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manufacturing towns preparations have been made · to work short time, and spinners propose to abstain from gas. These embarrassments arise partly from causes that the legislature cannot control. For them no censure is, or can be, deserved by states. men. They err, not in providing against what may be unavoidable, but for aggravating calamities into catastrophes. The law makes provision for an artificial contraction of the currency at all seasons and times when it has been contracted previously by natural means-and that must always be the case, while the domestic circulation is regu

The practical convertibilty is gained in France, by purchases of bullion by the Bank, at a loss when that becomes necessary. The Bank of France has paid in the last year a considerable sum for bullion to maintain its strength. So, in the same manner, our issuers of notes should not only hold themselves responsible for their convertibilty; as they are now responsible; but take upon themselves all the charges, and cost, and counselling for that purpose. The banking interest are willing to adopt that course, with a few exceptions; but the monied in terest-not the vast class who live upon the regular returns for their money, either from the gentle-lated by all the movements of the foreign exchanges, manly simplicity of the three per cents, or any investment more profitable-but the class, from a few large and notorious houses, down to the persons who discount bills, and partly pay the proceeds in horses or wine; who dabble for money, hunt for bargains, and pass through life in a very irregular description of trading, -possess power enough to check a reform in this law; either because politicians are very poor and easily influenced, or very rich and slightly interested.

The pressure of a high rate of discount upon profits is often severe. It is easy to say that a mercantile house should not be put down for two and a-half per cent. by those who do not know that business in some departments is done for that profit; yet the statement has little to do with a matter that involves, not only two and a half per cent., but everything. It is not the cost of money, but the fear of not obtaining it at any cost, which brings distress, idleness, and want among the industrial classes, reduces their number, and adds all the reductions to that of the dependent, who often become the improvident classes.

If the country must have a fixed quantity of bullion on hand, let it be procured, and kept in granaries of gold, by those who make a gain of circulation. Or, when it has been obtained, let it be retained by a tax on its exportation.

The addition of two and a half per cent. to the rate of discount charged in this country during October, was made, not on account of any extravagant domestic trading, but to check the exportation of bullion. It acted, therefore, as a tax of two and a-half per cent. upon the exportation of some two or three millions of bullion. Even that is doubtful; for the persons who exported the bullion may have had balances with their baukers, and done the work without the discount of a bill. For this miserable check on bullion dealing-miserable at the best-a tax of two and a half per cent. was placed upon twenty millions of domestic transactions last month, and will be repeated this month, and onwards, until relief is brought to many by the ruin of many more-not a ruin by two and a half per cent., but by the panic for want of money, of which this is the sign.

Subscriptions are sought in Glasgow for female operatives thrown out of employment there. A considerable number have been deprived of work | from similar causes in London. In all the English

unless the Government buy gold, as in France, at a loss; or tax its exportation, not as a means of raising revenue, but of keeping it in the country; although that might be often evaded, and would be an exceptional policy in many respects, but better and cheaper than the present system.

A steady domestic circulation might be based on our sorrows-that is to say, on our taxes; for a nation bound to pay sixty millions annually for being governed, can always have thirty millions of currency at full value, if it be made, like sovereigns, a legal tender for duties and taxes.

If the Government dislike the trouble of a national system, the circulation would get on smoothly by leaving it alone; after providing that those who issued notes should deposit ample security for their redemption in some way, and telling them they were responsible to find the amount of their issues in gold and silver when they were required. Bankers can manage their own affairs quite as cleverly as any other class cf men. If they understand that they must pay their notes in one of the two precious metals, they will provide the means; and if the public know that every note in circulation is backed to its full value by Govern ment stock, they will not ask for bullion, except for the purpose of foreign exchanges. Bankers, in that case, would learn the measures absolutely necessary for their own safety. They would do what has been done by the Bank of France-buy bullion at a premium, on the approach of danger, and keep peril at a safe and respectable distance. Any expenditure that might be incurred for that purpose would be small indeed when contrasted with the immense loss and suffering caused by the present system, and the continual fear in which the public now live of some new crisis-because it has been out of one and into another for a long period now; and that will be the case hereafter, until we have no interval to gather strength, and recruit for the next struggle with Mammen, or Moloch, or whatever other name of evil import belongs to the "Tutelarity" of Lombard-street and its precincts.

