The value of silver, therefore, seems to have risen somewhat in proportion

to that of corn during the course of the present century, and it had

probably begun to do so even some time before the end of the last.

In 1687, the price of the quarter of nine bushels of the best wheat, at

Windsor market, was £ 1:5:2, the lowest price at which it had ever been

from 1595.

In 1688, Mr Gregory King, a man famous for his knowledge in matters of

this kind, estimated the average price of wheat, in years of moderate

plenty, to be to the grower 3s. 6d. the bushel, or eight-and-twenty

shillings the quarter. The grower’s price I understand to be the same with

what is sometimes called the contract price, or the price at which a

farmer contracts for a certain number of years to deliver a certain

quantity of corn to a dealer. As a contract of this kind saves the farmer

the expense and trouble of marketing, the contract price is generally

lower than what is supposed to be the average market price. Mr King had

judged eight-and-twenty shillings the quarter to be at that time the

ordinary contract price in years of moderate plenty. Before the scarcity

occasioned by the late extraordinary course of bad seasons, it was, I have

been assured, the ordinary contract price in all common years.

In 1688 was granted the parliamentary bounty upon the exportation of corn.

The country gentlemen, who then composed a still greater proportion of the

legislature than they do at present, had felt that the money price of corn

was falling. The bounty was an expedient to raise it artificially to the

high price at which it had frequently been sold in the times of Charles I.

and II. It was to take place, therefore, till wheat was so high as

fortyeight shillings the quarter; that is, twenty shillings, or 5-7ths

dearer than Mr King had, in that very year, estimated the grower’s price

to be in times of moderate plenty. If his calculations deserve any part of

the reputation which they have obtained very universally, eight-and-forty

shillings the quarter was a price which, without some such expedient as

the bounty, could not at that time be expected, except in years of

extraordinary scarcity. But the government of King William was not then

fully settled. It was in no condition to refuse anything to the country

gentlemen, from whom it was, at that very time, soliciting the first

establishment of the annual land-tax.

The value of silver, therefore, in proportion to that of corn, had

probably risen somewhat before the end of the last century; and it seems

to have continued to do so during the course of the greater part of the

present, though the necessary operation of the bounty must have hindered

that rise from being so sensible as it otherwise would have been in the

actual state of tillage.

In plentiful years, the bounty, by occasioning an extraordinary

exportation, necessarily raises the price of corn above what it otherwise

would be in those years. To encourage tillage, by keeping up the price of

corn, even in the most plentiful years, was the avowed end of the

institution.

In years of great scarcity, indeed, the bounty has generally been

suspended. It must, however, have had some effect upon the prices of many

of those years. By the extraordinary exportation which it occasions in

years of plenty, it must frequently hinder the plenty of one year from

compensating the scarcity of another.

Both in years of plenty and in years of scarcity, therefore, the bounty

raises the price of corn above what it naturally would be in the actual

state of tillage. If during the sixty-four first years of the present

century, therefore, the average price has been lower than during the

sixty-four last years of the last century, it must, in the same state of

tillage, have been much more so, had it not been for this operation of the

bounty.

But, without the bounty, it may be said the state of tillage would not

have been the same. What may have been the effects of this institution

upon the agriculture of the country, I shall endeavour to explain

hereafter, when I come to treat particularly of bounties. I shall only

observe at present, that this rise in the value of silver, in proportion

to that of corn, has not been peculiar to England. It has been observed to

have taken place in France during the same period, and nearly in the same

proportion, too, by three very faithful, diligent, and laborious

collectors of the prices of corn, Mr Dupré de St Maur, Mr Messance, and

the author of the Essay on the Police of Grain. But in France, till 1764,

the exportation of grain was by law prohibited; and it is somewhat

difficult to suppose, that nearly the same diminution of price which took

place in one country, notwithstanding this prohibition, should, in

another, be owing to the extraordinary encouragement given to exportation.

It would be more proper, perhaps, to consider this variation in the

average money price of corn as the effect rather of some gradual rise in

the real value of silver in the European market, than of any fall in the

real average value of corn. Corn, it has already been observed, is, at

distant periods of time, a more accurate measure of value than either

silver or, perhaps, any other commodity. When, after the discovery of the

abundant mines of America, corn rose to three and four times its former

money price, this change was universally ascribed, not to any rise in the

real value of corn, but to a fall in the real value of silver. If, during

the sixty-four first years of the present century, therefore, the average

money price of corn has fallen somewhat below what it had been during the

greater part of the last century, we should, in the same manner, impute

this change, not to any fall in the real value of corn, but to some rise

in the real value of silver in the European market.

The high price of corn during these ten or twelve years past, indeed, has

occasioned a suspicion that the real value of silver still continues to

fall in the European market. This high price of corn, however, seems

evidently to have been the effect of the extraordinary unfavourableness of

the seasons, and ought, therefore, to be regarded, not as a permanent, but

as a transitory and occasional event. The seasons, for these ten or twelve

years past, have been unfavourable through the greater part of Europe; and

the disorders of Poland have very much increased the scarcity in all those

countries, which, in dear years, used to be supplied from that market. So

long a course of bad seasons, though not a very common event, is by no

means a singular one; and whoever has inquired much into the history of

the prices of corn in former times, will be at no loss to recollect

several other examples of the same kind. Ten years of extraordinary

scarcity, besides, are not more wonderful than ten years of extraordinary

plenty. The low price of corn, from 1741 to 1750, both inclusive, may very

well be set in opposition to its high price during these last eight or ten

years. From 1741 to 1750, the average price of the quarter of nine bushels

of the best wheat, at Windsor market, it appears from the accounts of Eton

college, was only £ 1:13:9 ⅘, which is nearly 6s.3d. below the average

price of the sixty-four first years of the present century. The average

price of the quarter of eight bushels of middle wheat comes out, according

to this account, to have been, during these ten years, only £ 1:6:8.

Between 1741 and 1750, however, the bounty must have hindered the price of

corn from falling so low in the home market as it naturally would have

done. During these ten years, the quantity of all sorts of grain exported,

it appears from the custom-house books, amounted to no less than 8,029,156

quarters, one bushel. The bounty paid for this amounted to £

1,514,962:17:4 ½. In 1749, accordingly, Mr Pelham, at that time prime

minister, observed to the house of commons, that, for the three years

preceding, a very extraordinary sum had been paid as bounty for the

exportation of corn. He had good reason to make this observation, and in

the following year he might have had still better. In that single year,

the bounty paid amounted to no less than £ 324,176:10:6. {See Tracts on

the Corn Trade, Tract 3,} It is unnecessary to observe how much this

forced exportation must have raised the price of corn above what it

otherwise would have been in the home market.

At the end of the accounts annexed to this chapter the reader will find

the particular account of those ten years separated from the rest. He will

find there, too, the particular account of the preceding ten years, of

which the average is likewise below, though not so much below, the general

average of the sixty-four first years of the century. The year 1740,

however, was a year of extraordinary scarcity. These twenty years

preceding 1750 may very well be set in opposition to the twenty preceding

1770. As the former were a good deal below the general average of the

century, notwithstanding the intervention of one or two dear years; so the

latter have been a good deal above it, notwithstanding the intervention of

one or two cheap ones, of 1759, for example. If the former have not been

as much below the general average as the latter have been above it, we

ought probably to impute it to the bounty. The change has evidently been

too sudden to be ascribed to any change in the value of silver, which is

always slow and gradual. The suddenness of the effect can be accounted for

only by a cause which can operate suddenly, the accidental variations of

the seasons.

The money price of labour in Great Britain has, indeed, risen during the

course of the present century. This, however, seems to be the effect, not

so much of any diminution in the value of silver in the European market,

as of an increase in the demand for labour in Great Britain, arising from

the great, and almost universal prosperity of the country. In France, a

country not altogether so prosperous, the money price of labour has, since

the middle of the last century, been observed to sink gradually with the

average money price of corn. Both in the last century and in the present,

the day wages of common labour are there said to have been pretty

uniformly about the twentieth part of the average price of the septier of

wheat; a measure which contains a little more than four Winchester

bushels. In Great Britain, the real recompence of labour, it has already

been shewn, the real quantities of the necessaries and conveniencies of

life which are given to the labourer, has increased considerably during

the course of the present century. The rise in its money price seems to

have been the effect, not of any diminution of the value of silver in the

general market of Europe, but of a rise in the real price of labour, in

the particular market of Great Britain, owing to the peculiarly happy

circumstances of the country.

For some time after the first discovery of America, silver would continue

to sell at its former, or not much below its former price. The profits of

mining would for some time be very great, and much above their natural

rate. Those who imported that metal into Europe, however, would soon find

that the whole annual importation could not be disposed of at this high

price. Silver would gradually exchange for a smaller and a smaller

quantity of goods. Its price would sink gradually lower and lower, till it

fell to its natural price; or to what was just sufficient to pay,

according to their natural rates, the wages of the labour, the profits of

the stock, and the rent of the land, which must be paid in order to bring

it from the mine to the market. In the greater part of the silver mines of

Peru, the tax of the king of Spain, amounting to a tenth of the gross

produce, eats up, it has already been observed, the whole rent of the

land. This tax was originally a half; it soon afterwards fell to a third,

then to a fifth, and at last to a tenth, at which late it still continues.

In the greater part of the silver mines of Peru, this, it seems, is all

that remains, after replacing the stock of the undertaker of the work,

together with its ordinary profits; and it seems to be universally

acknowledged that these profits, which were once very high, are now as low

as they can well be, consistently with carrying on the works.

The tax of the king of Spain was reduced to a fifth of the registered

silver in 1504 {Solorzano, vol, ii.}, one-and-forty years before 1545, the

date of the discovery of the mines of Potosi. In the course of ninety

years, or before 1636, these mines, the most fertile in all America, had

time sufficient to produce their full effect, or to reduce the value of

silver in the European market as low as it could well fall, while it

continued to pay this tax to the king of Spain. Ninety years is time

sufficient to reduce any commodity, of which there is no monopoly, to its

natural price, or to the lowest price at which, while it pays a particular

tax, it can continue to be sold for any considerable time together.

The price of silver in the European market might, perhaps, have fallen

still lower, and it might have become necessary either to reduce the tax

upon it, not only to one-tenth, as in 1736, but to one twentieth, in the

same manner as that upon gold, or to give up working the greater part of

the American mines which are now wrought. The gradual increase of the

demand for silver, or the gradual enlargement of the market for the

produce of the silver mines of America, is probably the cause which has

prevented this from happening, and which has not only kept up the value of

silver in the European market, but has perhaps even raised it somewhat

higher than it was about the middle of the last century.

