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• Abbreviations
• 437.: Ricardo to Trower1[reply to 435.—ANSWERED By 445]
• 438.: Mill to Ricardo1[answered By 441]
• 439.: Ricardo to Mcculloch1[answered By 474]
• 440.: Malthus to Ricardo1[answered By 442]
• 441.: Ricardo to Mill1[reply to 438.—ANSWERED By 448]
• 442.: Ricardo to Malthus1[reply to 440.—ANSWERED By 443]
• 443.: Malthus to Ricardo1[reply to 442.—ANSWERED By 444]
• 444.: Ricardo to Malthus1[reply to 443.—ANSWERED By 455]
• 445.: Trower to Ricardo1[reply to 437.—ANSWERED By 447]
• 446.: Say to Ricardo1[reply to 430.—ANSWERED By 488]
• 447.: Ricardo to Trower1[reply to 445.—ANSWERED By 456]
• 448.: Mill to Ricardo1[reply to 441.—ANSWERED By 449]
• 449.: Ricardo to Mill2[reply to 448.—ANSWERED By 450]
• 450.: Mill to Ricardo2[reply to 449.—ANSWERED By 453]
• 450a.: Place to Ricardo1[answered By 451]
• 451.: Ricardo to Place1[reply to 450a]
• 452.: Ricardo to Murray1
• 453.: Ricardo to Mill1[reply to 450]
• 454.: Ricardo to Malthus1[answered By 455]
• 455.: Malthus to Ricardo3[reply to 444 & 454.—ANSWERED By 458]
• 456.: Trower to Ricardo2[reply to 447.—ANSWERED By 461]
• 457.: Ricardo to Wheatley1
• 458.: Ricardo to Malthus1[reply to 455.—ANSWERED By 459]
• 459.: Malthus to Ricardo1[reply to 458.—ANSWERED By 460]
• 460.: Ricardo to Malthus1[reply to 459.—ANSWERED By 462]
• 461.: Ricardo to Trower1[reply to 456.—ANSWERED By 466]
• 462.: Malthus to Ricardo2[reply to 460.—ANSWERED By 463]
• 463.: Ricardo to Malthus1[reply to 462.—ANSWERED By 467]
• 464.: Ricardo to Mill1[answered By 469]
• 465.: Tooke to Ricardo1
• 466.: Trower to Ricardo3[reply to 461.—ANSWERED By 471]
• 467.: Malthus to Ricardo2[reply to 463.—ANSWERED By 468]
• 468.: Ricardo to Malthus1[reply to 467]
• 469.: Mill to Ricardo2[reply to 464.—ANSWERED By 470]
• 470.: Ricardo to Mill2[reply to 469]
• 471.: Ricardo to Trower2[reply to 466.—ANSWERED By 478]
• 472.: Ricardo to Mcculloch 2
• 473.: Ricardo to Mill1
• [enclosure: Ricardo’s Notes On Mill’s Elements of Political Economy]
• 474.: Mcculloch to Ricardo2[reply to 436 & 439.—ANSWERED By 476]
• 475.: Maria Edgeworth to Ricardo2
• 476.: Ricardo to Mcculloch1[reply to 474.—ANSWERED By 479]
• 477.: Maria Edgeworth to Ricardo1
• 478.: Trower to Ricardo2[reply to 471.—ANSWERED By 481]
• 479.: Mcculloch to Ricardo2[reply to 476.—ANSWERED By 483]
• 480.: Mcculloch to Ricardo1[answered By 483]
• 481.: Ricardo to Trower1[reply to 478]
• 482.: Ricardo to Sinclair1
• 483.: Ricardo to Mcculloch2[reply to 479 & 480.—ANSWERED By 484]
• 484.: Mcculloch to Ricardo3[reply to 483.—ANSWERED By 486]
• 485.: Mcculloch to Ricardo1[answered By 486 & 491]
• 486.: Ricardo to Mcculloch1[reply to 484 & 485.—ANSWERED By 495]
• 487.: Ricardo to Trower1
• 488.: Ricardo to Say1[reply to 446.—ANSWERED By 496]
• 489.: Ricardo to Foster2
