markitect-main/examples/infospace-with-history/artifacts/sources/book-1-chapter-11.md

id, title, book, chapter, artifact_type

id	title	book	chapter	artifact_type
book-1-chapter-11	OF THE RENT OF LAND.	1	11	content

CHAPTER XI. OF THE RENT OF LAND.

  Rent, considered as the price paid for the use of land, is naturally the
  highest which the tenant can afford to pay in the actual circumstances of
  the land. In adjusting the terms of the lease, the landlord endeavours to
  leave him no greater share of the produce than what is sufficient to keep
  up the stock from which he furnishes the seed, pays the labour, and
  purchases and maintains the cattle and other instruments of husbandry,
  together with the ordinary profits of farming stock in the neighbourhood.
  This is evidently the smallest share with which the tenant can content
  himself, without being a loser, and the landlord seldom means to leave him
  any more. Whatever part of the produce, or, what is the same thing,
  whatever part of its price, is over and above this share, he naturally
  endeavours to reserve to himself as the rent of his land, which is
  evidently the highest the tenant can afford to pay in the actual
  circumstances of the land. Sometimes, indeed, the liberality, more
  frequently the ignorance, of the landlord, makes him accept of somewhat
  less than this portion; and sometimes, too, though more rarely, the
  ignorance of the tenant makes him undertake to pay somewhat more, or to
  content himself with somewhat less, than the ordinary profits of farming
  stock in the neighbourhood. This portion, however, may still be considered
  as the natural rent of land, or the rent at which it is naturally meant
  that land should, for the most part, be let.

  The rent of land, it may be thought, is frequently no more than a
  reasonable profit or interest for the stock laid out by the landlord upon
  its improvement. This, no doubt, may be partly the case upon some
  occasions; for it can scarce ever be more than partly the case. The
  landlord demands a rent even for unimproved land, and the supposed
  interest or profit upon the expense of improvement is generally an
  addition to this original rent. Those improvements, besides, are not
  always made by the stock of the landlord, but sometimes by that of the
  tenant. When the lease comes to be renewed, however, the landlord commonly
  demands the same augmentation of rent as if they had been all made by his
  own.

  He sometimes demands rent for what is altogether incapable of human
  improvements. Kelp is a species of sea-weed, which, when burnt, yields an
  alkaline salt, useful for making glass, soap, and for several other
  purposes. It grows in several parts of Great Britain, particularly in
  Scotland, upon such rocks only as lie within the high-water mark, which
  are twice every day covered with the sea, and of which the produce,
  therefore, was never augmented by human industry. The landlord, however,
  whose estate is bounded by a kelp shore of this kind, demands a rent for
  it as much as for his corn-fields.

  The sea in the neighbourhood of the islands of Shetland is more than
  commonly abundant in fish, which makes a great part of the subsistence of
  their inhabitants. But, in order to profit by the produce of the water,
  they must have a habitation upon the neighbouring land. The rent of the
  landlord is in proportion, not to what the farmer can make by the land,
  but to what he can make both by the land and the water. It is partly paid
  in sea-fish; and one of the very few instances in which rent makes a part
  of the price of that commodity, is to be found in that country.

  The rent of land, therefore, considered as the price paid for the use of
  the land, is naturally a monopoly price. It is not at all proportioned to
  what the landlord may have laid out upon the improvement of the land, or
  to what he can afford to take, but to what the farmer can afford to give.

  Such parts only of the produce of land can commonly be brought to market,
  of which the ordinary price is sufficient to replace the stock which must
  be employed in bringing them thither, together with its ordinary profits.
  If the ordinary price is more than this, the surplus part of it will
  naturally go to the rent of the land. If it is not more, though the
  commodity may be brought to market, it can afford no rent to the landlord.
  Whether the price is, or is not more, depends upon the demand.

  There are some parts of the produce of land, for which the demand must
  always be such as to afford a greater price than what is sufficient to
  bring them to market; and there are others for which it either may or may
  not be such as to afford this greater price. The former must always afford
  a rent to the landlord. The latter sometimes may and sometimes may not,
  according to different circumstances.

  Rent, it is to be observed, therefore, enters into the composition of the
  price of commodities in a different way from wages and profit. High or low
  wages and profit are the causes of high or low price; high or low rent is
  the effect of it. It is because high or low wages and profit must be paid,
  in order to bring a particular commodity to market, that its price is high
  or low. But it is because its price is high or low, a great deal more, or
  very little more, or no more, than what is sufficient to pay those wages
  and profit, that it affords a high rent, or a low rent, or no rent at all.

  The particular consideration, first, of those parts of the produce of land
  which always afford some rent; secondly, of those which sometimes may and
  sometimes may not afford rent; and, thirdly, of the variations which, in
  the different periods of improvement, naturally take place in the relative
  value of those two different sorts of rude produce, when compared both
  with one another and with manufactured commodities, will divide this
  chapter into three parts.




  PART I.—Of the Produce of Land which always affords Rent.

  As men, like all other animals, naturally multiply in proportion to the
  means of their subsistence, food is always more or less in demand. It can
  always purchase or command a greater or smaller quantity of labour, and
  somebody can always be found who is willing to do something in order to
  obtain it. The quantity of labour, indeed, which it can purchase, is not
  always equal to what it could maintain, if managed in the most economical
  manner, on account of the high wages which are sometimes given to labour;
  but it can always purchase such a quantity of labour as it can maintain,
  according to the rate at which that sort of labour is commonly maintained
  in the neighbourhood.

  But land, in almost any situation, produces a greater quantity of food
  than what is sufficient to maintain all the labour necessary for bringing
  it to market, in the most liberal way in which that labour is ever
  maintained. The surplus, too, is always more than sufficient to replace
  the stock which employed that labour, together with its profits.
  Something, therefore, always remains for a rent to the landlord.

  The most desert moors in Norway and Scotland produce some sort of pasture
  for cattle, of which the milk and the increase are always more than
  sufficient, not only to maintain all the labour necessary for tending
  them, and to pay the ordinary profit to the farmer or the owner of the
  herd or flock, but to afford some small rent to the landlord. The rent
  increases in proportion to the goodness of the pasture. The same extent of
  ground not only maintains a greater number of cattle, but as they are
  brought within a smaller compass, less labour becomes requisite to tend
  them, and to collect their produce. The landlord gains both ways; by the
  increase of the produce, and by the diminution of the labour which must be
  maintained out of it.

  The rent of land not only varies with its fertility, whatever be its
  produce, but with its situation, whatever be its fertility. Land in the
  neighbourhood of a town gives a greater rent than land equally fertile in
  a distant part of the country. Though it may cost no more labour to
  cultivate the one than the other, it must always cost more to bring the
  produce of the distant land to market. A greater quantity of labour,
  therefore, must be maintained out of it; and the surplus, from which are
  drawn both the profit of the farmer and the rent of the landlord, must be
  diminished. But in remote parts of the country, the rate of profit, as has
  already been shewn, is generally higher than in the neighbourhood of a
  large town. A smaller proportion of this diminished surplus, therefore,
  must belong to the landlord.

  Good roads, canals, and navigable rivers, by diminishing the expense of
  carriage, put the remote parts of the country more nearly upon a level
  with those in the neighbourhood of the town. They are upon that account
  the greatest of all improvements. They encourage the cultivation of the
  remote, which must always be the most extensive circle of the country.
  They are advantageous to the town by breaking down the monopoly of the
  country in its neighbourhood. They are advantageous even to that part of
  the country. Though they introduce some rival commodities into the old
  market, they open many new markets to its produce. Monopoly, besides, is a
  great enemy to good management, which can never be universally
  established, but in consequence of that free and universal competition
  which forces every body to have recourse to it for the sake of self
  defence. It is not more than fifty years ago, that some of the counties in
  the neighbourhood of London petitioned the parliament against the
  extension of the turnpike roads into the remoter counties. Those remoter
  counties, they pretended, from the cheapness of labour, would be able to
  sell their grass and corn cheaper in the London market than themselves,
  and would thereby reduce their rents, and ruin their cultivation. Their
  rents, however, have risen, and their cultivation has been improved since
  that time.

  A corn field of moderate fertility produces a much greater quantity of
  food for man, than the best pasture of equal extent. Though its
  cultivation requires much more labour, yet the surplus which remains after
  replacing the seed and maintaining all that labour, is likewise much
  greater. If a pound of butcher’s meat, therefore, was never supposed to be
  worth more than a pound of bread, this greater surplus would everywhere be
  of greater value and constitute a greater fund, both for the profit of the
  farmer and the rent of the landlord. It seems to have done so universally
  in the rude beginnings of agriculture.

  But the relative values of those two different species of food, bread and
  butcher’s meat, are very different in the different periods of
  agriculture. In its rude beginnings, the unimproved wilds, which then
  occupy the far greater part of the country, are all abandoned to cattle.
  There is more butcher’s meat than bread; and bread, therefore, is the food
  for which there is the greatest competition, and which consequently brings
  the greatest price. At Buenos Ayres, we are told by Ulloa, four reals,
  one-and-twenty pence halfpenny sterling, was, forty or fifty years ago,
  the ordinary price of an ox, chosen from a herd of two or three hundred.
  He says nothing of the price of bread, probably because he found nothing
  remarkable about it. An ox there, he says, costs little more than the
  labour of catching him. But corn can nowhere be raised without a great
  deal of labour; and in a country which lies upon the river Plate, at that
  time the direct road from Europe to the silver mines of Potosi, the
  money-price of labour could be very cheap. It is otherwise when
  cultivation is extended over the greater part of the country. There is
  then more bread than butcher’s meat. The competition changes its
  direction, and the price of butcher’s meat becomes greater than the price
  of bread.

  By the extension, besides, of cultivation, the unimproved wilds become
  insufficient to supply the demand for butcher’s meat. A great part of the
  cultivated lands must be employed in rearing and fattening cattle; of
  which the price, therefore, must be sufficient to pay, not only the labour
  necessary for tending them, but the rent which the landlord, and the
  profit which the farmer, could have drawn from such land employed in
  tillage. The cattle bred upon the most uncultivated moors, when brought to
  the same market, are, in proportion to their weight or goodness, sold at
  the same price as those which are reared upon the most improved land. The
  proprietors of those moors profit by it, and raise the rent of their land
  in proportion to the price of their cattle. It is not more than a century
  ago, that in many parts of the Highlands of Scotland, butcher’s meat was
  as cheap or cheaper than even bread made of oatmeal. The Union opened the
  market of England to the Highland cattle. Their ordinary price, at
  present, is about three times greater than at the beginning of the
  century, and the rents of many Highland estates have been tripled and
  quadrupled in the same time. In almost every part of Great Britain, a
  pound of the best butcher’s meat is, in the present times, generally worth
  more than two pounds of the best white bread; and in plentiful years it is
  sometimes worth three or four pounds.

  It is thus that, in the progress of improvement, the rent and profit of
  unimproved pasture come to be regulated in some measure by the rent and
  profit of what is improved, and these again by the rent and profit of
  corn. Corn is an annual crop; butcher’s meat, a crop which requires four
  or five years to grow. As an acre of land, therefore, will produce a much
  smaller quantity of the one species of food than of the other, the
  inferiority of the quantity must be compensated by the superiority of the
  price. If it was more than compensated, more corn-land would be turned
  into pasture; and if it was not compensated, part of what was in pasture
  would be brought back into corn.

  This equality, however, between the rent and profit of grass and those of
  corn; of the land of which the immediate produce is food for cattle, and
  of that of which the immediate produce is food for men, must be understood
  to take place only through the greater part of the improved lands of a
  great country. In some particular local situations it is quite otherwise,
  and the rent and profit of grass are much superior to what can be made by
  corn.

  Thus, in the neighbourhood of a great town, the demand for milk, and for
  forage to horses, frequently contribute, together with the high price of
  butcher’s meat, to raise the value of grass above what may be called its
  natural proportion to that of corn. This local advantage, it is evident,
  cannot be communicated to the lands at a distance.

  Particular circumstances have sometimes rendered some countries so
  populous, that the whole territory, like the lands in the neighbourhood of
  a great town, has not been sufficient to produce both the grass and the
  corn necessary for the subsistence of their inhabitants. Their lands,
  therefore, have been principally employed in the production of grass, the
  more bulky commodity, and which cannot be so easily brought from a great
  distance; and corn, the food of the great body of the people, has been
  chiefly imported from foreign countries. Holland is at present in this
  situation; and a considerable part of ancient Italy seems to have been so
  during the prosperity of the Romans. To feed well, old Cato said, as we
  are told by Cicero, was the first and most profitable thing in the
  management of a private estate; to feed tolerably well, the second; and to
  feed ill, the third. To plough, he ranked only in the fourth place of
  profit and advantage. Tillage, indeed, in that part of ancient Italy which
  lay in the neighbour hood of Rome, must have been very much discouraged by
  the distributions of corn which were frequently made to the people, either
  gratuitously, or at a very low price. This corn was brought from the
  conquered provinces, of which several, instead of taxes, were obliged to
  furnish a tenth part of their produce at a stated price, about sixpence
  a-peck, to the republic. The low price at which this corn was distributed
  to the people, must necessarily have sunk the price of what could be
  brought to the Roman market from Latium, or the ancient territory of Rome,
  and must have discouraged its cultivation in that country.

  In an open country, too, of which the principal produce is corn, a
  well-inclosed piece of grass will frequently rent higher than any corn
  field in its neighbourhood. It is convenient for the maintenance of the
  cattle employed in the cultivation of the corn; and its high rent is, in
  this case, not so properly paid from the value of its own produce, as from
  that of the corn lands which are cultivated by means of it. It is likely
  to fall, if ever the neighbouring lands are completely inclosed. The
  present high rent of inclosed land in Scotland seems owing to the scarcity
  of inclosure, and will probably last no longer than that scarcity. The
  advantage of inclosure is greater for pasture than for corn. It saves the
  labour of guarding the cattle, which feed better, too, when they are not
  liable to be disturbed by their keeper or his dog.

  But where there is no local advantage of this kind, the rent and profit of
  corn, or whatever else is the common vegetable food of the people, must
  naturally regulate upon the land which is fit for producing it, the rent
  and profit of pasture.

  The use of the artificial grasses, of turnips, carrots, cabbages, and the
  other expedients which have been fallen upon to make an equal quantity of
  land feed a greater number of cattle than when in natural grass, should
  somewhat reduce, it might be expected, the superiority which, in an
  improved country, the price of butcher’s meat naturally has over that of
  bread. It seems accordingly to have done so; and there is some reason for
  believing that, at least in the London market, the price of butcher’s
  meat, in proportion to the price of bread, is a good deal lower in the
  present times than it was in the beginning of the last century.

  In the Appendix to the life of Prince Henry, Doctor Birch has given us an
  account of the prices of butcher’s meat as commonly paid by that prince.
  It is there said, that the four quarters of an ox, weighing six hundred
  pounds, usually cost him nine pounds ten shillings, or thereabouts; that
  is thirty-one shillings and eight-pence per hundred pounds weight. Prince
  Henry died on the 6th of November 1612, in the nineteenth year of his age.

  In March 1764, there was a parliamentary inquiry into the causes of the
  high price of provisions at that time. It was then, among other proof to
  the same purpose, given in evidence by a Virginia merchant, that in March
  1763, he had victualled his ships for twentyfour or twenty-five shillings
  the hundred weight of beef, which he considered as the ordinary price;
  whereas, in that dear year, he had paid twenty-seven shillings for the
  same weight and sort. This high price in 1764 is, however, four shillings
  and eight-pence cheaper than the ordinary price paid by Prince Henry; and
  it is the best beef only, it must be observed, which is fit to be salted
  for those distant voyages.

  The price paid by Prince Henry amounts to 3d. ⅘ths per pound weight of
  the whole carcase, coarse and choice pieces taken together; and at that
  rate the choice pieces could not have been sold by retail for less than
  4½d. or 5d. the pound.

  In the parliamentary inquiry in 1764, the witnesses stated the price of
  the choice pieces of the best beef to be to the consumer 4d. and 4½d. the
  pound; and the coarse pieces in general to be from seven farthings to 2½d.
  and 2¾d.; and this, they said, was in general one halfpenny dearer than
  the same sort of pieces had usually been sold in the month of March. But
  even this high price is still a good deal cheaper than what we can well
  suppose the ordinary retail price to have been in the time of Prince
  Henry.

  During the first twelve years of the last century, the average price of
  the best wheat at the Windsor market was £ 1:18:3½d. the quarter of nine
  Winchester bushels.

  But in the twelve years preceding 1764 including that year, the average
  price of the same measure of the best wheat at the same market was £
  2:1:9½d.

  In the first twelve years of the last century, therefore, wheat appears to
  have been a good deal cheaper, and butcher’s meat a good deal dearer, than
  in the twelve years preceding 1764, including that year.

  In all great countries, the greater part of the cultivated lands are
  employed in producing either food for men or food for cattle. The rent and
  profit of these regulate the rent and profit of all other cultivated land.
  If any particular produce afforded less, the land would soon be turned
  into corn or pasture; and if any afforded more, some part of the lands in
  corn or pasture would soon be turned to that produce.

  Those productions, indeed, which require either a greater original expense
  of improvement, or a greater annual expense of cultivation in order to fit
  the land for them, appear commonly to afford, the one a greater rent, the
  other a greater profit, than corn or pasture. This superiority, however,
  will seldom be found to amount to more than a reasonable interest or
  compensation for this superior expense.

  In a hop garden, a fruit garden, a kitchen garden, both the rent of the
  landlord, and the profit of the farmer, are generally greater than in
  acorn or grass field. But to bring the ground into this condition requires
  more expense. Hence a greater rent becomes due to the landlord. It
  requires, too, a more attentive and skilful management. Hence a greater
  profit becomes due to the farmer. The crop, too, at least in the hop and
  fruit garden, is more precarious. Its price, therefore, besides
  compensating all occasional losses, must afford something like the profit
  of insurance. The circumstances of gardeners, generally mean, and always
  moderate, may satisfy us that their great ingenuity is not commonly
  over-recompensed. Their delightful art is practised by so many rich people
  for amusement, that little advantage is to be made by those who practise
  it for profit; because the persons who should naturally be their best
  customers, supply themselves with all their most precious productions.

  The advantage which the landlord derives from such improvements, seems at
  no time to have been greater than what was sufficient to compensate the
  original expense of making them. In the ancient husbandry, after the
  vineyard, a well-watered kitchen garden seems to have been the part of the
  farm which was supposed to yield the most valuable produce. But
  Democritus, who wrote upon husbandry about two thousand years ago, and who
  was regarded by the ancients as one of the fathers of the art, thought
  they did not act wisely who inclosed a kitchen garden. The profit, he
  said, would not compensate the expense of a stone-wall: and bricks (he
  meant, I suppose, bricks baked in the sun) mouldered with the rain and the
  winter-storm, and required continual repairs. Columella, who reports this
  judgment of Democritus, does not controvert it, but proposes a very frugal
  method of inclosing with a hedge of brambles and briars, which he says he
  had found by experience to be both a lasting and an impenetrable fence;
  but which, it seems, was not commonly known in the time of Democritus.
  Palladius adopts the opinion of Columella, which had before been
  recommended by Varro. In the judgment of those ancient improvers, the
  produce of a kitchen garden had, it seems, been little more than
  sufficient to pay the extraordinary culture and the expense of watering;
  for in countries so near the sun, it was thought proper, in those times as
  in the present, to have the command of a stream of water, which could be
  conducted to every bed in the garden. Through the greater part of Europe,
  a kitchen garden is not at present supposed to deserve a better inclosure
  than that recommended by Columella. In Great Britain, and some other
  northern countries, the finer fruits cannot be brought to perfection but
  by the assistance of a wall. Their price, therefore, in such countries,
  must be sufficient to pay the expense of building and maintaining what
  they cannot be had without. The fruit-wall frequently surrounds the
  kitchen garden, which thus enjoys the benefit of an inclosure which its
  own produce could seldom pay for.

  That the vineyard, when properly planted and brought to perfection, was
  the most valuable part of the farm, seems to have been an undoubted maxim
  in the ancient agriculture, as it is in the modern, through all the wine
  countries. But whether it was advantageous to plant a new vineyard, was a
  matter of dispute among the ancient Italian husbandmen, as we learn from
  Columella. He decides, like a true lover of all curious cultivation, in
  favour of the vineyard; and endeavours to shew, by a comparison of the
  profit and expense, that it was a most advantageous improvement. Such
  comparisons, however, between the profit and expense of new projects are
  commonly very fallacious; and in nothing more so than in agriculture. Had
  the gain actually made by such plantations been commonly as great as he
  imagined it might have been, there could have been no dispute about it.
  The same point is frequently at this day a matter of controversy in the
  wine countries. Their writers on agriculture, indeed, the lovers and
  promoters of high cultivation, seem generally disposed to decide with
  Columella in favour of the vineyard. In France, the anxiety of the
  proprietors of the old vineyards to prevent the planting of any new ones,
  seems to favour their opinion, and to indicate a consciousness in those
  who must have the experience, that this species of cultivation is at
  present in that country more profitable than any other. It seems, at the
  same time, however, to indicate another opinion, that this superior profit
  can last no longer than the laws which at present restrain the free
  cultivation of the vine. In 1731, they obtained an order of council,
  prohibiting both the planting of new vineyards, and the renewal of these
  old ones, of which the cultivation had been interrupted for two years,
  without a particular permission from the king, to be granted only in
  consequence of an information from the intendant of the province,
  certifying that he had examined the land, and that it was incapable of any
  other culture. The pretence of this order was the scarcity of corn and
  pasture, and the superabundance of wine. But had this superabundance been
  real, it would, without any order of council, have effectually prevented
  the plantation of new vineyards, by reducing the profits of this species
  of cultivation below their natural proportion to those of corn and
  pasture. With regard to the supposed scarcity of corn occasioned by the
  multiplication of vineyards, corn is nowhere in France more carefully
  cultivated than in the wine provinces, where the land is fit for producing
  it: as in Burgundy, Guienne, and the Upper Languedoc. The numerous hands
  employed in the one species of cultivation necessarily encourage the
  other, by affording a ready market for its produce. To diminish the number
  of those who are capable of paying it, is surely a most unpromising
  expedient for encouraging the cultivation of corn. It is like the policy
  which would promote agriculture, by discouraging manufactures.

  The rent and profit of those productions, therefore, which require either
  a greater original expense of improvement in order to fit the land for
  them, or a greater annual expense of cultivation, though often much
  superior to those of corn and pasture, yet when they do no more than
  compensate such extraordinary expense, are in reality regulated by the
  rent and profit of those common crops.

  It sometimes happens, indeed, that the quantity of land which can be
  fitted for some particular produce, is too small to supply the effectual
  demand. The whole produce can be disposed of to those who are willing to
  give somewhat more than what is sufficient to pay the whole rent, wages,
  and profit, necessary for raising and bringing it to market, according to
  their natural rates, or according to the rates at which they are paid in
  the greater part of other cultivated land. The surplus part of the price
  which remains after defraying the whole expense of improvement and
  cultivation, may commonly, in this case, and in this case only, bear no
  regular proportion to the like surplus in corn or pasture, but may exceed
  it in almost any degree; and the greater part of this excess naturally
  goes to the rent of the landlord.

  The usual and natural proportion, for example, between the rent and profit
  of wine, and those of corn and pasture, must be understood to take place
  only with regard to those vineyards which produce nothing but good common
  wine, such as can be raised almost anywhere, upon any light, gravelly, or
  sandy soil, and which has nothing to recommend it but its strength and
  wholesomeness. It is with such vineyards only, that the common land of the
  country can be brought into competition; for with those of a peculiar
  quality it is evident that it cannot.

  The vine is more affected by the difference of soils than any other
  fruit-tree. From some it derives a flavour which no culture or management
  can equal, it is supposed, upon any other. This flavour, real or
  imaginary, is sometimes peculiar to the produce of a few vineyards;
  sometimes it extends through the greater part of a small district, and
  sometimes through a considerable part of a large province. The whole
  quantity of such wines that is brought to market falls short of the
  effectual demand, or the demand of those who would be willing to pay the
  whole rent, profit, and wages, necessary for preparing and bringing them
  thither, according to the ordinary rate, or according to the rate at which
  they are paid in common vineyards. The whole quantity, therefore, can be
  disposed of to those who are willing to pay more, which necessarily raises
  their price above that of common wine. The difference is greater or less,
  according as the fashionableness and scarcity of the wine render the
  competition of the buyers more or less eager. Whatever it be, the greater
  part of it goes to the rent of the landlord. For though such vineyards are
  in general more carefully cultivated than most others, the high price of
  the wine seems to be, not so much the effect, as the cause of this careful
  cultivation. In so valuable a produce, the loss occasioned by negligence
  is so great, as to force even the most careless to attention. A small part
  of this high price, therefore, is sufficient to pay the wages of the
  extraordinary labour bestowed upon their cultivation, and the profits of
  the extraordinary stock which puts that labour into motion.

  The sugar colonies possessed by the European nations in the West Indies
  may be compared to those precious vineyards. Their whole produce falls
  short of the effectual demand of Europe, and can be disposed of to those
  who are willing to give more than what is sufficient to pay the whole
  rent, profit, and wages, necessary for preparing and bringing it to
  market, according to the rate at which they are commonly paid by any other
  produce. In Cochin China, the finest white sugar generally sells for three
  piastres the quintal, about thirteen shillings and sixpence of our money,
  as we are told by Mr Poivre {Voyages d’un Philosophe.}, a very careful
  observer of the agriculture of that country. What is there called the
  quintal, weighs from a hundred and fifty to two hundred Paris pounds, or a
  hundred and seventy-five Paris pounds at a medium, which reduces the price
  of the hundred weight English to about eight shillings sterling; not a
  fourth part of what is commonly paid for the brown or muscovada sugars
  imported from our colonies, and not a sixth part of what is paid for the
  finest white sugar. The greater part of the cultivated lands in Cochin
  China are employed in producing corn and rice, the food of the great body
  of the people. The respective prices of corn, rice, and sugar, are there
  probably in the natural proportion, or in that which naturally takes place
  in the different crops of the greater part of cultivated land, and which
  recompenses the landlord and farmer, as nearly as can be computed,
  according to what is usually the original expense of improvement, and the
  annual expense of cultivation. But in our sugar colonies, the price of
  sugar bears no such proportion to that of the produce of a rice or corn
  field either in Europe or America. It is commonly said that a sugar
  planter expects that the rum and the molasses should defray the whole
  expense of his cultivation, and that his sugar should be all clear profit.
  If this be true, for I pretend not to affirm it, it is as if a corn farmer
  expected to defray the expense of his cultivation with the chaff and the
  straw, and that the grain should be all clear profit. We see frequently
  societies of merchants in London, and other trading towns, purchase waste
  lands in our sugar colonies, which they expect to improve and cultivate
  with profit, by means of factors and agents, notwithstanding the great
  distance and the uncertain returns, from the defective administration of
  justice in those countries. Nobody will attempt to improve and cultivate
  in the same manner the most fertile lands of Scotland, Ireland, or the
  corn provinces of North America, though, from the more exact
  administration of justice in these countries, more regular returns might
  be expected.