The agitation of this subject some time ago induced the Government to grant a currency com mittee in the last Parliament. They did nothing. A new committee were named in the preseat Parliament. They examined witnesses and reported. The witnesses were chiefly of one class.

FREE TRADE IN MONEY.

Truth, as usual, was smothered by some of them under a mass of sophistry. Still the formation of a committee, and the necessity of a defence, must convince the supporters of the existing monopolies in banking and currency-their supporters less for direct than for indirect benefitsthat their privileges are in danger, and that some year the sense of the community will be roused out of lethargy to remove them.

Will it be next year? We believe not. We believe in the passive nature of the public to an almost immeasureable length. They will flatter themselves that they have free trade; yet in London, and for many miles around London, only one company, upon any terms, can issue notes payable to bearer on demand.

That is free trade!

The public believe in it; still, although there is not a joint-stock bank in England of fifteen years standing, with its capital divided into shares of one hundred pounds, yet no new joint-stock company, for banking purposes, can now be formed with shares of less amount than one hundred pounds. The law was framed to provide for the responsibility of shareholders; and the Royal British Bank is the evidence of its practical working the only evidence in existence.

And that is free trade!

The Bank of England could very nearly pay all its private deposits with the bullion in its possession; yet, if one-third of the depositors were to demand payment suddenly, the directors would be obliged to close their doors, unless they could obtain an order in council to suspend the Bank Charter Aet; and that is a very prudent law, maintained by very prudent men, who imagine that it is a wise act to leave a very ridiculous catastrophe possible, in the hope that the depositors will not be so foolish as themselves.

Currency is the life blood of agriculture, of commerce, of work in every department and state; and still we leave the internal currency upon the narrowest possible basis, yet one of a varying nature, subject to changes in every coun try; to calamities in every land; and even to the laws of every foreign nation, the expression of their opinions, the realisation of their principles, or their want of principle-laws over which we have no control; opinions which we cannot guide; principles which we cannot influence; but which are allowed so much to influence us, that the looms of Lancashire may be stilled, and the hammers of Lanarkshire may be silenced, by the errors of American idolaters of dollars, or the intrigues of some continental Emperor, Emperor, who might be cunning enough to spend three or four millions in monetary

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hostilities, instead of common and vulgar war. The history of each past crisis is one of fears, not of realities. The mischief of every panic has originated, not in the absolute compulsion of the law, but in precautions taken to avoid its snares. The banks have never been very close to the line which they dare not overstep, but in tremulous and, we suppose, well-grounded prudence; they have saved themselves at the cost of the mercantile and operative classes.

And yet we hear frequently that the people could not take care of themselves; that the precious rights of property must be protected by a ring of ten pound tenants of beer shops, and wee pawns, and "publics," in small boroughs; while in country towns, and rural districts, property is guarded by the respectability of forty shilling freeholds in England, two hundred shilling holdings in Scotland, or fifty pound tenantcies all over.

Have the electors protected themselves, or the working classes, from those sudden convulsions in monetary affairs, which often make tradesmen poor and operatives almost paupers, that in the wreck of credit and means a small minority of the nation, who neither spin nor toil, may be enriched? They might have effected that object under an equitable representation. At present even the electors have scarcely a chance of doing well The non-electors are helpless.

A similar crisis has not been averted in the United States, where the electoral rights are very general. We know the objection, and therefore we state it; but the intelligent artisans of the States are all "hastening to be rich," and living "for dollars." The more intelligent artisans of this country do not sacrifice everything for money. They work to live. Their contemporaries in the States live to work. The one class earn money to spend it. The other carn money to worship it. And the intelligent workmen of both countries have to contend with ignorant multitudes, more than equal to them in noise, but not here, at least, equal to them in numbers.

This year-next year-will not see a change in the currency laws. No year will witness that change until the people generally be relieved from the idea that a mystery hangs round money, which only three or four acute men in a generation can penetrate. The idea prevails. The myth of a mystery answers every purpose better than a real one. An actual, hieroglyphical, labyrinthical, perverse mystery might be threaded through; but a mystery that has no existence, defies detection, or explanation, or light, or search of any kind; and to the end, while the pablic believe in what is not, they will pay for their error.

HISTORICAL SKETCH OF JERSEY.