Since the first discovery of America, the market for the produce of its

silver mines has been growing gradually more and more extensive.

First, the market of Europe has become gradually more and more extensive.

Since the discovery of America, the greater part of Europe has been much

improved. England, Holland, France, and Germany; even Sweden, Denmark, and

Russia, have all advanced considerably, both in agriculture and in

manufactures. Italy seems not to have gone backwards. The fall of Italy

preceded the conquest of Peru. Since that time it seems rather to have

recovered a little. Spain and Portugal, indeed, are supposed to have gone

backwards. Portugal, however, is but a very small part of Europe, and the

declension of Spain is not, perhaps, so great as is commonly imagined. In

the beginning of the sixteenth century, Spain was a very poor country,

even in comparison with France, which has been so much improved since that

time. It was the well known remark of the emperor Charles V. who had

travelled so frequently through both countries, that every thing abounded

in France, but that every thing was wanting in Spain. The increasing

produce of the agriculture and manufactures of Europe must necessarily

have required a gradual increase in the quantity of silver coin to

circulate it; and the increasing number of wealthy individuals must have

required the like increase in the quantity of their plate and other

ornaments of silver.

Secondly, America is itself a new market, for the produce of its own

silver mines; and as its advances in agriculture, industry, and

population, are much more rapid than those of the most thriving countries

in Europe, its demand must increase much more rapidly. The English

colonies are altogether a new market, which, partly for coin, and partly

for plate, requires a continual augmenting supply of silver through a

great continent where there never was any demand before. The greater part,

too, of the Spanish and Portuguese colonies, are altogether new markets.

New Granada, the Yucatan, Paraguay, and the Brazils, were, before

discovered by the Europeans, inhabited by savage nations, who had neither

arts nor agriculture. A considerable degree of both has now been

introduced into all of them. Even Mexico and Peru, though they cannot be

considered as altogether new markets, are certainly much more extensive

ones than they ever were before. After all the wonderful tales which have

been published concerning the splendid state of those countries in ancient

times, whoever reads, with any degree of sober judgment, the history of

their first discovery and conquest, will evidently discern that, in arts,

agriculture, and commerce, their inhabitants were much more ignorant than

the Tartars of the Ukraine are at present. Even the Peruvians, the more

civilized nation of the two, though they made use of gold and silver as

ornaments, had no coined money of any kind. Their whole commerce was

carried on by barter, and there was accordingly scarce any division of

labour among them. Those who cultivated the ground, were obliged to build

their own houses, to make their own household furniture, their own

clothes, shoes, and instruments of agriculture. The few artificers among

them are said to have been all maintained by the sovereign, the nobles,

and the priests, and were probably their servants or slaves. All the

ancient arts of Mexico and Peru have never furnished one single

manufacture to Europe. The Spanish armies, though they scarce ever

exceeded five hundred men, and frequently did not amount to half that

number, found almost everywhere great difficulty in procuring subsistence.

The famines which they are said to have occasioned almost wherever they

went, in countries, too, which at the same time are represented as very

populous and well cultivated, sufficiently demonstrate that the story of

this populousness and high cultivation is in a great measure fabulous. The

Spanish colonies are under a government in many respects less favourable

to agriculture, improvement, and population, than that of the English

colonies. They seem, however, to be advancing in all those much more

rapidly than any country in Europe. In a fertile soil and happy climate,

the great abundance and cheapness of land, a circumstance common to all

new colonies, is, it seems, so great an advantage, as to compensate many

defects in civil government. Frezier, who visited Peru in 1713, represents

Lima as containing between twenty-five and twenty-eight thousand

inhabitants. Ulloa, who resided in the same country between 1740 and 1746,

represents it as containing more than fifty thousand. The difference in

their accounts of the populousness of several other principal towns of

Chili and Peru is nearly the same; and as there seems to be no reason to

doubt of the good information of either, it marks an increase which is

scarce inferior to that of the English colonies. America, therefore, is a

new market for the produce of its own silver mines, of which the demand

must increase much more rapidly than that of the most thriving country in

Europe.

Thirdly, the East Indies is another market for the produce of the silver

mines of America, and a market which, from the time of the first discovery

of those mines, has been continually taking off a greater and a greater

quantity of silver. Since that time, the direct trade between America and

the East Indies, which is carried on by means of the Acapulco ships, has

been continually augmenting, and the indirect intercourse by the way of

Europe has been augmenting in a still greater proportion. During the

sixteenth century, the Portuguese were the only European nation who

carried on any regular trade to the East Indies. In the last years of that

century, the Dutch began to encroach upon this monopoly, and in a few

years expelled them from their principal settlements in India. During the

greater part of the last century, those two nations divided the most

considerable part of the East India trade between them; the trade of the

Dutch continually augmenting in a still greater proportion than that of

the Portuguese declined. The English and French carried on some trade with

India in the last century, but it has been greatly augmented in the course

of the present. The East India trade of the Swedes and Danes began in the

course of the present century. Even the Muscovites now trade regularly

with China, by a sort of caravans which go over land through Siberia and

Tartary to Pekin. The East India trade of all these nations, if we except

that of the French, which the last war had well nigh annihilated, has been

almost continually augmenting. The increasing consumptions of East India

goods in Europe is, it seems, so great, as to afford a gradual increase of

employment to them all. Tea, for example, was a drug very little used in

Europe, before the middle of the last century. At present, the value of

the tea annually imported by the English East India company, for the use

of their own countrymen, amounts to more than a million and a half a year;

and even this is not enough; a great deal more being constantly smuggled

into the country from the ports of Holland, from Gottenburgh in Sweden,

and from the coast of France, too, as long as the French East India

company was in prosperity. The consumption of the porcelain of China, of

the spiceries of the Moluccas, of the piece goods of Bengal, and of

innumerable other articles, has increased very nearly in a like

proportion. The tonnage, accordingly, of all the European shipping

employed in the East India trade, at any one time during the last century,

was not, perhaps, much greater than that of the English East India company

before the late reduction of their shipping.

But in the East Indies, particularly in China and Indostan, the value of

the precious metals, when the Europeans first began to trade to those

countries, was much higher than in Europe; and it still continues to be

so. In rice countries, which generally yield two, sometimes three crops in

the year, each of them more plentiful than any common crop of corn, the

abundance of food must be much greater than in any corn country of equal

extent. Such countries are accordingly much more populous. In them, too,

the rich, having a greater superabundance of food to dispose of beyond

what they themselves can consume, have the means of purchasing a much

greater quantity of the labour of other people. The retinue of a grandee

in China or Indostan accordingly is, by all accounts, much more numerous

and splendid than that of the richest subjects in Europe. The same

superabundance of food, of which they have the disposal, enables them to

give a greater quantity of it for all those singular and rare productions

which nature furnishes but in very small quantities; such as the precious

metals and the precious stones, the great objects of the competition of

the rich. Though the mines, therefore, which supplied the Indian market,

had been as abundant as those which supplied the European, such

commodities would naturally exchange for a greater quantity of food in

India than in Europe. But the mines which supplied the Indian market with

the precious metals seem to have been a good deal less abundant, and those

which supplied it with the precious stones a good deal more so, than the

mines which supplied the European. The precious metals, therefore, would

naturally exchange in India for a somewhat greater quantity of the

precious stones, and for a much greater quantity of food than in Europe.

The money price of diamonds, the greatest of all superfluities, would be

somewhat lower, and that of food, the first of all necessaries, a great

deal lower in the one country than in the other. But the real price of

labour, the real quantity of the necessaries of life which is given to the

labourer, it has already been observed, is lower both in China and

Indostan, the two great markets of India, than it is through the greater

part of Europe. The wages of the labourer will there purchase a smaller

quantity of food: and as the money price of food is much lower in India

than in Europe, the money price of labour is there lower upon a double

account; upon account both of the small quantity of food which it will

purchase, and of the low price of that food. But in countries of equal art

and industry, the money price of the greater part of manufactures will be

in proportion to the money price of labour; and in manufacturing art and

industry, China and Indostan, though inferior, seem not to be much

inferior to any part of Europe. The money price of the greater part of

manufactures, therefore, will naturally be much lower in those great

empires than it is anywhere in Europe. Through the greater part of Europe,

too, the expense of land-carriage increases very much both the real and

nominal price of most manufactures. It costs more labour, and therefore

more money, to bring first the materials, and afterwards the complete

manufacture to market. In China and Indostan, the extent and variety of

inland navigations save the greater part of this labour, and consequently

of this money, and thereby reduce still lower both the real and the

nominal price of the greater part of their manufactures. Upon all these

accounts, the precious metals are a commodity which it always has been,

and still continues to be, extremely advantageous to carry from Europe to

India. There is scarce any commodity which brings a better price there; or

which, in proportion to the quantity of labour and commodities which it

costs in Europe, will purchase or command a greater quantity of labour and

commodities in India. It is more advantageous, too, to carry silver

thither than gold; because in China, and the greater part of the other

markets of India, the proportion between fine silver and fine gold is but

as ten, or at most as twelve to one; whereas in Europe it is as fourteen

or fifteen to one. In China, and the greater part of the other markets of

India, ten, or at most twelve ounces of silver, will purchase an ounce of

gold; in Europe, it requires from fourteen to fifteen ounces. In the

cargoes, therefore, of the greater part of European ships which sail to

India, silver has generally been one of the most valuable articles. It is

the most valuable article in the Acapulco ships which sail to Manilla. The

silver of the new continent seems, in this manner, to be one of the

principal commodities by which the commerce between the two extremities of

the old one is carried on; and it is by means of it, in a great measure,

that those distant parts of the world are connected with one another.

In order to supply so very widely extended a market, the quantity of

silver annually brought from the mines must not only be sufficient to

support that continued increase, both of coin and of plate, which is

required in all thriving countries; but to repair that continual waste and

consumption of silver which takes place in all countries where that metal

is used.

The continual consumption of the precious metals in coin by wearing, and

in plate both by wearing and cleaning, is very sensible; and in

commodities of which the use is so very widely extended, would alone

require a very great annual supply. The consumption of those metals in

some particular manufactures, though it may not perhaps be greater upon

the whole than this gradual consumption, is, however, much more sensible,

as it is much more rapid. In the manufactures of Birmingham alone, the

quantity of gold and silver annually employed in gilding and plating, and

thereby disqualified from ever afterwards appearing in the shape of those

metals, is said to amount to more than fifty thousand pounds sterling. We

may from thence form some notion how great must be the annual consumption

in all the different parts of the world, either in manufactures of the

same kind with those of Birmingham, or in laces, embroideries, gold and

silver stuffs, the gilding of books, furniture, etc. A considerable

quantity, too, must be annually lost in transporting those metals from one

place to another both by sea and by land. In the greater part of the

governments of Asia, besides, the almost universal custom of concealing

treasures in the bowels of the earth, of which the knowledge frequently

dies with the person who makes the concealment, must occasion the loss of

a still greater quantity.