  In Virginia and Maryland, the cultivation of tobacco is preferred, as most
  profitable, to that of corn. Tobacco might be cultivated with advantage
  through the greater part of Europe; but, in almost every part of Europe,
  it has become a principal subject of taxation; and to collect a tax from
  every different farm in the country where this plant might happen to be
  cultivated, would be more difficult, it has been supposed, than to levy
  one upon its importation at the custom-house. The cultivation of tobacco
  has, upon this account, been most absurdly prohibited through the greater
  part of Europe, which necessarily gives a sort of monopoly to the
  countries where it is allowed; and as Virginia and Maryland produce the
  greatest quantity of it, they share largely, though with some competitors,
  in the advantage of this monopoly. The cultivation of tobacco, however,
  seems not to be so advantageous as that of sugar. I have never even heard
  of any tobacco plantation that was improved and cultivated by the capital
  of merchants who resided in Great Britain; and our tobacco colonies send
  us home no such wealthy planters as we see frequently arrive from our
  sugar islands. Though, from the preference given in those colonies to the
  cultivation of tobacco above that of corn, it would appear that the
  effectual demand of Europe for tobacco is not completely supplied, it
  probably is more nearly so than that for sugar; and though the present
  price of tobacco is probably more than sufficient to pay the whole rent,
  wages, and profit, necessary for preparing and bringing it to market,
  according to the rate at which they are commonly paid in corn land, it
  must not be so much more as the present price of sugar. Our tobacco
  planters, accordingly, have shewn the same fear of the superabundance of
  tobacco, which the proprietors of the old vineyards in France have of the
  superabundance of wine. By act of assembly, they have restrained its
  cultivation to six thousand plants, supposed to yield a thousand weight of
  tobacco, for every negro between sixteen and sixty years of age. Such a
  negro, over and above this quantity of tobacco, can manage, they reckon,
  four acres of Indian corn. To prevent the market from being overstocked,
  too, they have sometimes, in plentiful years, we are told by Dr Douglas
  {Douglas’s Summary, vol. ii. p. 379, 373.} (I suspect he has been ill
  informed), burnt a certain quantity of tobacco for every negro, in the
  same manner as the Dutch are said to do of spices. If such violent methods
  are necessary to keep up the present price of tobacco, the superior
  advantage of its culture over that of corn, if it still has any, will not
  probably be of long continuance.

  It is in this manner that the rent of the cultivated land, of which the
  produce is human food, regulates the rent of the greater part of other
  cultivated land. No particular produce can long afford less, because the
  land would immediately be turned to another use; and if any particular
  produce commonly affords more, it is because the quantity of land which
  can be fitted for it is too small to supply the effectual demand.

  In Europe, corn is the principal produce of land, which serves immediately
  for human food. Except in particular situations, therefore, the rent of
  corn land regulates in Europe that of all other cultivated land. Britain
  need envy neither the vineyards of France, nor the olive plantations of
  Italy. Except in particular situations, the value of these is regulated by
  that of corn, in which the fertility of Britain is not much inferior to
  that of either of those two countries.

  If, in any country, the common and favourite vegetable food of the people
  should be drawn from a plant of which the most common land, with the same,
  or nearly the same culture, produced a much greater quantity than the most
  fertile does of corn; the rent of the landlord, or the surplus quantity of
  food which would remain to him, after paying the labour, and replacing the
  stock of the farmer, together with its ordinary profits, would necessarily
  be much greater. Whatever was the rate at which labour was commonly
  maintained in that country, this greater surplus could always maintain a
  greater quantity of it, and, consequently, enable the landlord to purchase
  or command a greater quantity of it. The real value of his rent, his real
  power and authority, his command of the necessaries and conveniencies of
  life with which the labour of other people could supply him, would
  necessarily be much greater.

  A rice field produces a much greater quantity of food than the most
  fertile corn field. Two crops in the year, from thirty to sixty bushels
  each, are said to be the ordinary produce of an acre. Though its
  cultivation, therefore, requires more labour, a much greater surplus
  remains after maintaining all that labour. In those rice countries,
  therefore, where rice is the common and favourite vegetable food of the
  people, and where the cultivators are chiefly maintained with it, a
  greater share of this greater surplus should belong to the landlord than
  in corn countries. In Carolina, where the planters, as in other British
  colonies, are generally both farmers and landlords, and where rent,
  consequently, is confounded with profit, the cultivation of rice is found
  to be more profitable than that of corn, though their fields produce only
  one crop in the year, and though, from the prevalence of the customs of
  Europe, rice is not there the common and favourite vegetable food of the
  people.

  A good rice field is a bog at all seasons, and at one season a bog covered
  with water. It is unfit either for corn, or pasture, or vineyard, or,
  indeed, for any other vegetable produce that is very useful to men; and
  the lands which are fit for those purposes are not fit for rice. Even in
  the rice countries, therefore, the rent of rice lands cannot regulate the
  rent of the other cultivated land which can never be turned to that
  produce.

  The food produced by a field of potatoes is not inferior in quantity to
  that produced by a field of rice, and much superior to what is produced by
  a field of wheat. Twelve thousand weight of potatoes from an acre of land
  is not a greater produce than two thousand weight of wheat. The food or
  solid nourishment, indeed, which can be drawn from each of those two
  plants, is not altogether in proportion to their weight, on account of the
  watery nature of potatoes. Allowing, however, half the weight of this root
  to go to water, a very large allowance, such an acre of potatoes will
  still produce six thousand weight of solid nourishment, three times the
  quantity produced by the acre of wheat. An acre of potatoes is cultivated
  with less expense than an acre of wheat; the fallow, which generally
  precedes the sowing of wheat, more than compensating the hoeing and other
  extraordinary culture which is always given to potatoes. Should this root
  ever become in any part of Europe, like rice in some rice countries, the
  common and favourite vegetable food of the people, so as to occupy the
  same proportion of the lands in tillage, which wheat and other sorts of
  grain for human food do at present, the same quantity of cultivated land
  would maintain a much greater number of people; and the labourers being
  generally fed with potatoes, a greater surplus would remain after
  replacing all the stock, and maintaining all the labour employed in
  cultivation. A greater share of this surplus, too, would belong to the
  landlord. Population would increase, and rents would rise much beyond what
  they are at present.

  The land which is fit for potatoes, is fit for almost every other useful
  vegetable. If they occupied the same proportion of cultivated land which
  corn does at present, they would regulate, in the same manner, the rent of
  the greater part of other cultivated land.

  In some parts of Lancashire, it is pretended, I have been told, that bread
  of oatmeal is a heartier food for labouring people than wheaten bread, and
  I have frequently heard the same doctrine held in Scotland. I am, however,
  somewhat doubtful of the truth of it. The common people in Scotland, who
  are fed with oatmeal, are in general neither so strong nor so handsome as
  the same rank of people in England, who are fed with wheaten bread. They
  neither work so well, nor look so well; and as there is not the same
  difference between the people of fashion in the two countries, experience
  would seem to shew, that the food of the common people in Scotland is not
  so suitable to the human constitution as that of their neighbours of the
  same rank in England. But it seems to be otherwise with potatoes. The
  chairmen, porters, and coal-heavers in London, and those unfortunate women
  who live by prostitution, the strongest men and the most beautiful women
  perhaps in the British dominions, are said to be, the greater part of
  them, from the lowest rank of people in Ireland, who are generally fed
  with this root. No food can afford a more decisive proof of its nourishing
  quality, or of its being peculiarly suitable to the health of the human
  constitution.

  It is difficult to preserve potatoes through the year, and impossible to
  store them like corn, for two or three years together. The fear of not
  being able to sell them before they rot, discourages their cultivation,
  and is, perhaps, the chief obstacle to their ever becoming in any great
  country, like bread, the principal vegetable food of all the different
  ranks of the people.




  PART II.—Of the Produce of Land, which sometimes does, and sometimes
  does not, afford Rent.

  Human food seems to be the only produce of land, which always and
  necessarily affords some rent to the landlord. Other sorts of produce
  sometimes may, and sometimes may not, according to different
  circumstances.

  After food, clothing and lodging are the two great wants of mankind.

  Land, in its original rude state, can afford the materials of clothing and
  lodging to a much greater number of people than it can feed. In its
  improved state, it can sometimes feed a greater number of people than it
  can supply with those materials; at least in the way in which they require
  them, and are willing to pay for them. In the one state, therefore, there
  is always a superabundance of these materials, which are frequently, upon
  that account, of little or no value. In the other, there is often a
  scarcity, which necessarily augments their value. In the one state, a
  great part of them is thrown away as useless and the price of what is used
  is considered as equal only to the labour and expense of fitting it for
  use, and can, therefore, afford no rent to the landlord. In the other,
  they are all made use of, and there is frequently a demand for more than
  can be had. Somebody is always willing to give more for every part of
  them, than what is sufficient to pay the expense of bringing them to
  market. Their price, therefore, can always afford some rent to the
  landlord.

  The skins of the larger animals were the original materials of clothing.
  Among nations of hunters and shepherds, therefore, whose food consists
  chiefly in the flesh of those animals, everyman, by providing himself with
  food, provides himself with the materials of more clothing than he can
  wear. If there was no foreign commerce, the greater part of them would be
  thrown away as things of no value. This was probably the case among the
  hunting nations of North America, before their country was discovered by
  the Europeans, with whom they now exchange their surplus peltry, for
  blankets, fire-arms, and brandy, which gives it some value. In the present
  commercial state of the known world, the most barbarous nations, I
  believe, among whom land property is established, have some foreign
  commerce of this kind, and find among their wealthier neighbours such a
  demand for all the materials of clothing, which their land produces, and
  which can neither be wrought up nor consumed at home, as raises their
  price above what it costs to send them to those wealthier neighbours. It
  affords, therefore, some rent to the landlord. When the greater part of
  the Highland cattle were consumed on their own hills, the exportation of
  their hides made the most considerable article of the commerce of that
  country, and what they were exchanged for afforded some addition to the
  rent of the Highland estates. The wool of England, which in old times,
  could neither be consumed nor wrought up at home, found a market in the
  then wealthier and more industrious country of Flanders, and its price
  afforded something to the rent of the land which produced it. In countries
  not better cultivated than England was then, or than the Highlands of
  Scotland are now, and which had no foreign commerce, the materials of
  clothing would evidently be so superabundant, that a great part of them
  would be thrown away as useless, and no part could afford any rent to the
  landlord.

  The materials of lodging cannot always be transported to so great a
  distance as those of clothing, and do not so readily become an object of
  foreign commerce. When they are superabundant in the country which
  produces them, it frequently happens, even in the present commercial state
  of the world, that they are of no value to the landlord. A good stone
  quarry in the neighbourhood of London would afford a considerable rent. In
  many parts of Scotland and Wales it affords none. Barren timber for
  building is of great value in a populous and well-cultivated country, and
  the land which produces it affords a considerable rent. But in many parts
  of North America, the landlord would be much obliged to any body who would
  carry away the greater part of his large trees. In some parts of the
  Highlands of Scotland, the bark is the only part of the wood which, for
  want of roads and water-carriage, can be sent to market; the timber is
  left to rot upon the ground. When the materials of lodging are so
  superabundant, the part made use of is worth only the labour and expense
  of fitting it for that use. It affords no rent to the landlord, who
  generally grants the use of it to whoever takes the trouble of asking it.
  The demand of wealthier nations, however, sometimes enables him to get a
  rent for it. The paving of the streets of London has enabled the owners of
  some barren rocks on the coast of Scotland to draw a rent from what never
  afforded any before. The woods of Norway, and of the coasts of the Baltic,
  find a market in many parts of Great Britain, which they could not find at
  home, and thereby afford some rent to their proprietors.

  Countries are populous, not in proportion to the number of people whom
  their produce can clothe and lodge, but in proportion to that of those
  whom it can feed. When food is provided, it is easy to find the necessary
  clothing and lodging. But though these are at hand, it may often be
  difficult to find food. In some parts of the British dominions, what is
  called a house may be built by one day’s labour of one man. The simplest
  species of clothing, the skins of animals, require somewhat more labour to
  dress and prepare them for use. They do not, however, require a great
  deal. Among savage or barbarous nations, a hundredth, or little more than
  a hundredth part of the labour of the whole year, will be sufficient to
  provide them with such clothing and lodging as satisfy the greater part of
  the people. All the other ninety-nine parts are frequently no more than
  enough to provide them with food.

  But when, by the improvement and cultivation of land, the labour of one
  family can provide food for two, the labour of half the society becomes
  sufficient to provide food for the whole. The other half, therefore, or at
  least the greater part of them, can be employed in providing other things,
  or in satisfying the other wants and fancies of mankind. Clothing and
  lodging, household furniture, and what is called equipage, are the
  principal objects of the greater part of those wants and fancies. The rich
  man consumes no more food than his poor neighbour. In quality it may be
  very different, and to select and prepare it may require more labour and
  art; but in quantity it is very nearly the same. But compare the spacious
  palace and great wardrobe of the one, with the hovel and the few rags of
  the other, and you will be sensible that the difference between their
  clothing, lodging, and household furniture, is almost as great in quantity
  as it is in quality. The desire of food is limited in every man by the
  narrow capacity of the human stomach; but the desire of the conveniencies
  and ornaments of building, dress, equipage, and household furniture, seems
  to have no limit or certain boundary. Those, therefore, who have the
  command of more food than they themselves can consume, are always willing
  to exchange the surplus, or, what is the same thing, the price of it, for
  gratifications of this other kind. What is over and above satisfying the
  limited desire, is given for the amusement of those desires which cannot
  be satisfied, but seem to be altogether endless. The poor, in order to
  obtain food, exert themselves to gratify those fancies of the rich; and to
  obtain it more certainly, they vie with one another in the cheapness and
  perfection of their work. The number of workmen increases with the
  increasing quantity of food, or with the growing improvement and
  cultivation of the lands; and as the nature of their business admits of
  the utmost subdivisions of labour, the quantity of materials which they
  can work up, increases in a much greater proportion than their numbers.
  Hence arises a demand for every sort of material which human invention can
  employ, either usefully or ornamentally, in building, dress, equipage, or
  household furniture; for the fossils and minerals contained in the bowels
  of the earth, the precious metals, and the precious stones.

  Food is, in this manner, not only the original source of rent, but every
  other part of the produce of land which afterwards affords rent, derives
  that part of its value from the improvement of the powers of labour in
  producing food, by means of the improvement and cultivation of land.

  Those other parts of the produce of land, however, which afterwards afford
  rent, do not afford it always. Even in improved and cultivated countries,
  the demand for them is not always such as to afford a greater price than
  what is sufficient to pay the labour, and replace, together with its
  ordinary profits, the stock which must be employed in bringing them to
  market. Whether it is or is not such, depends upon different
  circumstances.

  Whether a coal mine, for example, can afford any rent, depends partly upon
  its fertility, and partly upon its situation.

  A mine of any kind may be said to be either fertile or barren, according
  as the quantity of mineral which can be brought from it by a certain
  quantity of labour, is greater or less than what can be brought by an
  equal quantity from the greater part of other mines of the same kind.

  Some coal mines, advantageously situated, cannot be wrought on account of
  their barrenness. The produce does not pay the expense. They can afford
  neither profit nor rent.

  There are some, of which the produce is barely sufficient to pay the
  labour, and replace, together with its ordinary profits, the stock
  employed in working them. They afford some profit to the undertaker of the
  work, but no rent to the landlord. They can be wrought advantageously by
  nobody but the landlord, who, being himself the undertaker of the work,
  gets the ordinary profit of the capital which he employs in it. Many coal
  mines in Scotland are wrought in this manner, and can be wrought in no
  other. The landlord will allow nobody else to work them without paying
  some rent, and nobody can afford to pay any.

  Other coal mines in the same country, sufficiently fertile, cannot be
  wrought on account of their situation. A quantity of mineral, sufficient
  to defray the expense of working, could be brought from the mine by the
  ordinary, or even less than the ordinary quantity of labour: but in an
  inland country, thinly inhabited, and without either good roads or
  water-carriage, this quantity could not be sold.

  Coals are a less agreeable fuel than wood: they are said too to be less
  wholesome. The expense of coals, therefore, at the place where they are
  consumed, must generally be somewhat less than that of wood.

  The price of wood, again, varies with the state of agriculture, nearly in
  the same manner, and exactly for the same reason, as the price of cattle.
  In its rude beginnings, the greater part of every country is covered with
  wood, which is then a mere incumbrance, of no value to the landlord, who
  would gladly give it to any body for the cutting. As agriculture advances,
  the woods are partly cleared by the progress of tillage, and partly go to
  decay in consequence of the increased number of cattle. These, though they
  do not increase in the same proportion as corn, which is altogether the
  acquisition of human industry, yet multiply under the care and protection
  of men, who store up in the season of plenty what may maintain them in
  that of scarcity; who, through the whole year, furnish them with a greater
  quantity of food than uncultivated nature provides for them; and who, by
  destroying and extirpating their enemies, secure them in the free
  enjoyment of all that she provides. Numerous herds of cattle, when allowed
  to wander through the woods, though they do not destroy the old trees,
  hinder any young ones from coming up; so that, in the course of a century
  or two, the whole forest goes to ruin. The scarcity of wood then raises
  its price. It affords a good rent; and the landlord sometimes finds that
  he can scarce employ his best lands more advantageously than in growing
  barren timber, of which the greatness of the profit often compensates the
  lateness of the returns. This seems, in the present times, to be nearly
  the state of things in several parts of Great Britain, where the profit of
  planting is found to be equal to that of either corn or pasture. The
  advantage which the landlord derives from planting can nowhere exceed, at
  least for any considerable time, the rent which these could afford him;
  and in an inland country, which is highly cultivated, it will frequently
  not fall much short of this rent. Upon the sea-coast of a well-improved
  country, indeed, if coals can conveniently be had for fuel, it may
  sometimes be cheaper to bring barren timber for building from less
  cultivated foreign countries than to raise it at home. In the new town of
  Edinburgh, built within these few years, there is not, perhaps, a single
  stick of Scotch timber.

  Whatever may be the price of wood, if that of coals is such that the
  expense of a coal fire is nearly equal to that of a wood one we may be
  assured, that at that place, and in these circumstances, the price of
  coals is as high as it can be. It seems to be so in some of the inland
  parts of England, particularly in Oxfordshire, where it is usual, even in
  the fires of the common people, to mix coals and wood together, and where
  the difference in the expense of those two sorts of fuel cannot,
  therefore, be very great. Coals, in the coal countries, are everywhere
  much below this highest price. If they were not, they could not bear the
  expense of a distant carriage, either by land or by water. A small
  quantity only could be sold; and the coal masters and the coal proprietors
  find it more for their interest to sell a great quantity at a price
  somewhat above the lowest, than a small quantity at the highest. The most
  fertile coal mine, too, regulates the price of coals at all the other
  mines in its neighbourhood. Both the proprietor and the undertaker of the
  work find, the one that he can get a greater rent, the other that he can
  get a greater profit, by somewhat underselling all their neighbours. Their
  neighbours are soon obliged to sell at the same price, though they cannot
  so well afford it, and though it always diminishes, and sometimes takes
  away altogether, both their rent and their profit. Some works are
  abandoned altogether; others can afford no rent, and can be wrought only
  by the proprietor.

  The lowest price at which coals can be sold for any considerable time, is,
  like that of all other commodities, the price which is barely sufficient
  to replace, together with its ordinary profits, the stock which must be
  employed in bringing them to market. At a coal mine for which the landlord
  can get no rent, but, which he must either work himself or let it alone
  altogether, the price of coals must generally be nearly about this price.

  Rent, even where coals afford one, has generally a smaller share in their
  price than in that of most other parts of the rude produce of land. The
  rent of an estate above ground, commonly amounts to what is supposed to be
  a third of the gross produce; and it is generally a rent certain and
  independent of the occasional variations in the crop. In coal mines, a
  fifth of the gross produce is a very great rent, a tenth the common rent;
  and it is seldom a rent certain, but depends upon the occasional
  variations in the produce. These are so great, that in a country where
  thirty years purchase is considered as a moderate price for the property
  of a landed estate, ten years purchase is regarded as a good price for
  that of a coal mine.

  The value of a coal mine to the proprietor, frequently depends as much
  upon its situation as upon its fertility. That of a metallic mine depends
  more upon its fertility, and less upon its situation. The coarse, and
  still more the precious metals, when separated from the ore, are so
  valuable, that they can generally bear the expense of a very long land,
  and of the most distant sea carriage. Their market is not confined to the
  countries in the neighbourhood of the mine, but extends to the whole
  world. The copper of Japan makes an article of commerce in Europe; the
  iron of Spain in that of Chili and Peru. The silver of Peru finds its way,
  not only to Europe, but from Europe to China.

  The price of coals in Westmoreland or Shropshire can have little effect on
  their price at Newcastle; and their price in the Lionnois can have none at
  all. The productions of such distant coal mines can never be brought into
  competition with one another. But the productions of the most distant
  metallic mines frequently may, and in fact commonly are.

  The price, therefore, of the coarse, and still more that of the precious
  metals, at the most fertile mines in the world, must necessarily more or
  less affect their price at every other in it. The price of copper in Japan
  must have some influence upon its price at the copper mines in Europe. The
  price of silver in Peru, or the quantity either of labour or of other
  goods which it will purchase there, must have some influence on its price,
  not only at the silver mines of Europe, but at those of China. After the
  discovery of the mines of Peru, the silver mines of Europe were, the
  greater part of them, abandoned. The value of silver was so much reduced,
  that their produce could no longer pay the expense of working them, or
  replace, with a profit, the food, clothes, lodging, and other necessaries
  which were consumed in that operation. This was the case, too, with the
  mines of Cuba and St. Domingo, and even with the ancient mines of Peru,
  after the discovery of those of Potosi. The price of every metal, at every
  mine, therefore, being regulated in some measure by its price at the most
  fertile mine in the world that is actually wrought, it can, at the greater
  part of mines, do very little more than pay the expense of working, and
  can seldom afford a very high rent to the landlord. Rent accordingly,
  seems at the greater part of mines to have but a small share in the price
  of the coarse, and a still smaller in that of the precious metals. Labour
  and profit make up the greater part of both.

  A sixth part of the gross produce may be reckoned the average rent of the
  tin mines of Cornwall, the most fertile that are known in the world, as we
  are told by the Rev. Mr Borlace, vice-warden of the stannaries. Some, he
  says, afford more, and some do not afford so much. A sixth part of the
  gross produce is the rent, too, of several very fertile lead mines in
  Scotland.

  In the silver mines of Peru, we are told by Frezier and Ulloa, the
  proprietor frequently exacts no other acknowledgment from the undertaker
  of the mine, but that he will grind the ore at his mill, paying him the
  ordinary multure or price of grinding. Till 1736, indeed, the tax of the
  king of Spain amounted to one fifth of the standard silver, which till
  then might be considered as the real rent of the greater part of the
  silver mines of Peru, the richest which have been known in the world. If
  there had been no tax, this fifth would naturally have belonged to the
  landlord, and many mines might have been wrought which could not then be
  wrought, because they could not afford this tax. The tax of the duke of
  Cornwall upon tin is supposed to amount to more than five per cent. or one
  twentieth part of the value; and whatever may be his proportion, it would
  naturally, too, belong to the proprietor of the mine, if tin was duty
  free. But if you add one twentieth to one sixth, you will find that the
  whole average rent of the tin mines of Cornwall, was to the whole average
  rent of the silver mines of Peru, as thirteen to twelve. But the silver
  mines of Peru are not now able to pay even this low rent; and the tax upon
  silver was, in 1736, reduced from one fifth to one tenth. Even this tax
  upon silver, too, gives more temptation to smuggling than the tax of one
  twentieth upon tin; and smuggling must be much easier in the precious than
  in the bulky commodity. The tax of the king of Spain, accordingly, is said
  to be very ill paid, and that of the duke of Cornwall very well. Rent,
  therefore, it is probable, makes a greater part of the price of tin at the
  most fertile tin mines than it does of silver at the most fertile silver
  mines in the world. After replacing the stock employed in working those
  different mines, together with its ordinary profits, the residue which
  remains to the proprietor is greater, it seems, in the coarse, than in the
  precious metal.

  Neither are the profits of the undertakers of silver mines commonly very
  great in Peru. The same most respectable and well-informed authors
  acquaint us, that when any person undertakes to work a new mine in Peru,
  he is universally looked upon as a man destined to bankruptcy and ruin,
  and is upon that account shunned and avoided by every body. Mining, it
  seems, is considered there in the same light as here, as a lottery, in
  which the prizes do not compensate the blanks, though the greatness of
  some tempts many adventurers to throw away their fortunes in such
  unprosperous projects.

  As the sovereign, however, derives a considerable part of his revenue from
  the produce of silver mines, the law in Peru gives every possible
  encouragement to the discovery and working of new ones. Whoever discovers
  a new mine, is entitled to measure off two hundred and forty-six feet in
  length, according to what he supposes to be the direction of the vein, and
  half as much in breadth. He becomes proprietor of this portion of the
  mine, and can work it without paving any acknowledgment to the landlord.
  The interest of the duke of Cornwall has given occasion to a regulation
  nearly of the same kind in that ancient dutchy. In waste and uninclosed
  lands, any person who discovers a tin mine may mark out its limits to a
  certain extent, which is called bounding a mine. The bounder becomes the
  real proprietor of the mine, and may either work it himself, or give it in
  lease to another, without the consent of the owner of the land, to whom,
  however, a very small acknowledgment must be paid upon working it. In both
  regulations, the sacred rights of private property are sacrificed to the
  supposed interests of public revenue.

  The same encouragement is given in Peru to the discovery and working of
  new gold mines; and in gold the king’s tax amounts only to a twentieth
  part of the standard rental. It was once a fifth, and afterwards a tenth,
  as in silver; but it was found that the work could not bear even the
  lowest of these two taxes. If it is rare, however, say the same authors,
  Frezier and Ulloa, to find a person who has made his fortune by a silver,
  it is still much rarer to find one who has done so by a gold mine. This
  twentieth part seems to be the whole rent which is paid by the greater
  part of the gold mines of Chili and Peru. Gold, too, is much more liable
  to be smuggled than even silver; not only on account of the superior value
  of the metal in proportion to its bulk, but on account of the peculiar way
  in which nature produces it. Silver is very seldom found virgin, but, like
  most other metals, is generally mineralized with some other body, from
  which it is impossible to separate it in such quantities as will pay for
  the expense, but by a very laborious and tedious operation, which cannot
  well be carried on but in work-houses erected for the purpose, and,
  therefore, exposed to the inspection of the king’s officers. Gold, on the
  contrary, is almost always found virgin. It is sometimes found in pieces
  of some bulk; and, even when mixed, in small and almost insensible
  particles, with sand, earth, and other extraneous bodies, it can be
  separated from them by a very short and simple operation, which can be
  carried on in any private house by any body who is possessed of a small
  quantity of mercury. If the king’s tax, therefore, is but ill paid upon
  silver, it is likely to be much worse paid upon gold; and rent must make a
  much smaller part of the price of gold than that of silver.