• 490.: Ricardo to Trower1
• 491.: Ricardo to Mcculloch2[reply to 485.—ANSWERED By 495]
• 492.: Ricardo to Trower2
• 493.: Ricardo to Hodgson1
• 494.: Ricardo to Mcculloch1
• 495.: Mcculloch to Ricardo1[reply to 486 & 491.—ANSWERED By 497]
• 496.: Say to Ricardo2[reply to 488]
• 497.: Ricardo to Mcculloch3[reply to 495]
• 498.: Say to Ricardo1
• 499.: Ricardo to Trower1
• 500.: Ricardo to [cowell]1
• 501.: Ricardo to Trower1
• 502.: Ricardo to Maria Edgeworth1[answered By 510]
• 503.: Mcculloch to Ricardo1[answered By 504]
• 504.: Ricardo to Mcculloch2[reply to 503]
• 505.: Ricardo to Mill1
• 506.: Ricardo to Mill1
• 507.: Ricardo to Mill1
• 508.: Ricardo to Mill1
• 509.: Ricardo to Mill1
• 510.: Maria Edgeworth to Ricardo2[reply to 502.—ANSWERED By 511]
• 511.: Ricardo to Maria Edgeworth1[reply to 510.—ANSWERED By 514]
• 512.: Ricardo to Trower1
• 513.: Ricardo to Malthus3
• 514.: Maria Edgeworth to Ricardo2[reply to 511.—ANSWERED By 515]
• 515.: Ricardo to Maria Edgeworth1[reply to 514]
• 516.: Ricardo to Mill1
• 517.: Ricardo to Trower1
• 518.: Mcculloch to Ricardo1[answered By 520]
• 519.: Maria Edgeworth to Ricardo2extract of a Letter From Paris
• 520.: Ricardo to Mcculloch1[reply to 518]
• 521.: Ricardo to Goldsmid2
• 522.: Ricardo to Mill1
• 523.: Ricardo to Malthus3
• 524.: Ricardo to Mcculloch2[answered By 526]
• 525.: Ricardo to Grote1
• 526.: Mcculloch to Ricardo1[reply to 524]
• 527.: Trower to Ricardo3[answered By 533]
• 528.: Ricardo to Maria Edgeworth1
• 529.: Ricardo to Malthus1
• 530.: Ricardo to Mcculloch1[answered By 541]
• Blake to Mcculloch1
• 531.: Ricardo to Malthus1[answered By 532]
• 532.: Malthus to Ricardo2[reply to 531.—ANSWERED By 536]
• 533.: Ricardo to Trower2[reply to 527.—ANSWERED By 547]
• 534.: Trower to Ricardo2[answered By 535]
• 535.: Ricardo to Trower1[reply to 534.—ANSWERED By 547]
• 536.: Ricardo to Malthus1[reply to 532.—ANSWERED By 540]
• 537.: Ricardo to Mill1[answered By 539]
• 538.: Ricardo to Mcculloch1[answered By 541]
• 539.: Mill to Ricardo3[reply to 537.—ANSWERED By 548]
• 540.: Malthus to Ricardo1[reply to 536.—ANSWERED By 542]
• 541.: Mcculloch to Ricardo1[reply to 530 & 538.—ANSWERED By 543 & 544]
• 542.: Ricardo to Malthus1[reply to 540.—ANSWERED By 545]
• 543.: Ricardo to Mcculloch1[reply to 541]
• 544.: Ricardo to Mcculloch1[reply to 541.—ANSWERED By 546]
• 545.: Malthus to Ricardo1[reply to 542.—ANSWERED By 550]
• 546.: Mcculloch to Ricardo1[reply to 544]
• 547.: Trower to Ricardo1[reply to 533 & 535.—ANSWERED By 549]
• 548.: Ricardo to Mill1[reply to 539]
• 549.: Ricardo to Trower1[reply to 547.—ANSWERED By 551]
• 550.: Ricardo to Malthus1[reply to 545]
• 551.: Trower to Ricardo1[reply to 549.—ANSWERED By 553]
• 552.: Ricardo to Mill1
• 553.: A. Austin to Trower1[reply to 551]
• 544.: A. Austin to Trower2
• 555.: Mill to Mcculloch1

