than before." He had taken gin and water only once fince morning, when he had a return of the fhivering, and his attendants had moistened the plafters with Ol. Terebinth at his own requeft, from the relief he thought he felt from it. I gave him fixty drops of laudanum in a little spirit and water, to be taken at bed-time.

"In the morning I found he had paffed a tolerable night: I removed the plafters, and found fome flight appearances of fuppuration, particularly on the face, where a lardaceous appearance had taken place, but of a black colour from the coal duft. I bathed the burnt parts again with the Ol. Terebinth, renewed the dreffings, and allowed him gin and water, to be taken when shivering (which now and then threatened him) should occur. At night he took fixty drops of laudanum; his bowels kept open, and he made no complaint of pain except in his hands.

Third day.-There is a tolerable fuppuration on the face, neck, body, and legs. The blacknefs, from the coal duft which appears to be firmly attached to the cutis, is feparating faft, in the form of black lard. He remarks, that the fire is killed every where but in his hands. He was dreffed with ung. refin. flav. with a lefs proportion of Ol. Terebinth. He is forbid the ufe of fpirits, but allowed porter as far as three pints in the 24 hours, if he chufes fo much. His anodyne is continued.

"Fourth day. The fuppuration in the face, body, and legs, goes on well, and several parts are now turning florid, as the blackness difappears. The fcorched parts have neither bliftered nor run into fuppuration. There is a large difcharge of thin ichor from the hands; and on fome parts of the fingers there is ftill a thick gelatinous matter adhering. His allowance of porter is continued. He has no fhiverings. Dreffings are changed for cerat. e lapid. calamin. Anodyne continued.

"Fifth to the eighth day. Going on well;-treatment continued ; -bowels open; -allowance of porter diminished to a pint and a half per day. "Ninth day. Suppuration large;-all the blackness gone off;discharge from the hands ftill thin, and in great quantity, attended with much pain. Prepared chalk, finely powdered, is ordered to be fprinkled on all the fores, covering it with cerat. e lap. calamin. spread on rags. He is to take five grains of calomel at night, and to have a purge in the morning.

In the afternoon I was fuddenly fent for to him:-The pain in his hands was intolerable, and he had two fmart fhivering fits. Having never before seen chalk applied, I attributed the pain to its ufe, but on takings off the dreifings, I found my affiftant had not applied any of it to the hands. He had used it liberally to the face, neck, body, and legs, and thefe parts were perfectly easy. I ordered emollient poultices to be applied to the hands and arms, and renewed every eight hours. The chalk was continued to the other parts.

"Tenth and eleventh days.-The treatment continued. Pus on the face, neck, and legs of good confiftence, and no pain in these parts. The hands are easier after the poultices are firft applied, but foon be

come

come fa painful as to make him urgent for a renewal of them; and when they are taken off, the difcharge of thin matter pours from them. Finding the chalk agree fo well with the other parts, I fprinkled his right hand freely with it, and covered it with the cerate plafters. He felt, as he faid, a little tingling from the application, and wifhed to have the poultice continued to the left hand. I was glad of the opportunity of making this comparative trial, and allowed it to be fo.

"Twelfth day.-Head, neck, and legs much better ;-loins nearly healed. 1 fpeak within bounds, when I fay four fquare inches of skin have been beautifully formed on one leg fince yeflerday. I know no term which will give fo good an idea of this procefs as icing over; the extent covered, and the fmooth fhiny appearance being fo like an icy pellicle formed on a smooth piece of water.

"Fifteenth day.-Face and legs mending faft;-loins well ;-his hands completely raw, and bleeding from every point ;-the poultice on the left hand is deluged in thin matter, and this hand is by far the moft painful. The right hand covered with the chalk, although painful, is not nearly fo much fo as the left, and the man is anxious to have the chalk applied to it, which is allowed;-anodyne continued ;-five grains of calomel at night, and a fmart purge to be taken early in the morning.