  The lowest price at which the precious metals can be sold, or the smallest
  quantity of other goods for which they can be exchanged, during any
  considerable time, is regulated by the same principles which fix the
  lowest ordinary price of all other goods. The stock which must commonly be
  employed, the food, clothes, and lodging, which must commonly be consumed
  in bringing them from the mine to the market, determine it. It must at
  least be sufficient to replace that stock, with the ordinary profits.

  Their highest price, however, seems not to be necessarily determined by
  any thing but the actual scarcity or plenty of these metals themselves. It
  is not determined by that of any other commodity, in the same manner as
  the price of coals is by that of wood, beyond which no scarcity can ever
  raise it. Increase the scarcity of gold to a certain degree, and the
  smallest bit of it may become more precious than a diamond, and exchange
  for a greater quantity of other goods.

  The demand for those metals arises partly from their utility, and partly
  from their beauty. If you except iron, they are more useful than, perhaps,
  any other metal. As they are less liable to rust and impurity, they can
  more easily be kept clean; and the utensils, either of the table or the
  kitchen, are often, upon that account, more agreeable when made of them. A
  silver boiler is more cleanly than a lead, copper, or tin one; and the
  same quality would render a gold boiler still better than a silver one.
  Their principal merit, however, arises from their beauty, which renders
  them peculiarly fit for the ornaments of dress and furniture. No paint or
  dye can give so splendid a colour as gilding. The merit of their beauty is
  greatly enhanced by their scarcity. With the greater part of rich people,
  the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches; which, in
  their eye, is never so complete as when they appear to possess those
  decisive marks of opulence which nobody can possess but themselves. In
  their eyes, the merit of an object, which is in any degree either useful
  or beautiful, is greatly enhanced by its scarcity, or by the great labour
  which it requires to collect any considerable quantity of it; a labour
  which nobody can afford to pay but themselves. Such objects they are
  willing to purchase at a higher price than things much more beautiful and
  useful, but more common. These qualities of utility, beauty, and scarcity,
  are the original foundation of the high price of those metals, or of the
  great quantity of other goods for which they can everywhere be exchanged.
  This value was antecedent to, and independent of their being employed as
  coin, and was the quality which fitted them for that employment. That
  employment, however, by occasioning a new demand, and by diminishing the
  quantity which could be employed in any other way, may have afterwards
  contributed to keep up or increase their value.

  The demand for the precious stones arises altogether from their beauty.
  They are of no use but as ornaments; and the merit of their beauty is
  greatly enhanced by their scarcity, or by the difficulty and expense of
  getting them from the mine. Wages and profit accordingly make up, upon
  most occasions, almost the whole of the high price. Rent comes in but for
  a very small share, frequently for no share; and the most fertile mines
  only afford any considerable rent. When Tavernier, a jeweller, visited the
  diamond mines of Golconda and Visiapour, he was informed that the
  sovereign of the country, for whose benefit they were wrought, had ordered
  all of them to be shut up except those which yielded the largest and
  finest stones. The other, it seems, were to the proprietor not worth the
  working.

  As the prices, both of the precious metals and of the precious stones, is
  regulated all over the world by their price at the most fertile mine in
  it, the rent which a mine of either can afford to its proprietor is in
  proportion, not to its absolute, but to what may be called its relative
  fertility, or to its superiority over other mines of the same kind. If new
  mines were discovered, as much superior to those of Potosi, as they were
  superior to those of Europe, the value of silver might be so much degraded
  as to render even the mines of Potosi not worth the working. Before the
  discovery of the Spanish West Indies, the most fertile mines in Europe may
  have afforded as great a rent to their proprietors as the richest mines in
  Peru do at present. Though the quantity of silver was much less, it might
  have exchanged for an equal quantity of other goods, and the proprietor’s
  share might have enabled him to purchase or command an equal quantity
  either of labour or of commodities.

  The value, both of the produce and of the rent, the real revenue which
  they afforded, both to the public and to the proprietor, might have been
  the same.

  The most abundant mines, either of the precious metals, or of the precious
  stones, could add little to the wealth of the world. A produce, of which
  the value is principally derived from its scarcity, is necessarily
  degraded by its abundance. A service of plate, and the other frivolous
  ornaments of dress and furniture, could be purchased for a smaller
  quantity of commodities; and in this would consist the sole advantage
  which the world could derive from that abundance.

  It is otherwise in estates above ground. The value, both of their produce
  and of their rent, is in proportion to their absolute, and not to their
  relative fertility. The land which produces a certain quantity of food,
  clothes, and lodging, can always feed, clothe, and lodge, a certain number
  of people; and whatever may be the proportion of the landlord, it will
  always give him a proportionable command of the labour of those people,
  and of the commodities with which that labour can supply him. The value of
  the most barren land is not diminished by the neighbourhood of the most
  fertile. On the contrary, it is generally increased by it. The great
  number of people maintained by the fertile lands afford a market to many
  parts of the produce of the barren, which they could never have found
  among those whom their own produce could maintain.

  Whatever increases the fertility of land in producing food, increases not
  only the value of the lands upon which the improvement is bestowed, but
  contributes likewise to increase that of many other lands, by creating a
  new demand for their produce. That abundance of food, of which, in
  consequence of the improvement of land, many people have the disposal
  beyond what they themselves can consume, is the great cause of the demand,
  both for the precious metals and the precious stones, as well as for every
  other conveniency and ornament of dress, lodging, household furniture, and
  equipage. Food not only constitutes the principal part of the riches of
  the world, but it is the abundance of food which gives the principal part
  of their value to many other sorts of riches. The poor inhabitants of Cuba
  and St. Domingo, when they were first discovered by the Spaniards, used to
  wear little bits of gold as ornaments in their hair and other parts of
  their dress. They seemed to value them as we would do any little pebbles
  of somewhat more than ordinary beauty, and to consider them as just worth
  the picking up, but not worth the refusing to any body who asked them,
  They gave them to their new guests at the first request, without seeming
  to think that they had made them any very valuable present. They were
  astonished to observe the rage of the Spaniards to obtain them; and had no
  notion that there could anywhere be a country in which many people had the
  disposal of so great a superfluity of food; so scanty always among
  themselves, that, for a very small quantity of those glittering baubles,
  they would willingly give as much as might maintain a whole family for
  many years. Could they have been made to understand this, the passion of
  the Spaniards would not have surprised them.




  PART III.—Of the variations in the Proportion between the respective
  Values of that sort of Produce which always affords Rent, and of that
  which sometimes does, and sometimes does not, afford Rent.

  The increasing abundance of food, in consequence of the increasing
  improvement and cultivation, must necessarily increase the demand for
  every part of the produce of land which is not food, and which can be
  applied either to use or to ornament. In the whole progress of
  improvement, it might, therefore, be expected there should be only one
  variation in the comparative values of those two different sorts of
  produce. The value of that sort which sometimes does, and sometimes does
  not afford rent, should constantly rise in proportion to that which always
  affords some rent. As art and industry advance, the materials of clothing
  and lodging, the useful fossils and materials of the earth, the precious
  metals and the precious stones, 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 had 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 should not be another within a
  thousand miles of it, will not necessarily increase with the improvement
  of the 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 small district; but the market for the produce of a
  silver mine may extend over the whole known world. Unless the world in
  general, therefore, be advancing in improvement and population, the demand
  for silver might not be at all increased 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 course of its improvements, new
  mines should be discovered, much more fertile than any which had been
  known before, though the demand for silver would necessarily increase, yet
  the supply might increase in so 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 purchase or command a
  smaller and a smaller quantity of labour, or exchange for a smaller and a
  smaller quantity of corn, the principal part of the subsistence of the
  labourer.

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

  If, by the general progress of improvement, the demand of this market
  should increase, while, at the same time, the supply did not increase in
  the same proportion, the value of silver would gradually rise in
  proportion to that of corn. Any given quantity of silver 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 supply, by some accident, should increase, for
  many years together, in a greater proportion than the demand, that metal
  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 that metal should increase nearly
  in the same proportion as the demand, it would continue to purchase or
  exchange for nearly the same quantity of corn; and the average money price
  of corn would, in spite of all improvements. continue very nearly the
  same.

  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 seems to have taken place in the European market, and nearly
  in the same order, too, in which I have here set them down.

  _Digression concerning the Variations in the value of Silver during the
  Course of the Four last 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
  two ounces of silver, equal to about ten shillings of 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 1350, being the 25th of Edward III. was enacted what is called the
  Statute of Labourers. In the preamble, it complains much of the insolence
  of servants, who endeavoured to raise their wages upon their masters. It
  therefore ordains, that all servants and labourers should, for the future,
  be contented with the same wages and liveries (liveries in those times
  signified not only clothes, 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 tenpence a-bushel, and that it should always be in the option
  of the master to deliver them either the wheat or the money. Tenpence:
  a-bushel, therefore, had, in the 25th of Edward III. 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 III. tenpence 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, therefore, equal to six
  shillings and eightpence of the money of those times, and to near twenty
  shillings of that of the present, must have been reckoned a moderate price
  for the quarter of eight bushels.

  This statute is surely a better evidence of what was reckoned, in those
  times, a moderate price of grain, than the prices of some particular
  years, which have generally been recorded by historians and other writers,
  on account of their extraordinary dearness or cheapness, and from which,
  therefore, it is difficult to form any judgment concerning what may have
  been the ordinary price. There are, besides, other reasons for believing
  that, in the beginning of the fourteenth century, and for some time
  before, the common price of wheat was not less than four ounces of silver
  the quarter, and that of other grain in proportion.

  In 1309, Ralph de Born, prior of St Augustine’s, Canterbury, gave a feast
  upon his installation-day, of which William Thorn has preserved, not only
  the bill of fare, but the prices of many particulars. In that feast were
  consumed, 1st, fifty-three quarters of wheat, which cost nineteen pounds,
  or seven shillings, and twopence a-quarter, equal to about one-and-twenty
  shillings and sixpence of our present money; 2dly, fifty-eight quarters of
  malt, which cost seventeen pounds ten shillings, or six shillings
  a-quarter, equal to about eighteen shillings of our present money; 3dly,
  twenty quarters of oats, which cost four pounds, or four shillings
  a-quarter, equal to about twelve shillings of our present money. The
  prices of malt and oats seem here to be higher than their ordinary
  proportion to the price of wheat.

  These prices are not recorded, on account of their extraordinary dearness
  or cheapness, but are mentioned accidentally, as the prices actually paid
  for large quantities of grain consumed at a feast, which was famous for
  its magnificence.

  In 1262, being the 51st of Henry III. was revived an ancient statute,
  called the assize of bread and ale, which, the king says in the preamble,
  had been made in the times of his progenitors, some time kings of England.
  It is probably, therefore, as old at least as the time of his grandfather,
  Henry II. and may have been as old as the Conquest. It regulates the price
  of bread according as the prices of wheat may happen to be, from one
  shilling to twenty shillings the quarter of the money of those times. But
  statutes of this kind are generally presumed to provide with equal care
  for all deviations from the middle price, for those below it, as well as
  for those above it. Ten shillings, therefore, containing six ounces of
  silver, Tower weight, and equal to about thirty shillings of our present
  money, must, upon this supposition, have been reckoned the middle price of
  the quarter of wheat when this statute was first enacted, and must have
  continued to be so in the 51st of Henry III. We cannot, therefore, be very
  wrong in supposing that the middle price was not less than one-third of
  the highest price at which this statute regulates the price of bread, or
  than six shillings and eightpence of the money of those times, containing
  four ounces of silver, Tower weight.

  From these different facts, therefore, we seem to have some reason to
  conclude that, about the middle of the fourteenth century, and for a
  considerable time before, the average or ordinary price of the quarter of
  wheat was not supposed to be less than four ounces of silver, Tower
  weight.

  From about the middle of the fourteenth to the beginning of the sixteenth
  century, what was reckoned the reasonable and moderate, that is, the
  ordinary or average price of wheat, seems to have sunk gradually to about
  one half of this price; so as at last to have fallen to about two ounces
  of silver, Tower weight, equal to about ten shillings of our present
  money. It continued to be estimated at this price till about 1570.

  In the household book of Henry, the fifth earl of Northumberland, drawn up
  in 1512 there are two different estimations of wheat. In one of them it is
  computed at six shilling and eightpence the quarter, in the other at five
  shillings and eightpence only. In 1512, six shillings and eightpence
  contained only two ounces of silver, Tower weight, and were equal to about
  ten shillings of our present money.

  From the 25th of Edward III. to the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth,
  during the space of more than two hundred years, six shillings and
  eightpence, it appears from several different statutes, had continued to
  be considered as what is called the moderate and reasonable, that is, the
  ordinary or average price of wheat. The quantity of silver, however,
  contained in that nominal sum was, during the course of this period,
  continually diminishing in consequence of some alterations which were made
  in the coin. But the increase of the value of silver had, it seems, so far
  compensated the diminution of the quantity of it contained in the same
  nominal sum, that the legislature did not think it worth while to attend
  to this circumstance.

  Thus, in 1436, it was enacted, that wheat might be exported without a
  licence when the price was so low as six shillings and eightpence: and in
  1463, it was enacted, that no wheat should be imported if the price was
  not above six shillings and eightpence the quarter: The legislature had
  imagined, that when the price was so low, there could be no inconveniency
  in exportation, but that when it rose higher, it became prudent to allow
  of importation. Six shillings and eightpence, therefore, containing about
  the same quantity of silver as thirteen shillings and fourpence of our
  present money (one-third part less than the same nominal sum contained in
  the time of Edward III), had, in those times, been considered as what is
  called the moderate and reasonable price of wheat.

  In 1554, by the 1st and 2nd of Philip and Mary, and in 1558, by the 1st of
  Elizabeth, the exportation of wheat was in the same manner prohibited,
  whenever the price of the quarter should exceed six shillings and
  eightpence, which did not then contain two penny worth more silver than
  the same nominal sum does at present. But it had soon been found, that to
  restrain the exportation of wheat till the price was so very low, was, in
  reality, to prohibit it altogether. In 1562, therefore, by the 5th of
  Elizabeth, the exportation of wheat was allowed from certain ports,
  whenever the price of the quarter should not exceed ten shillings,
  containing nearly the same quantity of silver as the like nominal sum does
  at present. This price had at this time, therefore, been considered as
  what is called the moderate and reasonable price of wheat. It agrees
  nearly with the estimation of the Northumberland book in 1512.

  That in France the average price of grain was, in the same manner, much
  lower in the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth century,
  than in the two centuries preceding, has been observed both by Mr Dupré de
  St Maur, and by the elegant author of the Essay on the Policy of Grain.
  Its price, during the same period, had probably sunk in the same manner
  through the greater part of Europe.

  This rise in the value of silver, in proportion to that of corn, may
  either have been owing altogether to the increase of the demand for that
  metal, in consequence of increasing improvement and cultivation, the
  supply, in the mean time, continuing the same as before; or, the demand
  continuing the same as before, it may have been owing altogether to the
  gradual diminution of the supply: the greater part of the mines which were
  then known in the world being much exhausted, and, consequently, the
  expense of working them much increased; or it may have been owing partly
  to the one, and partly to the other of those two circumstances. In the end
  of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries, the greater
  part of Europe was approaching towards a more settled form of government
  than it had enjoyed for several ages before. The increase of security
  would naturally increase industry and improvement; and the demand for the
  precious metals, as well as for every other luxury and ornament, would
  naturally increase with the increase of riches. A greater annual produce
  would require a greater quantity of coin to circulate it; and a greater
  number of rich people would require a greater quantity of plate and other
  ornaments of silver. It is natural to suppose, too, that the greater part
  of the mines which then supplied the European market with silver might be
  a good deal exhausted, and have become more expensive in the working. They
  had been wrought, many of them, from the time of the Romans.

  It has been the opinion, however, of the greater part of those who have
  written upon the prices of commodities in ancient times, that, from the
  Conquest, perhaps from the invasion of Julius Caesar, till the discovery
  of the mines of America, the value of silver was continually diminishing.
  This opinion they seem to have been led into, partly by the observations
  which they had occasion to make upon the prices both of corn and of some
  other parts of the rude produce of land, and partly by the popular notion,
  that as the quantity of silver naturally increases in every country with
  the increase of wealth, so its value diminishes as it quantity increases.

  In their observations upon the prices of corn, three different
  circumstances seem frequently to have misled them.

  First, in ancient times, almost all rents were paid in kind; in a certain
  quantity of corn, cattle, poultry, etc. It sometimes happened, however,
  that the landlord would stipulate, that he should be at liberty to demand
  of the tenant, either the annual payment in kind or a certain sum of money
  instead of it. The price at which the payment in kind was in this manner
  exchanged for a certain sum of money, is in Scotland called the conversion
  price. As the option is always in the landlord to take either the
  substance or the price, it is necessary, for the safety of the tenant,
  that the conversion price should rather be below than above the average
  market price. In many places, accordingly, it is not much above one half
  of this price. Through the greater part of Scotland this custom still
  continues with regard to poultry, and in some places with regard to
  cattle. It might probably have continued to take place, too, with regard
  to corn, had not the institution of the public fiars put an end to it.
  These are annual valuations, according to the judgment of an assize, of
  the average price of all the different sorts of grain, and of all the
  different qualities of each, according to the actual market price in every
  different county. This institution rendered it sufficiently safe for the
  tenant, and much more convenient for the landlord, to convert, as they
  call it, the corn rent, rather at what should happen to be the price of
  the fiars of each year, than at any certain fixed price. But the writers
  who have collected the prices of corn in ancient times seem frequently to
  have mistaken what is called in Scotland the conversion price for the
  actual market price. Fleetwood acknowledges, upon one occasion, that he
  had made this mistake. As he wrote his book, however, for a particular
  purpose, he does not think proper to make this acknowledgment till after
  transcribing this conversion price fifteen times. The price is eight
  shillings the quarter of wheat. This sum in 1423, the year at which he
  begins with it, contained the same quantity of silver as sixteen shillings
  of our present money. But in 1562, the year at which he ends with it, it
  contained no more than the same nominal sum does at present.

  Secondly, they have been misled by the slovenly manner in which some
  ancient statutes of assize had been sometimes transcribed by lazy copiers,
  and sometimes, perhaps, actually composed by the legislature.

  The ancient statutes of assize seem to have begun always with determining
  what ought to be the price of bread and ale when the price of wheat and
  barley were at the lowest; and to have proceeded gradually to determine
  what it ought to be, according as the prices of those two sorts of grain
  should gradually rise above this lowest price. But the transcribers of
  those statutes seem frequently to have thought it sufficient to copy the
  regulation as far as the three or four first and lowest prices; saving in
  this manner their own labour, and judging, I suppose, that this was enough
  to show what proportion ought to be observed in all higher prices.

  Thus, in the assize of bread and ale, of the 51st of Henry III. the price
  of bread was regulated according to the different prices of wheat, from
  one shilling to twenty shillings the quarter of the money of those times.
  But in the manuscripts from which all the different editions of the
  statutes, preceding that of Mr Ruffhead, were printed, the copiers had
  never transcribed this regulation beyond the price of twelve shillings.
  Several writers, therefore, being misled by this faulty transcription,
  very naturally conclude that the middle price, or six shillings the
  quarter, equal to about eighteen shillings of our present money, was the
  ordinary or average price of wheat at that time.

  In the statute of Tumbrel and Pillory, enacted nearly about the same time,
  the price of ale is regulated according to every sixpence rise in the
  price of barley, from two shillings, to four shillings the quarter. That
  four shillings, however, was not considered as the highest price to which
  barley might frequently rise in those times, and that these prices were
  only given as an example of the proportion which ought to be observed in
  all other prices, whether higher or lower, we may infer from the last
  words of the statute: “Et sic deinceps crescetur vel diminuetur per sex
  denarios.” The expression is very slovenly, but the meaning is plain
  enough, “that the price of ale is in this manner to be increased or
  diminished according to every sixpence rise or fall in the price of
  barley.” In the composition of this statute, the legislature itself seems
  to have been as negligent as the copiers were in the transcription of the
  other.

  In an ancient manuscript of the Regiam Majestatem, an old Scotch law book,
  there is a statute of assize, in which the price of bread is regulated
  according to all the different prices of wheat, from tenpence to three
  shillings the Scotch boll, equal to about half an English quarter. Three
  shillings Scotch, at the time when this assize is supposed to have been
  enacted, were equal to about nine shillings sterling of our present money.
  Mr Ruddiman seems {See his Preface to Anderson’s Diplomata Scotiae.} to
  conclude from this, that three shillings was the highest price to which
  wheat ever rose in those times, and that tenpence, a shilling, or at most
  two shillings, were the ordinary prices. Upon consulting the manuscript,
  however, it appears evidently, that all these prices are only set down as
  examples of the proportion which ought to be observed between the
  respective prices of wheat and bread. The last words of the statute are
  “reliqua judicabis secundum praescripta, habendo respectum ad pretium
  bladi.”—“You shall judge of the remaining cases, according to what
  is above written, having respect to the price of corn.”

  Thirdly, they seem to have been misled too, by the very low price at which
  wheat was sometimes sold in very ancient times; and to have imagined, that
  as its lowest price was then much lower than in later times its ordinary
  price must likewise have been much lower. They might have found, however,
  that in those ancient times its highest price was fully as much above, as
  its lowest price was below any thing that had ever been known in later
  times. Thus, in 1270, Fleetwood gives us two prices of the quarter of
  wheat. The one is four pounds sixteen shillings of the money of those
  times, equal to fourteen pounds eight shillings of that of the present;
  the other is six pounds eight shillings, equal to nineteen pounds four
  shillings of our present money. No price can be found in the end of the
  fifteenth, or beginning of the sixteenth century, which approaches to the
  extravagance of these. The price of corn, though at all times liable to
  variation varies most in those turbulent and disorderly societies, in
  which the interruption of all commerce and communication hinders the
  plenty of one part of the country from relieving the scarcity of another.
  In the disorderly state of England under the Plantagenets, who governed it
  from about the middle of the twelfth till towards the end of the fifteenth
  century, one district might be in plenty, while another, at no great
  distance, by having its crop destroyed, either by some accident of the
  seasons, or by the incursion of some neighbouring baron, might be
  suffering all the horrors of a famine; and yet if the lands of some
  hostile lord were interposed between them, the one might not be able to
  give the least assistance to the other. Under the vigorous administration
  of the Tudors, who governed England during the latter part of the
  fifteenth, and through the whole of the sixteenth century, no baron was
  powerful enough to dare to disturb the public security.

  The reader will find at the end of this chapter all the prices of wheat
  which have been collected by Fleetwood, from 1202 to 1597, both inclusive,
  reduced to the money of the present times, and digested, according to the
  order of time, into seven divisions of twelve years each. At the end of
  each division, too, he will find the average price of the twelve years of
  which it consists. In that long period of time, Fleetwood has been able to
  collect the prices of no more than eighty years; so that four years are
  wanting to make out the last twelve years. I have added, therefore, from
  the accounts of Eton college, the prices of 1598, 1599, 1600, and 1601. It
  is the only addition which I have made. The reader will see, that from the
  beginning of the thirteenth till after the middle of the sixteenth
  century, the average price of each twelve years grows gradually lower and
  lower; and that towards the end of the sixteenth century it begins to rise
  again. The prices, indeed, which Fleetwood has been able to collect, seem
  to have been those chiefly which were remarkable for extraordinary
  dearness or cheapness; and I do not pretend that any very certain
  conclusion can be drawn from them. So far, however, as they prove any
  thing at all, they confirm the account which I have been endeavouring to
  give. Fleetwood himself, however, seems, with most other writers, to have
  believed, that, during all this period, the value of silver, in
  consequence of its increasing abundance, was continually diminishing. The
  prices of corn, which he himself has collected, certainly do not agree
  with this opinion. They agree perfectly with that of Mr Dupré de St Maur,
  and with that which I have been endeavouring to explain. Bishop Fleetwood
  and Mr Dupré de St Maur are the two authors who seem to have collected,
  with the greatest diligence and fidelity, the prices of things in ancient
  times. It is somewhat curious that, though their opinions are so very
  different, their facts, so far as they relate to the price of corn at
  least, should coincide so very exactly.

  It is not, however, so much from the low price of corn, as from that of
  some other parts of the rude produce of land, that the most judicious
  writers have inferred the great value of silver in those very ancient
  times. Corn, it has been said, being a sort of manufacture, was, in those
  rude ages, much dearer in proportion than the greater part of other
  commodities; it is meant, I suppose, than the greater part of
  unmanufactured commodities, such as cattle, poultry, game of all kinds,
  etc. That in those times of poverty and barbarism these were
  proportionably much cheaper than corn, is undoubtedly true. But this
  cheapness was not the effect of the high value of silver, but of the low
  value of those commodities. It was not because silver would in such times
  purchase or represent a greater quantity of labour, but because such
  commodities would purchase or represent a much smaller quantity than in
  times of more opulence and improvement. Silver must certainly be cheaper
  in Spanish America than in Europe; in the country where it is produced,
  than in the country to which it is brought, at the expense of a long
  carriage both by land and by sea, of a freight, and an insurance.
  One-and-twenty pence halfpenny sterling, however, we are told by Ulloa,
  was, not many years ago, at Buenos Ayres, the price of an ox chosen from a
  herd of three or four hundred. Sixteen shillings sterling, we are told by
  Mr Byron, was the price of a good horse in the capital of Chili. In a
  country naturally fertile, but of which the far greater part is altogether
  uncultivated, cattle, poultry, game of all kinds, etc. as they can be
  acquired with a very small quantity of labour, so they will purchase or
  command but a very small quantity. The low money price for which they may
  be sold, is no proof that the real value of silver is there very high, but
  that the real value of those commodities is very low.

  Labour, it must always be remembered, and not any particular commodity, or
  set of commodities, is the real measure of the value both of silver and of
  all other commodities.

  But in countries almost waste, or but thinly inhabited, cattle, poultry,
  game of all kinds, etc. as they are the spontaneous productions of Nature,
  so she frequently produces them in much greater quantities than the
  consumption of the inhabitants requires. In such a state of things, the
  supply commonly exceeds the demand. In different states of society, in
  different states of improvement, therefore, such commodities will
  represent, or be equivalent, to very different quantities of labour.

