y of the nation at its release from what was
regarded the moat oppressive burden of the war. Twenty-five years later
the income tax was again revived.

The national debt at the close of the war with France amounted to a
little more than $424,000,000,000. Of this, $300,000,000,000 had been
added by the war. During the last years of the contest the annual
expenditures of the state were $585,000,000. The population of the
island was at this time 13,400,000, from which $360,000,000 was annually
collected in taxes. It is important to notice the condition of the
people during this epoch. For nearly twenty years the country had been
under the uncontrolled influence of a paper currency. It had been a
period of remarkable prosperity, coupled with unparalleled changes. And
here we find many points of resemblance with the present condition of
our own country. The rapidly expanding currency, the enormous demands of
the war, and the spirit of speculation engendered by the sharp
alternations of hope and fear, and the extraordinary fluctuations of the
markets had stimulated in every branch of business a preternatural
activity. Manufactures, which the beginning of the war had found just
rising into prominence, rapidly developed in an age of financial
profusion. No such progress had ever been made in a corresponding
period. Exports were doubled. The shipping rose from one to two and a
half million tons. The whole nation exhibited the singular spectacle of
a country constantly advancing in wealth and prosperity in the midst of
one of the most exhaustive wars that the world has ever seen.

To this, however, there was apparently, at least, one exception. Prices
rose steadily from the beginning of the war. This was true not merely of
unimportant articles, or those which, by the exercise of a more severe
economy, could be in part dispensed with. The cost of the necessaries of
life doubled. Wheat rose from forty-nine shillings per quarter in 1797
to one hundred and forty shillings in 1813; while the beef which was
sold in Smithfield market, at the beginning of the war, at three
shillings per stone, constantly advanced in price, until the same
quantity in 1814 could only be bought for six shillings. Malt, coal,
wages--everything rose proportionately. Few questions have been the
subject of more discussion than the cause of this remarkable rise of
prices. Two diverse explanations have been given, each put forth by men
whose habits of thought an