I believe I am within the time stated in your letter for your visit to
Surr[e]y, and consequently that this will reach you there. I am sorry
that you were not sufficiently loyal to give her majesty some mark of
your attention at Bath[174], during your present vacation, as in that
case I might have hoped to have seen you here. As it is we may probably
be in London nearly at the same time. We have not yet absolutely fixed
on the day for our journey, but it will not be deferred beyond the
middle of next month. I hope I may see you before your return home.
I am glad to find that we may soon expect another volume[175] from your
pen, although, if you attack me, I am prepared for nine tenths of our
readers deciding in favour of your view of the question. I want an able
pen on my side to put my opinions in a clear light, and to divest them
of that appearance of paradox which they now wear. I wish I could assist
you to a good title but no one is more able to give a work the best air
and arrangement than yourself. Have you seen the Review of M. Say and
myself in the British? In some of the remarks you would I believe agree;
yet it is some consolation to me that, after designating every part of
my performance absurd and nonsensical, they attack you on the subject of
Rent, and say that both you and I have endeavoured to make the nature
of rent, which was before so clear, obscure. Rent is nothing more than
the hire paid for land. I feel delighted that they have given me so
desirable a companion. In the Scotsman, a Scotch newspaper, I have been
ably defended--the writer[176] has evidently understood what I meant to
say, which the reviewer has not done.
I have been reading Mill's book[177] for this last week, and have got
through about half of the first volume. I am not qualified to give an
opinion of its merits, but I am very much pleased with it. It is very
interesting, and is, I think, calculated to excite a great deal of
attention, for it not only descants on the religion, manners, laws,
arts, and literature, of the Hindus, but compares them with the
religion, manners, etc. of other nations which the world has generally
considered as much inferior to the Hindus; and, if these in the Hindus
are to be deemed marks of a high state of civilization, Africa, Mexico,
Peru, Persia, and China, might also lay claim to the same character. He
also gives his own sentiments as to what constitutes good laws, a good
religion, a high state of civilization, and shews at what a very low
degree Hindostan deserves to be estimated for these acquirements[178].
The Political Economy is, I think, excellent, and the part that I have
read may be considered as the author's view of the progress of the human
mind. I hope it will bring him fame and reputation,--his perseverance as
well as his other qualities well deserve it....
Like the Patriarchs of old I am surrounded by all my descendants, sons,
daughters and grandchildren--they have assembled from all quarters to
visit us, and if I were not afraid that they would soon become too
numerous for the limits of our house I should insist on its being an
annual custom.
You have probably seen in the papers that I am gazetted as one of the
three from whom the choice of Sheriff is to be made, and as Col.
Berkeley, the first named, will in all probability be excused on account
of his intended application to the House of Lords for the Peerage which
must otherwise be given to his brother, who is nearly of age, I shall no
doubt be selected. This honour I could well have dispensed with....
Ever yours,
DAVID RICARDO.
NOTE.--In Say's 'Oeuvres Diverses' (vol. i. p. 413) is printed a
letter of Ricardo to Say, dated from Gatcomb, 18th Dec. 1817. He
says amongst other things: 'Since your visit to England, I have been
by degrees retiring from business; and, as our debt is enormous and
the price of stock very high, I have from time to time withdrawn my
capital, and have laid out much of it in land.... My life is made up
of successes and cares; hence I am providing for the future as much
as I can, that I may get rid of anxiety altogether. Our friend Mill
is about to publish his book on India, on which he has been at work
for several years. With powers like his, nothing can fail to become
interesting and instructive under his pen; and I am convinced that
this book will exceed the expectations of his closest friends. It is
in type; and he has kindly given me an early copy. I have read more
than half of the first volume, and I hope it will produce on
competent judges the same impression that it has made on me. What he
says on the government, laws, religion, and manners of the country
is of great weight; and the comparison he draws between the former
condition of Hindostan and its present condition seems to me to
decide the question of the high state of civilization attributed to
the former.... Your _Traite d'Economie Politique_ increases in
reputation among us, in proportion as it becomes better known.
Extracts from it (and from my own book) have recently appeared in
the British Review, and its merit has been recognised. I have not
fared so well; the reviewer has found in my book ample material for
criticisms, and hardly a single passage worthy of praise.'