The largest proportion of the trade is in United States vessels. It will be observed that the description of articles received from France is that which is most highly taxed under the present tariff, which in fact increased the duties on French products, a fact which should be taken into consideration in connection with our probable nearer commercial relations with that power.

The whole business with France for 1846, seems to have been as follows:

This is assuming that the official figures are those actually realized for merchandize both ways, and without taking freight into account. The actual difference will make the amount of bills to be sent greater or less, according to circumstances. Thus bills on London are met by the excess of produce purchased by England of the United States, over the amount of goods bought by the latter of her. If France now increases her purchases of United States produce, the amount of these bills required will diminish, and the gold come from England, if needed. The amount of cash or good bills to be sent annually to France, it will be seen, is large; and when the usual modes of remittances are as now, somewhat under a cloud, the difficulties are likely to be great.

The loan bill authorising $16,000,000 of new United States Stock, approved March 31, provides for the issue of a stock redeemable in 1868, to bear not exceeding 6 per cent.

interest, payable quarterly or semi-annually. The stock to be of a denomination not less than $50, and to be transferable on the books of the Treasury, or if required, to have coupon certificates attached, and to be transferable by delivery without assignment on the books of the Treasury. The stock to be advertised not less than 20, nor more than 60 days, and not to be sold under PAR. $16,000 is appropriated for the negotiation of the loan. This is doubtless a very desirable investment, and with the growing abundance of money there is every reason to hope, as a matter of national economy as well as pride, that it will all be taken here.

The prospect of the market for United States stocks of all descriptions, appears to be very flattering for the future, more particularly should the adopted treaty eventuate in actual peace. The amount of stocks due by the states of the Union, was never per se a cause of discredit. They are in themselves, in the eyes of people like foreign capitalists accustomed to see the most inordinate debts balanced upon the exertions of a handful of people, but an insignificant sum. The American people number 20,000,000, in round numbers, of the most active, industrious and thriving race, occupying a country of the most prolific wealth. This people owe, if we allow the national debt to be $100,000,000, and it is actually, including the new loan, but $61,000,000, an aggregate of $338,000,000, or £66,330,000. This debt is with us, doubtless, a serious matter, but in the eyes of for eigners not so; Great Britain, for instance, with a population of 20,000,000. It was, exclusive of Ireland, 18,664,761 in 1841. The debt is £772,530,758. As Ireland cannot be depended on for this debt, it may be all charged upon the English, and amounts to $190 per head, against $7 per head of debt in the United States. This English debt represents property once had and spent, gone for ever. A large portion of that in the United States represents substantial public works, worth the money they cost. Holland has a population of 2,915,396, about as many as New-York, and the national debt is £165,000,000, say $825,000,000-$275 per head. Other countries of Europe are no better off. Now bankers and stock-jobbers, who have been helping to create such debts, by collecting the savings and surplus revenues of rich and poor, and investing them in these securities, were not frightened by a debt of $7 per head due by the United States. When, however, the people of the indebted states, swindled by bankers and whig legislators, and irritated at the squandering of the money, not only refused to pay, but denied the validity of the debt, they became alarmed, not at the actual loss of the money due them, but at the influence of the example upon the people of Europe. The debts due them were created without the assent of the people, from whom was extorted the means of paying; and if the principle set up in Mississippi should obtain, that no debt is valid unless contracted in accordance with the letter of a law enacted by the people, on what a frail basis rested public securities? This principle has yet to be tested in Europe, and we believe few are so sanguine as to suppose that an extension of the right of suffrage in Great Britain will not follow the recent events in Europe. As an indication of the financial results to be apprehended from the extension of the right of suffrage, we may quote from Alison's History of Europe, vol. 4, page 436, Harpers' edition :

If Great Britain wants to shake off its national debt, it has only to extend the suffrage in any considerable degree, and the burden will not stand three months."

These are the apprehensions entertained by the aristocratic and monied classes in relation to the effects of democratic influence, and they all have triumphantly appealed to the United States in proof of what they assert. Among others, the State of Illinois has suffered deep damnation for faltering in her payments, and she had great reason for re fusing to pay a shilling. So palpable was the justice of refusing to pay the sums of which she had been swindled, that her political leaders dare not tax them. They, however, made a new constitution to submit to the people, and that clause in relation to the payment of the debt, as follows, they submitted separately:

"ARTICLE XV.

There shall be annually assessed and collected in the same manner as other state revenne may be assessed and collected, a tax of two mills upon each dollar's worth of taxable property, in addition to all other taxes, to be applied as follows, to wit:

The fund so created shall be kept separate, and shall annually, on the first day of January, be apportioned and paid over pro rata upon all such state indebtedness, other than the canal and school indebtedness, as may, for that purpose, be presented by the holders of the same, to be entered as credits upon, and, to that extent, in extinguishment of the principal of said indebtedness."

This is the first instance, probably, in the annals of government, where the question has been submitted to the people themselves, whether they will consent to pay an onerous, specified tax to discharge a debt. The result has nobly vindicated the honor and maguanimity of a free people; by a large majority they have voted to pay the money. What can be a better basis for a public security than this free voice of the tax-payers consenting to pay it? This assent is become a part of the organic law of the state. If repudiation tainted for a time the surface of the national character, the remedy has been radical. While European debts are tottering on the verge of revolution, those of the United States are becoming ratified through the action of that suffrage, the adoption of which, it is held, will be fatal to English securities. Under these circumstances, there can be scarcely a doubt but that the United States stocks will, more than ever, become favorites from necessity with foreign capitalists. If so, we trust that the capital will settle here permanently, and not draw interest out of the country.

