INTRODUCTION

Amongst the Malthus papers there are 17 pages of manuscript in the form of three letters to David Ricardo subsequent to the publication of the third edition (1821) of his On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation. However, their form and tone indicate that they were probably intended not as letters to be delivered through the post, but as letters for publication, in the conventional literary genre used, for example, by J.-B. Say in his Lettres á M. Malthus, 1820.

The authorship and date of the three letters are uncertain. They are not in Malthus' hand. The handwriting is almost certainly that of John Cazenove, a friend and supporter of Malthus; but the letters include a number of insertions, some of which appear to be in a different hand, which might be that of Malthus. The paucity and brevity of the insertions make it difficult to be certain.

The content of the letters does not lead to any definite conclusion concerning their authorship. Malthus and Cazenove held similar views on many issues, particularly in their criticisms of Ricardo. The views expressed in these three letters are not entirely clear, but they do not appear to be inconsistent with Malthus' writings.

INTRODUCTION

In the summer of 1826 Malthus took a holiday in Scotland accompanied by his wife (Harriet), daughter (Emily) and son (Henry, or Hal). His diaries of the Scottish tour and of tours to Northern Europe in 1799, to Scotland in (probably) 1810, and to Europe in 1825 were made available to researchers by Robert Malthus in 1961 and published in 1966, edited by Patricia James; but it was not until the discovery of the manuscripts in the estate of Robert Malthus that it was realised that Malthus' wife had also kept a diary of the Scottish tour. For most days her diary entries are more detailed than Malthus' – the exception being when Malthus gives information on local economic conditions – and provide a fuller picture of people met and places visited. Harriet's diary also contains ten ink sketches (some incomplete) of Scottish scenes. Harriet's artistic leanings are also evident in the drawings (including one thought to be of her future husband) contained in her journal of the European tour of 1802 (see Hashimoto 1990).

The editing and publication of Harriet Malthus' diary have been greatly assisted by the introduction and notes made by Patricia James in her 1966 edition of Malthus' diary, here republished beside Harriet's to facilitate comparison. The map in James' edition (p.259) showing the route of the Scottish tour is also reproduced below.

INTRODUCTION

These 40 pages of manuscript are concerned with the trade in bullion between London and other European centres – in particular, with Amsterdam and Hamburg. Their main aim appears to have been to show under what conditions (of prices and exchange rates) profits could be made by buying gold or silver in one centre and selling it in another. They include not only general instructions on how to calculate profits in the bullion trade, but also many calculations using hypothetical or historical data.

It is not known whether Malthus prepared these notes out of academic interest or with a view to engaging in the bullion trade. His academic interest in the bullion trade is evident in the following question that he set in an examination paper at the East India College in 1808 – ‘What are the causes which tend to raise the Market Price of Bullion above the Mint Price?’ An academic interest in commercial matters is also implied by the terms of his appointment to the East India College. Although his title was later changed to ‘Professor of History and Political Economy’, his letter of acceptance of 10 July 1805 shows that he was initially appointed to the ‘Professorship of General History, Politics, Commerce and Finance’.

INTRODUCTION

The following untitled draft was written by Malthus with the intention of publishing it in the Edinburgh Review in May 1811. This is evident from his use of the phrase ‘in our last number’ when referring to his review of the pamphlets of Ricardo and others in the Edinburgh Review of February 1811.

It is likely that the drafting of this article was a response to the letter of 2 April 1811 from Francis Jeffrey, editor of the Edinburgh Review (published in Vol. I, pp.114–15) in which Jeffrey strongly urged Malthus to ‘do another article upon Bullion and paper’. Jeffrey was about to visit the East India College, and proposed to take Malthus' article back to Edinburgh on 12 May, and to publish it in the next number (Vol. XVIII, No. 35, May 1811) of the Review. Malthus replied to Jeffrey on 7 April 1811, stating that he had no leisure ‘to go into the subject now’, and that if, as Jeffrey suggested, he did not start the article until after the debates on the Bullion Report (due to start on 29 April) he might be prevented by ‘College business’ from being able to finish it in time for Jeffrey to take it back to Edinburgh on 12 May (James 1979, p.207).

INTRODUCTION

The following four sermons were written at various times between 1798 and 1832. They are the only sermons by Malthus known to have survived. As far as we are aware, no mention of their existence has ever appeared in the secondary literature on Malthus.

On the first three sermons Malthus added a number of dates – presumably the dates on which he delivered them – although it is not impossible that he repeated them on other occasions without noting the dates – and alongside some of the dates he wrote place names, presumably the places where they were delivered. No dates or places are added to the fourth sermon, and the manuscript is incomplete, ending in mid-sentence. This suggests either that part of the sermon has been lost, or that the sermon was never completed and never delivered. The large number of insertions and deletions in the fourth sermon suggests an unfinished draft.

Another feature of the sermons is a number of diagonal marks inserted in the manuscripts. If, as seems likely, their purpose was to indicate pauses, they showed that Malthus took as much care with the delivery as with the content.

Another feature of the sermons is a number of diagonal marks inserted in the manuscripts. If, as seems likely, their purpose was to indicate pauses, they showed that Malthus took as much care with the delivery as with the content.

INTRODUCTION

This is a book of 76 pages of manuscript dealing with European history from the fifth to the tenth century. The contents are divided into four sections, entitled ‘Lecture i’, ‘Lecture ii’, ‘L iii’ and ‘L iv’, but the material is in the form of questions and brief answers, rather than full-length lectures. In the original, the questions are written on the versos and their answers on the rectos (except in a few cases where the answers spill over into spare spaces on the versos); but for simplicity of presentation each answer in this transcription is placed immediately after its corresponding question, with the question in bold type.