  In every state of society, in every stage of improvement, corn is the
  production of human industry. But the average produce of every sort of
  industry is always suited, more or less exactly, to the average
  consumption; the average supply to the average demand. In every different
  stage of improvement, besides, the raising of equal quantities of corn in
  the same soil and climate, will, at an average, require nearly equal
  quantities of labour; or, what comes to the same thing, the price of
  nearly equal quantities; the continual increase of the productive powers
  of labour, in an improved state of cultivation, being more or less
  counterbalanced by the continual increasing price of cattle, the principal
  instruments of agriculture. Upon all these accounts, therefore, we may
  rest assured, that equal quantities of corn will, in every state of
  society, in every stage of improvement, more nearly represent, or be
  equivalent to, equal quantities of labour, than equal quantities of any
  other part of the rude produce of land. Corn, accordingly, it has already
  been observed, is, in all the different stages of wealth and improvement,
  a more accurate measure of value than any other commodity or set of
  commodities. In all those different stages, therefore, we can judge better
  of the real value of silver, by comparing it with corn, than by comparing
  it with any other commodity or set of commodities.

  Corn, besides, or whatever else is the common and favourite vegetable food
  of the people, constitutes, in every civilized country, the principal part
  of the subsistence of the labourer. In consequence of the extension of
  agriculture, the land of every country produces a much greater quantity of
  vegetable than of animal food, and the labourer everywhere lives chiefly
  upon the wholesome food that is cheapest and most abundant. Butcher’s
  meat, except in the most thriving countries, or where labour is most
  highly rewarded, makes but an insignificant part of his subsistence;
  poultry makes a still smaller part of it, and game no part of it. In
  France, and even in Scotland, where labour is somewhat better rewarded
  than in France, the labouring poor seldom eat butcher’s meat, except upon
  holidays, and other extraordinary occasions. The money price of labour,
  therefore, depends much more upon the average money price of corn, the
  subsistence of the labourer, than upon that of butcher’s meat, or of any
  other part of the rude produce of land. The real value of gold and silver,
  therefore, the real quantity of labour which they can purchase or command,
  depends much more upon the quantity of corn which they can purchase or
  command, than upon that of butcher’s meat, or any other part of the rude
  produce of land.

  Such slight observations, however, upon the prices either of corn or of
  other commodities, would not probably have misled so many intelligent
  authors, had they not been influenced at the same time by the popular
  notion, that as the quantity of silver naturally increases in every
  country with the increase of wealth, so its value diminishes as its
  quantity increases. This notion, however, seems to be altogether
  groundless.

  The quantity of the precious metals may increase in any country from two
  different causes; either, first, from the increased abundance of the mines
  which supply it; or, secondly, from the increased wealth of the people,
  from the increased produce of their annual labour. The first of these
  causes is no doubt necessarily connected with the diminution of the value
  of the precious metals; but the second is not.

  When more abundant mines are discovered, a greater quantity of the
  precious metals is brought to market; and the quantity of the necessaries
  and conveniencies of life for which they must be exchanged being the same
  as before, equal quantities of the metals must be exchanged for smaller
  quantities of commodities. So far, therefore, as the increase of the
  quantity of the precious metals in any country arises from the increased
  abundance of the mines, it is necessarily connected with some diminution
  of their value.

  When, on the contrary, the wealth of any country increases, when the
  annual produce of its labour becomes gradually greater and greater, a
  greater quantity of coin becomes necessary in order to circulate a greater
  quantity of commodities: and the people, as they can afford it, as they
  have more commodities to give for it, will naturally purchase a greater
  and a greater quantity of plate. The quantity of their coin will increase
  from necessity; the quantity of their plate from vanity and ostentation,
  or from the same reason that the quantity of fine statues, pictures, and
  of every other luxury and curiosity, is likely to increase among them. But
  as statuaries and painters are not likely to be worse rewarded in times of
  wealth and prosperity, than in times of poverty and depression, so gold
  and silver are not likely to be worse paid for.

  The price of gold and silver, when the accidental discovery of more
  abundant mines does not keep it down, as it naturally rises with the
  wealth of every country, so, whatever be the state of the mines, it is at
  all times naturally higher in a rich than in a poor country. Gold and
  silver, like all other commodities, naturally seek the market where the
  best price is given for them, and the best price is commonly given for
  every thing in the country which can best afford it. Labour, it must be
  remembered, is the ultimate price which is paid for every thing; and in
  countries where labour is equally well rewarded, the money price of labour
  will be in proportion to that of the subsistence of the labourer. But gold
  and silver will naturally exchange for a greater quantity of subsistence
  in a rich than in a poor country; in a country which abounds with
  subsistence, than in one which is but indifferently supplied with it. If
  the two countries are at a great distance, the difference may be very
  great; because, though the metals naturally fly from the worse to the
  better market, yet it may be difficult to transport them in such
  quantities as to bring their price nearly to a level in both. If the
  countries are near, the difference will be smaller, and may sometimes be
  scarce perceptible; because in this case the transportation will be easy.
  China is a much richer country than any part of Europe, and the difference
  between the price of subsistence in China and in Europe is very great.
  Rice in China is much cheaper than wheat is any where in Europe. England
  is a much richer country than Scotland, but the difference between the
  money price of corn in those two countries is much smaller, and is but
  just perceptible. In proportion to the quantity or measure, Scotch corn
  generally appears to be a good deal cheaper than English; but, in
  proportion to its quality, it is certainly somewhat dearer. Scotland
  receives almost every year very large supplies from England, and every
  commodity must commonly be somewhat dearer in the country to which it is
  brought than in that from which it comes. English corn, therefore, must be
  dearer in Scotland than in England; and yet in proportion to its quality,
  or to the quantity and goodness of the flour or meal which can be made
  from it, it cannot commonly be sold higher there than the Scotch corn
  which comes to market in competition with it.

  The difference between the money price of labour in China and in Europe,
  is still greater than that between the money price of subsistence; because
  the real recompence of labour is higher in Europe than in China, the
  greater part of Europe being in an improving state, while China seems to
  be standing still. The money price of labour is lower in Scotland than in
  England, because the real recompence of labour is much lower: Scotland,
  though advancing to greater wealth, advances much more slowly than
  England. The frequency of emigration from Scotland, and the rarity of it
  from England, sufficiently prove that the demand for labour is very
  different in the two countries. The proportion between the real recompence
  of labour in different countries, it must be remembered, is naturally
  regulated, not by their actual wealth or poverty, but by their advancing,
  stationary, or declining condition.

  Gold and silver, as they are naturally of the greatest value among the
  richest, so they are naturally of the least value among the poorest
  nations. Among savages, the poorest of all nations, they are scarce of any
  value.

  In great towns, corn is always dearer than in remote parts of the country.
  This, however, is the effect, not of the real cheapness of silver, but of
  the real dearness of corn. It does not cost less labour to bring silver to
  the great town than to the remote parts of the country; but it costs a
  great deal more to bring corn.

  In some very rich and commercial countries, such as Holland and the
  territory of Genoa, corn is dear for the same reason that it is dear in
  great towns. They do not produce enough to maintain their inhabitants.
  They are rich in the industry and skill of their artificers and
  manufacturers, in every sort of machinery which can facilitate and abridge
  labour; in shipping, and in all the other instruments and means of
  carriage and commerce: but they are poor in corn, which, as it must be
  brought to them from distant countries, must, by an addition to its price,
  pay for the carriage from those countries. It does not cost less labour to
  bring silver to Amsterdam than to Dantzic; but it costs a great deal more
  to bring corn. The real cost of silver must be nearly the same in both
  places; but that of corn must be very different. Diminish the real
  opulence either of Holland or of the territory of Genoa, while the number
  of their inhabitants remains the same; diminish their power of supplying
  themselves from distant countries; and the price of corn, instead of
  sinking with that diminution in the quantity of their silver, which must
  necessarily accompany this declension, either as its cause or as its
  effect, will rise to the price of a famine. When we are in want of
  necessaries, we must part with all superfluities, of which the value, as
  it rises in times of opulence and prosperity, so it sinks in times of
  poverty and distress. It is otherwise with necessaries. Their real price,
  the quantity of labour which they can purchase or command, rises in times
  of poverty and distress, and sinks in times of opulence and prosperity,
  which are always times of great abundance; for they could not otherwise be
  times of opulence and prosperity. Corn is a necessary, silver is only a
  superfluity.

  Whatever, therefore, may have been the increase in the quantity of the
  precious metals, which, during the period between the middle of the
  fourteenth and that of the sixteenth century, arose from the increase of
  wealth and improvement, it could have no tendency to diminish their value,
  either in Great Britain, or in my other part of Europe. If those who have
  collected the prices of things in ancient times, therefore, had, during
  this period, no reason to infer the diminution of the value of silver from
  any observations which they had made upon the prices either of corn, or of
  other commodities, they had still less reason to infer it from any
  supposed increase of wealth and improvement.

  Second Period.—But how various soever may have been the opinions of
  the learned concerning the progress of the value of silver during the
  first period, they are unanimous concerning it during the second.

  From about 1570 to about 1640, during a period of about seventy years, the
  variation in the proportion between the value of silver and that of corn
  held a quite opposite course. Silver sunk in its real value, or would
  exchange for a smaller quantity of labour than before; and corn rose in
  its nominal price, and, instead of being commonly sold for about two
  ounces of silver the quarter, or about ten shillings of our present money,
  came to be sold for six and eight ounces of silver the quarter, or about
  thirty and forty shillings of our present money.

  The discovery of the abundant mines of America seems to have been the sole
  cause of this diminution in the value of silver, in proportion to that of
  corn. It is accounted for, accordingly, in the same manner by every body;
  and there never has been any dispute, either about the fact, or about the
  cause of it. The greater part of Europe was, during this period, advancing
  in industry and improvement, and the demand for silver must consequently
  have been increasing; but the increase of the supply had, it seems, so far
  exceeded that of the demand, that the value of that metal sunk
  considerably. The discovery of the mines of America, it is to be observed,
  does not seem to have had any very sensible effect upon the prices of
  things in England till after 1570; though even the mines of Potosi had
  been discovered more than twenty years before.

  From 1595 to 1620, both inclusive, the average price of the quarter of
  nine bushels of the best wheat, at Windsor market, appears, from the
  accounts of Eton college, to have been £ 2:1:6 ⁹⁄₁₃. From which sum,
  neglecting the fraction, and deducting a ninth, or 4s. 7 ⅓d., the price
  of the quarter of eight bushels comes out to have been £ 1:16:10 ⅔. And
  from this sum, neglecting likewise the fraction, and deducting a ninth, or
  4s. 1 ⅑d., for the difference between the price of the best wheat and
  that of the middle wheat, the price of the middle wheat comes out to have
  been about £ 1:12:8 ⁸⁄₉, or about six ounces and one-third of an ounce of
  silver.

  From 1621 to 1636, both inclusive, the average price of the same measure
  of the best wheat, at the same market, appears, from the same accounts, to
  have been £ 2:10s.; from which, making the like deductions as in the
  foregoing case, the average price of the quarter of eight bushels of
  middle wheat comes out to have been £ 1:19:6, or about seven ounces and
  two-thirds of an ounce of silver.

  Third Period.—Between 1630 and 1640, or about 1636, the effect of
  the discovery of the mines of America, in reducing the value of silver,
  appears to have been completed, and the value of that metal seems never to
  have sunk lower in proportion to that of corn than it was about that time.
  It seems to have risen somewhat in the course of the present century, and
  it had probably begun to do so, even some time before the end of the last.

  From 1637 to 1700, both inclusive, being the sixty-four last years of the
  last century the average price of the quarter of nine bushels of the best
  wheat, at Windsor market, appears, from the same accounts, to have been £
  2:11:0 ⅓, which is only 1s. 0 ⅓d. dearer than it had been during the
  sixteen years before. But, in the course of these sixty-four years, there
  happened two events, which must have produced a much greater scarcity of
  corn than what the course of the seasons would otherwise have occasioned,
  and which, therefore, without supposing any further reduction in the
  value of silver, will much more than account for this very small
  enhancement of price.

  The first of these events was the civil war, which, by discouraging
  tillage and interrupting commerce, must have raised the price of corn much
  above what the course of the seasons would otherwise have occasioned. It
  must have had this effect, more or less, at all the different markets in
  the kingdom, but particularly at those in the neighbourhood of London,
  which require to be supplied from the greatest distance. In 1648,
  accordingly, the price of the best wheat, at Windsor market, appears, from
  the same accounts, to have been £ 4:5s., and, in 1649, to have been £ 4,
  the quarter of nine bushels. The excess of those two years above £ 2:10s.
  (the average price of the sixteen years preceding 1637) is £ 3:5s., which,
  divided among the sixty four last years of the last century, will alone
  very nearly account for that small enhancement of price which seems to
  have taken place in them. These, however, though the highest, are by no
  means the only high prices which seem to have been occasioned by the civil
  wars.

  The second event was the bounty upon the exportation of corn, granted in
  1688. The bounty, it has been thought by many people, by encouraging
  tillage, may, in a long course of years, have occasioned a greater
  abundance, and, consequently, a greater cheapness of corn in the home
  market, than what would otherwise have taken place there. How far the
  bounty could produce this effect at any time I shall examine hereafter: I
  shall only observe at present, that between 1688 and 1700, it had not time
  to produce any such effect. During this short period, its only effect must
  have been, by encouraging the exportation of the surplus produce of every
  year, and thereby hindering the abundance of one year from compensating
  the scarcity of another, to raise the price in the home market. The
  scarcity which prevailed in England, from 1693 to 1699, both inclusive,
  though no doubt principally owing to the badness of the seasons, and,
  therefore, extending through a considerable part of Europe, must have been
  somewhat enhanced by the bounty. In 1699, accordingly, the further
  exportation of corn was prohibited for nine months.

  There was a third event which occurred in the course of the same period,
  and which, though it could not occasion any scarcity of corn, nor,
  perhaps, any augmentation in the real quantity of silver which was usually
  paid for it, must necessarily have occasioned some augmentation in the
  nominal sum. This event was the great debasement of the silver coin, by
  clipping and wearing. This evil had begun in the reign of Charles II. and
  had gone on continually increasing till 1695; at which time, as we may
  learn from Mr Lowndes, the current silver coin was, at an average, near
  five-and-twenty per cent. below its standard value. But the nominal sum
  which constitutes the market price of every commodity is necessarily
  regulated, not so much by the quantity of silver, which, according to the
  standard, ought to be contained in it, as by that which, it is found by
  experience, actually is contained in it. This nominal sum, therefore, is
  necessarily higher when the coin is much debased by clipping and wearing,
  than when near to its standard value.

  In the course of the present century, the silver coin has not at any time
  been more below its standard weight than it is at present. But though very
  much defaced, its value has been kept up by that of the gold coin, for
  which it is exchanged. For though, before the late recoinage, the gold
  coin was a good deal defaced too, it was less so than the silver. In 1695,
  on the contrary, the value of the silver coin was not kept up by the gold
  coin; a guinea then commonly exchanging for thirty shillings of the worn
  and clipt silver. Before the late recoinage of the gold, the price of
  silver bullion was seldom higher than five shillings and sevenpence an
  ounce, which is but fivepence above the mint price. But in 1695, the
  common price of silver bullion was six shillings and fivepence an ounce,
  {Lowndes’s Essay on the Silver Coin, 68.} which is fifteen pence above the
  mint price. Even before the late recoinage of the gold, therefore, the
  coin, gold and silver together, when compared with silver bullion, was not
  supposed to be more than eight per cent. below its standard value, In
  1695, on the contrary, it had been supposed to be near five-and-twenty per
  cent. below that value. But in the beginning of the present century, that
  is, immediately after the great recoinage in King William’s time, the
  greater part of the current silver coin must have been still nearer to its
  standard weight than it is at present. In the course of the present
  century, too, there has been no great public calamity, such as a civil
  war, which could either discourage tillage, or interrupt the interior
  commerce of the country. And though the bounty which has taken place
  through the greater part of this century, must always raise the price of
  corn somewhat higher than it otherwise would be in the actual state of
  tillage; yet, as in the course of this century, the bounty has had full
  time to produce all the good effects commonly imputed to it to encourage
  tillage, and thereby to increase the quantity of corn in the home market,
  it may, upon the principles of a system which I shall explain and examine
  hereafter, be supposed to have done something to lower the price of that
  commodity the one way, as well as to raise it the other. It is by many
  people supposed to have done more. In the sixty-four years of the present
  century, accordingly, the average price of the quarter of nine bushels of
  the best wheat, at Windsor market, appears, by the accounts of Eton
  college, to have been £ 2:0:6 ¹⁰⁄₃₂, which is about ten shillings and
  sixpence, or more than five-and-twenty percent. cheaper than it had been
  during the sixty-four last years of the last century; and about nine
  shillings and sixpence cheaper than it had been during the sixteen years
  preceding 1636, when the discovery of the abundant mines of America may be
  supposed to have produced its full effect; and about one shilling cheaper
  than it had been in the twenty-six years preceding 1620, before that
  discovery can well be supposed to have produced its full effect. According
  to this account, the average price of middle wheat, during these
  sixty-four first years of the present century, comes out to have been
  about thirty-two shillings the quarter of eight bushels.

  The value of silver, therefore, seems to have risen somewhat in proportion
  to that of corn during the course of the present century, and it had
  probably begun to do so even some time before the end of the last.

  In 1687, the price of the quarter of nine bushels of the best wheat, at
  Windsor market, was £ 1:5:2, the lowest price at which it had ever been
  from 1595.

  In 1688, Mr Gregory King, a man famous for his knowledge in matters of
  this kind, estimated the average price of wheat, in years of moderate
  plenty, to be to the grower 3s. 6d. the bushel, or eight-and-twenty
  shillings the quarter. The grower’s price I understand to be the same with
  what is sometimes called the contract price, or the price at which a
  farmer contracts for a certain number of years to deliver a certain
  quantity of corn to a dealer. As a contract of this kind saves the farmer
  the expense and trouble of marketing, the contract price is generally
  lower than what is supposed to be the average market price. Mr King had
  judged eight-and-twenty shillings the quarter to be at that time the
  ordinary contract price in years of moderate plenty. Before the scarcity
  occasioned by the late extraordinary course of bad seasons, it was, I have
  been assured, the ordinary contract price in all common years.

  In 1688 was granted the parliamentary bounty upon the exportation of corn.
  The country gentlemen, who then composed a still greater proportion of the
  legislature than they do at present, had felt that the money price of corn
  was falling. The bounty was an expedient to raise it artificially to the
  high price at which it had frequently been sold in the times of Charles I.
  and II. It was to take place, therefore, till wheat was so high as
  fortyeight shillings the quarter; that is, twenty shillings, or 5-7ths
  dearer than Mr King had, in that very year, estimated the grower’s price
  to be in times of moderate plenty. If his calculations deserve any part of
  the reputation which they have obtained very universally, eight-and-forty
  shillings the quarter was a price which, without some such expedient as
  the bounty, could not at that time be expected, except in years of
  extraordinary scarcity. But the government of King William was not then
  fully settled. It was in no condition to refuse anything to the country
  gentlemen, from whom it was, at that very time, soliciting the first
  establishment of the annual land-tax.

  The value of silver, therefore, in proportion to that of corn, had
  probably risen somewhat before the end of the last century; and it seems
  to have continued to do so during the course of the greater part of the
  present, though the necessary operation of the bounty must have hindered
  that rise from being so sensible as it otherwise would have been in the
  actual state of tillage.

  In plentiful years, the bounty, by occasioning an extraordinary
  exportation, necessarily raises the price of corn above what it otherwise
  would be in those years. To encourage tillage, by keeping up the price of
  corn, even in the most plentiful years, was the avowed end of the
  institution.

  In years of great scarcity, indeed, the bounty has generally been
  suspended. It must, however, have had some effect upon the prices of many
  of those years. By the extraordinary exportation which it occasions in
  years of plenty, it must frequently hinder the plenty of one year from
  compensating the scarcity of another.

  Both in years of plenty and in years of scarcity, therefore, the bounty
  raises the price of corn above what it naturally would be in the actual
  state of tillage. If during the sixty-four first years of the present
  century, therefore, the average price has been lower than during the
  sixty-four last years of the last century, it must, in the same state of
  tillage, have been much more so, had it not been for this operation of the
  bounty.

  But, without the bounty, it may be said the state of tillage would not
  have been the same. What may have been the effects of this institution
  upon the agriculture of the country, I shall endeavour to explain
  hereafter, when I come to treat particularly of bounties. I shall only
  observe at present, that this rise in the value of silver, in proportion
  to that of corn, has not been peculiar to England. It has been observed to
  have taken place in France during the same period, and nearly in the same
  proportion, too, by three very faithful, diligent, and laborious
  collectors of the prices of corn, Mr Dupré de St Maur, Mr Messance, and
  the author of the Essay on the Police of Grain. But in France, till 1764,
  the exportation of grain was by law prohibited; and it is somewhat
  difficult to suppose, that nearly the same diminution of price which took
  place in one country, notwithstanding this prohibition, should, in
  another, be owing to the extraordinary encouragement given to exportation.

  It would be more proper, perhaps, to consider this variation in the
  average money price of corn as the effect rather of some gradual rise in
  the real value of silver in the European market, than of any fall in the
  real average value of corn. Corn, it has already been observed, is, at
  distant periods of time, a more accurate measure of value than either
  silver or, perhaps, any other commodity. When, after the discovery of the
  abundant mines of America, corn rose to three and four times its former
  money price, this change was universally ascribed, not to any rise in the
  real value of corn, but to a fall in the real value of silver. If, during
  the sixty-four first years of the present century, therefore, the average
  money price of corn has fallen somewhat below what it had been during the
  greater part of the last century, we should, in the same manner, impute
  this change, not to any fall in the real value of corn, but to some rise
  in the real value of silver in the European market.

  The high price of corn during these ten or twelve years past, indeed, has
  occasioned a suspicion that the real value of silver still continues to
  fall in the European market. This high price of corn, however, seems
  evidently to have been the effect of the extraordinary unfavourableness of
  the seasons, and ought, therefore, to be regarded, not as a permanent, but
  as a transitory and occasional event. The seasons, for these ten or twelve
  years past, have been unfavourable through the greater part of Europe; and
  the disorders of Poland have very much increased the scarcity in all those
  countries, which, in dear years, used to be supplied from that market. So
  long a course of bad seasons, though not a very common event, is by no
  means a singular one; and whoever has inquired much into the history of
  the prices of corn in former times, will be at no loss to recollect
  several other examples of the same kind. Ten years of extraordinary
  scarcity, besides, are not more wonderful than ten years of extraordinary
  plenty. The low price of corn, from 1741 to 1750, both inclusive, may very
  well be set in opposition to its high price during these last eight or ten
  years. From 1741 to 1750, the average price of the quarter of nine bushels
  of the best wheat, at Windsor market, it appears from the accounts of Eton
  college, was only £ 1:13:9 ⅘, which is nearly 6s.3d. below the average
  price of the sixty-four first years of the present century. The average
  price of the quarter of eight bushels of middle wheat comes out, according
  to this account, to have been, during these ten years, only £ 1:6:8.

  Between 1741 and 1750, however, the bounty must have hindered the price of
  corn from falling so low in the home market as it naturally would have
  done. During these ten years, the quantity of all sorts of grain exported,
  it appears from the custom-house books, amounted to no less than 8,029,156
  quarters, one bushel. The bounty paid for this amounted to £
  1,514,962:17:4 ½. In 1749, accordingly, Mr Pelham, at that time prime
  minister, observed to the house of commons, that, for the three years
  preceding, a very extraordinary sum had been paid as bounty for the
  exportation of corn. He had good reason to make this observation, and in
  the following year he might have had still better. In that single year,
  the bounty paid amounted to no less than £ 324,176:10:6. {See Tracts on
  the Corn Trade, Tract 3,} It is unnecessary to observe how much this
  forced exportation must have raised the price of corn above what it
  otherwise would have been in the home market.

  At the end of the accounts annexed to this chapter the reader will find
  the particular account of those ten years separated from the rest. He will
  find there, too, the particular account of the preceding ten years, of
  which the average is likewise below, though not so much below, the general
  average of the sixty-four first years of the century. The year 1740,
  however, was a year of extraordinary scarcity. These twenty years
  preceding 1750 may very well be set in opposition to the twenty preceding
  1770. As the former were a good deal below the general average of the
  century, notwithstanding the intervention of one or two dear years; so the
  latter have been a good deal above it, notwithstanding the intervention of
  one or two cheap ones, of 1759, for example. If the former have not been
  as much below the general average as the latter have been above it, we
  ought probably to impute it to the bounty. The change has evidently been
  too sudden to be ascribed to any change in the value of silver, which is
  always slow and gradual. The suddenness of the effect can be accounted for
  only by a cause which can operate suddenly, the accidental variations of
  the seasons.

  The money price of labour in Great Britain has, indeed, risen during the
  course of the present century. This, however, seems to be the effect, not
  so much of any diminution in the value of silver in the European market,
  as of an increase in the demand for labour in Great Britain, arising from
  the great, and almost universal prosperity of the country. In France, a
  country not altogether so prosperous, the money price of labour has, since
  the middle of the last century, been observed to sink gradually with the
  average money price of corn. Both in the last century and in the present,
  the day wages of common labour are there said to have been pretty
  uniformly about the twentieth part of the average price of the septier of
  wheat; a measure which contains a little more than four Winchester
  bushels. In Great Britain, the real recompence of labour, it has already
  been shewn, the real quantities of the necessaries and conveniencies of
  life which are given to the labourer, has increased considerably during
  the course of the present century. The rise in its money price seems to
  have been the effect, not of any diminution of the value of silver in the
  general market of Europe, but of a rise in the real price of labour, in
  the particular market of Great Britain, owing to the peculiarly happy
  circumstances of the country.

  For some time after the first discovery of America, silver would continue
  to sell at its former, or not much below its former price. The profits of
  mining would for some time be very great, and much above their natural
  rate. Those who imported that metal into Europe, however, would soon find
  that the whole annual importation could not be disposed of at this high
  price. Silver would gradually exchange for a smaller and a smaller
  quantity of goods. Its price would sink gradually lower and lower, till it
  fell to its natural price; or to what was just sufficient to pay,
  according to their natural rates, the wages of the labour, the profits of
  the stock, and the rent of the land, which must be paid in order to bring
  it from the mine to the market. In the greater part of the silver mines of
  Peru, the tax of the king of Spain, amounting to a tenth of the gross
  produce, eats up, it has already been observed, the whole rent of the
  land. This tax was originally a half; it soon afterwards fell to a third,
  then to a fifth, and at last to a tenth, at which late it still continues.
  In the greater part of the silver mines of Peru, this, it seems, is all
  that remains, after replacing the stock of the undertaker of the work,
  together with its ordinary profits; and it seems to be universally
  acknowledged that these profits, which were once very high, are now as low
  as they can well be, consistently with carrying on the works.