"Sixteenth day. He has had two copious evacuations from the calomel and purging powder;-every part beter; the left hand much eafier, but the granulations much loofer than the right; they bleed more readily, and are more painful.

"Seventeenth day.-One leg quite skinned over; face and other leg much better.

"Twenty-first day. The face and neck quite fkinned over, except a fmall part of each eye-lid, and the note; right leg almost healed ;— right hand skinned over from above the wrift to the ends of the fingers on the infide, and much better on the back part;-left hand, to which the poultice had been fo long applied, begins to grow better, but is far behind the other, fo as to give a moft decided preference to the chalk. He is now fo well that I have allowed him to go into his garden.

"You fee, my dear fir, that I have been tedi ufly circumflantial in my account of this cafe. I now deem my patient fo near well, that I fhall difcontinue my journal; and I have only to add, that I have been fo particular in the recital of the treatment, because perhaps you may have no cafe which furnies fuch a fair opportunity for comparing your method with others commonly ufed. The poor fellow had felt the old method with oil, &c. and was therefore well enabled to appreciate the prefent plan, efpecially as he is a man of great refolution, and of frong natural fenfè. You have alfo had frequent opportunities of feeing him during the cure, and of convincing yourfelf of the truth of every circumftance. And I think the trouble you have had in refcuing this important branch of practice from the rude hands who fo long held it, will be well repaid, were it only with the reflections this cafe will give you. As a memento of my fenfe of the obligations the profeflion have to you, and to fhew, as my poor patient fays, there

was

was ne bairn's play in this burn, I will beg your acceptance of a preparation I have made of the skin and nails.

"There ftill remain fome parts to heal in the above cafe, and I have no doubt Mr. H. will fee, in the fubfequent part of the cure, the benefit of cathartics.-I have a pleafure in adding the opinion of Mt. Nelfon, of Chester-le-Street, in the county of Durham, who has had very extenfive practice in burns in the collieries on the river Wear :he fays, when the fores have taken upon themselves the ulcerous difpofition, nothing but repeated purging at due intervals has fucceeded in enabling him to finish the cure." P.11.

ART. X. A Letter to the Right Hon. William Pitt, on the Influence of the Stoppage of Jurs in Specie, at the Bank of England; on the Prices of Provifions and other Commodities. By Walter Boyd, Efq. M. P. 8vo. 112 pp. 3s. 6d. Wright.

1800..

IN N the prefent feafon of diftrefs, every projector applies himfelf to difcover fome extraordinary or unnatural caufe for the high price of provisions. One afcribes it to the avarice of the great farmer, who boards his corn, and propofes therefore to fix a certain price. This has been the cry of every age, when grain fold at a high rate. Shakspeare has brought to the gate of hell, "a farmer who had hanged himself on the expectation of plenty"; yet there were in his time few overgrown or opulent farmers, and not many large farms. The combinations of jobbers and corn-factors were fuppofed in former times, as they are now, to have raifed the price to an unreasonable height; though the very laws made to reprefs them, prove the impoffibility of furnishing a general and equal fupply without that clafs of dealers; and most abfurdly sup pofe, that the bufinefs would be better managed if it were engroffed by a few licensed brokers, than if it were open to the tair competition of all.

The war is another cause of high price, which prefents itself to the imaginations of all who profels to be enemies to war; though, if the evidence of experience may be trusted, war,

Macbeth, act ii. scene i..

whatever

whatever other evils may attend it, has a direct tendency to reduce the price of grain. The increase of population has alfo been aligned as a caufe of the fearcity, and confequent high price of grain; though, undoubtedly, the augmentation of the price, fince 1798, is by no means equal to any fuppofed number of children who can have come into existence, or grown up to maturity, fince that period, when corn was cheap.

