G. WOODFALL, ANGEL COURT, SKINNER STREET, LONDON.

DEDICATION.

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TO HER MOST GRACIOUS MAJESTY THE
QUEEN OF SPAIN.

WHEN all the Provinces, Towns, and even the most
humble Villages of Spain, raise their unanimous and
grateful voices to proclaim the great, wise, and beneficent
measures of your Majesty, in promoting public instruction,
encouraging the meritorious, consoling the unfortunate,
and advancing the national wealth and prosperity:-
when they proclaim the admirable act of opening the
scientific institutions and universities, by which igno-
rance, that monster that annihilates the most powerful
nations, will be made to disappear:-when thousands of
wretched Spanish families who were wandering in
foreign lands oppressed with misery and poverty, and
lamenting in silence their hard fate, are restored to
their country and friends; and civil rancour and dis-
cord, the cancers that corrode and destroy mighty
empires, give place to peace and contentment
time, in short, when all the economical societies of the
kingdom are addressing and congratulating your Ma-
jesty on the sound and politic arrangements you have
made, by the establishment of a separate minister and
establishment, to give energy and encouragement to

at a

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agriculture, commerce, industry, and all the sources of public wealth-it may not appear strange that an individual, belonging to a nation on which such bounties. have been bestowed, should, although absent, join to the general voice, his own hearty thanks to the beautiful Benefactress of a country which gave him birth.

But another not less powerful motive leads him to Dedicate to your Majesty these, his humble exertions. In detailing the Revenue, Statistics, and Power of the greatest of modern nations, it has been shewn that the true foundations of the unparalleled grandeur and wealth of the British Empire, were the financial measures towards establishing a solid basis of public faith and credit, adopted by a Queen who bore the very name of your Majesty's August Daughter, who is destined to reign over the Spanish Dominions under

maternal influence.

your Majesty's

Spanish credit has already experienced the good effects of your Majesty's policy; and may Divine Providence grant to your Majesty length of days to pursue the glorious career so happily commenced; to continue the financial and economical measures for the amelioration of a gallant nation, worthy of being raised to that pitch of grandeur, opulence, and prosperity reached by the British Empire, over which "the solar orb never sets" once the proud but just motto of the Spanish Monarchs.

London, April, 1833.

A. L. R. P. DE V. M.

PABLO PEBRER.

PREFACE.

IN contemplating the mighty structure of the British Empire, while the reflecting mind is astonished at the solidity of its constituent parts, it is no less surprised at the many and striking evils which are visible at the very foundations of that wonderful fabric, and which seem to pervade its whole frame. The greatest contradictions, the most unaccountable economical paradoxes, the most perplexing anomalies, are met with at every step of the inquiry. There is found an immense excess of capital, the very source of production, causing distress instead of prosperity amongst its owners! an extraordinary excess of labour, the very cause of wealth, producing poverty, ruin, and misery amongst the labourers, themselves a great and powerful empire, where knowledge, invention, and art have multiplied in a boundless manner the means for the enjoyment of life, and for the satisfaction of all its wants, comforts, and luxuries; but where the very perfections of these springs of human and social happiness occasion misfortune, distress, and perpetual agitation, amongst the members of that great empire itself! There must, therefore, be some hidden defect in that mighty structure, something wrong in the combination of that wonderful system, or some misdirection of the immense resources of that greatest of empires.

The exertions of the patriotism, talent, and intelligence,