The quantity of gold and silver imported at both Cadiz and Lisbon

(including not only what comes under register, but what may be supposed to

be smuggled) amounts, according to the best accounts, to about six

millions sterling a-year.

According to Mr Meggens {Postscript to the Universal Merchant p. 15 and

16. This postscript was not printed till 1756, three years after the

publication of the book, which has never had a second edition. The

postscript is, therefore, to be found in few copies; it corrects several

errors in the book.}, the annual importation of the precious metals into

Spain, at an average of six years, viz. from 1748 to 1753, both inclusive,

and into Portugal, at an average of seven years, viz. from 1747 to 1753,

both inclusive, amounted in silver to 1,101,107 pounds weight, and in gold

to 49,940 pounds weight. The silver, at sixty two shillings the pound

troy, amounts to £ 3,413,431:10s. sterling. The gold, at forty-four

guineas and a half the pound troy, amounts to £ 2,333,446:14s. sterling.

Both together amount to £ 5,746,878:4s. sterling. The account of what was

imported under register, he assures us, is exact. He gives us the detail

of the particular places from which the gold and silver were brought, and

of the particular quantity of each metal, which, according to the

register, each of them afforded. He makes an allowance, too, for the

quantity of each metal which, he supposes, may have been smuggled. The

great experience of this judicious merchant renders his opinion of

considerable weight.

According to the eloquent, and sometimes well-informed, author of the

Philosophical and Political History of the Establishment of the Europeans

in the two Indies, the annual importation of registered gold and silver

into Spain, at an average of eleven years, viz. from 1754 to 1764, both

inclusive, amounted to 13,984,185 ⅗ piastres of ten reals. On account of

what may have been smuggled, however, the whole annual importation, he

supposes, may have amounted to seventeen millions of piastres, which, at

4s. 6d. the piastre, is equal to £ 3,825,000 sterling. He gives the

detail, too, of the particular places from which the gold and silver were

brought, and of the particular quantities of each metal, which according

to the register, each of them afforded. He informs us, too, that if we

were to judge of the quantity of gold annually imported from the Brazils

to Lisbon, by the amount of the tax paid to the king of Portugal, which it

seems, is one-fifth of the standard metal, we might value it at eighteen

millions of cruzadoes, or forty-five millions of French livres, equal to

about twenty millions sterling. On account of what may have been smuggled,

however, we may safely, he says, add to this sum an eighth more, or £

250,000 sterling, so that the whole will amount to £ 2,250,000 sterling.

According to this account, therefore, the whole annual importation of the

precious metals into both Spain and Portugal, mounts to about £ 6,075,000

sterling.

Several other very well authenticated, though manuscript accounts, I have

been assured, agree in making this whole annual importation amount, at an

average, to about six millions sterling; sometimes a little more,

sometimes a little less.

The annual importation of the precious metals into Cadiz and Lisbon,

indeed, is not equal to the whole annual produce of the mines of America.

Some part is sent annually by the Acapulco ships to Manilla; some part is

employed in a contraband trade, which the Spanish colonies carry on with

those of other European nations; and some part, no doubt, remains in the

country. The mines of America, besides, are by no means the only gold and

silver mines in the world. They, are, however, by far the most abundant.

The produce of all the other mines which are known is insignificant, it is

acknowledged, in comparison with theirs; and the far greater part of

their produce, it is likewise acknowledged, is annually imported into

Cadiz and Lisbon. But the consumption of Birmingham alone, at the rate of

fifty thousand pounds a-year, is equal to the hundred-and-twentieth part

of this annual importation, at the rate of six millions a-year. The whole

annual consumption of gold and silver, therefore, in all the different

countries of the world where those metals are used, may, perhaps, be

nearly equal to the whole annual produce. The remainder may be no more

than sufficient to supply the increasing demand of all thriving countries.

It may even have fallen so far short of this demand, as somewhat to raise

the price of those metals in the European market.

The quantity of brass and iron annually brought from the mine to the

market, is out of all proportion greater than that of gold and silver. We

do not, however, upon this account, imagine that those coarse metals are

likely to multiply beyond the demand, or to become gradually cheaper and

cheaper. Why should we imagine that the precious metals are likely to do

so? The coarse metals, indeed, though harder, are put to much harder uses,

and, as they are of less value, less care is employed in their

preservation. The precious metals, however, are not necessarily immortal

any more than they, but are liable, too, to be lost, wasted, and consumed,

in a great variety of ways.

The price of all metals, though liable to slow and gradual variations,

varies less from year to year than that of almost any other part of the

rude produce of land: and the price of the precious metals is even less

liable to sudden variations than that of the coarse ones. The durableness

of metals is the foundation of this extraordinary steadiness of price. The

corn which was brought to market last year will be all, or almost all,

consumed, long before the end of this year. But some part of the iron

which was brought from the mine two or three hundred years ago, may be

still in use, and, perhaps, some part of the gold which was brought from

it two or three thousand years ago. The different masses of corn, which,

in different years, must supply the consumption of the world, will always

be nearly in proportion to the respective produce of those different

years. But the proportion between the different masses of iron which may

be in use in two different years, will be very little affected by any

accidental difference in the produce of the iron mines of those two years;

and the proportion between the masses of gold will be still less affected

by any such difference in the produce of the gold mines. Though the

produce of the greater part of metallic mines, therefore, varies, perhaps,

still more from year to year than that of the greater part of corn fields,

those variations have not the same effect upon the price of the one

species of commodities as upon that of the other.

_Variations in the Proportion between the respective Values of Gold and

Silver._

Before the discovery of the mines of America, the value of fine gold to

fine silver was regulated in the different mines of Europe, between the

proportions of one to ten and one to twelve; that is, an ounce of fine

gold was supposed to be worth from ten to twelve ounces of fine silver.

About the middle of the last century, it came to be regulated, between the

proportions of one to fourteen and one to fifteen; that is, an ounce of

fine gold came to be supposed worth between fourteen and fifteen ounces of

fine silver. Gold rose in its nominal value, or in the quantity of silver

which was given for it. Both metals sunk in their real value, or in the

quantity of labour which they could purchase; but silver sunk more than

gold. Though both the gold and silver mines of America exceeded in

fertility all those which had ever been known before, the fertility of the

silver mines had, it seems, been proportionally still greater than that of

the gold ones.

The great quantities of silver carried annually from Europe to India,

have, in some of the English settlements, gradually reduced the value of

that metal in proportion to gold. In the mint of Calcutta, an ounce of

fine gold is supposed to be worth fifteen ounces of fine silver, in the

same manner as in Europe. It is in the mint, perhaps, rated too high for

the value which it bears in the market of Bengal. In China, the proportion

of gold to silver still continues as one to ten, or one to twelve. In

Japan, it is said to be as one to eight.

The proportion between the quantities of gold and silver annually imported

into Europe, according to Mr Meggens’ account, is as one to twenty-two

nearly; that is, for one ounce of gold there are imported a little more

than twenty-two ounces of silver. The great quantity of silver sent

annually to the East Indies reduces, he supposes, the quantities of those

metals which remain in Europe to the proportion of one to fourteen or

fifteen, the proportion of their values. The proportion between their

values, he seems to think, must necessarily be the same as that between

their quantities, and would therefore be as one to twenty-two, were it not

for this greater exportation of silver.

But the ordinary proportion between the respective values of two

commodities is not necessarily the same as that between the quantities of

them which are commonly in the market. The price of an ox, reckoned at ten

guineas, is about three score times the price of a lamb, reckoned at 3s.

6d. It would be absurd, however, to infer from thence, that there are

commonly in the market three score lambs for one ox; and it would be just

as absurd to infer, because an ounce of gold will commonly purchase from

fourteen or fifteen ounces of silver, that there are commonly in the

market only fourteen or fifteen ounces of silver for one ounce of gold.

The quantity of silver commonly in the market, it is probable, is much

greater in proportion to that of gold, than the value of a certain

quantity of gold is to that of an equal quantity of silver. The whole

quantity of a cheap commodity brought to market is commonly not only

greater, but of greater value, than the whole quantity of a dear one. The

whole quantity of bread annually brought to market, is not only greater,

but of greater value, than the whole quantity of butcher’s meat; the whole

quantity of butcher’s meat, than the whole quantity of poultry; and the

whole quantity of poultry, than the whole quantity of wild fowl. There are

so many more purchasers for the cheap than for the dear commodity, that,

not only a greater quantity of it, but a greater value can commonly be

disposed of. The whole quantity, therefore, of the cheap commodity, must

commonly be greater in proportion to the whole quantity of the dear one,

than the value of a certain quantity of the dear one, is to the value of

an equal quantity of the cheap one. When we compare the precious metals

with one another, silver is a cheap, and gold a dear commodity. We ought

naturally to expect, therefore, that there should always be in the market,

not only a greater quantity, but a greater value of silver than of gold.

Let any man, who has a little of both, compare his own silver with his

gold plate, and he will probably find, that not only the quantity, but the

value of the former, greatly exceeds that of the latter. Many people,

besides, have a good deal of silver who have no gold plate, which, even

with those who have it, is generally confined to watch-cases, snuff-boxes,

and such like trinkets, of which the whole amount is seldom of great

value. In the British coin, indeed, the value of the gold preponderates

greatly, but it is not so in that of all countries. In the coin of some

countries, the value of the two metals is nearly equal. In the Scotch

coin, before the union with England, the gold preponderated very little,

though it did somewhat {See Ruddiman’s Preface to Anderson’s Diplomata,

etc. Scotiae.}, as it appears by the accounts of the mint. In the coin of

many countries the silver preponderates. In France, the largest sums are

commonly paid in that metal, and it is there difficult to get more gold

than what is necessary to carry about in your pocket. The superior value,

however, of the silver plate above that of the gold, which takes place in

all countries, will much more than compensate the preponderancy of the

gold coin above the silver, which takes place only in some countries.

