year at $80,000,000. The increase in seven years ending with 1846, was, it appears, $17,886,151, and in the ten years ending with 1846, $147,068,103, making the aggregate increase $218,075,154 up to the year 1857, and embracing the quantity estimated to have been on hand in 1820, the amount in the country was $249,075,154. There is a good deal of bullion arriving as watches, jewelry, &c., which afterwards comes to the mint and not here included, but the other element of increase alluded to above, is not embraced in the foregoing, viz., the amount brought by emigrants. The number of these who have arrived in the United States from 1820 to 1847 is 4,889,499. If the returns of the emigrant commissioners, which ascribe $100 in money average to each of these, is correct, it would give the enormous sum of $488,949,000, a sum which would afford a large supply for manufacturing purposes, as well as for unreported exportation; it is not probable, however, that any such sum was received. Nevertheless, a good deal of silver coin must have come into the country in that manner to justify the official figures. Thus the imports and exports of silver have been:

1820 to 1847, imports foreign coin and bullion...

$187,252,184

149,685,238

$37,566,946

2,573,482

$40,140,428

90,726,322

$50.585,894

Excess coinage over apparent supply......

[The operations of the mint will be found in number for October, 1857, page 59.]

There is no doubt that a good deal has been recoined, especially since the law of 1853; since when, the silver coinage has been very active, and the government a free purchaser under the law. Nevertheless, the emigrants must have furnished a large portion of that supply. The figures for gold present more equality, as follows:

1820 to 1840......

Supply, import and mines. $434,094,316

Coined.

$436,831,923

This gives an excess of $2,737,107 coined over the supply, showing that the reserves of the emigrants in this metal were also largely drawn upon for the mint. It is to be observed that these figures for gold coinage embrace the "bars" cast, which are strictly not money but a convenient form in which to export the metals. In the last three years the government returns have distinguished between "bars" and "coin" exported. The former have been $94,106,931, and the latter $63,718,128. These figures show that, throwing the emigrant supplies out of this calculation, the figures $247,075,154, as the amount in the country at the close of 1856, are at least an under-estimate.

The amount of specie in the country, then, at each of the periods designated in the table of bank circulation, was as follows:—

There is no means of ascertaining the amount of the metals in plate, but the estimate here given would be but two dollars for each white inhabitant, or ten dollars each family-an amount which would probably be covered by spoons. In 1841, Professor Tucker estimated it at $12,000,000, on a basis of $500,000 per annum. The quantity estimated to be in circulation will compare with the bank notes outstanding as above, as follows:

Such has been the progress of the specie in circulation under the operation of the independent treasury, backed by the activity of the mint. If our estimate for plate as above is too large, the excess should swell the amount of specie in circulation.

The above figures bring the course of events down to January, 1857. The last year has produced great changes, emptying the treasury, filling the bank vaults, and thinning out the circulation. The result of this has been the larger accumulation of gold coins, which find their way into the central reservoirs.

It results from the figures here put down, in connection with the large continued product of the precious metals, accompanied by the spreading disposition to restrain the circulation of bank notes by compelling security for them, that the "specie basis" must continue to increase throughout the whole country, whereby the operation of such laws as that of Ohio must, at least, be greatly facilitated. The circulation of banks will, probably, be never dispensed with. Their convenience is far too great to admit of such a result, but the recklessness of the issue, which has heretofore marked them on some occasions, will not speedily be renewed. They impart to currency an elasticity which is at some times desirable, as in the case of a demand for breadstuffs through the failure of a foreign crop. In such a case, the faculty of issuing notes, enables the banks to discount the bills of forwarders and millers, who send forward the crops of the country in abundant supply. These notes, well secured, and redeemable from the proceeds of the crops forwarded, are a great advantage. The restraining their general use by the operation of such a law as that of Ohio, seems to be a wholesome check.

The following is a table of the leading features of all the banks of the United States, nearest to January in each year :

The first year in the table, 1837, is that of the highest expansion, when suspension took place; 1843 was the point of greatest depression, when the remains of old speculation had been all pruned out. From that time to the present year there was a gradual upward movement, carrying the capital to a very high figure. The increase has been, it appears, $164,000,000 invested in banking since 1843, against about $1,000,000,000 invested in railroads in the same period. It is probably the case that the bank stocks have proved the best investments, and probably for the reason that the operation of the railroads has added largely to the wealth of the country, and consequently to its traffic, or the interchange of products, the paper growing out of which constitutes the material for banking operations. In this view the bank loans have not increased faster than has been necessary. The individual notes given for produce and goods must of course increase in the aggregate, in proportion to the quantity and value of the articles they represent. Thus the cotton crop of 1857 sold for $180,000,000, while that of 1837 sold for $78,000,000; hence the notes and bills of exchange by which it was moved from plantation to looms must have more than doubled. Those notes favor the currency of "high commerce." At the same time it has been the case that retail currency or bank notes have diminished with the increase of business, rather than increased, as gold has become more abundant and the facilities for coining both gold and silver have become greater. Specie currency has taken the place of paper money. This distinction between "paper money payable on demand," and bills of exchange, and the notes of merchants, constituting the currency of commerce, discounted by the banks, is generally overlooked, and the two species of paper generally confounded by writers.