WE have written sketches both of and in Jersey; ; The Druids retained possession of Jersey until have set forth the various prices of the different the subjection of Gaul by the Romans, who also adjuncts of life; chronicled the rents of houses, invaded and seized this island. They have left wages of servants, and prices of provisions; de- but slight traces of their residence. A few medals scribed the soil and the climate; and the local pro- of their emperors and some mouldering encampducts under the united influence of both. But while ments alone denote their stay. we have been thus discussing each domestic subject, and seeking to afford all useful information, we have been silent as to what may be considered a higher, if not so general a source of knowledge, and have said little or nothing of the history of the island.

Now, the history of Jersey, unimportant in itself, is worthy of consideration, from its intimate connexion with that of England, and as such should be deemed interesting by English people. It is well to be tolerably conversant with the historical outline of those places which come familiarly before our notice. In these days every one hears and speaks of Jersey; each year it is increasing in importance; hundreds of persons make the island their summer residence; hundreds, or even thousands, reside there in the winter, and look on it simply, either as a refuge from the cold or a pleasant place of amusement. But whatever

it may be at present, it has been something else than a place of mere amusement. Stirring scenes of warfare have been enacted on its coasts; deeds of bravery performed on its shores, where brave and gallant men have fought for and defended the little island.

It has sometimes been considered that Jersey was originally attached to the coast of France, and severed therefrom by some convulsion of nature. This is a mere hypothesis; whether true or not, we have no possible means of ascertaining. All we know is, that if it ever had been so, the disruption must have taken place at a very early period; for in the reign of the Roman Emperor Antonius Pius, we find Jersey under the name of Cæsarea, mentioned as an island in the British Ocean. This name of Cæsarea was, of course, given by one of the Caesars-it has been said, by Julius Cæsar himself, during a visit to the island; but this is not very probable, as Jersey was not then sufficiently important to attract the conqueror of Gaul to its coasts.

The earliest accounts we have of Jersey, prove it to have been the habitation of the Druids and the Celts. The remains of the Cromlchs and temples of the former, are found in various parts of the island, and one of great magnitude and perfection was discovered on the summit of the hill of St. Helier's, now Fort Regent, when in 1785, it was levelled, excavated, and formed into a parade. This Druidical temple is supposed to be one of the most perfect remains found in Europe. It is not left in the island, having been presented by the States of Jersey to Marshal Conway, for very important services afforded by him.

Next came the Francs, a barbarous nation from the wilds of Germany. France yielded to their sway, and with France, Jersey. But we pass on from these remote and, perhaps, uninteresting times, to the invasion of France by the Normans, when these Pagan worshippers of Odin, subjugating that country, made it the scene of havoc and bloodshed.

The proximity of the Channel Islands to the coast of France, along which these barbarians had to pass, laid them open to attack; and accordingly, in a very short period, we find the Norman rule supreme in Jersey.

It must be remembered that long before this period the island had been converted to Christianity. This change had probably taken place during its connexion with France, or under the Roman sway. As we have before remarked, the Normans were Pagans, and, therefore, inimical to anything Christiau, and a signal instance of their Pagan ferocity stands against them still, as one of their first unworthy and brutal acts of aggression in Jersey. We allude to the murder of that mistaken but pious man, the simple, unoffending hermit, Helier, who had long been known and esteemed for his active benevolence and kindness.

This unfortunate recluse lived in a small cell, a desolate enough place, on a point of the rock on which Elizabeth Castle now stands. This point of rock is, at high water, completely isolated from the castle; and here, standing alone on that bleak point, may still be seen the little hermitage; the spray of the winter sea dashing over it with cach great wave, the burning heat of the summer sun casting its intense brilliancy upon it.

This cell is of the smallest possible dimensions, more like a sentry box than a human habitation; indeed, it struck us that such had once been its original purpose, but this opinion would be considered heretical in the island, and therefore, we do not advance or seek to establish it. In reverence for St. Helier, and for the esteem in which his cell is held, we accord him full right to it. So there we repeat, the good hermit lived, practising a course of guileless Christian kindness, we much admire, while we deplore the wretched error of his creed, which led him to suppose his confinement in so miserable a spot acceptable to the Deity.

But the Normans saw nothing to venerate in this holy man. Regarding him with the cruel. bigotry of their religion, they looked on him as a legitimate object of persecution, and accordingly, after all the inventions of cruelty which savage genuity could suggest had been exhausted, they

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THE SIEGE OF GOURAY.

mercifully, (for it became mercy then,) put him to death; and thus gave him what he considered the greatest object of ambition, the reputation of a martyr and a saint. In after ages, when the Normans became the acknowledged masters of the island, one of their number, a Norman noble, Sir Guillaume de Hamon by name, in opposition to the feeling of his predecessors, hallowed the memory of St. Helier, and sought to expiate the sin of his murder, by founding a monastery on the spot which had been the scene of his martyrdom. From this hermit the principal town of the island takes its

name.