Though, in one sense of the word, silver always has been, and probably

always will be, much cheaper than gold; yet, in another sense, gold may

perhaps, in the present state of the Spanish market, be said to be

somewhat cheaper than silver. A commodity may be said to be dear or cheap

not only according to the absolute greatness or smallness of its usual

price, but according as that price is more or less above the lowest for

which it is possible to bring it to market for any considerable time

together. This lowest price is that which barely replaces, with a moderate

profit, the stock which must be employed in bringing the commodity

thither. It is the price which affords nothing to the landlord, of which

rent makes not any component part, but which resolves itself altogether

into wages and profit. But, in the present state of the Spanish market,

gold is certainly somewhat nearer to this lowest price than silver. The

tax of the king of Spain upon gold is only one-twentieth part of the

standard metal, or five per cent.; whereas his tax upon silver amounts to

one-tenth part of it, or to ten per cent. In these taxes, too, it has

already been observed, consists the whole rent of the greater part of the

gold and silver mines of Spanish America; and that upon gold is still

worse paid than that upon silver. The profits of the undertakers of gold

mines, too, as they more rarely make a fortune, must, in general, be still

more moderate than those of the undertakers of silver mines. The price of

Spanish gold, therefore, as it affords both less rent and less profit,

must, in the Spanish market, be somewhat nearer to the lowest price for

which it is possible to bring it thither, than the price of Spanish

silver. When all expenses are computed, the whole quantity of the one

metal, it would seem, cannot, in the Spanish market, be disposed of so

advantageously as the whole quantity of the other. The tax, indeed, of the

king of Portugal upon the gold of the Brazils, is the same with the

ancient tax of the king of Spain upon the silver of Mexico and Peru; or

one-fifth part of the standard metal. It may therefore be uncertain,

whether, to the general market of Europe, the whole mass of American gold

comes at a price nearer to the lowest for which it is possible to bring it

thither, than the whole mass of American silver.

The price of diamonds and other precious stones may, perhaps, be still

nearer to the lowest price at which it is possible to bring them to

market, than even the price of gold.

Though it is not very probable that any part of a tax, which is not only

imposed upon one of the most proper subjects of taxation, a mere luxury

and superfluity, but which affords so very important a revenue as the tax

upon silver, will ever be given up as long as it is possible to pay it;

yet the same impossibility of paying it, which, in 1736. made it necessary

to reduce it from one-fifth to one-tenth, may in time make it necessary to

reduce it still further; in the same manner as it made it necessary to

reduce the tax upon gold to one-twentieth. That the silver mines of

Spanish America, like all other mines, become gradually more expensive in

the working, on account of the greater depths at which it is necessary to

carry on the works, and of the greater expense of drawing out the water,

and of supplying them with fresh air at those depths, is acknowledged by

everybody who has inquired into the state of those mines.

These causes, which are equivalent to a growing scarcity of silver (for a

commodity may be said to grow scarcer when it becomes more difficult and

expensive to collect a certain quantity of it), must, in time, produce one

or other of the three following events: The increase of the expense must

either, first, be compensated altogether by a proportionable increase in

the price of the metal; or, secondly, it must be compensated altogether by

a proportionable diminution of the tax upon silver; or, thirdly, it must

be compensated partly by the one and partly by the other of those two

expedients. This third event is very possible. As gold rose in its price

in proportion to silver, notwithstanding a great diminution of the tax

upon gold, so silver might rise in its price in proportion to labour and

commodities, notwithstanding an equal diminution of the tax upon silver.

Such successive reductions of the tax, however, though they may not

prevent altogether, must certainly retard, more or less, the rise of the

value of silver in the European market. In consequence of such reductions,

many mines may be wrought which could not be wrought before, because they

could not afford to pay the old tax; and the quantity of silver annually

brought to market, must always be somewhat greater, and, therefore, the

value of any given quantity somewhat less, than it otherwise would have

been. In consequence of the reduction in 1736, the value of silver in the

European market, though it may not at this day be lower than before that

reduction, is, probably, at least ten per cent. lower than it would have

been, had the court of Spain continued to exact the old tax. That,

notwithstanding this reduction, the value of silver has, during the course

of the present century, begun to rise somewhat in the European market, the

facts and arguments which have been alleged above, dispose me to believe,

or more properly to suspect and conjecture; for the best opinion which I

can form upon this subject, scarce, perhaps, deserves the name of belief.

The rise, indeed, supposing there has been any, has hitherto been so very

small, that after all that has been said, it may, perhaps, appear to many

people uncertain, not only whether this event has actually taken place,

but whether the contrary may not have taken place, or whether the value of

silver may not still continue to fall in the European market.

It must be observed, however, that whatever may be the supposed annual

importation of gold and silver, there must be a certain period at which

the annual consumption of those metals will be equal to that annual

importation. Their consumption must increase as their mass increases, or

rather in a much greater proportion. As their mass increases, their value

diminishes. They are more used, and less cared for, and their consumption

consequently increases in a greater proportion than their mass. After a

certain period, therefore, the annual consumption of those metals must, in

this manner, become equal to their annual importation, provided that

importation is not continually increasing; which, in the present times, is

not supposed to be the case.

If, when the annual consumption has become equal to the annual

importation, the annual importation should gradually diminish, the annual

consumption may, for some time, exceed the annual importation. The mass of

those metals may gradually and insensibly diminish, and their value

gradually and insensibly rise, till the annual importation becoming again

stationary, the annual consumption will gradually and insensibly

accommodate itself to what that annual importation can maintain.

_Grounds of the suspicion that the Value of Silver still continues to

decrease._

The increase of the wealth of Europe, and the popular notion, that as the

quantity of the precious metals naturally increases with the increase of

wealth, so their value diminishes as their quantity increases, may,

perhaps, dispose many people to believe that their value still continues

to fall in the European market; and the still gradually increasing price

of many parts of the rude produce of land may confirm them still farther

in this opinion.

That that increase in the quantity of the precious metals, which arises in

any country from the increase of wealth, has no tendency to diminish their

value, I have endeavoured to shew already. Gold and silver naturally

resort to a rich country, for the same reason that all sorts of luxuries

and curiosities resort to it; not because they are cheaper there than in

poorer countries, but because they are dearer, or because a better price

is given for them. It is the superiority of price which attracts them; and

as soon as that superiority ceases, they necessarily cease to go thither.

If you except corn, and such other vegetables as are raised altogether by

human industry, that all other sorts of rude produce, cattle, poultry,

game of all kinds, the useful fossils and minerals of the earth, etc.

naturally grow dearer, as the society advances in wealth and improvement,

I have endeavoured to shew already. Though such commodities, therefore,

come to exchange for a greater quantity of silver than before, it will not

from thence follow that silver has become really cheaper, or will purchase

less labour than before; but that such commodities have become really

dearer, or will purchase more labour than before. It is not their nominal

price only, but their real price, which rises in the progress of

improvement. The rise of their nominal price is the effect, not of any

degradation of the value of silver, but of the rise in their real price.

_Different Effects of the Progress of Improvement upon three different

sorts of rude Produce._

These different sorts of rude produce may be divided into three classes.

The first comprehends those which it is scarce in the power of human

industry to multiply at all. The second, those which it can multiply in

proportion to the demand. The third, those in which the efficacy of

industry is either limited or uncertain. In the progress of wealth and

improvement, the real price of the first may rise to any degree of

extravagance, and seems not to be limited by any certain boundary. That of

the second, though it may rise greatly, has, however, a certain boundary,

beyond which it cannot well pass for any considerable time together. That

of the third, though its natural tendency is to rise in the progress of

improvement, yet in the same degree of improvement it may sometimes happen

even to fall, sometimes to continue the same, and sometimes to rise more

or less, according as different accidents render the efforts of human

industry, in multiplying this sort of rude produce, more or less

successful.

First Sort.—The first sort of rude produce, of which the price rises

in the progress of improvement, is that which it is scarce in the power of

human industry to multiply at all. It consists in those things which

nature produces only in certain quantities, and which being of a very

perishable nature, it is impossible to accumulate together the produce of

many different seasons. Such are the greater part of rare and singular

birds and fishes, many different sorts of game, almost all wild-fowl, all

birds of passage in particular, as well as many other things. When wealth,

and the luxury which accompanies it, increase, the demand for these is

likely to increase with them, and no effort of human industry may be able

to increase the supply much beyond what it was before this increase of the

demand. The quantity of such commodities, therefore, remaining the same,

or nearly the same, while the competition to purchase them is continually

increasing, their price may rise to any degree of extravagance, and seems

not to be limited by any certain boundary. If woodcocks should become so

fashionable as to sell for twenty guineas a-piece, no effort of human

industry could increase the number of those brought to market, much beyond

what it is at present. The high price paid by the Romans, in the time of

their greatest grandeur, for rare birds and fishes, may in this manner

easily be accounted for. These prices were not the effects of the low

value of silver in those times, but of the high value of such rarities and

curiosities as human industry could not multiply at pleasure. The real

value of silver was higher at Rome, for sometime before, and after the

fall of the republic, than it is through the greater part of Europe at

present. Three sestertii equal to about sixpence sterling, was the price

which the republic paid for the modius or peck of the tithe wheat of

Sicily. This price, however, was probably below the average market price,

the obligation to deliver their wheat at this rate being considered as a

tax upon the Sicilian farmers. When the Romans, therefore, had occasion to

order more corn than the tithe of wheat amounted to, they were bound by

capitulation to pay for the surplus at the rate of four sestertii, or

eightpence sterling the peck; and this had probably been reckoned the

moderate and reasonable, that is, the ordinary or average contract price

of those times; it is equal to about one-and-twenty shillings the quarter.

Eight-and-twenty shillings the quarter was, before the late years of

scarcity, the ordinary contract price of English wheat, which in quality

is inferior to the Sicilian, and generally sells for a lower price in the

European market. The value of silver, therefore, in those ancient times,

must have been to its value in the present, as three to four inversely;

that is, three ounces of silver would then have purchased the same

quantity of labour and commodities which four ounces will do at present.

When we read in Pliny, therefore, that Seius {Lib. X, c. 29.} bought a

white nightingale, as a present for the empress Agrippina, at the price of

six thousand sestertii, equal to about fifty pounds of our present money;

and that Asinius Celer {Lib. IX, c. 17.} purchased a surmullet at the

price of eight thousand sestertii, equal to about sixty-six pounds

thirteen shillings and fourpence of our present money; the extravagance of

those prices, how much soever it may surprise us, is apt, notwithstanding,

to appear to us about one third less than it really was. Their real price,

the quantity of labour and subsistence which was given away for them, was

about one-third more than their nominal price is apt to express to us in

the present times. Seius gave for the nightingale the command of a

quantity of labour and subsistence, equal to what £ 66:13: 4d. would

purchase in the present times; and Asinius Celer gave for a surmullet the

command of a quantity equal to what £ 88:17: 9d. would purchase. What

occasioned the extravagance of those high prices was, not so much the

abundance of silver, as the abundance of labour and subsistence, of which

those Romans had the disposal, beyond what was necessary for their own

use. The quantity of silver, of which they had the disposal, was a good

deal less than what the command of the same quantity of labour and

subsistence would have procured to them in the present times.

