Letters of David Ricardo to Thomas Robert Malthus, 1810-1823 Part 14

In the Times the report of what he said is very correct, as far as it goes; but it is necessarily a very abbreviated statement. Mr.

Kinnaird[154] began by speaking in the most respectful manner of you, and indeed in terms of great eulogy, but afterwards I think absurdly dwelt on your being an interested party and an advocate for the college, and imitated Mr. Jackson in his irony on those whom he first declared were highly deserving of respect. In what manner could we have any correct account of the college and its concerns but from an interested party? Who could speak of its management, attainments, and discipline, but those who were acquainted with it? He, however, gave up the only strong grounds they had (if they had been true) for inquiring into the affairs of the college, for he said that he had no idea that there was more immorality and profligacy in the East India College than in any other seminary; neither did he say anything of a want of proficiency in the students; but his main argument was built on the general principle that a supply of intellectual attainments will as surely follow an effectual demand for it, as the supply of any material commodity will follow effectual demand.

Mr. Grant, I should mention, supported a directly contrary principle.

Mr. Kinnaird dwelt very much on the compulsion under which parents were of sending their children to this particular inst.i.tution. He seemed to me to adopt Mr. Mill's view of the subject, and his argument would have been quite as applicable to all colleges if parents were compelled to send their children to them. He pa.s.sed over the compulsion under which parents were to send their children to college, who wished to bring them up to the church, etc. In a few minutes' conversation which I had with him after the debate I urged this objection, and he answered that they had a choice among a large number of colleges, whereas in your case they were confined to this one.

He finished by a.s.suring me that my friend had a bad cause, that it could not be defended and must fall. Mr. Impey's speech was badly timed; he should not have immediately followed Mr. Grant, for he could not then say anything new, nor could he repeat anything that had been said half as well as Mr. Grant had said it before. The debate will be renewed on Tuesday. If you should come up, I shall expect you in Brook Street. If I do not see you, and you are disengaged on the Sat.u.r.day evening following, I shall be glad to pa.s.s a day with you, commencing my visit at that time....

Very truly yours, DAVID RICARDO.

LVI.

LONDON, _9th March, 1817_.

MY DEAR SIR,

I leave London to-morrow morning very early for Gloucesters.h.i.+re, from whence I shall return some time before your next meeting at the King of Clubs, so that I hope you will do me the favour to come to Brook Street when you visit town on that occasion.

... This letter will accompany that part of my MS.[155] which refers to you. I hope I have not in any respect misapprehended you; and, however we may differ in opinion on the subjects that we have so often discussed, I trust you will not think that I have exceeded the bounds of fair criticism in my remarks on the pa.s.sages of your pamphlets which I have selected for animadversion. The printing goes on briskly. We have had a sheet a day since the commencement, and eleven sheets are now corrected. In their printed form they appear worse, in my eyes, than before; and I need all the encouragement of my partial correctors[156]

to keep alive a spark of hope respecting their reception. I wish it were fairly out of my hands; and, that it may not be delayed, I have taken every precaution that it shall proceed uninterruptedly in my absence. As yet I have no misgivings about the doctrines themselves; all my fears are for the language and arrangement, and above all that I may not have succeeded in clearly showing what the opinions are which I am desirous of submitting to fair investigation.

I hope that college affairs will no longer occupy an undue proportion of your attention, but that you will be able to give a finis.h.i.+ng hand to the works which you are about to publish. Mrs. Marcet[157] will immediately publish a second edition[158]. I have given her my opinion on some pa.s.sages of her book, and have pointed out those which I know you would dispute with me. If she begins to listen to our controversy, the printing of her book will be long delayed; she had better avoid it, and keep her course on neutral ground. I believe we should sadly puzzle Miss Caroline, and I doubt whether Mrs. B. herself could clear up the difficulty.

From some conversation which I had yesterday morning with Mr. Murray, it appears that Torrens has been offering his book to him; but Murray is very lukewarm in the negotiation, and really very much underrates Torrens' talents. He thinks that the sale of Torrens' best work, that on corn[159], was very limited; he talked of it's not having exceeded 150 copies. Since writing the above I have seen Mr. Hume[160]; he tells me that he has heard that the directors are about to inst.i.tute an inquiry into the state of the college themselves....

Very truly yours, DAVID RICARDO.

LVII.

LONDON, _22 March, 1817_.

MY DEAR SIR,

I have been expecting you, both yesterday and to-day, and it is only after a most laborious calculation that I am led to suspect that the meeting of your Club is not till next Sat.u.r.day. Next Friday then, or any earlier day, I hope we shall see you in Brook Street; and I am desired by Mrs. Ricardo to say that, if Mrs. Malthus will also favour us with her company, she will be very happy to see her. If you should come on or before Friday, the printer will not before that day want that part of my MS. which I sent to you; but, if he uses due diligence, he will certainly be ready for it about that time. If you have any remarks to make on it which will require much consideration on my part, be so good as to send it me before, for, as the time approaches that I am to appear in print, I seem to become more dissatisfied with my work, and less capable to give any proposition contained in it a patient investigation.