512.

ricardo to trower1

Bromesberrow Place Ledbury 14 Dec^r. 1822

My Dear Trower

Your letter of the 11^th. July2 did not reach me till sunday last, on which day I arrived in Brook Street from Dover. I left London for the Continent very early on the 12^th. July, and proceeded by the Steam Packet from the Tower-Stairs to Calais: this voyage was performed in about 13 or 14 hours. I was accompanied in my tour by Mrs. Ricardo, my two youngest daughters, Miss Lancey (the governess) Mrs. Ricardo’s female servant, and a courier. As I could not comply with your request contained in the letter of the 11^th, mentioned above, to give you an account of the journey I intended to make, I will, now that it is over, lay before you the route we followed. From Calais we went to the principal towns in the Netherlands; then to Holland, where we visited Rotterdam, The Hague, Amsterdam, Sardam, Utrecht, &c. &c. From Holland we followed, in an opposite direction, the course of the Rhine, and saw all the beautiful country on the banks of that noble river. We halted for a day or two at Coblentz and Frankfort. From Frankfort we went to Heidelberg, Carlsruhe, Baden, &c. &c., and entered Switzerland at Bale. From Bale our course was to Schaffhausen, Zurich, Wallenstadt, Zug, Art, Lucerne, Meyringhen, Interlachen, Grindlewald, Lauterbrun, Berne, Lausanne, Geneva, and Chamouny. From Chamouny we returned to Geneva, and from thence went to M.^t. S^t. Bernard, Martigny, Bryg, and then across the Simplon, to Como. From Como we proceeded to Milan, Verona, Venice, Bologna, and Florence. Florence was the extreme point of my tour. We then went to Leghorn, Pisa, Genoa and Turin. From Turin we crossed Mount Cenis, made the best of our way, through Lyons, to Paris. At Paris I stayed 3 weeks, arrived in London on the 8^th. of this month, and here on the 12^th. I have given you a hasty sketch of the countries through which we have passed and shall only add that we met with scarcely any difficulty worth mentioning; were all very much pleased with the beauties of nature and of art which we have seen; and have been uniformly in good health.

At Geneva I was most hospitably received by my old friend Dumont, who is universally esteemed and respected by his countrymen—he accompanied us to Chamouny, and was adventurous enough to go up the Montanvert with me and my girls. At Coppet, which is near Geneva, I found the Duke de Broglie, whose acquaintance I had had the pleasure of making last autumn in London.1 I do not know whether I ever mentioned him to you—he is married to Madme de Stael’s daughter. He and the Baron de Stael, his brother in law, paid rather a long visit in England, and employed their time in seeing every thing worthy of notice. They are both clever men, but the Duke is particularly so. Political Economy is his favorite study, and I am happy to say that he is one of the best defenders of those principles which I think the correct ones I ever met with. I knew this before I went abroad, but at Coppet I had an opportunity of hearing him to great advantage, for on the day that I dined with him there, M Sismondi, who has published a work on Political Economy, and whose views are quite opposed to mine, was on a visit at the Duke’s house. M. Sismondi advanced his peculiar opinions, which were combated by the Duke and me—but the difficult part of the contest fell chiefly on the Duke, who defended our common principles so well that it appeared to me Mons^r Sismondi had no chance with him. Mons. S. indeed once or twice confessed he could not answer the points objected to him, but he would never agree that they could not be answered. Mr. Dumont, and Mad^me. de Broglie, sat by as umpires, but they only interfered to see fair play. Mad^me. is a very pleasing lady—she on this occasion as well as on a subsequent one, for I met them again at Paris, left a very pleasing impression of herself on my mind. Notwithstanding my difference with Mons. Sismondi, on the doctrines of Political Economy, I am a great admirer of his talents, and I was very favorably impressed by his manners—I did not expect from what I had seen of his controversial writings to find him so candid and agreeable. M. Sismondi’s1 takes enlarged views, and is sincerely desirous of establishing principles which he conceives to be2 most conducive to the happiness of mankind. He holds that the great cause of the misery of the bulk of the people in all countries3 is the unequal distribution of property, which tends to brutalize and degrade the lower classes. The way to elevate man, to prevent him from making inconsiderate marriages, is to give him property, and an interest in the general welfare;—thus far we should pretty well agree, but when he contends that the abundance of production caused by machinery, and by other means, is the cause of the unequal distribution of property, and that the end he has in view cannot be accomplished while this abundant production continues, he, I think, entirely misconceives the subject, and does not succeed in shewing the connection of his premises with his conclusion.1

