Egli è stato un forte sostenitore della emancipazione cattolica, tema che fu oggetto di un trattato e di un romanzo. ###>==Economist==He was an independent discoverer of the principle of comparative advantage in international trade, which principle is usually attributed to David Ricardo although Torrens wrote about it in 1815, two years before Ricardo's book "On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation" was first published.