It is now 5 o'clock; and, notwithstanding my doubts have been gathering strength since the morning, I am but just convinced, after tracing back with Mr. Hitchings the day you were last here, that I shall not see you this day.

In great haste, yours very truly,

DAVID RICARDO.

We returned from Gloucesters.h.i.+re on Tuesday last.

LVIII.

LONDON, _26 March, 1817_.

MY DEAR SIR,

This morning I intended that my letter to you to-day should inform you that I would have the pleasure of pa.s.sing next Sat.u.r.day and Sunday with you at Haileybury; but a circ.u.mstance has taken place which will make it necessary for me to go to Bath on Friday next, from which place I shall again return to London early in the next week. As you say you will not be in town till after Easter, perhaps it will be convenient to you to see me at Haileybury on Sat.u.r.day se'nnight. If so, I shall be with you on that day, at your dinner hour; and, if I do not hear from you before, I shall conclude that you have no engagement which will render my visit inconvenient.

I mean this day to put the last of my papers in the printer's hands, and hope he will be able to finish the printing before my visit to you; but of this I have some doubt, as he does not proceed regularly at the same even pace.

I agree with you that, after having so often heard your opinions, in contradiction to mine, it would not be of much use just now, when my book is actually in the press, to enter again on your reasons for differing with me. I did not send you the ma.n.u.scripts with any such intention. I merely wished you to see that part which related to you before I published, that I might not inadvertently misrepresent your statement. I cannot have the least objection to insert the note you mention[161], although I cannot but regret that we should differ so much as to the just and fair import of the words _real price_. When you see my book altogether, you will not perhaps differ from me so much as you now think you do. You may, and I believe will, object to the correctness of many of my terms, as they will appear to you fanciful and not always properly applied; but, making allowance for such deviations, you will I am sure agree with much of the matter. On some points, indeed, there is no difference between us, and on others our chief disagreement would be in the mode of representing them. I have written this letter at intervals between other engagements, as I have been repeatedly interrupted. I now hear the postman's bell, and must hasten to conclude.

Very truly yours, DAVID RICARDO.

LIX.

MY DEAR SIR,

I came up to London last night by the mail from Salisbury, and have just seen your letter. Mr. Whishaw told me when we last met that he was going to your house on Sat.u.r.day, and I feared that my projected visit might, on account of numbers, be inconvenient to you.... You have, however, suggested the getting me a bed out of your house, with which I shall be well satisfied, let it be hard or soft, narrow or roomy....

Pray make no ceremony with me, and do not receive me if there be the least difficulty about the bed.

Yours very truly, DAVID RICARDO.

LONDON, _3 June, 1817_.

LX.

LONDON, _25 July, 1817_.

MY DEAR SIR,

I am just returned from my six weeks' excursion highly pleased with everything I have seen. I very much regretted that you were not with me, as I am sure you would have been gratified with the towns of Flanders and the scenery of Namur, the Rhine and the castle of Heidelberg. I met Mr. Hamilton[162] at Luneville; he was going through the country that I had just quitted, and I hope he was as much pleased with it as I was. I fear that his engagements at the college made him devote less time to it than was required to enjoy all its beauties. We found that we were obliged to hurry over it with more expedition than we wished. Mrs.

Ricardo has been at Gatcomb rather more than a week, and to-morrow I shall quit town and join her there. Since Tuesday morning when I left Paris I have been incessantly travelling in the day and have not devoted many hours to sleep. I shall not be sorry to have a few days' rest.

Your college was liberal to France, for I not only met Mr. Hamilton there but Mr. Le Bas[163] and the gentleman, whose name I forget, who teaches the French language at that inst.i.tution[164].

I hope you have been enjoying your excursion and that you found less distress in Ireland than has been represented as existing there. The prospect of a good harvest is some consolation for the sufferings which the poor have been forced to endure; in every country of Europe they have endured much, and in every one they are antic.i.p.ating a return of plenty.

M. Say was very much gratified with your present, and requested me to forward a letter and a small duodecimo volume which he has just published[165]. The letter I send you, but the book as well as his work on Political Economy, the 3rd edition of which he gave to me, has been detained at the Custom house at Dover, that they may have sufficient time to calculate the duty on them. As I did not wish to stay at Dover till the next day, I requested the master of the Inn to pay the duty and to forward them by Osman, who will be on his return from France in a few days. The book is an interesting little work in the manner of Rochefoucauld, and appears to me to be ably done. M. Say was very agreeable and friendly; he dined with me one day and I with him another.

He is engaged in a commercial concern to which I believe he gives great attention.

I fear that it will be a long time before you and I meet, though I shall probably be in London once or twice in the next three months. I hope you will be disposed to bend your stops westerly in your winter vacation, and that you will not fail to pay us a visit at Gatcomb; but not such a visit as the last,--I shall not be satisfied with a flying excursion.

Perhaps Mr. Whishaw will favour me with his company at the same time; if so, with the a.s.sistance of my friend Smith, we should, I hope, contrive to make the time pa.s.s agreeably to both of you. Being very tired and very sleepy I hasten to conclude.