e country. The difficult details of
finance, and their practical application to the currency question, have
not often been understood, and therefore not often relished by me
whenever I have attempted to master them; but I have heard them
frequently and vehemently discussed by the advocates of both paper money
and coin currency; I have read all the manifestoes upon the subject put
forth by Mr. Nicholas Biddle, late President of the United States Bank,
who is supposed to have understood finance well, though the unfortunate
funds committed to his charge do not appear to have been the safer for
that circumstance.... The failure of the United States Bank has been
sometimes considered as a political catastrophe, the result of party
animosity and personal enmity towards Mr. Biddle on the part of General
Jackson, who, being then President of the United States, gave a fatal
blow to the credit of the bank (which, though calling itself the United
States Bank, was not a Government institution) by removing from its
custody the Government deposits. My impression upon the subject (simple,
as I have no doubt you would expect to find the result of any mental
process of mine) is that paper money is a financial expedient, the
substitution of an appearance or makeshift for a real thing, and likely,
like all other such substitutes of whatever kind, to become a source of
shame, trouble, and ruin whenever, after the appointed time of
circulation, which every expedient has, there should be a demand for the
real article; more especially if the shadow has imposed upon the world
by being twice as big as the substance.

The papers and pamphlets you have sent me, dear Harriet, seem to me only
to prove that excessive and unjust taxation, partial and unjust corn
laws, and unwise financial ones (together with other causes, which seem
to me ominous of evil results), have produced the distress,
embarrassment, and discontent existing in this, the richest and most
enlightened country in the world....

I have been interrupted half a dozen times while writing this letter,
once by a long visit from Mrs. Jameson.... Lady M---- called too, with
a pretty little widow, a Mrs. M----, a great friend of Adelaide's.
Dearest Harriet, here my letter was broken off yesterday morning,
Friday; it is now Saturday evening, and this morning arrived two long
ones from America. Now, if I should get one to-morrow or the next day,
from you, will it be very unjust to put yours