The movement of specie during the past year has been very remarkable throughout the commercial world. Larger sums have been transmitted from one country to another than have, perhaps, ever before been the case in the annals of commerce. This has doubtless been owing, in some degree, to the fact, that the growth of the manufacturing and commercial interests of Western Europe, aided by the extension of rail-roads, have greatly enhanced the consumption of food in proportion to consumption, and, as a consequence, when harvests are not full, the quantity to be sent thither to make good the deficit, is annually increasing, and at every recurrence of a harvest below an average the quantity wanted is increased. As an indication we may take the quantities of wheat and flour, expressed in quarters of wheat, admitted into England at each recurring failure. The first large importation was in 1767, up to which time England was an exporting country. From the close of the American war she became an importing country; and the quantities imported increased as follows:

Since 1829, the quantity annually required has been large, averaging more than double the deficits during the bad harvests of the year. In addition to these large requirements, Western Europe, during the past year, has also required large quantities, both because the yield was not quite so great as usual, and because the requirements were greater. It is obvious, in the progress of affairs, that if actually the same quantity of food is produced in any year as in the preceding there will be a deficit, measured by the increased consumption. When the population of Great Britain was but 11,964,303 as in 1811, the annual increase of consumption was much less than in 1848, when the population is over 20,000,000. These circumstances, of the supply of food in England and Western Europe are they which must force imperatively upon the governments the necessity of "free trade." It did so last year in England; and France, with Belgium and Holland, are now about to be emancipated from monarchial "protection." The great want of food last year was one cause of the great movement in the precious metals, but the agency of steam and the close proximity of the various commercial centres was also a prime agent in the singular results. A Parliamentary table gives the following, as the exports of the precious metals from England in the years of the greatest movement:

The years 1830 to 1833, were years of large export of silver to France, following the disturbance in the circulation of the two countries, resulting from the revolution of July, silver being the natural currency of France. During the past year the great movement has been in gold, and the value, according to the English mint price, would be as follows:

This includes some $10,000,000 silver loaned in Jan., 1847, by the Bank of England to the Bank of France. The destination of these large exports in 1847 was as follows:

The value sent to the United States in gold, was $15,731,701. This is for the year 'ending with December. The importation into the United States, as officially given for the years ending Dec. 1, were as follows:

IMPORTS SPECIE INTO UNITED STATES, YEARS ENDING DEC. 1.

About three-fifths only of the whole importation into the Union, it would appear, came from England. It is observable that the national mint is at Philadelphia, at which place about 1 per cent. only of the specie imported arrived, the great mass coming to Boston and New-York. The nett import of specie into the United States was $22,213,550, and as the expense and risk of sending to Philadelphia is an item which no one will volunteer to pay, the importer of specie deposites his foreign gold in bank, gets a credit, and the gold remains in bank subject to the financial operations of foreign bankers, whenever their wants require it to be returned to them. This occurred in December, at the close of the year to which the returns are made up, and about $48,000,000 has been sent back to London, not because it was owing, but by a purely financial operation. A serious revulsion has been saved the country solely through the operation of the Independent Treas ury. The cash duties drew into the hands of the department $8,226,516 of specie, of which a large portion was in the imported foreign coins; these, instead of remaining in

bank subject to shipment, were by the department transferred to the mint and coined The amount coined at the mint for several years has been as follows:

The year 1843 was one of the largest coinage previous to 1847, when the accession to the national currency became so great. The nationalizing of the importation is the surest protection to too sudden depletion, now that the intercourse of nations is about to be more free. The power and wealth of England was created when she was a corn exporting country. That wealth was spent in the wars with Bonaparte. The United States are now about to become the granaries for Western Europe; and the wealth of those nations will be commanded by the farms and plantations of the west and south.

GOSSIP OF THE MONTH.

POLITICAL GOSSIP.

SCENE IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES.-As we are going to press we have heard with grief and indignation the particulars of the late disgraceful "scene" in the Senate, relative to the recent abduction of slaves from Washington. We mourn over the weakness of human reason, when we see a man like Mr. Calhoun, of advanced age, long experience, and towering intellect, give himself up, in the face of his country and the world, to all the childish excesses of unbridled passion. It is just this defect of his character that has destroyed his career; which has made him unserviceable to his country, an injury to his party, and useless to his age. How is it possible to respect a man who forgets himself, and the body he should adorn, by conduct and words we could only expect in a maniac or a common driveller. The question of slavery is the rock on which Mr. Calhoun has constantly split, instead of being, as with a statesman of any address or real patriotism it would have been, a stepping-stone to the highest fame and the loftiest preferment. Slavery at the South, notwithstanding the declarations of Mr. Calhoun, and his hot-brained and foul-mouthed followers, and in spite of the incendiary and baselyselfish strivings of the hypocritical abolitionists of the "free North," we assert, and our lives and honor on it, that slavery in the South will never break up our glorious Union; will never scatter the stars of our " thrice-renowned" banner; will never prostrate the hopes of humanity, which are all concentrated in our success. No-because the intelligence of our enlightened people, north and south, east and west, is adequate to settle without disunion any differences of opinion or any clashing of sentiment, which may at any time occur between them, and that without the aid of Messrs. Calhoun & Co., or the odious counsels of that miserable faction of fools and fanatics headed by Messrs. Hale and Giddings. We shall not waste a word on the disgusting rant of Foote, of Mississippi, who proclaimed his ferocious aspirations after a hangman's job, whose functions he is evidently much better fitted to perform than those of a Senator. We protest, in the name of the honorable body to which he belongs, of the noble state whose dignity he has lowered, and of our common country, which he disgraces, against language and sentiments which the most abandoned leader of a street mob would hesitate in this country to utter, but which this senseless demagogue hoped would procure him notoriety. We are sure that Mr. Calhoun must blush to be found for a moment in such company.