cy of money for a real rise of price consequent on our
increased population and capital, believed that real estate was the
best investment they could make of their money, and purchased it
accordingly--looking for remuneration, not to the rent or immediate
profit, but to that future rise in value which was inferred from the
past. This erroneous opinion brought capitalists into the market for
real estate, and the competition created by their money, and that which
others borrowed from the banks, raised the price extravagantly high. A
natural though singular result of this state of things was, that those
who had sold lands or lots at these factitious prices, could have made
no use of their money that would have been so profitable as not using it
at all; and the policy of hoarding, usually as unwise as it is odious,
would have been, on this occasion, the most rational and gainful that
could have been pursued.

If, then, we take the prices of every species of merchandise among us,
together with that of real estate, we believe it will be found that such
average of prices then, is very near double of what it is now; and
consequently that Mr. M'Duffie's estimate of the late depreciation of
our currency was not extravagant. But granting that it was exaggerated,
he appears to us to have taken juster views than his critic, of its
pernicious effects, as well as of the agency of the bank in arresting
them; and we must think that he is the safer physician, who merely
overrates the danger of a disease, than he, who, though he rightly
judges it not mortal, mistakes both its cause and its remedy.

We think, too, that the report of the committee was correct in
supposing, that the depreciation would not have taken place, if the Bank
of the United States had then been in existence. At any rate it would
have been postponed, and if not prevented altogether, under the
disadvantages of having neither a navy to protect our commerce, nor
manufactures to supply its place, it would have been greatly mitigated.
It is probable that the suspension of cash payments would not have taken
place at all, if the bank had followed the prudent course of the banks
of Boston, and not lent its money to the government; but though it had,
its paper would have been more nearly at par and more uniform than that
of the state banks, which varied in value according to the public
opinion of their prudence and solidity, as well as of the varying
quantity of notes thrown