8 Decr 1801

Maximum

7 Minimum

2

prefer two shillings to one, it being what had never occurred to him before.

Would it easily have been guessed that it was from the one[?] pair[?] of stairs

window of the Treasury Chamber that such a picture had been sketched of the

commercial world?

... “and if any thing could produce a combination among corn-dealers, and

furnish them with a pretext for combining, it would be this very measure.

In this part of the argument /observation/ two /three/ things are assumed

/implied/: - that combination among corndealers is practicable - that it waits

for nothing but a pretext - but that it does wait for a pretext - and that this

is the pretext it waits for.

In regard to this first point, any /the/ leaning of my opinion is pretty

strongly on the side of the better and more shady /divided/ opinion of the Hon:

Gentleman. all I find myself compelled by some express evidence to believe in

the existence of a combination amongst such parties, I shall[?] for the reasons

given by Adam Smith and others, continue to disbelieve in it, not regarding any

price to which corn has ever risen or can ever rise as affording the smallest

proof of it. But as in the eyes of the Hon: Gentleman the existence of any such

combination appears as improbable as in those of any body who has considered it,

the argument /reasoning/ I am inclined to think would not be the less legitimate

or conclusive /would not be much the weaker/ if this point were to be left out

of it. Gentlemen on the other side /Those who think differently/ - {those whom

he speaks of as seeing only a very small part of the question which they

pretend