We pass on now to the year 912, when the Channel Islands became completely severed from the French dominion. The Norman settlers who remained in the island then coalesced with the natives, and formed themselves into a people inimical to France. Numerous assaults and counterassaults took place, disputes were frequent, aggressions of common occurence: the two sister coasts were constantly disturbed by puny warfare; a spirit of animosity was engendered, which handed down from generation to generation, may be traced even to the present day, in the dislike which every Jerseyman manifests to being considered either of French extraction, or in any way connected with France. Things went on thus, until the Norman William usurped the English throne, and annexed Jersey, to what he then considered his own possession.

We hear nothing particular of the island, during the reigns of the succeeding Anglo-Norman monarchs. In the time of John, Normandy was separated from the British crown, but Jersey was still retained to the English. This king, towards the end of his reign, visited the island, and entertaining no very friendly feeling, as we may suppose to his foreign neighbours, seems to have made the strengthening and increasing its various fortifications the principal object of his visit. He made good all the strongholds, and protected the harbours, thus affording to the island, all possible security from the neighbouring coast.

And these precautionary measures were needed; for from this time we hear of predatory attacks by the French. In the reign of Edward the Third, these assumed a formidable appearance, for at that period Du Guesclin, with ten thousand troops, sailed from Brest against Jersey. It says something for the supposed importance of the island that so large a force, under so experienced a leader, should have been sent to claim and take possession. The Duke de Bourbon, together with some of the French nobility, accompanied the expedition.

The inhabitants of the island, unaccustomed to so large a force, felt open resistance to be useleas. Any opposition to the landing would have been futile; to stand on the defence was the only chance for the unfortunate islanders. With these feelings, under this impression, they garrisoned the principal fortress of the island, the Castle of Gouray, as it

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was then called, and fortifying it as strongly a they could, determined to abide the issue of the struggle.

On came the assailants, using all the murderous implements of a seige known at that period. After a spirited resistance a breach was made in the walls, and the troops of Du Guesclin attempted to storm; but their attempt was a failure, for the little band boldly and bravely defended their stronghold, and repulsed the French. Still the combat raged, neither party giving way nor faltering. Days and weeks passed on thus, and then a more formidable enemy than even the fierce soldiers of Du Guesclin came to scare the little garrison. Famine, with her guant and meagre face, stole in amongst them, and with her horrid aspect warned them to submit. But submission, complete submissior, was not for them; the terms of warfare had been equal, the terms of peace should be so too. A parly was therefore demanded, and, as was very frequent in those times, a compromise was entered into, by which it was agreed that unless a relief came for the beseiged before Michaelmas, the Castle should at that time be delivered to Du Guesclin. In consequence of this agreement the French forces were withdrawn

proper hostages being given by the defenders of the Castle for the fulfilment of the conditions. Shortly afterwards Du Guesclin received intelligence that an English force, for the relief of the beseiged had arrived, which, fulfilling the terms of the agreement, delivered Jersey from Du Guesclin's attempted subjugation.

In consequence of this brave defence, Gouray Castle received afterwards, from Henry V., the title of Mount Orgueil Castle, and it now retains the name.

And here let us digress, and mention a little anecdote of this siege, which, although unimportant in an historical point of view, still may be interesting as demonstrating one of the minor miseries of warfare-one out of the many thousands, where a home is made desolate, anguish carried to warm, loving hearts, by the indirect influence of the reigning strife of nations. At the time of which we write, or rather a short while before that time, for we must retrograde to about six months before Du Guesclin's invasion, there lived, in a strange old house, a goblin looking place, where bats and owls alone ought to have resided, and spirits kept their revels, one of the most beautiful girls the suu ever shone on.

"Angelique de St. Réné" was fitly named; angels must have breathed on her at birth, and given her their own pure nature. Even as a child the loveliness of her temper and disposition was apparent, and as she grew to womanhood, age seemed to perfect that which early youth had promised.

Nature seemed to think she had done enough for Monsieur and Madame de Réné, in bestowing this one matchless daughter on them, for no other children blessed (as it is generally said) their union.

