ly
nine millions and one quarter, in other words had about doubled under the
operations of the treaty of commerce.(45) If to this were added foreign
and colonial produce sent through us, and acquired by us in exchange for
our own produce, the value had risen from nine and a half in 1859 to
twenty-one and three quarters in 1862. In Mr. Gladstone's own description
later, the export trade of 1860, in spite of a bad harvest, was so
stimulated by the liberating customs act, that it rose at once from a
hundred and thirty millions to a hundred and thirty-five. The next year it
fell to a hundred and twenty-five, and in 1862 it fell by another million
owing to the withdrawal, by reason of the American war, of the material of
our greatest manufacture. In 1866 it rose to a hundred and eighty-eight
millions.(46) Then under the head of income-tax, and comparing 1842 with
1862, over the same area, and with the same limitations, the aggregate
amount of assessed income had risen from one hundred and fifty-six
millions to two hundred and twenty-one. Other tests and figures need not
detain us.
_April 16, 1863._--My statement lasted three hours, and this with a
good deal of compression. It wound up, I hope, a chapter in
finance and in my life. Thanks to God. 17.--The usual sense of
relaxation after an effort. I am oppressed too with a feeling of
deep unworthiness, inability to answer my vocation, and the desire
of rest. 18.--To Windsor, had an audience of the Queen; so warm
about Sir G. Lewis, and she warned me not to overwork.
Lewis had died five days before (April 13), and this is Mr. Gladstone's
entry:--
_April 14._--Reached C.H.T. at 11-1/4, and was met by the sad news
of the death of Sir George Lewis. I am pained to think of my
differences with him at one time on finance; however, he took
benefit by them rather than otherwise. A most able, most learned,
most unselfish, and most genial man.
To Sir Gilbert Lewis, he wrote (April 18):--
Like several eminent public men of our time, he had many qualities
for which the outer world did not perhaps, though it may not have
denied them, ever give him full positive credit. For example, his
singular courtesy and careful attention to others in all
transactions great and small; his thoroughly warm and most
forthcoming and genial disposition; his almost unconsciousness of
the vast stores of his mind, an
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