Your statistics have reached me in the very nick of time, and are invaluable. I care nothing about 'outsides,' it is 'insides' I look to; give me a good 'heart,' and I don't care how rough the 'bark' is.
Anything so good I fear to spoil by suggesting the most trivial addition, else I should say it would be an interesting feature to classify the exports of cotton goods, etc., etc., under three heads:--
1st. To the British colonies and British possessions abroad.
2nd. To the northern states of Europe, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, etc., etc., the United States of America, and other countries having high tariffs.
3rd. To China, Turkey, Africa, and the Southern States of America, and countries with low tariffs.
I fear these failures of East and West India houses must entail great distress upon Manchester, and the manufacturing interests generally. You have given an account of the bankruptcies in the cotton trade during a long series of years till last year inclusive; are you able to say how the first nine months of the current year stands in comparison with its predecessors?
I so highly prize your new work, that I must ask for a dozen copies to distribute among my friends.
P. S. I have already parted with the copy you sent me; may I, therefore, beg another without waiting for any other binding?
I shall go up to town on Friday evening, in my way to Newmarket, and shall be at Harcourt House all Saturday and Sunday, and shall be delighted to see you, and have a thorough good talk with you. Free trade seems working mischief faster than the most fearful of us predicted, and Manchester houses, as I am told, 'failing in rows,' ashamed to do penance in public, are secretly weeping in sackcloth and ashes, and heartily praying that Peel and Cobden had been hanged before they were allowed to ruin the country.
Money at Manchester is quoted one and a quarter per cent, for ten days: £45 12s. 6d. per cent. per annum!
Harcourt House, October 22, 1847. I have this moment got a note from Stuart, telling me that 'the Chancellor has this afternoon sent out his notice of the business to be taken in his own court during Michaelmas term, that is, from the 2nd of November till the 26th, and below it there is this notice--_except those days on which the Lord Chancellor may sit in the House of Lords_!!!'