  The tax of the king of Spain was reduced to a fifth of the registered
  silver in 1504 {Solorzano, vol, ii.}, one-and-forty years before 1545, the
  date of the discovery of the mines of Potosi. In the course of ninety
  years, or before 1636, these mines, the most fertile in all America, had
  time sufficient to produce their full effect, or to reduce the value of
  silver in the European market as low as it could well fall, while it
  continued to pay this tax to the king of Spain. Ninety years is time
  sufficient to reduce any commodity, of which there is no monopoly, to its
  natural price, or to the lowest price at which, while it pays a particular
  tax, it can continue to be sold for any considerable time together.

  The price of silver in the European market might, perhaps, have fallen
  still lower, and it might have become necessary either to reduce the tax
  upon it, not only to one-tenth, as in 1736, but to one twentieth, in the
  same manner as that upon gold, or to give up working the greater part of
  the American mines which are now wrought. The gradual increase of the
  demand for silver, or the gradual enlargement of the market for the
  produce of the silver mines of America, is probably the cause which has
  prevented this from happening, and which has not only kept up the value of
  silver in the European market, but has perhaps even raised it somewhat
  higher than it was about the middle of the last century.

  Since the first discovery of America, the market for the produce of its
  silver mines has been growing gradually more and more extensive.

  First, the market of Europe has become gradually more and more extensive.
  Since the discovery of America, the greater part of Europe has been much
  improved. England, Holland, France, and Germany; even Sweden, Denmark, and
  Russia, have all advanced considerably, both in agriculture and in
  manufactures. Italy seems not to have gone backwards. The fall of Italy
  preceded the conquest of Peru. Since that time it seems rather to have
  recovered a little. Spain and Portugal, indeed, are supposed to have gone
  backwards. Portugal, however, is but a very small part of Europe, and the
  declension of Spain is not, perhaps, so great as is commonly imagined. In
  the beginning of the sixteenth century, Spain was a very poor country,
  even in comparison with France, which has been so much improved since that
  time. It was the well known remark of the emperor Charles V. who had
  travelled so frequently through both countries, that every thing abounded
  in France, but that every thing was wanting in Spain. The increasing
  produce of the agriculture and manufactures of Europe must necessarily
  have required a gradual increase in the quantity of silver coin to
  circulate it; and the increasing number of wealthy individuals must have
  required the like increase in the quantity of their plate and other
  ornaments of silver.

  Secondly, America is itself a new market, for the produce of its own
  silver mines; and as its advances in agriculture, industry, and
  population, are much more rapid than those of the most thriving countries
  in Europe, its demand must increase much more rapidly. The English
  colonies are altogether a new market, which, partly for coin, and partly
  for plate, requires a continual augmenting supply of silver through a
  great continent where there never was any demand before. The greater part,
  too, of the Spanish and Portuguese colonies, are altogether new markets.
  New Granada, the Yucatan, Paraguay, and the Brazils, were, before
  discovered by the Europeans, inhabited by savage nations, who had neither
  arts nor agriculture. A considerable degree of both has now been
  introduced into all of them. Even Mexico and Peru, though they cannot be
  considered as altogether new markets, are certainly much more extensive
  ones than they ever were before. After all the wonderful tales which have
  been published concerning the splendid state of those countries in ancient
  times, whoever reads, with any degree of sober judgment, the history of
  their first discovery and conquest, will evidently discern that, in arts,
  agriculture, and commerce, their inhabitants were much more ignorant than
  the Tartars of the Ukraine are at present. Even the Peruvians, the more
  civilized nation of the two, though they made use of gold and silver as
  ornaments, had no coined money of any kind. Their whole commerce was
  carried on by barter, and there was accordingly scarce any division of
  labour among them. Those who cultivated the ground, were obliged to build
  their own houses, to make their own household furniture, their own
  clothes, shoes, and instruments of agriculture. The few artificers among
  them are said to have been all maintained by the sovereign, the nobles,
  and the priests, and were probably their servants or slaves. All the
  ancient arts of Mexico and Peru have never furnished one single
  manufacture to Europe. The Spanish armies, though they scarce ever
  exceeded five hundred men, and frequently did not amount to half that
  number, found almost everywhere great difficulty in procuring subsistence.
  The famines which they are said to have occasioned almost wherever they
  went, in countries, too, which at the same time are represented as very
  populous and well cultivated, sufficiently demonstrate that the story of
  this populousness and high cultivation is in a great measure fabulous. The
  Spanish colonies are under a government in many respects less favourable
  to agriculture, improvement, and population, than that of the English
  colonies. They seem, however, to be advancing in all those much more
  rapidly than any country in Europe. In a fertile soil and happy climate,
  the great abundance and cheapness of land, a circumstance common to all
  new colonies, is, it seems, so great an advantage, as to compensate many
  defects in civil government. Frezier, who visited Peru in 1713, represents
  Lima as containing between twenty-five and twenty-eight thousand
  inhabitants. Ulloa, who resided in the same country between 1740 and 1746,
  represents it as containing more than fifty thousand. The difference in
  their accounts of the populousness of several other principal towns of
  Chili and Peru is nearly the same; and as there seems to be no reason to
  doubt of the good information of either, it marks an increase which is
  scarce inferior to that of the English colonies. America, therefore, is a
  new market for the produce of its own silver mines, of which the demand
  must increase much more rapidly than that of the most thriving country in
  Europe.

  Thirdly, the East Indies is another market for the produce of the silver
  mines of America, and a market which, from the time of the first discovery
  of those mines, has been continually taking off a greater and a greater
  quantity of silver. Since that time, the direct trade between America and
  the East Indies, which is carried on by means of the Acapulco ships, has
  been continually augmenting, and the indirect intercourse by the way of
  Europe has been augmenting in a still greater proportion. During the
  sixteenth century, the Portuguese were the only European nation who
  carried on any regular trade to the East Indies. In the last years of that
  century, the Dutch began to encroach upon this monopoly, and in a few
  years expelled them from their principal settlements in India. During the
  greater part of the last century, those two nations divided the most
  considerable part of the East India trade between them; the trade of the
  Dutch continually augmenting in a still greater proportion than that of
  the Portuguese declined. The English and French carried on some trade with
  India in the last century, but it has been greatly augmented in the course
  of the present. The East India trade of the Swedes and Danes began in the
  course of the present century. Even the Muscovites now trade regularly
  with China, by a sort of caravans which go over land through Siberia and
  Tartary to Pekin. The East India trade of all these nations, if we except
  that of the French, which the last war had well nigh annihilated, has been
  almost continually augmenting. The increasing consumptions of East India
  goods in Europe is, it seems, so great, as to afford a gradual increase of
  employment to them all. Tea, for example, was a drug very little used in
  Europe, before the middle of the last century. At present, the value of
  the tea annually imported by the English East India company, for the use
  of their own countrymen, amounts to more than a million and a half a year;
  and even this is not enough; a great deal more being constantly smuggled
  into the country from the ports of Holland, from Gottenburgh in Sweden,
  and from the coast of France, too, as long as the French East India
  company was in prosperity. The consumption of the porcelain of China, of
  the spiceries of the Moluccas, of the piece goods of Bengal, and of
  innumerable other articles, has increased very nearly in a like
  proportion. The tonnage, accordingly, of all the European shipping
  employed in the East India trade, at any one time during the last century,
  was not, perhaps, much greater than that of the English East India company
  before the late reduction of their shipping.

  But in the East Indies, particularly in China and Indostan, the value of
  the precious metals, when the Europeans first began to trade to those
  countries, was much higher than in Europe; and it still continues to be
  so. In rice countries, which generally yield two, sometimes three crops in
  the year, each of them more plentiful than any common crop of corn, the
  abundance of food must be much greater than in any corn country of equal
  extent. Such countries are accordingly much more populous. In them, too,
  the rich, having a greater superabundance of food to dispose of beyond
  what they themselves can consume, have the means of purchasing a much
  greater quantity of the labour of other people. The retinue of a grandee
  in China or Indostan accordingly is, by all accounts, much more numerous
  and splendid than that of the richest subjects in Europe. The same
  superabundance of food, of which they have the disposal, enables them to
  give a greater quantity of it for all those singular and rare productions
  which nature furnishes but in very small quantities; such as the precious
  metals and the precious stones, the great objects of the competition of
  the rich. Though the mines, therefore, which supplied the Indian market,
  had been as abundant as those which supplied the European, such
  commodities would naturally exchange for a greater quantity of food in
  India than in Europe. But the mines which supplied the Indian market with
  the precious metals seem to have been a good deal less abundant, and those
  which supplied it with the precious stones a good deal more so, than the
  mines which supplied the European. The precious metals, therefore, would
  naturally exchange in India for a somewhat greater quantity of the
  precious stones, and for a much greater quantity of food than in Europe.
  The money price of diamonds, the greatest of all superfluities, would be
  somewhat lower, and that of food, the first of all necessaries, a great
  deal lower in the one country than in the other. But the real price of
  labour, the real quantity of the necessaries of life which is given to the
  labourer, it has already been observed, is lower both in China and
  Indostan, the two great markets of India, than it is through the greater
  part of Europe. The wages of the labourer will there purchase a smaller
  quantity of food: and as the money price of food is much lower in India
  than in Europe, the money price of labour is there lower upon a double
  account; upon account both of the small quantity of food which it will
  purchase, and of the low price of that food. But in countries of equal art
  and industry, the money price of the greater part of manufactures will be
  in proportion to the money price of labour; and in manufacturing art and
  industry, China and Indostan, though inferior, seem not to be much
  inferior to any part of Europe. The money price of the greater part of
  manufactures, therefore, will naturally be much lower in those great
  empires than it is anywhere in Europe. Through the greater part of Europe,
  too, the expense of land-carriage increases very much both the real and
  nominal price of most manufactures. It costs more labour, and therefore
  more money, to bring first the materials, and afterwards the complete
  manufacture to market. In China and Indostan, the extent and variety of
  inland navigations save the greater part of this labour, and consequently
  of this money, and thereby reduce still lower both the real and the
  nominal price of the greater part of their manufactures. Upon all these
  accounts, the precious metals are a commodity which it always has been,
  and still continues to be, extremely advantageous to carry from Europe to
  India. There is scarce any commodity which brings a better price there; or
  which, in proportion to the quantity of labour and commodities which it
  costs in Europe, will purchase or command a greater quantity of labour and
  commodities in India. It is more advantageous, too, to carry silver
  thither than gold; because in China, and the greater part of the other
  markets of India, the proportion between fine silver and fine gold is but
  as ten, or at most as twelve to one; whereas in Europe it is as fourteen
  or fifteen to one. In China, and the greater part of the other markets of
  India, ten, or at most twelve ounces of silver, will purchase an ounce of
  gold; in Europe, it requires from fourteen to fifteen ounces. In the
  cargoes, therefore, of the greater part of European ships which sail to
  India, silver has generally been one of the most valuable articles. It is
  the most valuable article in the Acapulco ships which sail to Manilla. The
  silver of the new continent seems, in this manner, to be one of the
  principal commodities by which the commerce between the two extremities of
  the old one is carried on; and it is by means of it, in a great measure,
  that those distant parts of the world are connected with one another.

  In order to supply so very widely extended a market, the quantity of
  silver annually brought from the mines must not only be sufficient to
  support that continued increase, both of coin and of plate, which is
  required in all thriving countries; but to repair that continual waste and
  consumption of silver which takes place in all countries where that metal
  is used.

  The continual consumption of the precious metals in coin by wearing, and
  in plate both by wearing and cleaning, is very sensible; and in
  commodities of which the use is so very widely extended, would alone
  require a very great annual supply. The consumption of those metals in
  some particular manufactures, though it may not perhaps be greater upon
  the whole than this gradual consumption, is, however, much more sensible,
  as it is much more rapid. In the manufactures of Birmingham alone, the
  quantity of gold and silver annually employed in gilding and plating, and
  thereby disqualified from ever afterwards appearing in the shape of those
  metals, is said to amount to more than fifty thousand pounds sterling. We
  may from thence form some notion how great must be the annual consumption
  in all the different parts of the world, either in manufactures of the
  same kind with those of Birmingham, or in laces, embroideries, gold and
  silver stuffs, the gilding of books, furniture, etc. A considerable
  quantity, too, must be annually lost in transporting those metals from one
  place to another both by sea and by land. In the greater part of the
  governments of Asia, besides, the almost universal custom of concealing
  treasures in the bowels of the earth, of which the knowledge frequently
  dies with the person who makes the concealment, must occasion the loss of
  a still greater quantity.

  The quantity of gold and silver imported at both Cadiz and Lisbon
  (including not only what comes under register, but what may be supposed to
  be smuggled) amounts, according to the best accounts, to about six
  millions sterling a-year.

  According to Mr Meggens {Postscript to the Universal Merchant p. 15 and
  16. This postscript was not printed till 1756, three years after the
  publication of the book, which has never had a second edition. The
  postscript is, therefore, to be found in few copies; it corrects several
  errors in the book.}, the annual importation of the precious metals into
  Spain, at an average of six years, viz. from 1748 to 1753, both inclusive,
  and into Portugal, at an average of seven years, viz. from 1747 to 1753,
  both inclusive, amounted in silver to 1,101,107 pounds weight, and in gold
  to 49,940 pounds weight. The silver, at sixty two shillings the pound
  troy, amounts to £ 3,413,431:10s. sterling. The gold, at forty-four
  guineas and a half the pound troy, amounts to £ 2,333,446:14s. sterling.
  Both together amount to £ 5,746,878:4s. sterling. The account of what was
  imported under register, he assures us, is exact. He gives us the detail
  of the particular places from which the gold and silver were brought, and
  of the particular quantity of each metal, which, according to the
  register, each of them afforded. He makes an allowance, too, for the
  quantity of each metal which, he supposes, may have been smuggled. The
  great experience of this judicious merchant renders his opinion of
  considerable weight.

  According to the eloquent, and sometimes well-informed, author of the
  Philosophical and Political History of the Establishment of the Europeans
  in the two Indies, the annual importation of registered gold and silver
  into Spain, at an average of eleven years, viz. from 1754 to 1764, both
  inclusive, amounted to 13,984,185 ⅗ piastres of ten reals. On account of
  what may have been smuggled, however, the whole annual importation, he
  supposes, may have amounted to seventeen millions of piastres, which, at
  4s. 6d. the piastre, is equal to £ 3,825,000 sterling. He gives the
  detail, too, of the particular places from which the gold and silver were
  brought, and of the particular quantities of each metal, which according
  to the register, each of them afforded. He informs us, too, that if we
  were to judge of the quantity of gold annually imported from the Brazils
  to Lisbon, by the amount of the tax paid to the king of Portugal, which it
  seems, is one-fifth of the standard metal, we might value it at eighteen
  millions of cruzadoes, or forty-five millions of French livres, equal to
  about twenty millions sterling. On account of what may have been smuggled,
  however, we may safely, he says, add to this sum an eighth more, or £
  250,000 sterling, so that the whole will amount to £ 2,250,000 sterling.
  According to this account, therefore, the whole annual importation of the
  precious metals into both Spain and Portugal, mounts to about £ 6,075,000
  sterling.

  Several other very well authenticated, though manuscript accounts, I have
  been assured, agree in making this whole annual importation amount, at an
  average, to about six millions sterling; sometimes a little more,
  sometimes a little less.

  The annual importation of the precious metals into Cadiz and Lisbon,
  indeed, is not equal to the whole annual produce of the mines of America.
  Some part is sent annually by the Acapulco ships to Manilla; some part is
  employed in a contraband trade, which the Spanish colonies carry on with
  those of other European nations; and some part, no doubt, remains in the
  country. The mines of America, besides, are by no means the only gold and
  silver mines in the world. They, are, however, by far the most abundant.
  The produce of all the other mines which are known is insignificant, it is
  acknowledged, in comparison with theirs; and the far greater part of
  their produce, it is likewise acknowledged, is annually imported into
  Cadiz and Lisbon. But the consumption of Birmingham alone, at the rate of
  fifty thousand pounds a-year, is equal to the hundred-and-twentieth part
  of this annual importation, at the rate of six millions a-year. The whole
  annual consumption of gold and silver, therefore, in all the different
  countries of the world where those metals are used, may, perhaps, be
  nearly equal to the whole annual produce. The remainder may be no more
  than sufficient to supply the increasing demand of all thriving countries.
  It may even have fallen so far short of this demand, as somewhat to raise
  the price of those metals in the European market.

  The quantity of brass and iron annually brought from the mine to the
  market, is out of all proportion greater than that of gold and silver. We
  do not, however, upon this account, imagine that those coarse metals are
  likely to multiply beyond the demand, or to become gradually cheaper and
  cheaper. Why should we imagine that the precious metals are likely to do
  so? The coarse metals, indeed, though harder, are put to much harder uses,
  and, as they are of less value, less care is employed in their
  preservation. The precious metals, however, are not necessarily immortal
  any more than they, but are liable, too, to be lost, wasted, and consumed,
  in a great variety of ways.

  The price of all metals, though liable to slow and gradual variations,
  varies less from year to year than that of almost any other part of the
  rude produce of land: and the price of the precious metals is even less
  liable to sudden variations than that of the coarse ones. The durableness
  of metals is the foundation of this extraordinary steadiness of price. The
  corn which was brought to market last year will be all, or almost all,
  consumed, long before the end of this year. But some part of the iron
  which was brought from the mine two or three hundred years ago, may be
  still in use, and, perhaps, some part of the gold which was brought from
  it two or three thousand years ago. The different masses of corn, which,
  in different years, must supply the consumption of the world, will always
  be nearly in proportion to the respective produce of those different
  years. But the proportion between the different masses of iron which may
  be in use in two different years, will be very little affected by any
  accidental difference in the produce of the iron mines of those two years;
  and the proportion between the masses of gold will be still less affected
  by any such difference in the produce of the gold mines. Though the
  produce of the greater part of metallic mines, therefore, varies, perhaps,
  still more from year to year than that of the greater part of corn fields,
  those variations have not the same effect upon the price of the one
  species of commodities as upon that of the other.

  _Variations in the Proportion between the respective Values of Gold and
  Silver._




  Before the discovery of the mines of America, the value of fine gold to
  fine silver was regulated in the different mines of Europe, between the
  proportions of one to ten and one to twelve; that is, an ounce of fine
  gold was supposed to be worth from ten to twelve ounces of fine silver.
  About the middle of the last century, it came to be regulated, between the
  proportions of one to fourteen and one to fifteen; that is, an ounce of
  fine gold came to be supposed worth between fourteen and fifteen ounces of
  fine silver. Gold rose in its nominal value, or in the quantity of silver
  which was given for it. Both metals sunk in their real value, or in the
  quantity of labour which they could purchase; but silver sunk more than
  gold. Though both the gold and silver mines of America exceeded in
  fertility all those which had ever been known before, the fertility of the
  silver mines had, it seems, been proportionally still greater than that of
  the gold ones.

  The great quantities of silver carried annually from Europe to India,
  have, in some of the English settlements, gradually reduced the value of
  that metal in proportion to gold. In the mint of Calcutta, an ounce of
  fine gold is supposed to be worth fifteen ounces of fine silver, in the
  same manner as in Europe. It is in the mint, perhaps, rated too high for
  the value which it bears in the market of Bengal. In China, the proportion
  of gold to silver still continues as one to ten, or one to twelve. In
  Japan, it is said to be as one to eight.

  The proportion between the quantities of gold and silver annually imported
  into Europe, according to Mr Meggens’ account, is as one to twenty-two
  nearly; that is, for one ounce of gold there are imported a little more
  than twenty-two ounces of silver. The great quantity of silver sent
  annually to the East Indies reduces, he supposes, the quantities of those
  metals which remain in Europe to the proportion of one to fourteen or
  fifteen, the proportion of their values. The proportion between their
  values, he seems to think, must necessarily be the same as that between
  their quantities, and would therefore be as one to twenty-two, were it not
  for this greater exportation of silver.

  But the ordinary proportion between the respective values of two
  commodities is not necessarily the same as that between the quantities of
  them which are commonly in the market. The price of an ox, reckoned at ten
  guineas, is about three score times the price of a lamb, reckoned at 3s.
  6d. It would be absurd, however, to infer from thence, that there are
  commonly in the market three score lambs for one ox; and it would be just
  as absurd to infer, because an ounce of gold will commonly purchase from
  fourteen or fifteen ounces of silver, that there are commonly in the
  market only fourteen or fifteen ounces of silver for one ounce of gold.

  The quantity of silver commonly in the market, it is probable, is much
  greater in proportion to that of gold, than the value of a certain
  quantity of gold is to that of an equal quantity of silver. The whole
  quantity of a cheap commodity brought to market is commonly not only
  greater, but of greater value, than the whole quantity of a dear one. The
  whole quantity of bread annually brought to market, is not only greater,
  but of greater value, than the whole quantity of butcher’s meat; the whole
  quantity of butcher’s meat, than the whole quantity of poultry; and the
  whole quantity of poultry, than the whole quantity of wild fowl. There are
  so many more purchasers for the cheap than for the dear commodity, that,
  not only a greater quantity of it, but a greater value can commonly be
  disposed of. The whole quantity, therefore, of the cheap commodity, must
  commonly be greater in proportion to the whole quantity of the dear one,
  than the value of a certain quantity of the dear one, is to the value of
  an equal quantity of the cheap one. When we compare the precious metals
  with one another, silver is a cheap, and gold a dear commodity. We ought
  naturally to expect, therefore, that there should always be in the market,
  not only a greater quantity, but a greater value of silver than of gold.
  Let any man, who has a little of both, compare his own silver with his
  gold plate, and he will probably find, that not only the quantity, but the
  value of the former, greatly exceeds that of the latter. Many people,
  besides, have a good deal of silver who have no gold plate, which, even
  with those who have it, is generally confined to watch-cases, snuff-boxes,
  and such like trinkets, of which the whole amount is seldom of great
  value. In the British coin, indeed, the value of the gold preponderates
  greatly, but it is not so in that of all countries. In the coin of some
  countries, the value of the two metals is nearly equal. In the Scotch
  coin, before the union with England, the gold preponderated very little,
  though it did somewhat {See Ruddiman’s Preface to Anderson’s Diplomata,
  etc. Scotiae.}, as it appears by the accounts of the mint. In the coin of
  many countries the silver preponderates. In France, the largest sums are
  commonly paid in that metal, and it is there difficult to get more gold
  than what is necessary to carry about in your pocket. The superior value,
  however, of the silver plate above that of the gold, which takes place in
  all countries, will much more than compensate the preponderancy of the
  gold coin above the silver, which takes place only in some countries.

  Though, in one sense of the word, silver always has been, and probably
  always will be, much cheaper than gold; yet, in another sense, gold may
  perhaps, in the present state of the Spanish market, be said to be
  somewhat cheaper than silver. A commodity may be said to be dear or cheap
  not only according to the absolute greatness or smallness of its usual
  price, but according as that price is more or less above the lowest for
  which it is possible to bring it to market for any considerable time
  together. This lowest price is that which barely replaces, with a moderate
  profit, the stock which must be employed in bringing the commodity
  thither. It is the price which affords nothing to the landlord, of which
  rent makes not any component part, but which resolves itself altogether
  into wages and profit. But, in the present state of the Spanish market,
  gold is certainly somewhat nearer to this lowest price than silver. The
  tax of the king of Spain upon gold is only one-twentieth part of the
  standard metal, or five per cent.; whereas his tax upon silver amounts to
  one-tenth part of it, or to ten per cent. In these taxes, too, it has
  already been observed, consists the whole rent of the greater part of the
  gold and silver mines of Spanish America; and that upon gold is still
  worse paid than that upon silver. The profits of the undertakers of gold
  mines, too, as they more rarely make a fortune, must, in general, be still
  more moderate than those of the undertakers of silver mines. The price of
  Spanish gold, therefore, as it affords both less rent and less profit,
  must, in the Spanish market, be somewhat nearer to the lowest price for
  which it is possible to bring it thither, than the price of Spanish
  silver. When all expenses are computed, the whole quantity of the one
  metal, it would seem, cannot, in the Spanish market, be disposed of so
  advantageously as the whole quantity of the other. The tax, indeed, of the
  king of Portugal upon the gold of the Brazils, is the same with the
  ancient tax of the king of Spain upon the silver of Mexico and Peru; or
  one-fifth part of the standard metal. It may therefore be uncertain,
  whether, to the general market of Europe, the whole mass of American gold
  comes at a price nearer to the lowest for which it is possible to bring it
  thither, than the whole mass of American silver.

  The price of diamonds and other precious stones may, perhaps, be still
  nearer to the lowest price at which it is possible to bring them to
  market, than even the price of gold.

  Though it is not very probable that any part of a tax, which is not only
  imposed upon one of the most proper subjects of taxation, a mere luxury
  and superfluity, but which affords so very important a revenue as the tax
  upon silver, will ever be given up as long as it is possible to pay it;
  yet the same impossibility of paying it, which, in 1736. made it necessary
  to reduce it from one-fifth to one-tenth, may in time make it necessary to
  reduce it still further; in the same manner as it made it necessary to
  reduce the tax upon gold to one-twentieth. That the silver mines of
  Spanish America, like all other mines, become gradually more expensive in
  the working, on account of the greater depths at which it is necessary to
  carry on the works, and of the greater expense of drawing out the water,
  and of supplying them with fresh air at those depths, is acknowledged by
  everybody who has inquired into the state of those mines.

  These causes, which are equivalent to a growing scarcity of silver (for a
  commodity may be said to grow scarcer when it becomes more difficult and
  expensive to collect a certain quantity of it), must, in time, produce one
  or other of the three following events: The increase of the expense must
  either, first, be compensated altogether by a proportionable increase in
  the price of the metal; or, secondly, it must be compensated altogether by
  a proportionable diminution of the tax upon silver; or, thirdly, it must
  be compensated partly by the one and partly by the other of those two
  expedients. This third event is very possible. As gold rose in its price
  in proportion to silver, notwithstanding a great diminution of the tax
  upon gold, so silver might rise in its price in proportion to labour and
  commodities, notwithstanding an equal diminution of the tax upon silver.

