He maintained a London residence at the Firs, Hampstead, and spent his later years at his estate of Rock Hall near Alnwick in Northumberland.
Inflationary pressure in 1809 had prompted David Ricardo to write three letters to the Morning Chronicle, the first of which appeared on 29 August.
The public attention aroused by these letters and subsequent pamphlets led Parliament to appoint a select Committee to “Inquire into the cause of the high price of bullion, and to take into consideration the state of the circulating medium, and of the exchanges between Great Britain and foreign parts.” This "Bullion Committee", along with Ricardo, took the "Bullionist" position, stating that inflation had resulted from over-issue of currency, primarily by the Bank of England but also by country banks; and that as a means of preventing over-issue, the Bank of England should resume convertibility of the pound into gold.
In Practical Observations, Bosanquet criticised its report as being "altogether at variance with (the opinions) of the persons selected for examination," of relying on propositions that "are not generally true, and do not therefore form a solid foundation for the abstract reasoning of the Report," and of relying upon facts that "are erroneously stated; and, when corrected, lead to opposite conclusions."
Any over-issue of paper money, in the words of the Bank directors, "would revert to us by a diminished application for discounts and advances on government securities."
Ricardo's Reply to Mr. Bosanquet (1811) was described by John Ramsay McCulloch in 1845 as "perhaps the best controversial essay that has ever appeared on any disputed question of Political Economy."
Ricardo argued that the simple fact of the pound's depreciation was proof of its over-issue—a circular argument that nevertheless carried the day.