At Paris I saw M. Say several times, but never found him much inclined to talk on the points of difference between us. I believe M. Say finds it difficult to converse on these subjects; his ideas do not flow in a sufficiently rapid course for conversation.2 Speaking to the Duke de Broglie of M Say he observed that he did not appear to him to have the least notion of the doctrines of the New School,—that his notes in the French translation of my book shewed clearly that he did not know what the subject in dispute was. In France very little is understood about Political Economy, altho’ they have some good writers on that subject. M. Garnier, the translator of Adam Smith, had completed an additional volume of notes for a new edition of Smith’s work when he died. This new edition has just been published,1 and I had an opportunity while in Paris, of seeing the additional volume, and of reading the lengthened remarks which he makes on my opinions. M Garnier is in every instance opposed to me when I attack his favorite author, but I am sure that the observations of the D de Broglie on Mr. Say’s knowledge of my principles are equally applicable to M. Garnier. M. Say’s brother, Louis Say, has written a thick volume of criticism on Adam Smith’s, Malthus’, his brother’s, and my doctrines;—he quarrels with all our opinions, but shews pretty evidently that he knows very little about them.2 M. Ganilh, a deputy, has also made remarks on my work, but I have not seen them—the Duke gave me no encouragement to read them.3 At Geneva the 1^st number of a review has been lately published, with the names of the writers of the different articles signed to them. There is an article, on two houses being better than one, by M. Rossi—another on law, by Dumont, one on Polit. Econ., by Sismondi, and several others. The Duke de Broglie told me that he had half promised to write an article on my book—if he does, I shall be eager to see it.4 Besides the gentlemen I have mentioned I met some very clever men, but had too little time to improve my very slight acquaintance with them.

In all the countries through which I travelled the people appeared to be enjoying ease and plenty. Provisions are everywhere uncommonly cheap, and nothing prevents those fine countries from making a most rapid progress in wealth and population, but the unsettled state of the governments. Nobody seems to think that the present order of things will continue long on its present footing, which damps all enterprise and speculation that requires a few years to reap the fruits from them.

When I go to town I will make some inquiry after your papers,1 I ought to have done it before I left England, but my time was so taken up that I never thought of it.—I wish you had expanded the subject into a pamphlet—it is not too late now, and I hope you will undertake it.

We shall I suppose have an active session of Parliament;—the continued distress of the agricultural class will make the country gentlemen clamorous for some measures to relieve them. They do not see that no relief can be afforded them, but at the expence of the other classes of the community—they must either withhold a part of the dividend of the stockholder, or pay a fewer number of pounds than that which they have contracted to pay, to their mortgagees and other creditors. I do not wonder that a depreciation of the currency is a popular measure with landed gentlemen for it at once enables them to effect these two darling objects. Many of them conscientiously believe that there would be no injustice in it, and here I am at issue with them. In this county they are very favorable to an income tax, because, they say, it would reach the Stockholder, as if the stockholder was now exempted from his just share of the taxes. They talk of calling a county meeting at Hereford, where some such measure is to be recommended as a fit object for a petition to Parliament—if I am here I shall attend it, and shall be induced perhaps to try to prove the insufficiency of the proposed remedy.1

I have not yet read O’Meara’s book2 —I do not wonder at its having been read with great interest.