  Such successive reductions of the tax, however, though they may not
  prevent altogether, must certainly retard, more or less, the rise of the
  value of silver in the European market. In consequence of such reductions,
  many mines may be wrought which could not be wrought before, because they
  could not afford to pay the old tax; and the quantity of silver annually
  brought to market, must always be somewhat greater, and, therefore, the
  value of any given quantity somewhat less, than it otherwise would have
  been. In consequence of the reduction in 1736, the value of silver in the
  European market, though it may not at this day be lower than before that
  reduction, is, probably, at least ten per cent. lower than it would have
  been, had the court of Spain continued to exact the old tax. That,
  notwithstanding this reduction, the value of silver has, during the course
  of the present century, begun to rise somewhat in the European market, the
  facts and arguments which have been alleged above, dispose me to believe,
  or more properly to suspect and conjecture; for the best opinion which I
  can form upon this subject, scarce, perhaps, deserves the name of belief.
  The rise, indeed, supposing there has been any, has hitherto been so very
  small, that after all that has been said, it may, perhaps, appear to many
  people uncertain, not only whether this event has actually taken place,
  but whether the contrary may not have taken place, or whether the value of
  silver may not still continue to fall in the European market.

  It must be observed, however, that whatever may be the supposed annual
  importation of gold and silver, there must be a certain period at which
  the annual consumption of those metals will be equal to that annual
  importation. Their consumption must increase as their mass increases, or
  rather in a much greater proportion. As their mass increases, their value
  diminishes. They are more used, and less cared for, and their consumption
  consequently increases in a greater proportion than their mass. After a
  certain period, therefore, the annual consumption of those metals must, in
  this manner, become equal to their annual importation, provided that
  importation is not continually increasing; which, in the present times, is
  not supposed to be the case.

  If, when the annual consumption has become equal to the annual
  importation, the annual importation should gradually diminish, the annual
  consumption may, for some time, exceed the annual importation. The mass of
  those metals may gradually and insensibly diminish, and their value
  gradually and insensibly rise, till the annual importation becoming again
  stationary, the annual consumption will gradually and insensibly
  accommodate itself to what that annual importation can maintain.


  _Grounds of the suspicion that the Value of Silver still continues to
  decrease._


  The increase of the wealth of Europe, and the popular notion, that as the
  quantity of the precious metals naturally increases with the increase of
  wealth, so their value diminishes as their quantity increases, may,
  perhaps, dispose many people to believe that their value still continues
  to fall in the European market; and the still gradually increasing price
  of many parts of the rude produce of land may confirm them still farther
  in this opinion.

  That that increase in the quantity of the precious metals, which arises in
  any country from the increase of wealth, has no tendency to diminish their
  value, I have endeavoured to shew already. Gold and silver naturally
  resort to a rich country, for the same reason that all sorts of luxuries
  and curiosities resort to it; not because they are cheaper there than in
  poorer countries, but because they are dearer, or because a better price
  is given for them. It is the superiority of price which attracts them; and
  as soon as that superiority ceases, they necessarily cease to go thither.

  If you except corn, and such other vegetables as are raised altogether by
  human industry, that all other sorts of rude produce, cattle, poultry,
  game of all kinds, the useful fossils and minerals of the earth, etc.
  naturally grow dearer, as the society advances in wealth and improvement,
  I have endeavoured to shew already. Though such commodities, therefore,
  come to exchange for a greater quantity of silver than before, it will not
  from thence follow that silver has become really cheaper, or will purchase
  less labour than before; but that such commodities have become really
  dearer, or will purchase more labour than before. It is not their nominal
  price only, but their real price, which rises in the progress of
  improvement. The rise of their nominal price is the effect, not of any
  degradation of the value of silver, but of the rise in their real price.


  _Different Effects of the Progress of Improvement upon three different
  sorts of rude Produce._


  These different sorts of rude produce may be divided into three classes.
  The first comprehends those which it is scarce in the power of human
  industry to multiply at all. The second, those which it can multiply in
  proportion to the demand. The third, those in which the efficacy of
  industry is either limited or uncertain. In the progress of wealth and
  improvement, the real price of the first may rise to any degree of
  extravagance, and seems not to be limited by any certain boundary. That of
  the second, though it may rise greatly, has, however, a certain boundary,
  beyond which it cannot well pass for any considerable time together. That
  of the third, though its natural tendency is to rise in the progress of
  improvement, yet in the same degree of improvement it may sometimes happen
  even to fall, sometimes to continue the same, and sometimes to rise more
  or less, according as different accidents render the efforts of human
  industry, in multiplying this sort of rude produce, more or less
  successful.

  First Sort.—The first sort of rude produce, of which the price rises
  in the progress of improvement, is that which it is scarce in the power of
  human industry to multiply at all. It consists in those things which
  nature produces only in certain quantities, and which being of a very
  perishable nature, it is impossible to accumulate together the produce of
  many different seasons. Such are the greater part of rare and singular
  birds and fishes, many different sorts of game, almost all wild-fowl, all
  birds of passage in particular, as well as many other things. When wealth,
  and the luxury which accompanies it, increase, the demand for these is
  likely to increase with them, and no effort of human industry may be able
  to increase the supply much beyond what it was before this increase of the
  demand. The quantity of such commodities, therefore, remaining the same,
  or nearly the same, while the competition to purchase them is continually
  increasing, their price may rise to any degree of extravagance, and seems
  not to be limited by any certain boundary. If woodcocks should become so
  fashionable as to sell for twenty guineas a-piece, no effort of human
  industry could increase the number of those brought to market, much beyond
  what it is at present. The high price paid by the Romans, in the time of
  their greatest grandeur, for rare birds and fishes, may in this manner
  easily be accounted for. These prices were not the effects of the low
  value of silver in those times, but of the high value of such rarities and
  curiosities as human industry could not multiply at pleasure. The real
  value of silver was higher at Rome, for sometime before, and after the
  fall of the republic, than it is through the greater part of Europe at
  present. Three sestertii equal to about sixpence sterling, was the price
  which the republic paid for the modius or peck of the tithe wheat of
  Sicily. This price, however, was probably below the average market price,
  the obligation to deliver their wheat at this rate being considered as a
  tax upon the Sicilian farmers. When the Romans, therefore, had occasion to
  order more corn than the tithe of wheat amounted to, they were bound by
  capitulation to pay for the surplus at the rate of four sestertii, or
  eightpence sterling the peck; and this had probably been reckoned the
  moderate and reasonable, that is, the ordinary or average contract price
  of those times; it is equal to about one-and-twenty shillings the quarter.
  Eight-and-twenty shillings the quarter was, before the late years of
  scarcity, the ordinary contract price of English wheat, which in quality
  is inferior to the Sicilian, and generally sells for a lower price in the
  European market. The value of silver, therefore, in those ancient times,
  must have been to its value in the present, as three to four inversely;
  that is, three ounces of silver would then have purchased the same
  quantity of labour and commodities which four ounces will do at present.
  When we read in Pliny, therefore, that Seius {Lib. X, c. 29.} bought a
  white nightingale, as a present for the empress Agrippina, at the price of
  six thousand sestertii, equal to about fifty pounds of our present money;
  and that Asinius Celer {Lib. IX, c. 17.} purchased a surmullet at the
  price of eight thousand sestertii, equal to about sixty-six pounds
  thirteen shillings and fourpence of our present money; the extravagance of
  those prices, how much soever it may surprise us, is apt, notwithstanding,
  to appear to us about one third less than it really was. Their real price,
  the quantity of labour and subsistence which was given away for them, was
  about one-third more than their nominal price is apt to express to us in
  the present times. Seius gave for the nightingale the command of a
  quantity of labour and subsistence, equal to what £ 66:13: 4d. would
  purchase in the present times; and Asinius Celer gave for a surmullet the
  command of a quantity equal to what £ 88:17: 9d. would purchase. What
  occasioned the extravagance of those high prices was, not so much the
  abundance of silver, as the abundance of labour and subsistence, of which
  those Romans had the disposal, beyond what was necessary for their own
  use. The quantity of silver, of which they had the disposal, was a good
  deal less than what the command of the same quantity of labour and
  subsistence would have procured to them in the present times.

  Second sort.—The second sort of rude produce, of which the price
  rises in the progress of improvement, is that which human industry can
  multiply in proportion to the demand. It consists in those useful plants
  and animals, which, in uncultivated countries, nature produces with such
  profuse abundance, that they are of little or no value, and which, as
  cultivation advances, are therefore forced to give place to some more
  profitable produce. During a long period in the progress of improvement,
  the quantity of these is continually diminishing, while, at the same time,
  the demand for them is continually increasing. Their real value,
  therefore, the real quantity of labour which they will purchase or
  command, gradually rises, till at last it gets so high as to render them
  as profitable a produce as any thing else which human industry can raise
  upon the most fertile and best cultivated land. When it has got so high,
  it cannot well go higher. If it did, more land and more industry would
  soon be employed to increase their quantity.

  When the price of cattle, for example, rises so high, that it is as
  profitable to cultivate land in order to raise food for them as in order
  to raise food for man, it cannot well go higher. If it did, more corn land
  would soon be turned into pasture. The extension of tillage, by
  diminishing the quantity of wild pasture, diminishes the quantity of
  butcher’s meat, which the country naturally produces without labour or
  cultivation; and, by increasing the number of those who have either corn,
  or, what comes to the same thing, the price of corn, to give in exchange
  for it, increases the demand. The price of butcher’s meat, therefore, and,
  consequently, of cattle, must gradually rise, till it gets so high, that
  it becomes as profitable to employ the most fertile and best cultivated
  lands in raising food for them as in raising corn. But it must always be
  late in the progress of improvement before tillage can be so far extended
  as to raise the price of cattle to this height; and, till it has got to
  this height, if the country is advancing at all, their price must be
  continually rising. There are, perhaps, some parts of Europe in which the
  price of cattle has not yet got to this height. It had not got to this
  height in any part of Scotland before the Union. Had the Scotch cattle
  been always confined to the market of Scotland, in a country in which the
  quantity of land, which can be applied to no other purpose but the feeding
  of cattle, is so great in proportion to what can be applied to other
  purposes, it is scarce possible, perhaps, that their price could ever have
  risen so high as to render it profitable to cultivate land for the sake of
  feeding them. In England, the price of cattle, it has already been
  observed, seems, in the neighbourhood of London, to have got to this
  height about the beginning of the last century; but it was much later,
  probably, before it got through the greater part of the remoter counties,
  in some of which, perhaps, it may scarce yet have got to it. Of all the
  different substances, however, which compose this second sort of rude
  produce, cattle is, perhaps, that of which the price, in the progress of
  improvement, rises first to this height.

  Till the price of cattle, indeed, has got to this height, it seems scarce
  possible that the greater part, even of those lands which are capable of
  the highest cultivation, can be completely cultivated. In all farms too
  distant from any town to carry manure from it, that is, in the far greater
  part of those of every extensive country, the quantity of well cultivated
  land must be in proportion to the quantity of manure which the farm itself
  produces; and this, again, must be in proportion to the stock of cattle
  which are maintained upon it. The land is manured, either by pasturing the
  cattle upon it, or by feeding them in the stable, and from thence carrying
  out their dung to it. But unless the price of the cattle be sufficient to
  pay both the rent and profit of cultivated land, the farmer cannot afford
  to pasture them upon it; and he can still less afford to feed them in the
  stable. It is with the produce of improved and cultivated land only that
  cattle can be fed in the stable; because, to collect the scanty and
  scattered produce of waste and unimproved lands, would require too much
  labour, and be too expensive. If the price of the cattle, therefore, is
  not sufficient to pay for the produce of improved and cultivated land,
  when they are allowed to pasture it, that price will be still less
  sufficient to pay for that produce, when it must be collected with a good
  deal of additional labour, and brought into the stable to them. In these
  circumstances, therefore, no more cattle can with profit be fed in the
  stable than what are necessary for tillage. But these can never afford
  manure enough for keeping constantly in good condition all the lands which
  they are capable of cultivating. What they afford, being insufficient for
  the whole farm, will naturally be reserved for the lands to which it can
  be most advantageously or conveniently applied; the most fertile, or
  those, perhaps, in the neighbourhood of the farm-yard. These, therefore,
  will be kept constantly in good condition, and fit for tillage. The rest
  will, the greater part of them, be allowed to lie waste, producing scarce
  any thing but some miserable pasture, just sufficient to keep alive a few
  straggling, half-starved cattle; the farm, though much overstocked in
  proportion to what would be necessary for its complete cultivation, being
  very frequently overstocked in proportion to its actual produce. A portion
  of this waste land, however, after having been pastured in this wretched
  manner for six or seven years together, may be ploughed up, when it will
  yield, perhaps, a poor crop or two of bad oats, or of some other coarse
  grain; and then, being entirely exhausted, it must be rested and pastured
  again as before, and another portion ploughed up, to be in the same manner
  exhausted and rested again in its turn. Such, accordingly, was the general
  system of management all over the low country of Scotland before the
  Union. The lands which were kept constantly well manured and in good
  condition seldom exceeded a third or fourth part of the whole farm, and
  sometimes did not amount to a fifth or a sixth part of it. The rest were
  never manured, but a certain portion of them was in its turn,
  notwithstanding, regularly cultivated and exhausted. Under this system of
  management, it is evident, even that part of the lands of Scotland which
  is capable of good cultivation, could produce but little in comparison of
  what it may be capable of producing. But how disadvantageous soever this
  system may appear, yet, before the Union, the low price of cattle seems to
  have rendered it almost unavoidable. If, notwithstanding a great rise in
  the price, it still continues to prevail through a considerable part of
  the country, it is owing in many places, no doubt, to ignorance and
  attachment to old customs, but, in most places, to the unavoidable
  obstructions which the natural course of things opposes to the immediate
  or speedy establishment of a better system: first, to the poverty of the
  tenants, to their not having yet had time to acquire a stock of cattle
  sufficient to cultivate their lands more completely, the same rise of
  price, which would render it advantageous for them to maintain a greater
  stock, rendering it more difficult for them to acquire it; and, secondly,
  to their not having yet had time to put their lands in condition to
  maintain this greater stock properly, supposing they were capable of
  acquiring it. The increase of stock and the improvement of land are two
  events which must go hand in hand, and of which the one can nowhere much
  outrun the other. Without some increase of stock, there can be scarce any
  improvement of land, but there can be no considerable increase of stock,
  but in consequence of a considerable improvement of land; because
  otherwise the land could not maintain it. These natural obstructions to
  the establishment of a better system, cannot be removed but by a long
  course of frugality and industry; and half a century or a century more,
  perhaps, must pass away before the old system, which is wearing out
  gradually, can be completely abolished through all the different parts of
  the country. Of all the commercial advantages, however, which Scotland has
  derived from the Union with England, this rise in the price of cattle is,
  perhaps, the greatest. It has not only raised the value of all highland
  estates, but it has, perhaps, been the principal cause of the improvement
  of the low country.

  In all new colonies, the great quantity of waste land, which can for many
  years be applied to no other purpose but the feeding of cattle, soon
  renders them extremely abundant; and in every thing great cheapness is the
  necessary consequence of great abundance. Though all the cattle of the
  European colonies in America were originally carried from Europe, they
  soon multiplied so much there, and became of so little value, that even
  horses were allowed to run wild in the woods, without any owner thinking
  it worth while to claim them. It must be a long time after the first
  establishment of such colonies, before it can become profitable to feed
  cattle upon the produce of cultivated land. The same causes, therefore,
  the want of manure, and the disproportion between the stock employed in
  cultivation and the land which it is destined to cultivate, are likely to
  introduce there a system of husbandry, not unlike that which still
  continues to take place in so many parts of Scotland. Mr Kalm, the Swedish
  traveller, when he gives an account of the husbandry of some of the
  English colonies in North America, as he found it in 1749, observes,
  accordingly, that he can with difficulty discover there the character of
  the English nation, so well skilled in all the different branches of
  agriculture. They make scarce any manure for their corn fields, he says;
  but when one piece of ground has been exhausted by continual cropping,
  they clear and cultivate another piece of fresh land; and when that is
  exhausted, proceed to a third. Their cattle are allowed to wander through
  the woods and other uncultivated grounds, where they are half-starved;
  having long ago extirpated almost all the annual grasses, by cropping them
  too early in the spring, before they had time to form their flowers, or to
  shed their seeds. {Kalm’s Travels, vol 1, pp. 343, 344.} The annual
  grasses were, it seems, the best natural grasses in that part of North
  America; and when the Europeans first settled there, they used to grow
  very thick, and to rise three or four feet high. A piece of ground which,
  when he wrote, could not maintain one cow, would in former times, he was
  assured, have maintained four, each of which would have given four times
  the quantity of milk which that one was capable of giving. The poorness of
  the pasture had, in his opinion, occasioned the degradation of their
  cattle, which degenerated sensibly from one generation to another. They
  were probably not unlike that stunted breed which was common all over
  Scotland thirty or forty years ago, and which is now so much mended
  through the greater part of the low country, not so much by a change of
  the breed, though that expedient has been employed in some places, as by a
  more plentiful method of feeding them.

  Though it is late, therefore, in the progress of improvement, before
  cattle can bring such a price as to render it profitable to cultivate land
  for the sake of feeding them; yet of all the different parts which compose
  this second sort of rude produce, they are perhaps the first which bring
  this price; because, till they bring it, it seems impossible that
  improvement can be brought near even to that degree of perfection to which
  it has arrived in many parts of Europe.

  As cattle are among the first, so perhaps venison is among the last parts
  of this sort of rude produce which bring this price. The price of venison
  in Great Britain, how extravagant soever it may appear, is not near
  sufficient to compensate the expense of a deer park, as is well known to
  all those who have had any experience in the feeding of deer. If it was
  otherwise, the feeding of deer would soon become an article of common
  farming, in the same manner as the feeding of those small birds, called
  turdi, was among the ancient Romans. Varro and Columella assure us, that
  it was a most profitable article. The fattening of ortolans, birds of
  passage which arrive lean in the country, is said to be so in some parts
  of France. If venison continues in fashion, and the wealth and luxury of
  Great Britain increase as they have done for some time past, its price may
  very probably rise still higher than it is at present.

  Between that period in the progress of improvement, which brings to its
  height the price of so necessary an article as cattle, and that which
  brings to it the price of such a superfluity as venison, there is a very
  long interval, in the course of which many other sorts of rude produce
  gradually arrive at their highest price, some sooner and some later,
  according to different circumstances.

  Thus, in every farm, the offals of the barn and stable will maintain a
  certain number of poultry. These, as they are fed with what would
  otherwise be lost, are a mere save-all; and as they cost the farmer scarce
  any thing, so he can afford to sell them for very little. Almost all that
  he gets is pure gain, and their price can scarce be so low as to
  discourage him from feeding this number. But in countries ill cultivated,
  and therefore but thinly inhabited, the poultry, which are thus raised
  without expense, are often fully sufficient to supply the whole demand. In
  this state of things, therefore, they are often as cheap as butcher’s
  meat, or any other sort of animal food. But the whole quantity of poultry
  which the farm in this manner produces without expense, must always be
  much smaller than the whole quantity of butcher’s meat which is reared
  upon it; and in times of wealth and luxury, what is rare, with only nearly
  equal merit, is always preferred to what is common. As wealth and luxury
  increase, therefore, in consequence of improvement and cultivation, the
  price of poultry gradually rises above that of butcher’s meat, till at
  last it gets so high, that it becomes profitable to cultivate land for the
  sake of feeding them. When it has got to this height, it cannot well go
  higher. If it did, more land would soon be turned to this purpose. In
  several provinces of France, the feeding of poultry is considered as a
  very important article in rural economy, and sufficiently profitable to
  encourage the farmer to raise a considerable quantity of Indian corn and
  buckwheat for this purpose. A middling farmer will there sometimes have
  four hundred fowls in his yard. The feeding of poultry seems scarce yet to
  be generally considered as a matter of so much importance in England. They
  are certainly, however, dearer in England than in France, as England
  receives considerable supplies from France. In the progress of
  improvements, the period at which every particular sort of animal food is
  dearest, must naturally be that which immediately precedes the general
  practice of cultivating land for the sake of raising it. For some time
  before this practice becomes general, the scarcity must necessarily raise
  the price. After it has become general, new methods of feeding are
  commonly fallen upon, which enable the farmer to raise upon the same
  quantity of ground a much greater quantity of that particular sort of
  animal food. The plenty not only obliges him to sell cheaper, but, in
  consequence of these improvements, he can afford to sell cheaper; for if
  he could not afford it, the plenty would not be of long continuance. It
  has been probably in this manner that the introduction of clover, turnips,
  carrots, cabbages, etc. has contributed to sink the common price of
  butcher’s meat in the London market, somewhat below what it was about the
  beginning of the last century.

  The hog, that finds his food among ordure, and greedily devours many
  things rejected by every other useful animal, is, like poultry, originally
  kept as a save-all. As long as the number of such animals, which can thus
  be reared at little or no expense, is fully sufficient to supply the
  demand, this sort of butcher’s meat comes to market at a much lower price
  than any other. But when the demand rises beyond what this quantity can
  supply, when it becomes necessary to raise food on purpose for feeding and
  fattening hogs, in the same manner as for feeding and fattening other
  cattle, the price necessarily rises, and becomes proportionably either
  higher or lower than that of other butcher’s meat, according as the nature
  of the country, and the state of its agriculture, happen to render the
  feeding of hogs more or less expensive than that of other cattle. In
  France, according to Mr Buffon, the price of pork is nearly equal to that
  of beef. In most parts of Great Britain it is at present somewhat higher.

  The great rise in the price both of hogs and poultry, has, in Great
  Britain, been frequently imputed to the diminution of the number of
  cottagers and other small occupiers of land; an event which has in every
  part of Europe been the immediate forerunner of improvement and better
  cultivation, but which at the same time may have contributed to raise the
  price of those articles, both somewhat sooner and somewhat faster than it
  would otherwise have risen. As the poorest family can often maintain a cat
  or a dog without any expense, so the poorest occupiers of land can
  commonly maintain a few poultry, or a sow and a few pigs, at very little.
  The little offals of their own table, their whey, skimmed milk, and butter
  milk, supply those animals with a part of their food, and they find the
  rest in the neighbouring fields, without doing any sensible damage to any
  body. By diminishing the number of those small occupiers, therefore, the
  quantity of this sort of provisions, which is thus produced at little or
  no expense, must certainly have been a good deal diminished, and their
  price must consequently have been raised both sooner and faster than it
  would otherwise have risen. Sooner or later, however, in the progress of
  improvement, it must at any rate have risen to the utmost height to which
  it is capable of rising; or to the price which pays the labour and expense
  of cultivating the land which furnishes them with food, as well as these
  are paid upon the greater part of other cultivated land.

  The business of the dairy, like the feeding of hogs and poultry, is
  originally carried on as a save-all. The cattle necessarily kept upon the
  farm produce more milk than either the rearing of their own young, or the
  consumption of the farmer’s family requires; and they produce most at one
  particular season. But of all the productions of land, milk is perhaps the
  most perishable. In the warm season, when it is most abundant, it will
  scarce keep four-and-twenty hours. The farmer, by making it into fresh
  butter, stores a small part of it for a week; by making it into salt
  butter, for a year; and by making it into cheese, he stores a much greater
  part of it for several years. Part of all these is reserved for the use of
  his own family; the rest goes to market, in order to find the best price
  which is to be had, and which can scarce be so low is to discourage him
  from sending thither whatever is over and above the use of his own family.
  If it is very low indeed, he will be likely to manage his dairy in a very
  slovenly and dirty manner, and will scarce, perhaps, think it worth while
  to have a particular room or building on purpose for it, but will suffer
  the business to be carried on amidst the smoke, filth, and nastiness of
  his own kitchen, as was the case of almost all the farmers’ dairies in
  Scotland thirty or forty years ago, and as is the case of many of them
  still. The same causes which gradually raise the price of butcher’s meat,
  the increase of the demand, and, in consequence of the improvement of the
  country, the diminution of the quantity which can be fed at little or no
  expense, raise, in the same manner, that of the produce of the dairy, of
  which the price naturally connects with that of butcher’s meat, or with
  the expense of feeding cattle. The increase of price pays for more labour,
  care, and cleanliness. The dairy becomes more worthy of the farmer’s
  attention, and the quality of its produce gradually improves. The price at
  last gets so high, that it becomes worth while to employ some of the most
  fertile and best cultivated lands in feeding cattle merely for the purpose
  of the dairy; and when it has got to this height, it cannot well go
  higher. If it did, more land would soon be turned to this purpose. It
  seems to have got to this height through the greater part of England,
  where much good land is commonly employed in this manner. If you except
  the neighbourhood of a few considerable towns, it seems not yet to have
  got to this height anywhere in Scotland, where common farmers seldom
  employ much good land in raising food for cattle, merely for the purpose
  of the dairy. The price of the produce, though it has risen very
  considerably within these few years, is probably still too low to admit of
  it. The inferiority of the quality, indeed, compared with that of the
  produce of English dairies, is fully equal to that of the price. But this
  inferiority of quality is, perhaps, rather the effect of this lowness of
  price, than the cause of it. Though the quality was much better, the
  greater part of what is brought to market could not, I apprehend, in the
  present circumstances of the country, be disposed of at a much better
  price; and the present price, it is probable, would not pay the expense of
  the land and labour necessary for producing a much better quality. Through
  the greater part of England, notwithstanding the superiority of price, the
  dairy is not reckoned a more profitable employment of land than the
  raising of corn, or the fattening of cattle, the two great objects of
  agriculture. Through the greater part of Scotland, therefore, it cannot
  yet be even so profitable.

  The lands of no country, it is evident, can ever be completely cultivated
  and improved, till once the price of every produce, which human industry
  is obliged to raise upon them, has got so high as to pay for the expense
  of complete improvement and cultivation. In order to do this, the price of
  each particular produce must be sufficient, first, to pay the rent of good
  corn land, as it is that which regulates the rent of the greater part of
  other cultivated land; and, secondly, to pay the labour and expense of the
  farmer, as well as they are commonly paid upon good corn land; or, in
  other words, to replace with the ordinary profits the stock which he
  employs about it. This rise in the price of each particular produce; must
  evidently be previous to the improvement and cultivation of the land which
  is destined for raising it. Gain is the end of all improvement; and
  nothing could deserve that name, of which loss was to be the necessary
  consequence. But loss must be the necessary consequence of improving land
  for the sake of a produce of which the price could never bring back the
  expense. If the complete improvement and cultivation of the country be, as
  it most certainly is, the greatest of all public advantages, this rise in
  the price of all those different sorts of rude produce, instead of being
  considered as a public calamity, ought to be regarded as the necessary
  forerunner and attendant of the greatest of all public advantages.

  This rise, too, in the nominal or money price of all those different sorts
  of rude produce, has been the effect, not of any degradation in the value
  of silver, but of a rise in their real price. They have become worth, not
  only a greater quantity of silver, but a greater quantity of labour and
  subsistence than before. As it costs a greater quantity of labour and
  subsistence to bring them to market, so, when they are brought thither
  they represent, or are equivalent to a greater quantity.