Second sort.—The second sort of rude produce, of which the price

rises in the progress of improvement, is that which human industry can

multiply in proportion to the demand. It consists in those useful plants

and animals, which, in uncultivated countries, nature produces with such

profuse abundance, that they are of little or no value, and which, as

cultivation advances, are therefore forced to give place to some more

profitable produce. During a long period in the progress of improvement,

the quantity of these is continually diminishing, while, at the same time,

the demand for them is continually increasing. Their real value,

therefore, the real quantity of labour which they will purchase or

command, gradually rises, till at last it gets so high as to render them

as profitable a produce as any thing else which human industry can raise

upon the most fertile and best cultivated land. When it has got so high,

it cannot well go higher. If it did, more land and more industry would

soon be employed to increase their quantity.

When the price of cattle, for example, rises so high, that it is as

profitable to cultivate land in order to raise food for them as in order

to raise food for man, it cannot well go higher. If it did, more corn land

would soon be turned into pasture. The extension of tillage, by

diminishing the quantity of wild pasture, diminishes the quantity of

butcher’s meat, which the country naturally produces without labour or

cultivation; and, by increasing the number of those who have either corn,

or, what comes to the same thing, the price of corn, to give in exchange

for it, increases the demand. The price of butcher’s meat, therefore, and,

consequently, of cattle, must gradually rise, till it gets so high, that

it becomes as profitable to employ the most fertile and best cultivated

lands in raising food for them as in raising corn. But it must always be

late in the progress of improvement before tillage can be so far extended

as to raise the price of cattle to this height; and, till it has got to

this height, if the country is advancing at all, their price must be

continually rising. There are, perhaps, some parts of Europe in which the

price of cattle has not yet got to this height. It had not got to this

height in any part of Scotland before the Union. Had the Scotch cattle

been always confined to the market of Scotland, in a country in which the

quantity of land, which can be applied to no other purpose but the feeding

of cattle, is so great in proportion to what can be applied to other

purposes, it is scarce possible, perhaps, that their price could ever have

risen so high as to render it profitable to cultivate land for the sake of

feeding them. In England, the price of cattle, it has already been

observed, seems, in the neighbourhood of London, to have got to this

height about the beginning of the last century; but it was much later,

probably, before it got through the greater part of the remoter counties,

in some of which, perhaps, it may scarce yet have got to it. Of all the

different substances, however, which compose this second sort of rude

produce, cattle is, perhaps, that of which the price, in the progress of

improvement, rises first to this height.

Till the price of cattle, indeed, has got to this height, it seems scarce

possible that the greater part, even of those lands which are capable of

the highest cultivation, can be completely cultivated. In all farms too

distant from any town to carry manure from it, that is, in the far greater

part of those of every extensive country, the quantity of well cultivated

land must be in proportion to the quantity of manure which the farm itself

produces; and this, again, must be in proportion to the stock of cattle

which are maintained upon it. The land is manured, either by pasturing the

cattle upon it, or by feeding them in the stable, and from thence carrying

out their dung to it. But unless the price of the cattle be sufficient to

pay both the rent and profit of cultivated land, the farmer cannot afford

to pasture them upon it; and he can still less afford to feed them in the

stable. It is with the produce of improved and cultivated land only that

cattle can be fed in the stable; because, to collect the scanty and

scattered produce of waste and unimproved lands, would require too much

labour, and be too expensive. If the price of the cattle, therefore, is

not sufficient to pay for the produce of improved and cultivated land,

when they are allowed to pasture it, that price will be still less

sufficient to pay for that produce, when it must be collected with a good

deal of additional labour, and brought into the stable to them. In these

circumstances, therefore, no more cattle can with profit be fed in the

stable than what are necessary for tillage. But these can never afford

manure enough for keeping constantly in good condition all the lands which

they are capable of cultivating. What they afford, being insufficient for

the whole farm, will naturally be reserved for the lands to which it can

be most advantageously or conveniently applied; the most fertile, or

those, perhaps, in the neighbourhood of the farm-yard. These, therefore,

will be kept constantly in good condition, and fit for tillage. The rest

will, the greater part of them, be allowed to lie waste, producing scarce

any thing but some miserable pasture, just sufficient to keep alive a few

straggling, half-starved cattle; the farm, though much overstocked in

proportion to what would be necessary for its complete cultivation, being

very frequently overstocked in proportion to its actual produce. A portion

of this waste land, however, after having been pastured in this wretched

manner for six or seven years together, may be ploughed up, when it will

yield, perhaps, a poor crop or two of bad oats, or of some other coarse

grain; and then, being entirely exhausted, it must be rested and pastured

again as before, and another portion ploughed up, to be in the same manner

exhausted and rested again in its turn. Such, accordingly, was the general

system of management all over the low country of Scotland before the

Union. The lands which were kept constantly well manured and in good

condition seldom exceeded a third or fourth part of the whole farm, and

sometimes did not amount to a fifth or a sixth part of it. The rest were

never manured, but a certain portion of them was in its turn,

notwithstanding, regularly cultivated and exhausted. Under this system of

management, it is evident, even that part of the lands of Scotland which

is capable of good cultivation, could produce but little in comparison of

what it may be capable of producing. But how disadvantageous soever this

system may appear, yet, before the Union, the low price of cattle seems to

have rendered it almost unavoidable. If, notwithstanding a great rise in

the price, it still continues to prevail through a considerable part of

the country, it is owing in many places, no doubt, to ignorance and

attachment to old customs, but, in most places, to the unavoidable

obstructions which the natural course of things opposes to the immediate

or speedy establishment of a better system: first, to the poverty of the

tenants, to their not having yet had time to acquire a stock of cattle

sufficient to cultivate their lands more completely, the same rise of

price, which would render it advantageous for them to maintain a greater

stock, rendering it more difficult for them to acquire it; and, secondly,

to their not having yet had time to put their lands in condition to

maintain this greater stock properly, supposing they were capable of

acquiring it. The increase of stock and the improvement of land are two

events which must go hand in hand, and of which the one can nowhere much

outrun the other. Without some increase of stock, there can be scarce any

improvement of land, but there can be no considerable increase of stock,

but in consequence of a considerable improvement of land; because

otherwise the land could not maintain it. These natural obstructions to

the establishment of a better system, cannot be removed but by a long

course of frugality and industry; and half a century or a century more,

perhaps, must pass away before the old system, which is wearing out

gradually, can be completely abolished through all the different parts of

the country. Of all the commercial advantages, however, which Scotland has

derived from the Union with England, this rise in the price of cattle is,

perhaps, the greatest. It has not only raised the value of all highland

estates, but it has, perhaps, been the principal cause of the improvement

of the low country.

In all new colonies, the great quantity of waste land, which can for many

years be applied to no other purpose but the feeding of cattle, soon

renders them extremely abundant; and in every thing great cheapness is the

necessary consequence of great abundance. Though all the cattle of the

European colonies in America were originally carried from Europe, they

soon multiplied so much there, and became of so little value, that even

horses were allowed to run wild in the woods, without any owner thinking

it worth while to claim them. It must be a long time after the first

establishment of such colonies, before it can become profitable to feed

cattle upon the produce of cultivated land. The same causes, therefore,

the want of manure, and the disproportion between the stock employed in

cultivation and the land which it is destined to cultivate, are likely to

introduce there a system of husbandry, not unlike that which still

continues to take place in so many parts of Scotland. Mr Kalm, the Swedish

traveller, when he gives an account of the husbandry of some of the

English colonies in North America, as he found it in 1749, observes,

accordingly, that he can with difficulty discover there the character of

the English nation, so well skilled in all the different branches of

agriculture. They make scarce any manure for their corn fields, he says;

but when one piece of ground has been exhausted by continual cropping,

they clear and cultivate another piece of fresh land; and when that is

exhausted, proceed to a third. Their cattle are allowed to wander through

the woods and other uncultivated grounds, where they are half-starved;

having long ago extirpated almost all the annual grasses, by cropping them

too early in the spring, before they had time to form their flowers, or to

shed their seeds. {Kalm’s Travels, vol 1, pp. 343, 344.} The annual

grasses were, it seems, the best natural grasses in that part of North

America; and when the Europeans first settled there, they used to grow

very thick, and to rise three or four feet high. A piece of ground which,

when he wrote, could not maintain one cow, would in former times, he was

assured, have maintained four, each of which would have given four times

the quantity of milk which that one was capable of giving. The poorness of

the pasture had, in his opinion, occasioned the degradation of their

cattle, which degenerated sensibly from one generation to another. They

were probably not unlike that stunted breed which was common all over

Scotland thirty or forty years ago, and which is now so much mended

through the greater part of the low country, not so much by a change of

the breed, though that expedient has been employed in some places, as by a

more plentiful method of feeding them.

Though it is late, therefore, in the progress of improvement, before

cattle can bring such a price as to render it profitable to cultivate land

for the sake of feeding them; yet of all the different parts which compose

this second sort of rude produce, they are perhaps the first which bring

this price; because, till they bring it, it seems impossible that

improvement can be brought near even to that degree of perfection to which

it has arrived in many parts of Europe.

As cattle are among the first, so perhaps venison is among the last parts

of this sort of rude produce which bring this price. The price of venison

in Great Britain, how extravagant soever it may appear, is not near

sufficient to compensate the expense of a deer park, as is well known to

all those who have had any experience in the feeding of deer. If it was

otherwise, the feeding of deer would soon become an article of common

farming, in the same manner as the feeding of those small birds, called

turdi, was among the ancient Romans. Varro and Columella assure us, that

it was a most profitable article. The fattening of ortolans, birds of

passage which arrive lean in the country, is said to be so in some parts

of France. If venison continues in fashion, and the wealth and luxury of

Great Britain increase as they have done for some time past, its price may

very probably rise still higher than it is at present.

Between that period in the progress of improvement, which brings to its

height the price of so necessary an article as cattle, and that which

brings to it the price of such a superfluity as venison, there is a very

long interval, in the course of which many other sorts of rude produce

gradually arrive at their highest price, some sooner and some later,

according to different circumstances.

