always retained the ‘sincerest affection and respect for his father.’ He had, however, to set up in business for himself, and the chief members of the stock exchange, we are told, showed their respect for him by voluntarily offering their support. Ricardo was eminently well qualified for success in business. His coolness of head, his powers of calculation, and his sound judgment enabled him to turn to account the opportunities offered in a time of unprecedented financial disturbances. He not only made a fortune, but acquired a higher reputation than had ever been gained by a man in a similar position.
Ricardo, though his literary education had been neglected, was a man of too much intellectual activity to be absorbed in the details of business. He was interested in the scientific movements which were attracting general attention at the end of the century. He fitted up a laboratory, formed a collection of minerals, and was one of the original members of the Geological Society (founded in 1807).
In 1799, while staying at Bath for his wife's health, he first met with Adam Smith's ‘Wealth of Nations,’ and became interested in the scientific treatment of economical questions. The result of his inquiries first appeared in 1809, when the state of the currency was causing general alarm. Ricardo was induced by James Perry [q. v.] to publish some letters upon the subject in the ‘Morning Chronicle,’ of which Perry was then editor. The first of them appeared on 6 Sept. 1809, and they were collected in a pamphlet which went through four editions. The famous bullion committee, appointed in 1810, made a report which was in almost complete agreement with Ricardo's principles. It attributed the depreciation of the currency to the excessive issues of the Bank of England, and recommended a resumption of cash payments in two years. The report was much criticised, and especially by Charles Bosanquet [q. v.], in a pamphlet of ‘Practical Observations.’ To this Ricardo published a reply in 1811, which was completely victorious, and Bosanquet's errors, according to Copleston (Letter to Sir R. Peel, 1819), only served to show the abilities of his opponent. Ricardo's growing reputation as an authority on economics led to warm friendships with Malthus and with James Mill.
In 1815 Ricardo published a pamphlet upon the influence of a low price of corn upon profits. Malthus and West had recently put forward the theory of rent which is generally named after Ricardo. Malthus was in favour of some degree of protection for agriculture, and Ricardo argues that this is inconsistent with Malthus's own theory of rent. Ricardo aims at carrying out the application more logically than its originator. In 1816 Ricardo, in another pamphlet, proposed his well-known scheme for maintaining the value of banknotes by making them exchangeable not for gold coins, but for standard bars of gold bullion. The scheme was adopted in 1819 in Peel's act for the resumption of cash payments, but was abandoned on account of the temptation to forgery given by the substitution of one-pound notes for sovereigns.
Ricardo had now become a leading authority upon economical questions. His pamphlets showed both his practical knowledge and his logical acuteness. They prove that he had worked out his general principles, though only dealing with their application to particular problems. His friends, and especially James Mill, entreated him to give a more systematic exposition of his theories, and the result was the publication, in 1817, of his main work, ‘Principles of Political Economy and Taxation.’ The theories of previous economists had, as he says in his preface, been vacillating and inconclusive from their ignorance of the true theory of rent. By showing the relation of this theory to their inquiries, he would be able to exhibit systematically the relation between rent, profit, and wages, and to trace the incidence of taxes. Ricardo was fully sensible of his own literary defects, and the book is often hard to follow. It assumes a knowledge of Adam Smith, and introduces, without adequate notice, special meanings of terms differently used by others. But whatever its faults of style, the book was well received, and made an era in economic inquiries. James Mill and McCulloch, his ‘two and only genuine disciples,’ as Mill says in a letter after his death (Bain, James Mill, p. 211), did their best to propagate his teaching, and the treatise was accepted as the orthodox manifesto of the so-called ‘classical’ political economy.
Ricardo bought the estate of Gatcombe Park in Gloucestershire about the end of 1813. He retired from business in the following year. He served as sheriff in 1818. He became, early in 1819, member for the Irish borough of Portarlington, in which there were about twelve constituents. Ricardo had never been in Ireland, and probably bought the borough. He was re-elected in 1820, and held the seat till his death. An account of his votes and speeches, taken from Hansard, is given by Mr. Cannan in the ‘Economic Journal’ (iv. 249–61, 409–423). Ricardo, though an independent thinker, agreed almost unreservedly with