  Third Sort.—The third and last sort of rude produce, of which the
  price naturally rises in the progress of improvement, is that in which the
  efficacy of human industry, in augmenting the quantity, is either limited
  or uncertain. Though the real price of this sort of rude produce,
  therefore, naturally tends to rise in the progress of improvement, yet,
  according as different accidents happen to render the efforts of human
  industry more or less successful in augmenting the quantity, it may happen
  sometimes even to fall, sometimes to continue the same, in very different
  periods of improvement, and sometimes to rise more or less in the same
  period.

  There are some sorts of rude produce which nature has rendered a kind of
  appendages to other sorts; so that the quantity of the one which any
  country can afford, is necessarily limited by that of the other. The
  quantity of wool or of raw hides, for example, which any country can
  afford, is necessarily limited by the number of great and small cattle
  that are kept in it. The state of its improvement, and the nature of its
  agriculture, again necessarily determine this number.

  The same causes which, in the progress of improvement, gradually raise the
  price of butcher’s meat, should have the same effect, it may be thought,
  upon the prices of wool and raw hides, and raise them, too, nearly in the
  same proportion. It probably would be so, if, in the rude beginnings of
  improvement, the market for the latter commodities was confined within as
  narrow bounds as that for the former. But the extent of their respective
  markets is commonly extremely different.

  The market for butcher’s meat is almost everywhere confined to the country
  which produces it. Ireland, and some part of British America, indeed,
  carry on a considerable trade in salt provisions; but they are, I believe,
  the only countries in the commercial world which do so, or which export to
  other countries any considerable part of their butcher’s meat.

  The market for wool and raw hides, on the contrary, is, in the rude
  beginnings of improvement, very seldom confined to the country which
  produces them. They can easily be transported to distant countries; wool
  without any preparation, and raw hides with very little; and as they are
  the materials of many manufactures, the industry of other countries may
  occasion a demand for them, though that of the country which produces them
  might not occasion any.

  In countries ill cultivated, and therefore but thinly inhabited, the price
  of the wool and the hide bears always a much greater proportion to that of
  the whole beast, than in countries where, improvement and population being
  further advanced, there is more demand for butcher’s meat. Mr Hume
  observes, that in the Saxon times, the fleece was estimated at two-fifths
  of the value of the whole sheep and that this was much above the
  proportion of its present estimation. In some provinces of Spain, I have
  been assured, the sheep is frequently killed merely for the sake of the
  fleece and the tallow. The carcase is often left to rot upon the ground,
  or to be devoured by beasts and birds of prey. If this sometimes happens
  even in Spain, it happens almost constantly in Chili, at Buenos Ayres, and
  in many other parts of Spanish America, where the horned cattle are almost
  constantly killed merely for the sake of the hide and the tallow. This,
  too, used to happen almost constantly in Hispaniola, while it was infested
  by the buccaneers, and before the settlement, improvement, and
  populousness of the French plantations ( which now extend round the coast
  of almost the whole western half of the island) had given some value to
  the cattle of the Spaniards, who still continue to possess, not only the
  eastern part of the coast, but the whole inland mountainous part of the
  country.

  Though, in the progress of improvement and population, the price of the
  whole beast necessarily rises, yet the price of the carcase is likely to
  be much more affected by this rise than that of the wool and the hide. The
  market for the carcase being in the rude state of society confined always
  to the country which produces it, must necessarily be extended in
  proportion to the improvement and population of that country. But the
  market for the wool and the hides, even of a barbarous country, often
  extending to the whole commercial world, it can very seldom be enlarged in
  the same proportion. The state of the whole commercial world can seldom be
  much affected by the improvement of any particular country; and the market
  for such commodities may remain the same, or very nearly the same, after
  such improvements, as before. It should, however, in the natural course of
  things, rather, upon the whole, be somewhat extended in consequence of
  them. If the manufactures, especially, of which those commodities are the
  materials, should ever come to flourish in the country, the market, though
  it might not be much enlarged, would at least be brought much nearer to
  the place of growth than before; and the price of those materials might at
  least be increased by what had usually been the expense of transporting
  them to distant countries. Though it might not rise, therefore, in the
  same proportion as that of butcher’s meat, it ought naturally to rise
  somewhat, and it ought certainly not to fall.

  In England, however, notwithstanding the flourishing state of its woollen
  manufacture, the price of English wool has fallen very considerably since
  the time of Edward III. There are many authentic records which demonstrate
  that, during the reign of that prince (towards the middle of the
  fourteenth century, or about 1339), what was reckoned the moderate and
  reasonable price of the tod, or twenty-eight pounds of English wool, was
  not less than ten shillings of the money of those times {See Smith’s
  Memoirs of Wool, vol. i c. 5, 6, 7. also vol. ii.}, containing, at the
  rate of twenty-pence the ounce, six ounces of silver, Tower weight, equal
  to about thirty shillings of our present money. In the present times,
  one-and-twenty shillings the tod may be reckoned a good price for very
  good English wool. The money price of wool, therefore, in the time of
  Edward III. was to its money price in the present times as ten to seven.
  The superiority of its real price was still greater. At the rate of six
  shillings and eightpence the quarter, ten shillings was in those ancient
  times the price of twelve bushels of wheat. At the rate of twenty-eight
  shillings the quarter, one-and-twenty shillings is in the present times
  the price of six bushels only. The proportion between the real price of
  ancient and modern times, therefore, is as twelve to six, or as two to
  one. In those ancient times, a tod of wool would have purchased twice the
  quantity of subsistence which it will purchase at present, and
  consequently twice the quantity of labour, if the real recompence of
  labour had been the same in both periods.

  This degradation, both in the real and nominal value of wool, could never
  have happened in consequence of the natural course of things. It has
  accordingly been the effect of violence and artifice. First, of the
  absolute prohibition of exporting wool from England: secondly, of the
  permission of importing it from Spain, duty free: thirdly, of the
  prohibition of exporting it from Ireland to another country but England.
  In consequence of these regulations, the market for English wool, instead
  of being somewhat extended, in consequence of the improvement of England,
  has been confined to the home market, where the wool of several other
  countries is allowed to come into competition with it, and where that of
  Ireland is forced into competition with it. As the woollen manufactures,
  too, of Ireland, are fully as much discouraged as is consistent with
  justice and fair dealing, the Irish can work up but a smaller part of
  their own wool at home, and are therefore obliged to send a greater
  proportion of it to Great Britain, the only market they are allowed.

  I have not been able to find any such authentic records concerning the
  price of raw hides in ancient times. Wool was commonly paid as a subsidy
  to the king, and its valuation in that subsidy ascertains, at least in
  some degree, what was its ordinary price. But this seems not to have been
  the case with raw hides. Fleetwood, however, from an account in 1425,
  between the prior of Burcester Oxford and one of his canons, gives us
  their price, at least as it was stated upon that particular occasion, viz.
  five ox hides at twelve shillings; five cow hides at seven shillings and
  threepence; thirtysix sheep skins of two years old at nine shillings;
  sixteen calf skins at two shillings. In 1425, twelve shillings contained
  about the same quantity of silver as four-and-twenty shillings of our
  present money. An ox hide, therefore, was in this account valued at the
  same quantity of silver as 4s. ⅘ths of our present money. Its nominal
  price was a good deal lower than at present. But at the rate of six
  shillings and eightpence the quarter, twelve shillings would in those
  times have purchased fourteen bushels and four-fifths of a bushel of
  wheat, which, at three and sixpence the bushel, would in the present times
  cost 51s. 4d. An ox hide, therefore, would in those times have purchased
  as much corn as ten shillings and threepence would purchase at present.
  Its real value was equal to ten shillings and threepence of our present
  money. In those ancient times, when the cattle were half starved during
  the greater part of the winter, we cannot suppose that they were of a very
  large size. An ox hide which weighs four stone of sixteen pounds of
  avoirdupois, is not in the present times reckoned a bad one; and in those
  ancient times would probably have been reckoned a very good one. But at
  half-a-crown the stone, which at this moment (February 1773) I understand
  to be the common price, such a hide would at present cost only ten
  shillings. Through its nominal price, therefore, is higher in the present
  than it was in those ancient times, its real price, the real quantity of
  subsistence which it will purchase or command, is rather somewhat lower.
  The price of cow hides, as stated in the above account, is nearly in the
  common proportion to that of ox hides. That of sheep skins is a good deal
  above it. They had probably been sold with the wool. That of calves skins,
  on the contrary, is greatly below it. In countries where the price of
  cattle is very low, the calves, which are not intended to be reared in
  order to keep up the stock, are generally killed very young, as was the
  case in Scotland twenty or thirty years ago. It saves the milk, which
  their price would not pay for. Their skins, therefore, are commonly good
  for little.

  The price of raw hides is a good deal lower at present than it was a few
  years ago; owing probably to the taking off the duty upon seal skins, and
  to the allowing, for a limited time, the importation of raw hides from
  Ireland, and from the plantations, duty free, which was done in 1769. Take
  the whole of the present century at an average, their real price has
  probably been somewhat higher than it was in those ancient times. The
  nature of the commodity renders it not quite so proper for being
  transported to distant markets as wool. It suffers more by keeping. A
  salted hide is reckoned inferior to a fresh one, and sells for a lower
  price. This circumstance must necessarily have some tendency to sink the
  price of raw hides produced in a country which does not manufacture them,
  but is obliged to export them, and comparatively to raise that of those
  produced in a country which does manufacture them. It must have some
  tendency to sink their price in a barbarous, and to raise it in an
  improved and manufacturing country. It must have had some tendency,
  therefore, to sink it in ancient, and to raise it in modern times. Our
  tanners, besides, have not been quite so successful as our clothiers, in
  convincing the wisdom of the nation, that the safety of the commonwealth
  depends upon the prosperity of their particular manufacture. They have
  accordingly been much less favoured. The exportation of raw hides has,
  indeed, been prohibited, and declared a nuisance; but their importation
  from foreign countries has been subjected to a duty; and though this duty
  has been taken off from those of Ireland and the plantations (for the
  limited time of five years only), yet Ireland has not been confined to the
  market of Great Britain for the sale of its surplus hides, or of those
  which are not manufactured at home. The hides of common cattle have, but
  within these few years, been put among the enumerated commodities which
  the plantations can send nowhere but to the mother country; neither has
  the commerce of Ireland been in this case oppressed hitherto, in order to
  support the manufactures of Great Britain.

  Whatever regulations tend to sink the price, either of wool or of raw
  hides, below what it naturally would be, must, in an improved and
  cultivated country, have some tendency to raise the price of butcher’s
  meat. The price both of the great and small cattle, which are fed on
  improved and cultivated land, must be sufficient to pay the rent which the
  landlord, and the profit which the farmer, has reason to expect from
  improved and cultivated land. If it is not, they will soon cease to feed
  them. Whatever part of this price, therefore, is not paid by the wool and
  the hide, must be paid by the carcase. The less there is paid for the one,
  the more must be paid for the other. In what manner this price is to be
  divided upon the different parts of the beast, is indifferent to the
  landlords and farmers, provided it is all paid to them. In an improved and
  cultivated country, therefore, their interest as landlords and farmers
  cannot be much affected by such regulations, though their interest as
  consumers may, by the rise in the price of provisions. It would be quite
  otherwise, however, in an unimproved and uncultivated country, where the
  greater part of the lands could be applied to no other purpose but the
  feeding of cattle, and where the wool and the hide made the principal part
  of the value of those cattle. Their interest as landlords and farmers
  would in this case be very deeply affected by such regulations, and their
  interest as consumers very little. The fall in the price of the wool and
  the hide would not in this case raise the price of the carcase; because
  the greater part of the lands of the country being applicable to no other
  purpose but the feeding of cattle, the same number would still continue to
  be fed. The same quantity of butcher’s meat would still come to market.
  The demand for it would be no greater than before. Its price, therefore,
  would be the same as before. The whole price of cattle would fall, and
  along with it both the rent and the profit of all those lands of which
  cattle was the principal produce, that is, of the greater part of the
  lands of the country. The perpetual prohibition of the exportation of
  wool, which is commonly, but very falsely, ascribed to Edward III., would,
  in the then circumstances of the country, have been the most destructive
  regulation which could well have been thought of. It would not only have
  reduced the actual value of the greater part of the lands in the kingdom,
  but by reducing the price of the most important species of small cattle,
  it would have retarded very much its subsequent improvement.

  The wool of Scotland fell very considerably in its price in consequence of
  the union with England, by which it was excluded from the great market of
  Europe, and confined to the narrow one of Great Britain. The value of the
  greater part of the lands in the southern counties of Scotland, which are
  chiefly a sheep country, would have been very deeply affected by this
  event, had not the rise in the price of butcher’s meat fully compensated
  the fall in the price of wool.

  As the efficacy of human industry, in increasing the quantity either of
  wool or of raw hides, is limited, so far as it depends upon the produce of
  the country where it is exerted; so it is uncertain so far as it depends
  upon the produce of other countries. It so far depends not so much upon
  the quantity which they produce, as upon that which they do not
  manufacture; and upon the restraints which they may or may not think
  proper to impose upon the exportation of this sort of rude produce. These
  circumstances, as they are altogether independent of domestic industry, so
  they necessarily render the efficacy of its efforts more or less
  uncertain. In multiplying this sort of rude produce, therefore, the
  efficacy of human industry is not only limited, but uncertain.

  In multiplying another very important sort of rude produce, the quantity
  of fish that is brought to market, it is likewise both limited and
  uncertain. It is limited by the local situation of the country, by the
  proximity or distance of its different provinces from the sea, by the
  number of its lakes and rivers, and by what may be called the fertility or
  barrenness of those seas, lakes, and rivers, as to this sort of rude
  produce. As population increases, as the annual produce of the land and
  labour of the country grows greater and greater, there come to be more
  buyers of fish; and those buyers, too, have a greater quantity and variety
  of other goods, or, what is the same thing, the price of a greater
  quantity and variety of other goods, to buy with. But it will generally be
  impossible to supply the great and extended market, without employing a
  quantity of labour greater than in proportion to what had been requisite
  for supplying the narrow and confined one. A market which, from requiring
  only one thousand, comes to require annually ten thousand ton of fish, can
  seldom be supplied, without employing more than ten times the quantity of
  labour which had before been sufficient to supply it. The fish must
  generally be sought for at a greater distance, larger vessels must be
  employed, and more expensive machinery of every kind made use of. The real
  price of this commodity, therefore, naturally rises in the progress of
  improvement. It has accordingly done so, I believe, more or less in every
  country.

  Though the success of a particular day’s fishing may be a very uncertain
  matter, yet the local situation of the country being supposed, the general
  efficacy of industry in bringing a certain quantity of fish to market,
  taking the course of a year, or of several years together, it may,
  perhaps, be thought is certain enough; and it, no doubt, is so. As it
  depends more, however, upon the local situation of the country, than upon
  the state of its wealth and industry; as upon this account it may in
  different countries be the same in very different periods of improvement,
  and very different in the same period; its connection with the state of
  improvement is uncertain; and it is of this sort of uncertainty that I am
  here speaking.

  In increasing the quantity of the different minerals and metals which are
  drawn from the bowels of the earth, that of the more precious ones
  particularly, the efficacy of human industry seems not to be limited, but
  to be altogether uncertain.

  The quantity of the precious metals which is to be found in any country,
  is not limited by any thing in its local situation, such as the fertility
  or barrenness of its own mines. Those metals frequently abound in
  countries which possess no mines. Their quantity, in every particular
  country, seems to depend upon two different circumstances; first, upon its
  power of purchasing, upon the state of its industry, upon the annual
  produce of its land and labour, in consequence of which it can afford to
  employ a greater or a smaller quantity of labour and subsistence, in
  bringing or purchasing such superfluities as gold and silver, either from
  its own mines, or from those of other countries; and, secondly, upon the
  fertility or barrenness of the mines which may happen at any particular
  time to supply the commercial world with those metals. The quantity of
  those metals in the countries most remote from the mines, must be more or
  less affected by this fertility or barrenness, on account of the easy and
  cheap transportation of those metals, of their small bulk and great value.
  Their quantity in China and Indostan must have been more or less affected
  by the abundance of the mines of America.

  So far as their quantity in any particular country depends upon the former
  of those two circumstances (the power of purchasing), their real price,
  like that of all other luxuries and superfluities, is likely to rise with
  the wealth and improvement of the country, and to fall with its poverty
  and depression. Countries which have a great quantity of labour and
  subsistence to spare, can afford to purchase any particular quantity of
  those metals at the expense of a greater quantity of labour and
  subsistence, than countries which have less to spare.

  So far as their quantity in any particular country depends upon the latter
  of those two circumstances (the fertility or barrenness of the mines which
  happen to supply the commercial world), their real price, the real
  quantity of labour and subsistence which they will purchase or exchange
  for, will, no doubt, sink more or less in proportion to the fertility, and
  rise in proportion to the barrenness of those mines.

  The fertility or barrenness of the mines, however, which may happen at any
  particular time to supply the commercial world, is a circumstance which,
  it is evident, may have no sort of connection with the state of industry
  in a particular country. It seems even to have no very necessary
  connection with that of the world in general. As arts and commerce,
  indeed, gradually spread themselves over a greater and a greater part of
  the earth, the search for new mines, being extended over a wider surface,
  may have somewhat a better chance for being successful than when confined
  within narrower bounds. The discovery of new mines, however, as the old
  ones come to be gradually exhausted, is a matter of the greatest
  uncertainty, and such as no human skill or industry can insure. All
  indications, it is acknowledged, are doubtful; and the actual discovery
  and successful working of a new mine can alone ascertain the reality of
  its value, or even of its existence. In this search there seem to be no
  certain limits, either to the possible success, or to the possible
  disappointment of human industry. In the course of a century or two, it is
  possible that new mines may be discovered, more fertile than any that have
  ever yet been known; and it is just equally possible, that the most
  fertile mine then known may be more barren than any that was wrought
  before the discovery of the mines of America. Whether the one or the other
  of those two events may happen to take place, is of very little importance
  to the real wealth and prosperity of the world, to the real value of the
  annual produce of the land and labour of mankind. Its nominal value, the
  quantity of gold and silver by which this annual produce could be
  expressed or represented, would, no doubt, be very different; but its real
  value, the real quantity of labour which it could purchase or command,
  would be precisely the same. A shilling might, in the one case, represent
  no more labour than a penny does at present; and a penny, in the other,
  might represent as much as a shilling does now. But in the one case, he
  who had a shilling in his pocket would be no richer than he who has a
  penny at present; and in the other, he who had a penny would be just as
  rich as he who has a shilling now. The cheapness and abundance of gold and
  silver plate would be the sole advantage which the world could derive from
  the one event; and the dearness and scarcity of those trifling
  superfluities, the only inconveniency it could suffer from the other.




  Conclusion of the Digression concerning the Variations in the Value of
  Silver.

  The greater part of the writers who have collected the money price of
  things in ancient times, seem to have considered the low money price of
  corn, and of goods in general, or, in other words, the high value of gold
  and silver, as a proof, not only of the scarcity of those metals, but of
  the poverty and barbarism of the country at the time when it took place.
  This notion is connected with the system of political economy, which
  represents national wealth as consisting in the abundance and national
  poverty in the scarcity, of gold and silver; a system which I shall
  endeavour to explain and examine at great length in the fourth book of
  this Inquiry. I shall only observe at present, that the high value of the
  precious metals can be no proof of the poverty or barbarism of any
  particular country at the time when it took place. It is a proof only of
  the barrenness of the mines which happened at that time to supply the
  commercial world. A poor country, as it cannot afford to buy more, so it
  can as little afford to pay dearer for gold and silver than a rich one;
  and the value of those metals, therefore, is not likely to be higher in
  the former than in the latter. In China, a country much richer than any
  part of Europe, the value of the precious metals is much higher than in
  any part of Europe. As the wealth of Europe, indeed, has increased greatly
  since the discovery of the mines of America, so the value of gold and
  silver has gradually diminished. This diminution of their value, however,
  has not been owing to the increase of the real wealth of Europe, of the
  annual produce of its land and labour, but to the accidental discovery of
  more abundant mines than any that were known before. The increase of the
  quantity of gold and silver in Europe, and the increase of its
  manufactures and agriculture, are two events which, though they have
  happened nearly about the same time, yet have arisen from very different
  causes, and have scarce any natural connection with one another. The one
  has arisen from a mere accident, in which neither prudence nor policy
  either had or could have any share; the other, from the fall of the feudal
  system, and from the establishment of a government which afforded to
  industry the only encouragement which it requires, some tolerable security
  that it shall enjoy the fruits of its own labour. Poland, where the feudal
  system still continues to take place, is at this day as beggarly a country
  as it was before the discovery of America. The money price of corn,
  however, has risen; the real value of the precious metals has fallen in
  Poland, in the same manner as in other parts of Europe. Their quantity,
  therefore, must have increased there as in other places, and nearly in the
  same proportion to the annual produce of its land and labour. This
  increase of the quantity of those metals, however, has not, it seems,
  increased that annual produce, has neither improved the manufactures and
  agriculture of the country, nor mended the circumstances of its
  inhabitants. Spain and Portugal, the countries which possess the mines,
  are, after Poland, perhaps the two most beggarly countries in Europe. The
  value of the precious metals, however, must be lower in Spain and Portugal
  than in any other part of Europe, as they come from those countries to all
  other parts of Europe, loaded, not only with a freight and an insurance,
  but with the expense of smuggling, their exportation being either
  prohibited or subjected to a duty. In proportion to the annual produce of
  the land and labour, therefore, their quantity must be greater in those
  countries than in any other part of Europe; those countries, however, are
  poorer than the greater part of Europe. Though the feudal system has been
  abolished in Spain and Portugal, it has not been succeeded by a much
  better.

  As the low value of gold and silver, therefore, is no proof of the wealth
  and flourishing state of the country where it takes place; so neither is
  their high value, or the low money price either of goods in general, or of
  corn in particular, any proof of its poverty and barbarism.

  But though the low money price, either of goods in general, or of corn in
  particular, be no proof of the poverty or barbarism of the times, the low
  money price of some particular sorts of goods, such as cattle, poultry,
  game of all kinds, etc. in proportion to that of corn, is a most decisive
  one. It clearly demonstrates, first, their great abundance in proportion
  to that of corn, and, consequently, the great extent of the land which
  they occupied in proportion to what was occupied by corn; and, secondly,
  the low value of this land in proportion to that of corn land, and,
  consequently, the uncultivated and unimproved state of the far greater
  part of the lands of the country. It clearly demonstrates, that the stock
  and population of the country did not bear the same proportion to the
  extent of its territory, which they commonly do in civilized countries;
  and that society was at that time, and in that country, but in its
  infancy. From the high or low money price, either of goods in general, or
  of corn in particular, we can infer only, that the mines, which at that
  time happened to supply the commercial world with gold and silver, were
  fertile or barren, not that the country was rich or poor. But from the
  high or low money price of some sorts of goods in proportion to that of
  others, we can infer, with a degree of probability that approaches almost
  to certainty, that it was rich or poor, that the greater part of its lands
  were improved or unimproved, and that it was either in a more or less
  barbarous state, or in a more or less civilized one.

  Any rise in the money price of goods which proceeded altogether from the
  degradation of the value of silver, would affect all sorts of goods
  equally, and raise their price universally, a third, or a fourth, or a
  fifth part higher, according as silver happened to lose a third, or a
  fourth, or a fifth part of its former value. But the rise in the price of
  provisions, which has been the subject of so much reasoning and
  conversation, does not affect all sorts of provisions equally. Taking the
  course of the present century at an average, the price of corn, it is
  acknowledged, even by those who account for this rise by the degradation
  of the value of silver, has risen much less than that of some other sorts
  of provisions. The rise in the price of those other sorts of provisions,
  therefore, cannot be owing altogether to the degradation of the value of
  silver. Some other causes must be taken into the account; and those which
  have been above assigned, will, perhaps, without having recourse to the
  supposed degradation of the value of silver, sufficiently explain this
  rise in those particular sorts of provisions, of which the price has
  actually risen in proportion to that of corn.

  As to the price of corn itself, it has, during the sixty-four first years
  of the present century, and before the late extraordinary course of bad
  seasons, been somewhat lower than it was during the sixty-four last years
  of the preceding century. This fact is attested, not only by the accounts
  of Windsor market, but by the public fiars of all the different counties
  of Scotland, and by the accounts of several different markets in France,
  which have been collected with great diligence and fidelity by Mr
  Messance, and by Mr Dupré de St Maur. The evidence is more complete than
  could well have been expected in a matter which is naturally so very
  difficult to be ascertained.

  As to the high price of corn during these last ten or twelve years, it can
  be sufficiently accounted for from the badness of the seasons, without
  supposing any degradation in the value of silver.

  The opinion, therefore, that silver is continually sinking in its value,
  seems not to be founded upon any good observations, either upon the prices
  of corn, or upon those of other provisions.

  The same quantity of silver, it may perhaps be said, will, in the present
  times, even according to the account which has been here given, purchase a
  much smaller quantity of several sorts of provisions than it would have
  done during some part of the last century; and to ascertain whether this
  change be owing to a rise in the value of those goods, or to a fall in the
  value of silver, is only to establish a vain and useless distinction,
  which can be of no sort of service to the man who has only a certain
  quantity of silver to go to market with, or a certain fixed revenue in
  money. I certainly do not pretend that the knowledge of this distinction
  will enable him to buy cheaper. It may not, however, upon that account be
  altogether useless.

  It may be of some use to the public, by affording an easy proof of the
  prosperous condition of the country. If the rise in the price of some
  sorts of provisions be owing altogether to a fall in the value of silver,
  it is owing to a circumstance, from which nothing can be inferred but the
  fertility of the American mines. The real wealth of the country, the
  annual produce of its land and labour, may, notwithstanding this
  circumstance, be either gradually declining, as in Portugal and Poland; or
  gradually advancing, as in most other parts of Europe. But if this rise in
  the price of some sorts of provisions be owing to a rise in the real value
  of the land which produces them, to its increased fertility, or, in
  consequence of more extended improvement and good cultivation, to its
  having been rendered fit for producing corn; it is owing to a circumstance
  which indicates, in the clearest manner, the prosperous and advancing
  state of the country. The land constitutes by far the greatest, the most
  important, and the most durable part of the wealth of every extensive
  country. It may surely be of some use, or, at least, it may give some
  satisfaction to the public, to have so decisive a proof of the increasing
  value of by far the greatest, the most important, and the most durable
  part of its wealth.

