ABSTRACT
Thanks to the influx of gold which now commenced on a scale quite unprecedented, there was no difficulty in meeting the demands of the Govemments of France and England for currency during the Crimean War; whereall, but for this, it is the opinion of those best able tQ judge that the Bank of England would have been forced to suspend specie payments as it did from 1797 to 1819. The gold imports from America and Australia removed a U fear of any such suspension. Following upon the dlScoverie.~ and the emigmtion came, as has been sa..d, an enormous demand for English commodities, so that the crisis of 1847 and the political disturbances of l!H-8 were soon forgotten in the unexampled revival of trade which ensued. In 1851, the lookout Wall already so favourable that, at the first great International Exhibition held in that year, there wall a general outburst of mutual congratulations, and some actually thought, and many still more foolishly said, that the era of pen.ce and goodwill among
