[406] everywhere grant it as a matter of course. It seems as if we had become used to such catastrophes, and had learnt to take them easy. The very bank circulation seems to have grown insensible; for there is hardly a perceptible difference between gold and inconvertible paper. It was never so before under the same circumstances, and ought not to be so now. I cannot account for it on any good principle, and do not like it in its moral aspects . . . . I had an excellent passage home, the one Mrs. Ticknor ought to have had; for she had a very bad one, and was ill after her arrival. But, as I said, we are all well now, uncommonly well, and are enjoying the season, which, for two months, has been very fine, and is still very mild.1 I wish you had come this way, and given us a week. Yours faithfully,
From Sir Edmund Head.
Toronto, November 21, 1857.my dear Ticknor,—I got your letter this morning, and I was very glad to hear so good an account of you all. We have heard some rumors of the manner in which your monetary crisis had affected Mrs. Ticknor's family, and we were, I need not tell you, sincerely sorry for it. You left me, as you say, in the custody of the police. I escaped, on the whole, as well as could be expected, though, no doubt, if my real deserts had been before the court, I might have been more severely dealt with. We had a stormy passage out; but I was glad that we took the Quebec route, for the last three days one is pretty sure to have smooth water, which is something gained on the passage. We left England all green, and found icicles a yard long on the cliffs of Belleisle. . . . . Our banks have held their ground pretty well, but some of our land speculators have suffered, and will continue to suffer, from the pressure. I agree with you that the equal value of gold and inconvertible paper at Boston is a strange phenomenon. I suppose, however, it marks confidence in the ultimate ability of the issuers to meet all engagements, and it also seems to show that there is none of that irrational fear which tends to the hoarding of specie in less enlightened
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Boston, J. R. Osgood and company, 1876.
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