I still believe in the return of business to Manchester, because I believe in the efficiency of capital, coals and priority of skill, and cannot think that these advantages can be so soon eclipsed. How can the cotton trade be lessened, if the import of the raw article continues every three years to increase? If the demand remains the same, or nearly the same, and a mill, from the improvements of machinery, can do three times the work it used to do, of course two-thirds of the mills must be put down; and this apparent stagnation is considered a proof of the diminution of the trade, whereas it is evidence of its healthy state and its increase.
We have had little Tommy Moore here, who seemed very much pleased with his visit. Mrs. Holland and her five children are here.
I cannot make out the Spanish revolution. I thought Espartero honest, brave, and to be well understood and esteemed by the Spanish people; but they all rise up with one accord, and kick him into that refuge of expelled monarchs—a British man-of-war.
I think the Conservatives begin to feel that Sir Robert Peel is a little damaged; still I
should be sorry to see him out: he knows how to disguise liberal ideas, and to
make them less terrible to the Foolery of a country. The Whigs delight to shock
and affront, and to make their enemies ashamed that such a measure has not been
carried out before. I am glad your journey is about to be shortened to London:
the
| MEMOIR OF THE REV. SYDNEY SMITH. | 495 |