Thus, in every farm, the offals of the barn and stable will maintain a

certain number of poultry. These, as they are fed with what would

otherwise be lost, are a mere save-all; and as they cost the farmer scarce

any thing, so he can afford to sell them for very little. Almost all that

he gets is pure gain, and their price can scarce be so low as to

discourage him from feeding this number. But in countries ill cultivated,

and therefore but thinly inhabited, the poultry, which are thus raised

without expense, are often fully sufficient to supply the whole demand. In

this state of things, therefore, they are often as cheap as butcher’s

meat, or any other sort of animal food. But the whole quantity of poultry

which the farm in this manner produces without expense, must always be

much smaller than the whole quantity of butcher’s meat which is reared

upon it; and in times of wealth and luxury, what is rare, with only nearly

equal merit, is always preferred to what is common. As wealth and luxury

increase, therefore, in consequence of improvement and cultivation, the

price of poultry gradually rises above that of butcher’s meat, till at

last it gets so high, that it becomes profitable to cultivate land for the

sake of feeding them. When it has got to this height, it cannot well go

higher. If it did, more land would soon be turned to this purpose. In

several provinces of France, the feeding of poultry is considered as a

very important article in rural economy, and sufficiently profitable to

encourage the farmer to raise a considerable quantity of Indian corn and

buckwheat for this purpose. A middling farmer will there sometimes have

four hundred fowls in his yard. The feeding of poultry seems scarce yet to

be generally considered as a matter of so much importance in England. They

are certainly, however, dearer in England than in France, as England

receives considerable supplies from France. In the progress of

improvements, the period at which every particular sort of animal food is

dearest, must naturally be that which immediately precedes the general

practice of cultivating land for the sake of raising it. For some time

before this practice becomes general, the scarcity must necessarily raise

the price. After it has become general, new methods of feeding are

commonly fallen upon, which enable the farmer to raise upon the same

quantity of ground a much greater quantity of that particular sort of

animal food. The plenty not only obliges him to sell cheaper, but, in

consequence of these improvements, he can afford to sell cheaper; for if

he could not afford it, the plenty would not be of long continuance. It

has been probably in this manner that the introduction of clover, turnips,

carrots, cabbages, etc. has contributed to sink the common price of

butcher’s meat in the London market, somewhat below what it was about the

beginning of the last century.

The hog, that finds his food among ordure, and greedily devours many

things rejected by every other useful animal, is, like poultry, originally

kept as a save-all. As long as the number of such animals, which can thus

be reared at little or no expense, is fully sufficient to supply the

demand, this sort of butcher’s meat comes to market at a much lower price

than any other. But when the demand rises beyond what this quantity can

supply, when it becomes necessary to raise food on purpose for feeding and

fattening hogs, in the same manner as for feeding and fattening other

cattle, the price necessarily rises, and becomes proportionably either

higher or lower than that of other butcher’s meat, according as the nature

of the country, and the state of its agriculture, happen to render the

feeding of hogs more or less expensive than that of other cattle. In

France, according to Mr Buffon, the price of pork is nearly equal to that

of beef. In most parts of Great Britain it is at present somewhat higher.

The great rise in the price both of hogs and poultry, has, in Great

Britain, been frequently imputed to the diminution of the number of

cottagers and other small occupiers of land; an event which has in every

part of Europe been the immediate forerunner of improvement and better

cultivation, but which at the same time may have contributed to raise the

price of those articles, both somewhat sooner and somewhat faster than it

would otherwise have risen. As the poorest family can often maintain a cat

or a dog without any expense, so the poorest occupiers of land can

commonly maintain a few poultry, or a sow and a few pigs, at very little.

The little offals of their own table, their whey, skimmed milk, and butter

milk, supply those animals with a part of their food, and they find the

rest in the neighbouring fields, without doing any sensible damage to any

body. By diminishing the number of those small occupiers, therefore, the

quantity of this sort of provisions, which is thus produced at little or

no expense, must certainly have been a good deal diminished, and their

price must consequently have been raised both sooner and faster than it

would otherwise have risen. Sooner or later, however, in the progress of

improvement, it must at any rate have risen to the utmost height to which

it is capable of rising; or to the price which pays the labour and expense

of cultivating the land which furnishes them with food, as well as these

are paid upon the greater part of other cultivated land.

The business of the dairy, like the feeding of hogs and poultry, is

originally carried on as a save-all. The cattle necessarily kept upon the

farm produce more milk than either the rearing of their own young, or the

consumption of the farmer’s family requires; and they produce most at one

particular season. But of all the productions of land, milk is perhaps the

most perishable. In the warm season, when it is most abundant, it will

scarce keep four-and-twenty hours. The farmer, by making it into fresh

butter, stores a small part of it for a week; by making it into salt

butter, for a year; and by making it into cheese, he stores a much greater

part of it for several years. Part of all these is reserved for the use of

his own family; the rest goes to market, in order to find the best price

which is to be had, and which can scarce be so low is to discourage him

from sending thither whatever is over and above the use of his own family.

If it is very low indeed, he will be likely to manage his dairy in a very

slovenly and dirty manner, and will scarce, perhaps, think it worth while

to have a particular room or building on purpose for it, but will suffer

the business to be carried on amidst the smoke, filth, and nastiness of

his own kitchen, as was the case of almost all the farmers’ dairies in

Scotland thirty or forty years ago, and as is the case of many of them

still. The same causes which gradually raise the price of butcher’s meat,

the increase of the demand, and, in consequence of the improvement of the

country, the diminution of the quantity which can be fed at little or no

expense, raise, in the same manner, that of the produce of the dairy, of

which the price naturally connects with that of butcher’s meat, or with

the expense of feeding cattle. The increase of price pays for more labour,

care, and cleanliness. The dairy becomes more worthy of the farmer’s

attention, and the quality of its produce gradually improves. The price at

last gets so high, that it becomes worth while to employ some of the most

fertile and best cultivated lands in feeding cattle merely for the purpose

of the dairy; and when it has got to this height, it cannot well go

higher. If it did, more land would soon be turned to this purpose. It

seems to have got to this height through the greater part of England,

where much good land is commonly employed in this manner. If you except

the neighbourhood of a few considerable towns, it seems not yet to have

got to this height anywhere in Scotland, where common farmers seldom

employ much good land in raising food for cattle, merely for the purpose

of the dairy. The price of the produce, though it has risen very

considerably within these few years, is probably still too low to admit of

it. The inferiority of the quality, indeed, compared with that of the

produce of English dairies, is fully equal to that of the price. But this

inferiority of quality is, perhaps, rather the effect of this lowness of

price, than the cause of it. Though the quality was much better, the

greater part of what is brought to market could not, I apprehend, in the

present circumstances of the country, be disposed of at a much better

price; and the present price, it is probable, would not pay the expense of

the land and labour necessary for producing a much better quality. Through

the greater part of England, notwithstanding the superiority of price, the

dairy is not reckoned a more profitable employment of land than the

raising of corn, or the fattening of cattle, the two great objects of

agriculture. Through the greater part of Scotland, therefore, it cannot

yet be even so profitable.

The lands of no country, it is evident, can ever be completely cultivated

and improved, till once the price of every produce, which human industry

is obliged to raise upon them, has got so high as to pay for the expense

of complete improvement and cultivation. In order to do this, the price of

each particular produce must be sufficient, first, to pay the rent of good

corn land, as it is that which regulates the rent of the greater part of

other cultivated land; and, secondly, to pay the labour and expense of the

farmer, as well as they are commonly paid upon good corn land; or, in

other words, to replace with the ordinary profits the stock which he

employs about it. This rise in the price of each particular produce; must

evidently be previous to the improvement and cultivation of the land which

is destined for raising it. Gain is the end of all improvement; and

nothing could deserve that name, of which loss was to be the necessary

consequence. But loss must be the necessary consequence of improving land

for the sake of a produce of which the price could never bring back the

expense. If the complete improvement and cultivation of the country be, as

it most certainly is, the greatest of all public advantages, this rise in

the price of all those different sorts of rude produce, instead of being

considered as a public calamity, ought to be regarded as the necessary

forerunner and attendant of the greatest of all public advantages.

This rise, too, in the nominal or money price of all those different sorts

of rude produce, has been the effect, not of any degradation in the value

of silver, but of a rise in their real price. They have become worth, not

only a greater quantity of silver, but a greater quantity of labour and

subsistence than before. As it costs a greater quantity of labour and

subsistence to bring them to market, so, when they are brought thither

they represent, or are equivalent to a greater quantity.

Third Sort.—The third and last sort of rude produce, of which the

price naturally rises in the progress of improvement, is that in which the

efficacy of human industry, in augmenting the quantity, is either limited

or uncertain. Though the real price of this sort of rude produce,

therefore, naturally tends to rise in the progress of improvement, yet,

according as different accidents happen to render the efforts of human

industry more or less successful in augmenting the quantity, it may happen

sometimes even to fall, sometimes to continue the same, in very different

periods of improvement, and sometimes to rise more or less in the same

period.

There are some sorts of rude produce which nature has rendered a kind of

appendages to other sorts; so that the quantity of the one which any

country can afford, is necessarily limited by that of the other. The

quantity of wool or of raw hides, for example, which any country can

afford, is necessarily limited by the number of great and small cattle

that are kept in it. The state of its improvement, and the nature of its

agriculture, again necessarily determine this number.

The same causes which, in the progress of improvement, gradually raise the

price of butcher’s meat, should have the same effect, it may be thought,

upon the prices of wool and raw hides, and raise them, too, nearly in the

same proportion. It probably would be so, if, in the rude beginnings of

improvement, the market for the latter commodities was confined within as

narrow bounds as that for the former. But the extent of their respective

markets is commonly extremely different.

The market for butcher’s meat is almost everywhere confined to the country

which produces it. Ireland, and some part of British America, indeed,

carry on a considerable trade in salt provisions; but they are, I believe,

the only countries in the commercial world which do so, or which export to

other countries any considerable part of their butcher’s meat.

The market for wool and raw hides, on the contrary, is, in the rude

beginnings of improvement, very seldom confined to the country which

produces them. They can easily be transported to distant countries; wool

without any preparation, and raw hides with very little; and as they are

the materials of many manufactures, the industry of other countries may

occasion a demand for them, though that of the country which produces them

might not occasion any.