If we were to suppose the bank notes outstanding at the beginning of this year to be all suppressed, and goods being still sold on a credit for individual notes, it would result simply that the chief payments in cities. would still be by checks on banks, and the actual drain from and paid into banks would be in specie. The credit system of selling goods would not be altered a particle, but the banks would receive and pay out coin as does the government and the clearing-house for balances. The actual money that the banks now hold is as follows:

This $26,286,091 is, in fact. all the money that the banks furnish, and its entire suppression would not be materially felt; in fact, of the whole issues, $14,000,000 only is in bills under $5; $15,000,000 of $5 and $5,000,000 of $10. The remainder is all of denominations so high as not to enter into the functions of currency at all. Since the coinage bill of 1853, there has been coined $30,000,000 worth of silver coins of dollar fractions, and these have remained in the country, owing to the higher value placed upon them by the new law. They are now accumulating in the banks, and are by most of them paid out in preference to paying out their own small bills, because the coin is a dead weight and will not answer to export. It is obvious that if the banks received any quantity of these silver coins on deposit, the owner drawing his deposit in gold for export would make nearly ten per cent by the operation, that being the rate at which silver is valued over gold. The silver is indeed a legal tender only to a small amount, but a bank would encounter this loss by receiving a considerable sum on general deposit. It is highly probable that for a long time to come the precious metals will supplant the secured notes in circulation, and if the banks became entirely institutions of discount and deposit only, the real credit operations of commerce would be far more steady than they are.

The use of paper money is the most active element in the over-importation of foreign goods, and for the reason that specie can only be readily exported when its place in circulation is readily supplied with paper. We now, 1858, may illustrate. The amount of specie in the country is estimated at $260,000,000; of this, if $50,000,000 is in plate, &c., and $88,853,270 being in banks and treasury, there remains $121,000,000 in circulation.

During the panic, the quantity of currency, both paper and coin, has diminished. If now a speculation in foreign goods takes place and prices rise, a demand for more currency will result. This will be supplied with paper. When prices get so high as to stimulate imports of goods and check exports of produce, specie will go out of the country, and paper take its place until disaster results. On the other hand, if there is no paper, a demand for currency will be supplied by specie alone, and prices will not rise so much above the level of other countries as to induce speculative imports. It is in this operation that the surest safeguard of the manufacturers exists.

Art. II.--MERCANTILE BIOGRAPHY:

LIEUT. GENERAL SIR WILLIAM PEPPERRELL, BARONET.

Ir is a remarkable feature in our country's story that the men, whose acts have contributed most to the illustration of its pages, were self-made; and perhaps in no instance has it been so signally exemplified as in the life of the Christian Merchant and Hero whose name stands at the head of this article. The son of a fisherman, he became the most opulent and distinguished merchant ever raised in New England, and the principal actor in the greatest martial achievement that graces our colonial history. Not less extraordinary is the fact that a name so honored and ennobled should have become extinct on this continent at the third generation, and would have passed into oblivion but for our recorded annals. Nor are these more surprising than that Kittery Point, which was populous for a century, and the focus from which emanated all the commercial expeditions of this enterprising family, should have risen with its first and fallen with its last generation; its inhabitants being now reduced to the state it commenced with, a few poor fishermen.

For more than a hundred years, beginning at the last quarter of the seventeenth century, Kittery was assessed, and paid about half the amount of taxes of the whole province of Maine. Kittery Point was selected by Mr. John Bray, grandfather of our hero, as a good location for the fishing business and the building of vessels for the fisheries and coasting trade. In time, ship-building was prosecuted by him, and subsequently by the Pepperrells, till its commerce was extended along the coast, throughout the British West Indies, and with such European ports as the narrow policy of the mother government permitted.

Sir William Pepperrell, Bt., was born at Kittery Point, on the 22d of June, 1696, where his father, also named William, had long been actively engaged in business. The last mentioned was born at Tavistock, in Wales, commencing life as a fisherman, and upon coming of age removed first to the Isle of Shoals and subsequently to Kittery Point, where he became connected with and married a daughter of Mr. John Bray, and here he passed with uprightness and success the remainder of his days, which were closed in 1734, when in his eightieth year.

Ship-building was amongst the most profitable branches of business in which the colonists engaged-the home government having refused to listen to the complaints of the shipwrights on the Thames against their brethren in New England, who were their successful competitors.

Parliament had prohibited the manufacture of woolens in the colonies for transportation from one colony to another, and the hatters of London were favored with a law prohibiting those of the colonies from employing more than one apprentice each-but the Board of Trade decided that it would not do to prohibit ship-building in the colonies, so this branch flourished. Notwithstanding the very circumscribed field which the government left untrammeled, and the thousands of obstacles with which the commerce of a new country has usually to grapple with, Mr. Pepperrell succeeded in almost every enterprise in which he embarked. He, as well as all the other early settlers, had to qualify themselves for savage warfare, and their foresight soon rendered the settlement more secure than others against attacks from their Indian foes.