I hope Mrs. Trower and your family are well, pray make Mrs. Ricardo’s and my kind regards to her——

Ever My dear Trower Y^rs. truly

David Ricardo

[1 ]Addressed: ‘Hutches Trower Esqr / Unsted Wood / Godalming / Surry’, and franked ‘Ledbury December Fifteen’.

MS at University College, London.—Letters to Trower, LIX.

[2 ]Trower’s letter is missing.

[1 ]In his memoirs, the Duc de Broglie places his first meeting with Ricardo in March-April 1822. He was then in London, and he received a note from Miss Edge-worth, ‘elle ne m’invitait pas, elle me sommait de me trouver le lendemain à deux heures chez M. Ricardo, où j’étais attendu’. Malthus was of the party and they had a long discussion: ‘il va sans dire, pour ceux qui me connaissent tant soit peu, que j’étais, de tous points, avec M. Ricardo’. Although he adds, ‘j’aurai occasion de revenir sur mes rapports avec M. Ricardo’, no more is to be found in the published memoirs; see Souvenirs 1785–1870 du feu Duc de Broglie, Paris, 1886, vol. ii, pp. 236–7. Cp. above, p. 230.

[1 ]‘views’ is del. here.

[2 ]Replaces ‘which are’.

[3 ]‘in all countries’ is ins.

[1 ]Sismondi gives some account of his discussion with Ricardo at Geneva in an article ‘Sur la balance des consommations avec les productions’, in Revue Encyclopédique, May 1824, p. 266: ‘M. Ricardo, dont la mort récente a profondement affligé non pas seulement sa famille et ses amis, mais tous ceux qu’il a éclairés par ses lumières, tous ceux qu’il a échauffés par ses nobles sentimens, s’arrêta quelques jours à Genève dans les dernières années de sa vie. Nous discutâmes ensemble, à deux ou trois reprises, cette question fondamentale sur laquelle nous étions en opposition. Il apporta à son examen l’urbanité, la bonne foi, l’amour de la verité qui le distinguaient, et une clartéà laquelle ses disciples eux-mêmes ne se seraient pas attendus, accoutumés qu’ils étaient aux efforts d’abstraction qu’il exigeait d’eux dans le cabinet’. (The article was reprinted in Sismondi’s Nouveaux principes d’économie politique, 2nd ed., Paris, 1827, vol. ii, p. 408 ff.; cp. his études sur l’économie politique, Paris, 1837, vol. i, p. 81 ff.)

[2 ]Say wrote of himself: ‘Je n’ai presque jamais été content de ma conversation. Ma seconde pensée est en général meilleure que la première, et malheureusement c’est toujours celle-ci qui se produit dans la conversation.’ (Œuvres Diverses, p. xv.) Cp. above, VI, 161.

[1 ]In 6 vols.—Germain Garnier had died in 1821.

[2 ]Considérations sur l’industrie et la législation, sous le rapport de leur influence sur la richesse des états, et examen critique des principaux ouvrages qui ont paru sur l’économie politique, par Louis Say (de Nantes), Paris, Aillaud, 1822.

[3 ]Ch. Ganilh, Des systèmes d’économie politique, de la valeur comparative de leur doctrines, et de celle qui parait la plus favorable aux progrès de la richesse. Seconde édition, Avec de nombreuses additions relatives aux controverses récentes de MM. Malthus, Buchanan, Ricardo, sur les points les plus importants de l’économie politique, 2 vols., Paris, Treuttel et Wuürtz, 1821.

[4 ]Annales de législation et d’économie politique, No. 1, Nov. 1822. Rossi on ‘Assemblée législative—Division en deux chambres’; Sismondi reviews John Barton’s pamphlets on labour; Dumont ‘Des présomptions anté-judiciaires’. After a second number the Annales were discontinued and the Duc de Broglie’s article never appeared.

[1 ]Probably Trower’s letter on currency, cp. above, p. 201.

[1 ]Cp. below, p. 266.

[2 ]Napoleon in Exile; or A Voice from St. Helena. The Opinions and Reflections of Napoleon on the most important events of his Life and Government, in his own words, by B. E. O’Meara, London, Simpkin and Marshall, 1822.