In countries ill cultivated, and therefore but thinly inhabited, the price

of the wool and the hide bears always a much greater proportion to that of

the whole beast, than in countries where, improvement and population being

further advanced, there is more demand for butcher’s meat. Mr Hume

observes, that in the Saxon times, the fleece was estimated at two-fifths

of the value of the whole sheep and that this was much above the

proportion of its present estimation. In some provinces of Spain, I have

been assured, the sheep is frequently killed merely for the sake of the

fleece and the tallow. The carcase is often left to rot upon the ground,

or to be devoured by beasts and birds of prey. If this sometimes happens

even in Spain, it happens almost constantly in Chili, at Buenos Ayres, and

in many other parts of Spanish America, where the horned cattle are almost

constantly killed merely for the sake of the hide and the tallow. This,

too, used to happen almost constantly in Hispaniola, while it was infested

by the buccaneers, and before the settlement, improvement, and

populousness of the French plantations ( which now extend round the coast

of almost the whole western half of the island) had given some value to

the cattle of the Spaniards, who still continue to possess, not only the

eastern part of the coast, but the whole inland mountainous part of the

country.

Though, in the progress of improvement and population, the price of the

whole beast necessarily rises, yet the price of the carcase is likely to

be much more affected by this rise than that of the wool and the hide. The

market for the carcase being in the rude state of society confined always

to the country which produces it, must necessarily be extended in

proportion to the improvement and population of that country. But the

market for the wool and the hides, even of a barbarous country, often

extending to the whole commercial world, it can very seldom be enlarged in

the same proportion. The state of the whole commercial world can seldom be

much affected by the improvement of any particular country; and the market

for such commodities may remain the same, or very nearly the same, after

such improvements, as before. It should, however, in the natural course of

things, rather, upon the whole, be somewhat extended in consequence of

them. If the manufactures, especially, of which those commodities are the

materials, should ever come to flourish in the country, the market, though

it might not be much enlarged, would at least be brought much nearer to

the place of growth than before; and the price of those materials might at

least be increased by what had usually been the expense of transporting

them to distant countries. Though it might not rise, therefore, in the

same proportion as that of butcher’s meat, it ought naturally to rise

somewhat, and it ought certainly not to fall.

In England, however, notwithstanding the flourishing state of its woollen

manufacture, the price of English wool has fallen very considerably since

the time of Edward III. There are many authentic records which demonstrate

that, during the reign of that prince (towards the middle of the

fourteenth century, or about 1339), what was reckoned the moderate and

reasonable price of the tod, or twenty-eight pounds of English wool, was

not less than ten shillings of the money of those times {See Smith’s

Memoirs of Wool, vol. i c. 5, 6, 7. also vol. ii.}, containing, at the

rate of twenty-pence the ounce, six ounces of silver, Tower weight, equal

to about thirty shillings of our present money. In the present times,

one-and-twenty shillings the tod may be reckoned a good price for very

good English wool. The money price of wool, therefore, in the time of

Edward III. was to its money price in the present times as ten to seven.

The superiority of its real price was still greater. At the rate of six

shillings and eightpence the quarter, ten shillings was in those ancient

times the price of twelve bushels of wheat. At the rate of twenty-eight

shillings the quarter, one-and-twenty shillings is in the present times

the price of six bushels only. The proportion between the real price of

ancient and modern times, therefore, is as twelve to six, or as two to

one. In those ancient times, a tod of wool would have purchased twice the

quantity of subsistence which it will purchase at present, and

consequently twice the quantity of labour, if the real recompence of

labour had been the same in both periods.

This degradation, both in the real and nominal value of wool, could never

have happened in consequence of the natural course of things. It has

accordingly been the effect of violence and artifice. First, of the

absolute prohibition of exporting wool from England: secondly, of the

permission of importing it from Spain, duty free: thirdly, of the

prohibition of exporting it from Ireland to another country but England.

In consequence of these regulations, the market for English wool, instead

of being somewhat extended, in consequence of the improvement of England,

has been confined to the home market, where the wool of several other

countries is allowed to come into competition with it, and where that of

Ireland is forced into competition with it. As the woollen manufactures,

too, of Ireland, are fully as much discouraged as is consistent with

justice and fair dealing, the Irish can work up but a smaller part of

their own wool at home, and are therefore obliged to send a greater

proportion of it to Great Britain, the only market they are allowed.

I have not been able to find any such authentic records concerning the

price of raw hides in ancient times. Wool was commonly paid as a subsidy

to the king, and its valuation in that subsidy ascertains, at least in

some degree, what was its ordinary price. But this seems not to have been

the case with raw hides. Fleetwood, however, from an account in 1425,

between the prior of Burcester Oxford and one of his canons, gives us

their price, at least as it was stated upon that particular occasion, viz.

five ox hides at twelve shillings; five cow hides at seven shillings and

threepence; thirtysix sheep skins of two years old at nine shillings;

sixteen calf skins at two shillings. In 1425, twelve shillings contained

about the same quantity of silver as four-and-twenty shillings of our

present money. An ox hide, therefore, was in this account valued at the

same quantity of silver as 4s. ⅘ths of our present money. Its nominal

price was a good deal lower than at present. But at the rate of six

shillings and eightpence the quarter, twelve shillings would in those

times have purchased fourteen bushels and four-fifths of a bushel of

wheat, which, at three and sixpence the bushel, would in the present times

cost 51s. 4d. An ox hide, therefore, would in those times have purchased

as much corn as ten shillings and threepence would purchase at present.

Its real value was equal to ten shillings and threepence of our present

money. In those ancient times, when the cattle were half starved during

the greater part of the winter, we cannot suppose that they were of a very

large size. An ox hide which weighs four stone of sixteen pounds of

avoirdupois, is not in the present times reckoned a bad one; and in those

ancient times would probably have been reckoned a very good one. But at

half-a-crown the stone, which at this moment (February 1773) I understand

to be the common price, such a hide would at present cost only ten

shillings. Through its nominal price, therefore, is higher in the present

than it was in those ancient times, its real price, the real quantity of

subsistence which it will purchase or command, is rather somewhat lower.

The price of cow hides, as stated in the above account, is nearly in the

common proportion to that of ox hides. That of sheep skins is a good deal

above it. They had probably been sold with the wool. That of calves skins,

on the contrary, is greatly below it. In countries where the price of

cattle is very low, the calves, which are not intended to be reared in

order to keep up the stock, are generally killed very young, as was the

case in Scotland twenty or thirty years ago. It saves the milk, which

their price would not pay for. Their skins, therefore, are commonly good

for little.

The price of raw hides is a good deal lower at present than it was a few

years ago; owing probably to the taking off the duty upon seal skins, and

to the allowing, for a limited time, the importation of raw hides from

Ireland, and from the plantations, duty free, which was done in 1769. Take

the whole of the present century at an average, their real price has

probably been somewhat higher than it was in those ancient times. The

nature of the commodity renders it not quite so proper for being

transported to distant markets as wool. It suffers more by keeping. A

salted hide is reckoned inferior to a fresh one, and sells for a lower

price. This circumstance must necessarily have some tendency to sink the

price of raw hides produced in a country which does not manufacture them,

but is obliged to export them, and comparatively to raise that of those

produced in a country which does manufacture them. It must have some

tendency to sink their price in a barbarous, and to raise it in an

improved and manufacturing country. It must have had some tendency,

therefore, to sink it in ancient, and to raise it in modern times. Our

tanners, besides, have not been quite so successful as our clothiers, in

convincing the wisdom of the nation, that the safety of the commonwealth

depends upon the prosperity of their particular manufacture. They have

accordingly been much less favoured. The exportation of raw hides has,

indeed, been prohibited, and declared a nuisance; but their importation

from foreign countries has been subjected to a duty; and though this duty

has been taken off from those of Ireland and the plantations (for the

limited time of five years only), yet Ireland has not been confined to the

market of Great Britain for the sale of its surplus hides, or of those

which are not manufactured at home. The hides of common cattle have, but

within these few years, been put among the enumerated commodities which

the plantations can send nowhere but to the mother country; neither has

the commerce of Ireland been in this case oppressed hitherto, in order to

support the manufactures of Great Britain.

Whatever regulations tend to sink the price, either of wool or of raw

hides, below what it naturally would be, must, in an improved and

cultivated country, have some tendency to raise the price of butcher’s

meat. The price both of the great and small cattle, which are fed on

improved and cultivated land, must be sufficient to pay the rent which the

landlord, and the profit which the farmer, has reason to expect from

improved and cultivated land. If it is not, they will soon cease to feed

them. Whatever part of this price, therefore, is not paid by the wool and

the hide, must be paid by the carcase. The less there is paid for the one,

the more must be paid for the other. In what manner this price is to be

divided upon the different parts of the beast, is indifferent to the

landlords and farmers, provided it is all paid to them. In an improved and

cultivated country, therefore, their interest as landlords and farmers

cannot be much affected by such regulations, though their interest as

consumers may, by the rise in the price of provisions. It would be quite

otherwise, however, in an unimproved and uncultivated country, where the

greater part of the lands could be applied to no other purpose but the

feeding of cattle, and where the wool and the hide made the principal part

of the value of those cattle. Their interest as landlords and farmers

would in this case be very deeply affected by such regulations, and their

interest as consumers very little. The fall in the price of the wool and

the hide would not in this case raise the price of the carcase; because

the greater part of the lands of the country being applicable to no other

purpose but the feeding of cattle, the same number would still continue to

be fed. The same quantity of butcher’s meat would still come to market.

The demand for it would be no greater than before. Its price, therefore,

would be the same as before. The whole price of cattle would fall, and

along with it both the rent and the profit of all those lands of which

cattle was the principal produce, that is, of the greater part of the

lands of the country. The perpetual prohibition of the exportation of

wool, which is commonly, but very falsely, ascribed to Edward III., would,

in the then circumstances of the country, have been the most destructive

regulation which could well have been thought of. It would not only have

reduced the actual value of the greater part of the lands in the kingdom,

but by reducing the price of the most important species of small cattle,

it would have retarded very much its subsequent improvement.

The wool of Scotland fell very considerably in its price in consequence of

the union with England, by which it was excluded from the great market of

Europe, and confined to the narrow one of Great Britain. The value of the

greater part of the lands in the southern counties of Scotland, which are

chiefly a sheep country, would have been very deeply affected by this

event, had not the rise in the price of butcher’s meat fully compensated

the fall in the price of wool.

As the efficacy of human industry, in increasing the quantity either of

wool or of raw hides, is limited, so far as it depends upon the produce of

the country where it is exerted; so it is uncertain so far as it depends

upon the produce of other countries. It so far depends not so much upon

the quantity which they produce, as upon that which they do not

manufacture; and upon the restraints which they may or may not think

proper to impose upon the exportation of this sort of rude produce. These

circumstances, as they are altogether independent of domestic industry, so

they necessarily render the efficacy of its efforts more or less

uncertain. In multiplying this sort of rude produce, therefore, the

efficacy of human industry is not only limited, but uncertain.

