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blake to mcculloch1 - David Ricardo, The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 9 Letters 1821-1823 [1821]

Edition used:

The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, ed. Piero Sraffa with the Collaboration of M.H. Dobb (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2005). Vol. 9 Letters 1821-1823.

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.


blake to mcculloch1

My Dear Sir,

I cannot help suspecting from the conversations that we have had that some points of my pamphlet have escaped your observation I have therefore sent you a copy which I solicit you to accept and I have marked many of the passages to which I had occasion to refer during our discussions. You will see that if I have erred I have erred deliberately and I have not done so through ignorance of the doctrines which you and Mr Ricardo advocate. I regret very much that our amicable disputes are put an end to for the present and I hope they may be renewed when you visit us next Spring we must take care not to fall into the situation of the two brothers in the times of James 2nd a Catholic and Protestant who disputed till each converted the other. I have examined the data you furnished to Malthus for Kircudbright2 and I find you are quite right as to wages having doubled—this is a “nodus” for both sides—And as you seemed to find that depreciation accounted for all difficulties and placed you upon velvet I beg to offer you a velvet pillow for your voyage. I observe that during the period from 1783 to 1800 when there was no depreciation wages rose from 25 to 30 cent—consequently accordingly to the received Theory Profits must have fallen from 25 to 30 cent—yet it is generally admitted (the rate of interest proves it) that profits rose. Pray reconcile this to yourself and to yours very sincerely

WM. Blake]

[1 ]Addressed: ‘J. R. McCulloch Esq. / 35, Frith Street’.

MS in the Overstone Library of the University of Reading (inserted in McCulloch’s copy of Blake’s Observations on...Expenditure, 1823).

[2 ]See the table of wages in Kircudbright from 1760 to 1822, in Malthus’s Measure of Value, 1823, p. 75; cp. ib. p. 76, n. and Malthus’s letters to Napier, in Economic Journal, 1897, pp. 268–9.