David Ricardo | Autograph letter signed, on proposed reforms to the national finances, to Joseph Marryat, 1813

David Ricardo

Autograph letter signed, to Joseph Marryat,

wholeheartedly agreeing with his correspondent's negative assessment of the financial plan of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Nicholas Vansittart, for the servicing of the sinking fund, returning his manuscript with two small corrections and also supplying a table "which may be of some use to you", 3 pages, 4to, Upper Brook Street, London, 26 April 1813, mounted onto a leaf from an album with related cuttings

"...I should have felt great diffidence in offering to your notice my points of difference, which I might have observed, between your opinion and mine, concerning Mr Vansittart's financial plan, but I am happy to say that I have found no such difference On the contrary, in every view which you have taken of the subject I fully concur, and was very much pleased to see my objections so ably & so clearly stated..."

Vansittart's planned reform of the sinking fund was part of his attempt to deal with the growing national debt caused by the long-lasting war with France. This letter is believed to be unpublished.

PROVENANCE:

Christie's, London, 22 October 1980, lot 198