  It may, too, be of some use to the public, in regulating the pecuniary
  reward of some of its inferior servants. If this rise in the price of some
  sorts of provisions be owing to a fall in the value of silver, their
  pecuniary reward, provided it was not too large before, ought certainly to
  be augmented in proportion to the extent of this fall. If it is not
  augmented, their real recompence will evidently be so much diminished. But
  if this rise of price is owing to the increased value, in consequence of
  the improved fertility of the land which produces such provisions, it
  becomes a much nicer matter to judge, either in what proportion any
  pecuniary reward ought to be augmented, or whether it ought to be
  augmented at all. The extension of improvement and cultivation, as it
  necessarily raises more or less, in proportion to the price of corn, that
  of every sort of animal food, so it as necessarily lowers that of, I
  believe, every sort of vegetable food. It raises the price of animal food;
  because a great part of the land which produces it, being rendered fit for
  producing corn, must afford to the landlord and farmer the rent and
  profit of corn land. It lowers the price of vegetable food; because, by
  increasing the fertility of the land, it increases its abundance. The
  improvements of agriculture, too, introduce many sorts of vegetable food,
  which requiring less land, and not more labour than corn, come much
  cheaper to market. Such are potatoes and maize, or what is called Indian
  corn, the two most important improvements which the agriculture of Europe,
  perhaps, which Europe itself, has received from the great extension of its
  commerce and navigation. Many sorts of vegetable food, besides, which in
  the rude state of agriculture are confined to the kitchen-garden, and
  raised only by the spade, come, in its improved state, to be introduced
  into common fields, and to be raised by the plough; such as turnips,
  carrots, cabbages, etc. If, in the progress of improvement, therefore, the
  real price of one species of food necessarily rises, that of another as
  necessarily falls; and it becomes a matter of more nicety to judge how far
  the rise in the one may be compensated by the fall in the other. When the
  real price of butcher’s meat has once got to its height (which, with
  regard to every sort, except perhaps that of hogs flesh, it seems to have
  done through a great part of England more than a century ago), any rise
  which can afterwards happen in that of any other sort of animal food,
  cannot much affect the circumstances of the inferior ranks of people. The
  circumstances of the poor, through a great part of England, cannot surely
  be so much distressed by any rise in the price of poultry, fish,
  wild-fowl, or venison, as they must be relieved by the fall in that of
  potatoes.

  In the present season of scarcity, the high price of corn no doubt
  distresses the poor. But in times of moderate plenty, when corn is at its
  ordinary or average price, the natural rise in the price of any other sort
  of rude produce cannot much affect them. They suffer more, perhaps, by the
  artificial rise which has been occasioned by taxes in the price of some
  manufactured commodities, as of salt, soap, leather, candles, malt, beer,
  ale, etc.


  _Effects of the Progress of Improvement upon the real Price of
  Manufactures._


  It is the natural effect of improvement, however, to diminish gradually
  the real price of almost all manufactures. That of the manufacturing
  workmanship diminishes, perhaps, in all of them without exception. In
  consequence of better machinery, of greater dexterity, and of a more
  proper division and distribution of work, all of which are the natural
  effects of improvement, a much smaller quantity of labour becomes
  requisite for executing any particular piece of work; and though, in
  consequence of the flourishing circumstances of the society, the real
  price of labour should rise very considerably, yet the great diminution of
  the quantity will generally much more than compensate the greatest rise
  which can happen in the price.

  There are, indeed, a few manufactures, in which the necessary rise in the
  real price of the rude materials will more than compensate all the
  advantages which improvement can introduce into the execution of the work.
  In carpenters’ and joiners’ work, and in the coarser sort of cabinet work,
  the necessary rise in the real price of barren timber, in consequence of
  the improvement of land, will more than compensate all the advantages
  which can be derived from the best machinery, the greatest dexterity, and
  the most proper division and distribution of work.

  But in all cases in which the real price of the rude material either does
  not rise at all, or does not rise very much, that of the manufactured
  commodity sinks very considerably.

  This diminution of price has, in the course of the present and preceding
  century, been most remarkable in those manufactures of which the materials
  are the coarser metals. A better movement of a watch, than about the
  middle of the last century could have been bought for twenty pounds, may
  now perhaps be had for twenty shillings. In the work of cutlers and
  locksmiths, in all the toys which are made of the coarser metals, and in
  all those goods which are commonly known by the name of Birmingham and
  Sheffield ware, there has been, during the same period, a very great
  reduction of price, though not altogether so great as in watch-work. It
  has, however, been sufficient to astonish the workmen of every other part
  of Europe, who in many cases acknowledge that they can produce no work of
  equal goodness for double or even for triple the price. There are perhaps
  no manufactures, in which the division of labour can be carried further,
  or in which the machinery employed admits of a greater variety of
  improvements, than those of which the materials are the coarser metals.

  In the clothing manufacture there has, during the same period, been no
  such sensible reduction of price. The price of superfine cloth, I have
  been assured, on the contrary, has, within these five-and-twenty or thirty
  years, risen somewhat in proportion to its quality, owing, it was said, to
  a considerable rise in the price of the material, which consists
  altogether of Spanish wool. That of the Yorkshire cloth, which is made
  altogether of English wool, is said, indeed, during the course of the
  present century, to have fallen a good deal in proportion to its quality.
  Quality, however, is so very disputable a matter, that I look upon all
  information of this kind as somewhat uncertain. In the clothing
  manufacture, the division of labour is nearly the same now as it was a
  century ago, and the machinery employed is not very different. There may,
  however, have been some small improvements in both, which may have
  occasioned some reduction of price.

  But the reduction will appear much more sensible and undeniable, if we
  compare the price of this manufacture in the present times with what it
  was in a much remoter period, towards the end of the fifteenth century,
  when the labour was probably much less subdivided, and the machinery
  employed much more imperfect, than it is at present.

  In 1487, being the 4th of Henry VII., it was enacted, that “whosoever
  shall sell by retail a broad yard of the finest scarlet grained, or of
  other grained cloth of the finest making, above sixteen shillings, shall
  forfeit forty shillings for every yard so sold.” Sixteen shillings,
  therefore, containing about the same quantity of silver as four-and-twenty
  shillings of our present money, was, at that time, reckoned not an
  unreasonable price for a yard of the finest cloth; and as this is a
  sumptuary law, such cloth, it is probable, had usually been sold somewhat
  dearer. A guinea may be reckoned the highest price in the present times.
  Even though the quality of the cloths, therefore, should be supposed
  equal, and that of the present times is most probably much superior, yet,
  even upon this supposition, the money price of the finest cloth appears to
  have been considerably reduced since the end of the fifteenth century. But
  its real price has been much more reduced. Six shillings and eightpence
  was then, and long afterwards, reckoned the average price of a quarter of
  wheat. Sixteen shillings, therefore, was the price of two quarters and
  more than three bushels of wheat. Valuing a quarter of wheat in the
  present times at eight-and-twenty shillings, the real price of a yard of
  fine cloth must, in those times, have been equal to at least three pounds
  six shillings and sixpence of our present money. The man who bought it
  must have parted with the command of a quantity of labour and subsistence
  equal to what that sum would purchase in the present times.

  The reduction in the real price of the coarse manufacture, though
  considerable, has not been so great as in that of the fine.

  In 1463, being the 3rd of Edward IV. it was enacted, that “no servant in
  husbandry nor common labourer, nor servant to any artificer inhabiting out
  of a city or burgh, shall use or wear in their clothing any cloth above
  two shillings the broad yard.” In the 3rd of Edward IV., two shillings
  contained very nearly the same quantity of silver as four of our present
  money. But the Yorkshire cloth which is now sold at four shillings the
  yard, is probably much superior to any that was then made for the wearing
  of the very poorest order of common servants. Even the money price of
  their clothing, therefore, may, in proportion to the quality, be somewhat
  cheaper in the present than it was in those ancient times. The real price
  is certainly a good deal cheaper. Tenpence was then reckoned what is
  called the moderate and reasonable price of a bushel of wheat. Two
  shillings, therefore, was the price of two bushels and near two pecks of
  wheat, which in the present times, at three shillings and sixpence the
  bushel, would be worth eight shillings and ninepence. For a yard of this
  cloth the poor servant must have parted with the power of purchasing a
  quantity of subsistence equal to what eight shillings and ninepence would
  purchase in the present times. This is a sumptuary law, too, restraining
  the luxury and extravagance of the poor. Their clothing, therefore, had
  commonly been much more expensive.

  The same order of people are, by the same law, prohibited from wearing
  hose, of which the price should exceed fourteen-pence the pair, equal to
  about eight-and-twenty pence of our present money. But fourteen-pence was
  in those times the price of a bushel and near two pecks of wheat; which in
  the present times, at three and sixpence the bushel, would cost five
  shillings and threepence. We should in the present times consider this as
  a very high price for a pair of stockings to a servant of the poorest and
  lowest order. He must however, in those times, have paid what was really
  equivalent to this price for them.

  In the time of Edward IV. the art of knitting stockings was probably not
  known in any part of Europe. Their hose were made of common cloth, which
  may have been one of the causes of their dearness. The first person that
  wore stockings in England is said to have been Queen Elizabeth. She
  received them as a present from the Spanish ambassador.

  Both in the coarse and in the fine woollen manufacture, the machinery
  employed was much more imperfect in those ancient, than it is in the
  present times. It has since received three very capital improvements,
  besides, probably, many smaller ones, of which it may be difficult to
  ascertain either the number or the importance. The three capital
  improvements are, first, the exchange of the rock and spindle for the
  spinning-wheel, which, with the same quantity of labour, will perform more
  than double the quantity of work. Secondly, the use of several very
  ingenious machines, which facilitate and abridge, in a still greater
  proportion, the winding of the worsted and woollen yarn, or the proper
  arrangement of the warp and woof before they are put into the loom; an
  operation which, previous to the invention of those machines, must have
  been extremely tedious and troublesome. Thirdly, the employment of the
  fulling-mill for thickening the cloth, instead of treading it in water.
  Neither wind nor water mills of any kind were known in England so early as
  the beginning of the sixteenth century, nor, so far as I know, in any
  other part of Europe north of the Alps. They had been introduced into
  Italy some time before.

  The consideration of these circumstances may, perhaps, in some measure,
  explain to us why the real price both of the coarse and of the fine
  manufacture was so much higher in those ancient than it is in the present
  times. It cost a greater quantity of labour to bring the goods to market.
  When they were brought thither, therefore, they must have purchased, or
  exchanged for the price of, a greater quantity.

  The coarse manufacture probably was, in those ancient times, carried on in
  England in the same manner as it always has been in countries where arts
  and manufactures are in their infancy. It was probably a household
  manufacture, in which every different part of the work was occasionally
  performed by all the different members of almost every private family, but
  so as to be their work only when they had nothing else to do, and not to
  be the principal business from which any of them derived the greater part
  of their subsistence. The work which is performed in this manner, it has
  already been observed, comes always much cheaper to market than that which
  is the principal or sole fund of the workman’s subsistence. The fine
  manufacture, on the other hand, was not, in those times, carried on in
  England, but in the rich and commercial country of Flanders; and it was
  probably conducted then, in the same manner as now, by people who derived
  the whole, or the principal part of their subsistence from it. It was,
  besides, a foreign manufacture, and must have paid some duty, the ancient
  custom of tonnage and poundage at least, to the king. This duty, indeed,
  would not probably be very great. It was not then the policy of Europe to
  restrain, by high duties, the importation of foreign manufactures, but
  rather to encourage it, in order that merchants might be enabled to
  supply, at as easy a rate as possible, the great men with the
  conveniencies and luxuries which they wanted, and which the industry of
  their own country could not afford them.

  The consideration of these circumstances may, perhaps, in some measure
  explain to us why, in those ancient times, the real price of the coarse
  manufacture was, in proportion to that of the fine, so much lower than in
  the present times.




  Conclusion of the Chapter.

  I shall conclude this very long chapter with observing, that every
  improvement in the circumstances of the society tends, either directly or
  indirectly, to raise the real rent of land to increase the real wealth of
  the landlord, his power of purchasing the labour, or the produce of the
  labour of other people.

  The extension of improvement and cultivation tends to raise it directly.
  The landlord’s share of the produce necessarily increases with the
  increase of the produce.

  That rise in the real price of those parts of the rude produce of land,
  which is first the effect of the extended improvement and cultivation, and
  afterwards the cause of their being still further extended, the rise in
  the price of cattle, for example, tends, too, to raise the rent of land
  directly, and in a still greater proportion. The real value of the
  landlord’s share, his real command of the labour of other people, not only
  rises with the real value of the produce, but the proportion of his share
  to the whole produce rises with it.

  That produce, after the rise in its real price, requires no more labour to
  collect it than before. A smaller proportion of it will, therefore, be
  sufficient to replace, with the ordinary profit, the stock which employs
  that labour. A greater proportion of it must consequently belong to the
  landlord.

  All those improvements in the productive powers of labour, which tend
  directly to reduce the rent price of manufactures, tend indirectly to
  raise the real rent of land. The landlord exchanges that part of his rude
  produce, which is over and above his own consumption, or, what comes to
  the same thing, the price of that part of it, for manufactured produce.
  Whatever reduces the real price of the latter, raises that of the former.
  An equal quantity of the former becomes thereby equivalent to a greater
  quantity of the latter; and the landlord is enabled to purchase a greater
  quantity of the conveniencies, ornaments, or luxuries which he has
  occasion for.

  Every increase in the real wealth of the society, every increase in the
  quantity of useful labour employed within it, tends indirectly to raise
  the real rent of land. A certain proportion of this labour naturally goes
  to the land. A greater number of men and cattle are employed in its
  cultivation, the produce increases with the increase of the stock which is
  thus employed in raising it, and the rent increases with the produce.

  The contrary circumstances, the neglect of cultivation and improvement,
  the fall in the real price of any part of the rude produce of land, the
  rise in the real price of manufactures from the decay of manufacturing art
  and industry, the declension of the real wealth of the society, all tend,
  on the other hand, to lower the real rent of land, to reduce the real
  wealth of the landlord, to diminish his power of purchasing either the
  labour, or the produce of the labour, of other people.

  The whole annual produce of the land and labour of every country, or, what
  comes to the same thing, the whole price of that annual produce, naturally
  divides itself, it has already been observed, into three parts; the rent
  of land, the wages of labour, and the profits of stock; and constitutes a
  revenue to three different orders of people; to those who live by rent, to
  those who live by wages, and to those who live by profit. These are the
  three great, original, and constituent, orders of every civilized society,
  from whose revenue that of every other order is ultimately derived.

  The interest of the first of those three great orders, it appears from
  what has been just now said, is strictly and inseparably connected with
  the general interest of the society. Whatever either promotes or obstructs
  the one, necessarily promotes or obstructs the other. When the public
  deliberates concerning any regulation of commerce or police, the
  proprietors of land never can mislead it, with a view to promote the
  interest of their own particular order; at least, if they have any
  tolerable knowledge of that interest. They are, indeed, too often
  defective in this tolerable knowledge. They are the only one of the three
  orders whose revenue costs them neither labour nor care, but comes to
  them, as it were, of its own accord, and independent of any plan or
  project of their own. That indolence which is the natural effect of the
  ease and security of their situation, renders them too often, not only
  ignorant, but incapable of that application of mind, which is necessary in
  order to foresee and understand the consequence of any public regulation.

  The interest of the second order, that of those who live by wages, is as
  strictly connected with the interest of the society as that of the first.
  The wages of the labourer, it has already been shewn, are never so high as
  when the demand for labour is continually rising, or when the quantity
  employed is every year increasing considerably. When this real wealth of
  the society becomes stationary, his wages are soon reduced to what is
  barely enough to enable him to bring up a family, or to continue the race
  of labourers. When the society declines, they fall even below this. The
  order of proprietors may perhaps gain more by the prosperity of the
  society than that of labourers; but there is no order that suffers so
  cruelly from its decline. But though the interest of the labourer is
  strictly connected with that of the society, he is incapable either of
  comprehending that interest, or of understanding its connexion with his
  own. His condition leaves him no time to receive the necessary
  information, and his education and habits are commonly such as to render
  him unfit to judge, even though he was fully informed. In the public
  deliberations, therefore, his voice is little heard, and less regarded;
  except upon particular occasions, when his clamour is animated, set on,
  and supported by his employers, not for his, but their own particular
  purposes.

  His employers constitute the third order, that of those who live by
  profit. It is the stock that is employed for the sake of profit, which
  puts into motion the greater part of the useful labour of every society.
  The plans and projects of the employers of stock regulate and direct all
  the most important operation of labour, and profit is the end proposed by
  all those plans and projects. But the rate of profit does not, like rent
  and wages, rise with the prosperity, and fall with the declension of the
  society. On the contrary, it is naturally low in rich, and high in poor
  countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going
  fastest to ruin. The interest of this third order, therefore, has not the
  same connexion with the general interest of the society, as that of the
  other two. Merchants and master manufacturers are, in this order, the two
  classes of people who commonly employ the largest capitals, and who by
  their wealth draw to themselves the greatest share of the public
  consideration. As during their whole lives they are engaged in plans and
  projects, they have frequently more acuteness of understanding than the
  greater part of country gentlemen. As their thoughts, however, are
  commonly exercised rather about the interest of their own particular
  branch of business. than about that of the society, their judgment, even
  when given with the greatest candour (which it has not been upon every
  occasion), is much more to be depended upon with regard to the former of
  those two objects, than with regard to the latter. Their superiority over
  the country gentleman is, not so much in their knowledge of the public
  interest, as in their having a better knowledge of their own interest than
  he has of his. It is by this superior knowledge of their own interest that
  they have frequently imposed upon his generosity, and persuaded him to
  give up both his own interest and that of the public, from a very simple
  but honest conviction, that their interest, and not his, was the interest
  of the public. The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular
  branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different
  from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market, and
  to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen
  the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the
  public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can
  only serve to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they
  naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the
  rest of their fellow-citizens. The proposal of any new law or regulation
  of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to
  with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having
  been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but
  with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose
  interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have
  generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who
  accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.

  # PRICES OF WHEAT

Year Prices/Quarter Average of different Average prices of in each year prices in one year each year in money of 1776

        £   s   d         £   s   d             £   s   d

1202 0 12 0 1 16 0 1205 0 12 0 0 13 4 0 13 5 2 0 3 0 15 0 1223 0 12 0 1 16 0 1237 0 3 4 0 10 0 1243 0 2 0 0 6 0 1244 0 2 0 0 6 0 1246 0 16 0 2 8 0 1247 0 13 5 2 0 0 1257 1 4 0 3 12 0 1258 1 0 0 0 15 0 0 17 0 2 11 0 0 16 0 1270 4 16 0 6 8 0 5 12 0 16 16 0 1286 0 2 8 0 16 0 0 9 4 1 8 0 Total 35 9 3 Average 2 19 1¼

1287 0 3 4 0 10 0 1288 0 0 8 0 1 0 0 1 4 0 1 6 0 1 8 0 3 0¼ 0 9 1¾ 0 2 0 0 3 4 0 9 4 1289 0 12 0 0 6 0 0 2 0 0 10 1½ 1 10 4½ 0 10 8 1 0 0 1290 0 16 0 2 8 0 1294 0 16 0 2 8 0 1302 0 4 0 0 12 0 1309 0 7 2 1 1 6 1315 1 0 0 3 0 0 1316 1 0 0 1 10 0 1 10 6 4 11 6 1 12 0 2 0 0 1317 2 4 0 0 14 0 2 13 0 1 19 6 5 18 6 4 0 0 0 6 8 1336 0 2 0 0 6 0 1338 0 3 4 0 10 0 Total 23 4 11¼ Average 1 18 8

1339 0 9 0 1 7 0 1349 0 2 0 0 5 2 1359 1 6 8 3 2 2 1361 0 2 0 0 4 8 1363 0 15 0 1 15 0 1369 1 0 0 1 4 0 1 2 0 2 9 4 1379 0 4 0 0 9 4 1387 0 2 0 0 4 8 1390 0 13 4 0 14 0 0 14 5 1 13 7 0 16 0 1401 0 16 0 1 17 6 1407 0 4 4¾ 0 3 4 0 3 10 0 8 10 1416 0 16 0 1 12 0 Total 15 9 4 Average 1 5 9½

1423 0 8 0 0 1425 0 4 0 0 1434 1 6 8 4 1435 0 5 4 8 1439 1 0 0 1 6 8 1 3 4 2 6 8 1440 1 4 0 2 8 0 1444 0 4 4 0 4 2 0 4 8 0 4 0 1445 0 4 6 0 9 0 1447 0 8 0 0 16 0 1448 0 6 8 0 13 4 1449 0 5 0 0 10 0 1451 0 8 0 0 16 0 Total 12 15 4 Average 1 1 3⅓

1453 0 5 4 0 10 8 1455 0 1 2 0 2 4 1457 0 7 8 1 15 4 1459 0 5 0 0 10 0 1460 0 8 0 0 16 0 1463 0 2 0 0 1 10 0 3 8 0 1 8 1464 0 6 8 0 10 0 1486 1 4 0 1 17 0 1491 0 14 8 1 2 0 1494 0 4 0 0 6 0 1495 0 3 4 0 5 0 1497 1 0 0 1 11 0 Total 8 9 0 Average 0 14 1

1499 0 4 0 0 6 0 1504 0 5 8 0 8 6 1521 1 0 0 1 10 0 1551 0 8 0 0 8 0 1553 0 8 0 0 8 0 1554 0 8 0 0 8 0 1555 0 8 0 0 8 0 1556 0 8 0 0 8 0 1557 0 8 0 0 4 0 0 17 8½ 0 17 8½ 0 5 0 2 13 4 1558 0 8 0 0 8 0 1559 0 8 0 0 8 0 1560 0 8 0 0 8 0 Total 6 0 2½ Average 0 10 0½

1561 0 8 0 0 8 0 1562 0 8 0 0 8 0 1574 2 16 0 1 4 0 2 0 0 2 0 0 1587 3 4 0 3 4 0 1594 2 16 0 2 16 0 1595 2 13 0 2 13 0 1596 4 0 0 4 0 0 1597 5 4 0 4 0 0 4 12 0 4 12 0 1598 2 16 8 2 16 8 1599 1 19 2 1 19 8 1600 1 17 8 1 17 8 1601 1 14 10 1 14 10 Total 28 9 4 Average 2 7 5½

  PRICES OF THE QUARTER OF NINE BUSHELS OF THE BEST OR HIGHEST PRICED WHEAT
  AT WINDSOR MARKET, ON LADY DAY AND MICHAELMAS, FROM 1595 TO 1764 BOTH
  INCLUSIVE; THE PRICE OF EACH YEAR BEING THE MEDIUM BETWEEN THE HIGHEST
  PRICES OF THESE TWO MARKET DAYS.


        £   s   d

1595 2 0 0 1596 2 8 0 1597 3 9 6 1598 2 16 8 1599 1 19 2 1600 1 17 8 1601 1 14 10 1602 1 9 4 1603 1 15 4 1604 1 10 8 1605 1 15 10 1606 1 13 0 1607 1 16 8 1608 2 16 8 1609 2 10 0 1610 1 15 10 1611 1 18 8 1612 2 2 4 1613 2 8 8 1614 2 1 8½ 1615 1 18 8 1616 2 0 4 1617 2 8 8 1618 2 6 8 1619 1 15 4 1620 1 10 4 26)54 0 6½ Average 2 1 6¾

1621 1 10 4 1622 2 18 8 1623 2 12 0 1624 2 8 0 1625 2 12 0 1626 2 9 4 1627 1 16 0 1628 1 8 0 1629 2 2 0 1630 2 15 8 1631 3 8 0 1632 2 13 4 1633 2 18 0 1634 2 16 0 1635 2 16 0 1636 2 16 8 16)40 0 0 Average 2 10 0

1637 2 13 0 1638 2 17 4 1639 2 4 10 1640 2 4 8 1641 2 8 0 1646 2 8 0 1647 3 13 0 1648 4 5 0 1649 4 0 0 1650 3 16 8 1651 3 13 4 1652 2 9 6 1653 1 15 6 1654 1 6 0 1655 1 13 4 1656 2 3 0 1657 2 6 8 1658 3 5 0 1659 3 6 0 1660 2 16 6 1661 3 10 0 1662 3 14 0 1663 2 17 0 1664 2 0 6 1665 2 9 4 1666 1 16 0 1667 1 16 0 1668 2 0 0 1669 2 4 4 1670 2 1 8 1671 2 2 0 1672 2 1 0 1673 2 6 8 1674 3 8 8 1675 3 4 8 1676 1 18 0 1677 2 2 0 1678 2 19 0 1679 3 0 0 1680 2 5 0 1681 2 6 8 1682 2 4 0 1683 2 0 0 1684 2 4 0 1685 2 6 8 1686 1 14 0 1687 1 5 2 1688 2 6 0 1689 1 10 0 1690 1 14 8 1691 1 14 0 1692 2 6 8 1693 3 7 8 1694 3 4 0 1695 2 13 0 1696 3 11 0 1697 3 0 0 1698 3 8 4 1699 3 4 0 1700 2 0 0 60) 153 1 8 Average 2 11 0⅓

1701 1 17 8 1702 1 9 6 1703 1 16 0 1704 2 6 6 1705 1 10 0 1706 1 6 0 1707 1 8 6 1708 2 1 6 1709 3 18 6 1710 3 18 0 1711 2 14 0 1712 2 6 4 1713 2 11 0 1714 2 10 4 1715 2 3 0 1716 2 8 0 1717 2 5 8 1718 1 18 10 1719 1 15 0 1720 1 17 0 1721 1 17 6 1722 1 16 0 1723 1 14 8 1724 1 17 0 1725 2 8 6 1726 2 6 0 1727 2 2 0 1728 2 14 6 1729 2 6 10 1730 1 16 6 1731 1 12 10 1 12 10 1732 1 6 8 1 6 8 1733 1 8 4 1 8 4 1734 1 18 10 1 18 10 1735 2 3 0 2 3 0 1736 2 0 4 2 0 4 1737 1 18 0 1 18 0 1738 1 15 6 1 15 6 1739 1 18 6 1 18 6 1740 2 10 8 2 10 8 10) 18 12 8 1 17 3½

1741 2 6 8 2 6 8 1742 1 14 0 1 14 0 1743 1 4 10 1 4 10 1744 1 4 10 1 4 10 1745 1 7 6 1 7 6 1746 1 19 0 1 19 0 1747 1 14 10 1 14 10 1748 1 17 0 1 17 0 1749 1 17 0 1 17 0 1750 1 12 6 1 12 6 10) 16 18 2 1 13 9¾

1751 1 18 6 1752 2 1 10 1753 2 4 8 1754 1 13 8 1755 1 14 10 1756 2 5 3 1757 3 0 0 1758 2 10 0 1759 1 19 10 1760 1 16 6 1761 1 10 3 1762 1 19 0 1763 2 0 9 1764 2 6 9 64) 129 13 6 Average 2 0 6¾