expect you, and if Mushet is engaged, I shall be able to tell you whether he will meet us on monday or tuesday in the City. He is exceedingly obliging, and would I am sure not mind trouble, if he could contribute to throw light on the subject of exchanges, yet I think he will not be inclined to publish any thing under his own name as he gave great offence to the higher powers on a former occasion.1

You have clearly stated the point of difference now between us;—I think we never so well understood each other before. There are some causes which operate on the exchange which are in their nature of transitory duration,—there are others which have a more permanent character.

If we agree that a change of taste in one country for the commodities of the other,—and the transmission of a subsidy[—]will produce certain effects on the exchange, the only question between us is as to their duration. I am of opinion that they will operate for a very considerable time, and that in fact recourse is not had to bullion but as a last resort.

I cannot believe that you give a correct account of your habits of application, any more than you did of your memory when I last saw you. From all my observations I should have been led to the very opposite conclusions from those which you have formed and I believe most of your friends would be of my opinion. When you have once fairly begun I expect that you will advance at a giant’s pace.

I beg you to remember me kindly to Mrs. Malthus.

I am my dear Sir Your’s very truly

David Ricardo

[2 ]Addressed: ‘The Revd. T. R Malthus / East India College / Hertford’; postmark, 1813.

MS at Albury.—Letters to Malthus, I, where it is misdated 1810.

[1 ]By his pamphlet of 1810; see above, p. 9, n. 1.