Some of the merchants who attend my City lecture, which is at nine in the morning, come eight or ten miles, and they are never a minute too late. You would be well pleased with the result of the discussion of the Catholic question in the House of Commons; but it is, I understand, quite sure to be lost in the Lords. Lord Grey and some other Opposition leaders have chosen to take great offence at the proposal for raising the elective franchise; and I am told that he has gone so far as to say that he would rather the Catholics should never be emancipated than that it should be linked to such conditions. This is mere drivelling. The raising of the franchise will be a great good to Ireland, though emancipation were for ever withheld. I suppose you were at Brougham's dinner,1 and if so were disgusted, like all sensible people, at the tirade he made on that occasion. I understand he is to vote against the raising of the franchise. It is really astonishing that a person of such gigantic talents should make such wretched blunders. The question of the Corn Laws is to be discussed on Thursday. I am afraid they will not be changed this session. Government are at present in a panic about an unfavourable set in the foreign exchanges, and a consequent drain of bullion. I believe this to be a device of the Bank to get rid of a portion of the bullion they had accumulated in their coffers. The Mint is at present furnishing the Bank with £200,000 a week of coin but it is quite clear that if the bank were to narrow their issues a little, their paper would bear a small premium, and no gold would be demanded. I stated this in a lecture last week, when six Bank Directors were present; and though they would not say that I was right, they did not say that I was wrong. Huskisson, however, and the Ministers, are greatly alarmed, and those landlords who know anything of the subject are busily plying them with memorials, in which they say that if the ports are opened, the drain of bullion will be greatly augmented, and that the contraction of the currency of the Bank will be productive of bankruptcy, and a : On the 5th of April, 1825, a public dinner was given to Brougham on his first return to Edinburgh. general revulsion. It will require more firmness than the Government possesses to resist these representations. Most J. R. M'CULLOCH. truly yours, MRS. DUGALD STEWART. Kinneil, May 21, 1825. MY DEAR MR. NAPIER,-You are always kind and considerate. A thousand thanks for your notice. Mr. Stewart dictates what follows. He says he must be cautious in any direct interference in favour of Mr. M'Culloch, lest it should be said, as it most undoubtedly would, that he was influenced by personal hostility to Mr. Wilson. He scarce thinks it possible that his course of lectures on Political Economy can be quoted as an objection to the new Professorship, as no advantage has been taken of his example by either of his successors. If such an objection should be brought forward, it will be time enough to meet it by an appeal to him from the persons interested in the appointment. This, he thinks, is all that is necessary at present, and as he hopes to have the satisfaction of seeing you so soon, everything can be talked over when you meet. Acting only as clerk just now, I shall only add, do come soon. Ever yours most truly, H. D. STEWART. J. R. M'CULLOCH. London, May 25, 1825. MY DEAR SIR,-I agree with you in thinking that if the thing could have been done without a Memorial, it would have been so much the better; but as Huskisson thought it was essential for him to have it as a foundation on which to act, there was no alternative. After getting your and Mr. Jeffrey's letters, I wrote to Huskisson, apprising him of the opposition that was expected to be made, and of its grounds. He has great influence with Lord Liverpool, and will, I am convinced, exert it in defence of the project. But as we are sure of Melville's bitterest hostility, the result cannot be otherwise than doubtful. I explained the whole subject fully to Robinson's cousin, Mr. George Villiers, who has, with two of his brothers, been my private pupils this as well as last year. He entered with great zeal into the thing, and promised that he would enforce strongly on Robinson the propriety of carrying it into effect the moment the Memorial comes up. But I doubt whether this can be expected. These two courses of lectures given by Dugald Stewart will afford some pretence for saying that Wilson has the exclusive right to teach the science, and as Melville will press this point-for this is the only point in their case-I do not see how they can avoid taking the opinion of the authorities in Scotland on the subject, and if so, the whole thing will be at an end; and in these circumstances, I am inclined to think that the best way would be to desire Huskisson to withdraw the Memorial. Though I do not like to appear in the light of an unsuccessful suitor, I should not have minded it so much had our opponents been anything but the basest pack on the face of the earth. I shall remember Melville's services on this occasion, and endeavour to requite them when a convenient opportunity offers. Had they not been encumbered with the Edinburgh pack, Robinson and Huskisson would have endowed the Professorship for a tenth part of the influence that has been used on this occasion. But it is the curse of Scotland that the ruling faction there are as base as possible, and that their master here is as bad as they are. You were wrong in thinking that my patrician class had fallen off. On the contrary, it is considerably augmented. I have fire Lords, regular pupils, and about fifteen plain M.P.'s. Altogether, at my two classes I have about 335 pupils. At all events, therefore, I shall make some money by the trip, and could I have succeeded in the other object, would have returned home in triumph.-Most truly and entirely J. R. M CULLOCH. yours, London, June 3, 1825. MY DEAR SIR,-The letter I sent to Mr. Jeffrey yesterday would apprise you that the Memorial was to be referred to the Senatus Academicus. I believe the personal objections that were urged against me were not much listened to. But it was represented that it would be behaving ill to the University, to take such a step without consulting them, and this has been assented to. Do you consider there 1 Five days later Mr. Huskisson, in a letter to Professor Wilson, says:"Should the Senatus Academicus not recommend a compliance with the prayer of the Memorial, I have every reason to believe that it will not receive the sanction of Government; and I have conveyed that impression to the person who had put the Memorial into my hands." The prayer was not complied with, and it was not until 1871 that a Chair of Commercial Law and Political Economy was founded in the University of Edinburgh by the Merchant Company, the first appointment being W. B. Hodgson, LL.D. TO JOHN MURRAY, Albemarle Street. Edinburgh, November 9, 1826. DEAR SIR,-It is so long since I had the pleasure of any sort of intercourse with you, that I scarcely should have thought myself entitled to trouble you on the score of acquaintance; but, as I address you at the request of Mr. Dugald Stewart, the mention of his respected name will, I am hopeful, recommend this letter to your notice. Notwithstanding the infirm and uncertain state of his health, Mr. Stewart has been able to bring to a close, the third and concluding volume of his Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind. It has been printed in quarto, to range with the corresponding editions of the two preceding volumes; and it will very soon be ready for publication. The edition is limited to 500 copies. Some time before the bankruptcy of Messrs. Constable and Company, who were proprietors, jointly with Messrs. Cadell and Davies, of the second volume, published in 1813, an agreement had been made with the former, for the copyright of the third; but that agreement having been frustrated by the disastrous event just mentioned, it has become necessary, now that the volume is so nearly ready to appear, that something should be done with a view to its disposal and publication. Mr. Stewart's friends, particularly Mr. Thomas Thomson and myself, have been for some time accustomed to relieve him of the trouble and correspondence attending such arrangements; but as it is his wish that you should be applied to in preference to any one else in London, I am only at present complying with his request; though my own desire to do what I conceive to be best for his work would have induced me to take the same course, independently of that injunction. By the agreement with Messrs. Constable and Company, Mr. Stewart was to receive £735 for the copyright of this volume; and though the altered state of the times may perhaps operate somewhat to diminish its pecuniary value, yet as it will present itself as the concluding part of a very |