The country banks, which many people diflike, have been, in their turn, charged with the production of this evil, by the fupport they give to every perfon-farmer, miller, or jobberwho may be poffeffed of corn; and who, by means of their notes, is enabled to with-hold it from the market.

Mr. Walter Boyd, who is a man of confiderable ingenuity in matters of fpeculation, has come forward, firft, in defence of the country banks, for whofe fpeculations he feems to have fome tenderness; and, fecondly, with an attack upon THE BANK OF ENGLAND (whofe conduct he avows to have always difliked) afcribing to the actual amount of their notes in circulation the prefent high price of provifions..

To lower the credit of the Bank of England may by fome be thought not very confiftent with the indulgence of this author for the country banks, which depend upon it. Others may obferve, that the reafoning which he now advances on the fubject of money and credit, is totally repugnant to his own "project of the 5th of April, 1796." Leaving to others the difcuffion of the remaining parts of this pamphlet, we thall confine ourfelves to examine that main propofition, which meets us at the introduction and the clofe: "That the present amount of bank notes, by the return to the Houfe of Commons 15,459,970l. is an increase of paper-money, beyond what the circulation of the country requires and can abforb." Nor, in examining this propofition, fhall we have recourfe to any other proofs (though there are many) except those which Mr. Boyd himself has exhibited in this very pamphlet, and particularly in the note D.

It will not certainly be denied, that the circulating medium in a country must be increased in proportion to the number of exchanges which must take place in it; or, in plainer words, in proportion to the increase of its imports and exports, and its interior commerce. Mr. Boyd, who concurred in the refolutions of the 2d of April, which cenfured the conduct of the Bank in diminishing the iffue of its notes, at that period of increased commerce, will not controvert this propofition. He indeed admits it in the outfet of his note D; but fays, that no man will be hardy enough to maintain, that the increase of the national debt, and of the imports and exports within the laft four years, can be confidered as evidence of a fimilar increafe.

in every branch of the national industry. It would, however, be more idle than hardy, if any one (hould undertake to maintain a propofition fo vague in itself, and fo inapplicable to the main argument.

The increase of the national debt demands, of course, a fufficient number of bank notes to pay the increased dividends, which are always paid in that currency. The increase of exports and imports proves that the discounts must be more extenfive, and confequently that it is probable, though not certain, that there muft, for that purpose alfo, be more bank notes in circulation. The evidence, that every branch of nationa! industry has increased, must be fought elsewhere; though some prefumption,that the fearch will not be fruitlefs, may be found in the increase of exports and imports. As to a fimilar increafe, if by that is meant an equal increafe, it will not eafily be found in every branch of induftry; because many branches of internal industry are flow in their procefs, and do not require much increase of the circulating medium.

Agricultural operations, and the extenfion of the communication of the country by roads or navigations, afford fome evidence of the increase of other branches of national induftry; and an additional evidence is drawn from the increase of buildings. In the last four years, to which Mr. Boyd has confined his queftion (though it will appear, in the sequel, that the period ought to have been extended at least to the year 1793) about three hundred acts have paffed for the inclosure and drainage of at least three millions and a half of acres; a number, far beyond that of any former period. Navigation and road-bills have increased in a very large proportion; and the increase of buildings, for public and private ufe, besides two vaft docks in the metropolis, are fymptoms visible to every unprejudiced eye.

Our object, however, is not to raise speculation against fpeculation, and to reafon upon uncertain grounds. We hall, therefore, after this flight notice of the vague ftatements in the note D, proceed upon the fingle poftulatum of a proposition admitted by Mr. Boyd; "that the circulating medium of a country muft increase in proportion to the extent of its exchanges"-to prove, against him, that the prefent extent of bank notes is not greater than the circulation of the country requires.

The average circulation of bank notes for three years, ending in 1793, was 11,500,043. The average imports and exports, for the fame period, was 42,404.410l. The commer cial diftrefs in 1793, and the result of the measure by which it was relieved, proves that the circulation was then infufficient.

The