BOOK parative values of those two different sorts of _"_ _. produce. The value of that sort which sometimes does and sometimes does not afford rent, should constantly rife in proportion to that which always affords some rent. As art and industry advance, the materials of clothing and lodging, the useful fossils and minerals of the earth, the precious metals and the precious Honest should gradually come to be more and more in demand, should gradually exchange for a greater and a greater quantity of food, or in other words, should gradually become dearer and dearer. This accordingly has been the case with most of these things upon most occasions, and would have been the case with all of them upon all occasions, if particular accidents hail not upon some occasions increased the supply of some of them in a still greater proportion than the demand.

The value of a free-stone quarry, for example, will necessarily increase with the increasing improvement and population of the country round about it; especially if it should be the only one in the neighbourhood. But the value of a silver mine, even though there would not be another within a thoufand miles of it, will not necessarily increase with the improvement of tin country in which it is situated. The market for the produce of a free-stone quarry can seldom extend more than a few miles round about it, and the demand must generally be in proportion to the improvement and population of that irnaL district, liut the market for the produce of a filver mine may extend over the whole known Chap. world. Unlefs the world in general, therefore, be advancing in improvement and population, the demand for filver might not be at all increafed by the improvement even of a large country in the neighbourhood of the mine. Even though the world in general were improving, yet if, in the courfe of its improvement, new mines would be difcovered, much more fertile than any which had been known before, though the demand for filver would neceffarily increafe, yet the fupply might increafe in fo much a greater proportion, that the real price of that metal might gradually fall; that is, any given quantity, a pound weight of it, for example, might gradually purchafe or command a fmaller and a fmaller quantity of labour, or exchange for a smaller and a fmaller quantity of corn, the principal part of the fubfiftence of the labourer.

The great market for filver is the commercial and civilized part of the world.

If, by the general progrefs of improvement, the demand of this market fhould increafe, while at the fame time the fupply did not increafe in the fame proportion, the value of filver would gradually rife in proportion to that of corn. Any given quantity of filver would exchange for a greater and a greater quantity of corn; or, in other words, the average money price of corn would gradually become cheaper and cheaper.

If, on the contrary, the fupply, by fome accident fhould increafe for many years together in a ,' T 2 greater BOOK greater proportion than the demand, that metal . I. . would gradually become cheaper and cheaper; or, in other words, the average money price of corn would, in spite of all improvements, gradually become dearer and dearer.

But if, on the other hand, the supply of the metal should increase nearly in the fame proportion as the demand, it would continue to purchase or exchange for nearly the fame quantity of corn, and the average money price of corn would, in spite of all improvements, continue Very nearly the fame.

These three seem to exhaust all the possible combinations of events which can happen in the progress of improvement; and during the course of the four centuries preceding the present, if we may judge by what has happened both in France and Great Britain, each of those three different combinations seem to have taken place in the European market, and nearly in the fame order too in which I have here set them down.

Digression concerning the Variations in the Value of Silver during the Course os the Four lajl Centuries.

FIRST PERIOD.

In 1350, and for some time before, the average price of the quarter of wheat in England seems not to have been estimated lower than four ounces of silver, Tower-weight, equal to about twenty shillings of our present money. From this price it seems to have fallen gradually to C H A p. two ounces of silver, equal to about ten millings yof our present money, the price at which we find it estimated in the beginning of the sixteenth century, and at which it seems to have continued to be estimated till about 1570.

In i35o,being the 25th of Edward II I.,was enacted what is called, The Statute of Labourers. In the preamble it complains much of the infolence of servants, who endeavoured to raise their wages upon their masters. It therefore ordains, that all servants and labourers mould for the future be contented with the fame wages and liveries (liveries in those times signified, not only cloaths, but provisions) which they had been accustomed to receive in the 20th year of the King, and the four preceding years; that upon this account their livery wheat should nowhere be estimated higher than ten-pence a bushel, and that it should always be in the option of the master to deliver them either the wheat or the money. Ten-pence a bushel, therefore, had, in the 25th of Edward M., been reckoned a very moderate price of wheat, since it required a particular statute to oblige servants to accept of it in exchange for their usual livery of provisions; and it had been reckoned a reasonable price ten years before that, or in the 16th year of the King, the term to which the statute refers. But in the 16th year of Edward Ill., ten-pence contained about half an ounce of silver, Tower-weight, and was nearly equal to half a crown of our present money. Four ounces of silver, Tower-weight, T 3 therefore,

BOOK therefore, equal to fix fhillings and eight-pence of the money of thofe times, and to near twenty millings of that of the prefent, muft have been reckoned a moderate price for the quarter of eight bufhels.

This statute is furely a better evidence of what was reckoned in thofe times a moderate price of grain, than the prices of fome particular years which have generally been recorded by hiftorians and other writers on account of their extraordinary dearnefs or cheapnefs, and from which, therefore, it is difficult to form any judgment concerning what may have been the ordinary price, . There are, befides, other reafons for believing that in the beginning of the fourteenth century, and for fome time before, the common price of wheat was not lefs than four ounces of filver the quarter, and that of other grain in proportion.

In 1309, Ralph de Born, Prior of St. Auguftine's, Canterbury, gave a feast upon his inftallation-day, of which William Thorn has preferved, not only the bill of fare, but the prices of many particulars. In that feaft were confirmed, sit, Fifty-three quarters of wheat, which coft nineteen pounds, or feven millings and two-pence a quarter, equal to about one-and-twenty millings and fix-pence of our prefent money; zdly, Fifty-eight quarters of malt, which coft feventeen pounds ten millings, or fix fhillings a quarter, equal to about eighteen fhillings of our prefent money; 3dly, Twenty quarters of oats, which coft four pounds, or four fhillings a quarter,