In only two cases do the letters of this collection form groups that
have a subject of their own not discussed at any length in the other
letters. Letters I to XIV are the only ones that discuss at any length
the influence of the Depreciation of the Currency on the Foreign
Exchanges. Letters LXXVIII to LXXXVIII are the only ones that so discuss
the Measure of Value. After these the nearest approach to continuity is
perhaps in Letters LXXI to LXXVII, when Over-production is the chief
subject. But the discussion of Rent, Wages and Profits is not conducted
by chapters as in a book; it follows the course of conversations which
were not recorded, and obeys suggestions that are given in replies lost
to us. We cannot hope to make the propositions on these three heads fall
into a consecutive logical series.
The following analysis of the letters is not meant to be exhaustive.
Ricardo's opinions on the Bank of England (XXXV, etc.) and on the East
India College (XL, etc.), for example, will not be found in it. It is
simply a statement of the chief economical arguments.
In the early letters the correspondence turns chiefly on matters made
prominent at the time (1810 seq.) by the Bullion Committee and Ricardo's
own pamphlet, 'The High Price of Gold Bullion.' Though this pamphlet did
not appear in its separate form till early in 1810, the matter of it had
been published by Ricardo in a series of letters to the 'Morning
Chronicle' beginning in September, 1809. These letters brought their
author into public notice, and they seem to have led Malthus to seek his
acquaintance. The earliest letters (of which Letter I in this collection
was clearly not the first of the whole correspondence) were naturally on
the subjects that first brought the two men together.