RICARDO, David.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Autograph letter signed to Joseph Marryat, on proposed reforms to the nation's finances. An important unpublished letter from Ricardo on economic policy, criticizing at length the financial plan of Chancellor of the Exchequer Nicholas Vansittart and his system for the servicing of the sinking fund. The fund constituted a large portion of the nation's debt and was a core institution in the nation's economic framework. Vansittart became chancellor in April 1812. "Few chancellors can have been faced with a more daunting set of circumstances on entering office" (ODNB) - war with France and the United States, massive population growth, and unprecedented levels of public debt. In March 1813, Vansittart set forth a "new plan of finance", which "in practice involved raising loans for the sinking fund and increasing the customs by 25 per cent" (ibid.).Marryat (1757-1824) wrote to Ricardo giving his own objections to Vansittart's plans and supplying a manuscript on the topic, perhaps intended for publication or for use in parliament. Ricardo wholeheartedly agrees with Marryat's analysis, writing "I should have felt great diffidence in offering to your notice my points of difference, which I might have observed, between your opinion and mine, concerning Mr Vansittart's financial plan, but I am happy to say that I have found no such difference. On the contrary, in every view which you have taken of the subject I fully concur, and was very much pleased to see my objections so ably & so cl

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