The questions in MS are numbered, although as noted below the numbering sequence is broken at one point. There are 84 questions in all – 20 in the first lecture, 22 in the second, 22 in the third (incorrectly numbered ‘21’ in MS), and 20 in the fourth. All of the questions have answers. In some cases the answers are in the form of brief notes and incomplete sentences, but generally they consist of formal statements, probably intended for lecture-room dictation. The method of presentation is similar to that used by Malthus in his lectures on political economy as seen in the Inverarity Manuscript (Pullen 1981; Hashimoto 1988), although the answers are expressed more fully and in a more formal style in these history lectures than in the political economy lectures.

This is the second and final volume of the work entitled T. R. Malthus: The Unpublished Papers in the Collection of Kanto Gakuen University.

Kanto Gakuen University acquired in March 1991 a set of original manuscripts by Malthus and his associates, and decided to publish a typed transcript in a two-volume book. Volume I was edited by John Pullen and Trevor Hughes Parry, and published for the Royal Economic Society by Cambridge University Press in 1997. Volume II is edited and published by the same team.

The history of the University's sponsorship of this undertaking was explained in the preface to the first volume, and is not repeated here.

The contents of Volume II vary widely, exhibiting the extensive range of Malthus' intellectual interests. On religion, it contains four sermons on Biblical themes. On economics, there is an essay on foreign trade and lengthy analysis of how to make profits from arbitrage transactions in the bullion trade. The latter suggests that Malthus may have had not only theoretical but also a commercial interest in bullion trading, possibly incited by his association with David Ricardo, successful stockbroker and famous economist. On history, Malthus' questions and answers on early European history indicate that, during at least one period of his life, he had a keen interest in the events of that period and had prepared detailed notes for lectures.

1. Legal documents relating to property transactions, including one signed by John Malthus in 1581, one by Richard Malthus in 1585, and some in the name of Jane Dalton (a cousin and close companion of Malthus' father, Daniel Malthus).

2. A letter from Daniel Malthus (Malthus' father) to Sydenham Malthus (Daniel's father; Malthus' grandfather) written from Marseilles, during a holiday in France, accompanied by his wife, Harriet, and his sister Anne Hackshaw. The letter refers also to a third (unnamed) lady. The letter is dated ‘Octr 30th’, but the year is not given. The year must have been before 1757 (the year Daniel's father died) and after 1752 (the year of Daniel's marriage).

3. A biographical account of Rear-Admiral George Frederick Ryves (1758–1826). This document of 22 pages, on paper watermarked ‘EIC [East India College?] 1825’, does not appear to be in Malthus' hand. Malthus was a first cousin of the Rear-Admiral. Malthus' mother's sister, Anna Maria (née Graham) married in 1757 Thomas Ryves (1720–88), FRS. The future Rear-Admiral Ryves was their eldest son. He obtained the rank of Rear-Admiral in 1825.

4. A letter from George Frederick Ryves to Lord Arundell of Wardour, Wardour Castle, Sarum, Wiltshire, giving details of various naval engagements against the French. Ryves' first wife (m. 1792), Catherine Elizabeth (née Arundell), was related to Lord Arundell of Wardour. She died in 1803 when her husband was at Naples.

AN ESSAY ON THE ADVANTAGES OF COLONIES

Colonies properly regulated, do not tend to weaken the mother country, but only draw off her exuberant population.

An attempt to prove the general utility of colonies to the mother country, after the very recent loss of our settlements in America, may perhaps appear presumtuous; yet I persuade myself if the subject be impartially, & not too precipitately judged, it will be found that under proper regulations, they are a source of great strength & power to the country which gave them birth.

The fixing settlements in distant regions for the sake of commerce has been a measure almost universally adopted by the wisest & most intelligent nations of antient times; & indeed if we may credit the accounts we have received of the early ages, most of those nations which have made so conspicuous a figure in the historical page will appear to have received their chief support from establishments of this kind. Athens, justly the most celebrated of all the grecian states, derived that strength which made her the terror of surrounding nations from the correspondence she maintained with her numerous colonies in different parts of the world – The country in itself barren & uncultivated, deprived of the support it received from without, instead of holding the highest station, must inevitably have sunk to the lowest in Greece.

INTRODUCTION

This diary was kept by Malthus during a summer tour of the English Lake District. The diary entries cover a 26-day period, from 4 July to 29 July. The entry for the first day is not dated, but the entry for the second day is dated ‘July 5th. Sunday’.

The year is not stated, but internal evidence indicates that it was almost certainly 1795.5 July fell on a Sunday in 1789, 1795, 1801 and 1807. The first year (1789) is ruled out because he was delivering a sermon at Oakwood on 19 July 1789 (see Chapter 1, Sermon 1, above). The tour would not have been before 1789 (the year of Malthus' ordination): the following passage in the diary entry of 16 July (concerning a gentleman met at Grasmere) – ‘I rather fancy he was a brother of the trade, & travel'd in the black cloth way, but I was unwilling to ask him any questions that might lead to a discovery’ – implies that Malthus was at that time an ordained minister. Also, the statement on 10 July ‘Saw Calgarth the new house that the Bishop [Watson] has built’ dates the diary after 1789 – according to DNB, the year in which Calgarth was built. The last year (1807) is ruled out because by then Malthus was married with two children – Henry aged one and Emily aged two – and a third expected (Lucy, born December 1807).