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40.: ricardo to malthus 1 - 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.


40.

ricardo to malthus 1

My dear Sir

Mrs. Ricardo is expecting Mrs. Malthus to accompany her on friday next to Knyvett’s concert, and will I am sure be very much disappointed at the information which I am to give her that she will not be able to accompany you to town. I will not however quite give up all hopes of seeing her.—

You must positively not think of leaving us before tuesday. I have engaged several of your friends to meet you at dinner on monday, and I not only advance my own claims but those of Mr. Wishaw, Mr. Sharp, Mr. Tennant2 and Mr. Dumont.

I have been making enquiries concerning a bullion merchant. I find that the trade is mostly carried on by a class of people not particularly scrupulous in their modes of getting money, and I am told that they would not be very communicative, particularly on the subject of their exports. There are however some well informed merchants who know a great deal of the trade without themselves being actively engaged in it, to whom I hope I shall be able to introduce you.

I do not admit that if you were to double the medium of exchange it would fall to half its former value, not even if you were also to double the quantity of metal which was the standard of such medium. The consumption would increase in consequence of its diminished value, and the fall of its value would be regulated precisely by the same law, as the fall in the value of indigo, sugar or coffee.

Mr. Mushet will dine with us on sunday. What do you think of Mr. Vansittart’s financial talents?1

Yrs. very truly

David Ricardo

[1 ]MS at Albury.—Letters to Malthus, II, where it is misdated 1810.

[2 ]Smithson Tennant (1761–1815), who was appointed Professor of Chemistry at Cambridge this year; he was a member of the Council of the Geological Society.

[1 ]Nicholas Vansittart, who had succeeded Perceval as Chancellor of the Exchequer, had introduced a New Plan of Finance in the House of Commons on 3 March 1813; cp. above, IV, 158 ff.