On one side it has
been confidently urged as a sure symptom of a decaying trade: on the
other side it has been insisted that it is a circumstance attendant upon
a thriving trade; for that the greater is the whole quantity of trade,
the greater of course must be the positive number of failures, while the
aggregate success is still in the same proportion. In truth, the
increase of the number may arise from either of those causes. But all
must agree in one conclusion,--that, if the number diminishes, and at
the same time every other sort of evidence tends to show an augmentation
of trade, there can be no better indication. We have already had very
ample means of gathering that the year 1796 was a very favorable year of
trade, and in that year the number of bankruptcies was at least one
fifth below the usual average. I take this from the declaration of the
Lord Chancellor in the House of Lords.[52] He professed to speak from
the records of Chancery; and he added another very striking fact,--that
on the property actually paid into his court (a very small part, indeed,
of the whole property of the kingdom) there had accrued in that year a
net surplus of eight hundred thousand pounds, which was so much new
capital.
But the real situation of our trade, during the whole of this war,
deserves more minute investigation. I shall begin with that which,
though the least in consequence, makes perhaps the most impression on
our senses, because it meets our eyes in our daily walks: I mean our
retail trade.
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