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Whether any others would have been considered a blessing by them or not is doubtful. They were very far from rich, although they had plenty for themselves and Angelique, quite enough-and perhaps a little, but only a little, to spare. But what was quite enough for four, i.e. themselves, Angelique, and a servant, would have been barely enough for more than four-and not nearly enough for a successive race of little Rénés, with their necessary appendages of nursemaids and attendants; so, under these circumstances, the progenitor Réné came to the wise conclusion that the greatest blessing any forthcoming children could bestow was by just keeping away.

Seventeen years of sunny life, (for Angelique's was a sunny life) flew by, and then came an unexpected trial for her parents; for Angelique's blue eyes rested on the handsome face of the young José de Quetteville, and Angelique's willing ear listened to certain whispers which he poured into it, some nonsense about love, and marriage, and such like folly, at which, of course, she ought to have felt annoyed and distressed, but at which she seemed very much pleased, and to them her clear blue eyes and parted lips seemed to give a satisfactory reply.

She was a very bad girl certainly, to go and fall in love in that unpremeditated way, without even telling her parents she meant to do such a thing, and asking their leave; a very bad girl indeed; and perhaps José thought so too, for as they walked through the deep valley, on the side of which their house was situated, he told her he must speak to her parents and ask their consent, not to his loving her he had forgotten all about that, but to his carrying her away with him, and transforming her from a simple child, into an important married

woman-a matron.

Angelique was awe struck at the notion, and she looked very steadily at a wild rose, which was bending towards her from the hedge and asking to be plucked; and as José looked where she looked, (for even his looks seemed unconsciously to run in the same direction as hers,) and his glance fell on the flower, he fancied Angelique must have turned thief, and stolen from that pale rose the blush which dwelt on her own cheek.

After a few hours of resolution, he summoned up courage to go through the dreadful ordeal of confiding his wishes respecting Angelique to Madame. It was a dreadful thing to do; if it had been any one but Angelique, he fancied he would not have cared so much-but to have to say he loved her, and wished to marry her, why it was nothing less than dreadful.

And Madame made it still more dreadful by the way she took the intimation; for she pushed the table near which she sat away from her, and then, with both hands placed on her knees, she sat staring as if poor José had been a burglar, or a murderer, or any other wild beast who had just made some horrible confession.

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you want to marry Angelique? the baby Angelique!" and the old woman laughed so provokingly. José wished she had been a man, and unconnected with Angelique, that he might have knocked her down, as a safety valve for his excited feelings. But she was not a man, she was the mother of Angelique, and he could not enter into a pugilistic encounter with her, so he stood before her looking very foolish; very wretched, and very uncomfortable, and thinking that he would like to creep under the table or any where else, and hide himself until the interview were over.

But all this time, Madame had not said either "no" or "yes" to his demand, and he wanted either the one or the other; so he trotted up his courage to the stumbling block again, gave it a kick, and over it went with a bound, and carried him right into the middle of the portentous question. "Will you give me your child or not, Madame?" And Madame leant a little bit more forward on her chair, pressed her hands a little bit more firmly on her knees, and stared at him (at least so he thought) much more fixedly in the face, as she deliberately 'refused.

"No, Monsieur" she said, " Angelique is a wicked girl, to go and listen to you about such things; and you must have taken great pains to make her so bad, for I am sure she would not have let any one else talk to her so, (José was glad to hear that).

Marry her indeed! such a child! why Monsieur, she is hardly out of her cradle!" And Madame puffed and panted like an enraged grampus.

"Marry! eh! mon Dieu ! what next?" you should think of her age Monsieur, before you talk such nonsense; but you are only a boy yourself.

José de Quetteville felt very much offended; and suggested that he had reached the mature age of twenty-three, while Augelique was seventeen.

"And if she is seventeen, Monsieur," the old lady continued "what of that? I was forty when I married her father, and he was but one year younger. That was something like a marriage; people of a decent, sober age; but seventeen and twenty three! Grâce! I will go for her father, and let him talk to you; and away she went, aad very soon returned with the pêre de St. Réné. "There," and she pointed to her husband, "I have told him what you meant-now, listen to what he says.

Poor José raised his eyes to the face of his father-in-law, as he hoped he would become, expecting to see there, ire and refusal, and every thing disagreeable; but instead of these there was merry twinkle in the old man's eye, which encouraged him.

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Mais-dame, "she cried" what do I hear? continued.

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