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.