In multiplying another very important sort of rude produce, the quantity

of fish that is brought to market, it is likewise both limited and

uncertain. It is limited by the local situation of the country, by the

proximity or distance of its different provinces from the sea, by the

number of its lakes and rivers, and by what may be called the fertility or

barrenness of those seas, lakes, and rivers, as to this sort of rude

produce. As population increases, as the annual produce of the land and

labour of the country grows greater and greater, there come to be more

buyers of fish; and those buyers, too, have a greater quantity and variety

of other goods, or, what is the same thing, the price of a greater

quantity and variety of other goods, to buy with. But it will generally be

impossible to supply the great and extended market, without employing a

quantity of labour greater than in proportion to what had been requisite

for supplying the narrow and confined one. A market which, from requiring

only one thousand, comes to require annually ten thousand ton of fish, can

seldom be supplied, without employing more than ten times the quantity of

labour which had before been sufficient to supply it. The fish must

generally be sought for at a greater distance, larger vessels must be

employed, and more expensive machinery of every kind made use of. The real

price of this commodity, therefore, naturally rises in the progress of

improvement. It has accordingly done so, I believe, more or less in every

country.

Though the success of a particular day’s fishing may be a very uncertain

matter, yet the local situation of the country being supposed, the general

efficacy of industry in bringing a certain quantity of fish to market,

taking the course of a year, or of several years together, it may,

perhaps, be thought is certain enough; and it, no doubt, is so. As it

depends more, however, upon the local situation of the country, than upon

the state of its wealth and industry; as upon this account it may in

different countries be the same in very different periods of improvement,

and very different in the same period; its connection with the state of

improvement is uncertain; and it is of this sort of uncertainty that I am

here speaking.

In increasing the quantity of the different minerals and metals which are

drawn from the bowels of the earth, that of the more precious ones

particularly, the efficacy of human industry seems not to be limited, but

to be altogether uncertain.

The quantity of the precious metals which is to be found in any country,

is not limited by any thing in its local situation, such as the fertility

or barrenness of its own mines. Those metals frequently abound in

countries which possess no mines. Their quantity, in every particular

country, seems to depend upon two different circumstances; first, upon its

power of purchasing, upon the state of its industry, upon the annual

produce of its land and labour, in consequence of which it can afford to

employ a greater or a smaller quantity of labour and subsistence, in

bringing or purchasing such superfluities as gold and silver, either from

its own mines, or from those of other countries; and, secondly, upon the

fertility or barrenness of the mines which may happen at any particular

time to supply the commercial world with those metals. The quantity of

those metals in the countries most remote from the mines, must be more or

less affected by this fertility or barrenness, on account of the easy and

cheap transportation of those metals, of their small bulk and great value.

Their quantity in China and Indostan must have been more or less affected

by the abundance of the mines of America.

So far as their quantity in any particular country depends upon the former

of those two circumstances (the power of purchasing), their real price,

like that of all other luxuries and superfluities, is likely to rise with

the wealth and improvement of the country, and to fall with its poverty

and depression. Countries which have a great quantity of labour and

subsistence to spare, can afford to purchase any particular quantity of

those metals at the expense of a greater quantity of labour and

subsistence, than countries which have less to spare.

So far as their quantity in any particular country depends upon the latter

of those two circumstances (the fertility or barrenness of the mines which

happen to supply the commercial world), their real price, the real

quantity of labour and subsistence which they will purchase or exchange

for, will, no doubt, sink more or less in proportion to the fertility, and

rise in proportion to the barrenness of those mines.

The fertility or barrenness of the mines, however, which may happen at any

particular time to supply the commercial world, is a circumstance which,

it is evident, may have no sort of connection with the state of industry

in a particular country. It seems even to have no very necessary

connection with that of the world in general. As arts and commerce,

indeed, gradually spread themselves over a greater and a greater part of

the earth, the search for new mines, being extended over a wider surface,

may have somewhat a better chance for being successful than when confined

within narrower bounds. The discovery of new mines, however, as the old

ones come to be gradually exhausted, is a matter of the greatest

uncertainty, and such as no human skill or industry can insure. All

indications, it is acknowledged, are doubtful; and the actual discovery

and successful working of a new mine can alone ascertain the reality of

its value, or even of its existence. In this search there seem to be no

certain limits, either to the possible success, or to the possible

disappointment of human industry. In the course of a century or two, it is

possible that new mines may be discovered, more fertile than any that have

ever yet been known; and it is just equally possible, that the most

fertile mine then known may be more barren than any that was wrought

before the discovery of the mines of America. Whether the one or the other

of those two events may happen to take place, is of very little importance

to the real wealth and prosperity of the world, to the real value of the

annual produce of the land and labour of mankind. Its nominal value, the

quantity of gold and silver by which this annual produce could be

expressed or represented, would, no doubt, be very different; but its real

value, the real quantity of labour which it could purchase or command,

would be precisely the same. A shilling might, in the one case, represent

no more labour than a penny does at present; and a penny, in the other,

might represent as much as a shilling does now. But in the one case, he

who had a shilling in his pocket would be no richer than he who has a

penny at present; and in the other, he who had a penny would be just as

rich as he who has a shilling now. The cheapness and abundance of gold and

silver plate would be the sole advantage which the world could derive from

the one event; and the dearness and scarcity of those trifling

superfluities, the only inconveniency it could suffer from the other.

Conclusion of the Digression concerning the Variations in the Value of

Silver.

The greater part of the writers who have collected the money price of

things in ancient times, seem to have considered the low money price of

corn, and of goods in general, or, in other words, the high value of gold

and silver, as a proof, not only of the scarcity of those metals, but of

the poverty and barbarism of the country at the time when it took place.

This notion is connected with the system of political economy, which

represents national wealth as consisting in the abundance and national

poverty in the scarcity, of gold and silver; a system which I shall

endeavour to explain and examine at great length in the fourth book of

this Inquiry. I shall only observe at present, that the high value of the

precious metals can be no proof of the poverty or barbarism of any

particular country at the time when it took place. It is a proof only of

the barrenness of the mines which happened at that time to supply the

commercial world. A poor country, as it cannot afford to buy more, so it

can as little afford to pay dearer for gold and silver than a rich one;

and the value of those metals, therefore, is not likely to be higher in

the former than in the latter. In China, a country much richer than any

part of Europe, the value of the precious metals is much higher than in

any part of Europe. As the wealth of Europe, indeed, has increased greatly

since the discovery of the mines of America, so the value of gold and

silver has gradually diminished. This diminution of their value, however,

has not been owing to the increase of the real wealth of Europe, of the

annual produce of its land and labour, but to the accidental discovery of

more abundant mines than any that were known before. The increase of the

quantity of gold and silver in Europe, and the increase of its

manufactures and agriculture, are two events which, though they have

happened nearly about the same time, yet have arisen from very different

causes, and have scarce any natural connection with one another. The one

has arisen from a mere accident, in which neither prudence nor policy

either had or could have any share; the other, from the fall of the feudal

system, and from the establishment of a government which afforded to

industry the only encouragement which it requires, some tolerable security

that it shall enjoy the fruits of its own labour. Poland, where the feudal

system still continues to take place, is at this day as beggarly a country

as it was before the discovery of America. The money price of corn,

however, has risen; the real value of the precious metals has fallen in

Poland, in the same manner as in other parts of Europe. Their quantity,

therefore, must have increased there as in other places, and nearly in the

same proportion to the annual produce of its land and labour. This

increase of the quantity of those metals, however, has not, it seems,

increased that annual produce, has neither improved the manufactures and

agriculture of the country, nor mended the circumstances of its

inhabitants. Spain and Portugal, the countries which possess the mines,

are, after Poland, perhaps the two most beggarly countries in Europe. The

value of the precious metals, however, must be lower in Spain and Portugal

than in any other part of Europe, as they come from those countries to all

other parts of Europe, loaded, not only with a freight and an insurance,

but with the expense of smuggling, their exportation being either

prohibited or subjected to a duty. In proportion to the annual produce of

the land and labour, therefore, their quantity must be greater in those

countries than in any other part of Europe; those countries, however, are

poorer than the greater part of Europe. Though the feudal system has been

abolished in Spain and Portugal, it has not been succeeded by a much

better.

As the low value of gold and silver, therefore, is no proof of the wealth

and flourishing state of the country where it takes place; so neither is

their high value, or the low money price either of goods in general, or of

corn in particular, any proof of its poverty and barbarism.

But though the low money price, either of goods in general, or of corn in

particular, be no proof of the poverty or barbarism of the times, the low

money price of some particular sorts of goods, such as cattle, poultry,

game of all kinds, etc. in proportion to that of corn, is a most decisive

one. It clearly demonstrates, first, their great abundance in proportion

to that of corn, and, consequently, the great extent of the land which

they occupied in proportion to what was occupied by corn; and, secondly,

the low value of this land in proportion to that of corn land, and,

consequently, the uncultivated and unimproved state of the far greater

part of the lands of the country. It clearly demonstrates, that the stock

and population of the country did not bear the same proportion to the

extent of its territory, which they commonly do in civilized countries;

and that society was at that time, and in that country, but in its

infancy. From the high or low money price, either of goods in general, or

of corn in particular, we can infer only, that the mines, which at that

time happened to supply the commercial world with gold and silver, were

fertile or barren, not that the country was rich or poor. But from the

high or low money price of some sorts of goods in proportion to that of

others, we can infer, with a degree of probability that approaches almost

to certainty, that it was rich or poor, that the greater part of its lands

were improved or unimproved, and that it was either in a more or less

barbarous state, or in a more or less civilized one.

Any rise in the money price of goods which proceeded altogether from the

degradation of the value of silver, would affect all sorts of goods

equally, and raise their price universally, a third, or a fourth, or a

fifth part higher, according as silver happened to lose a third, or a

fourth, or a fifth part of its former value. But the rise in the price of

provisions, which has been the subject of so much reasoning and

conversation, does not affect all sorts of provisions equally. Taking the

course of the present century at an average, the price of corn, it is

acknowledged, even by those who account for this rise by the degradation

of the value of silver, has risen much less than that of some other sorts

of provisions. The rise in the price of those other sorts of provisions,

therefore, cannot be owing altogether to the degradation of the value of

silver. Some other causes must be taken into the account; and those which

have been above assigned, will, perhaps, without having recourse to the

supposed degradation of the value of silver, sufficiently explain this

rise in those particular sorts of provisions, of which the price has

actually risen in proportion to that of corn.

As to the price of corn itself, it has, during the sixty-four first years

of the present century, and before the late extraordinary course of bad

seasons, been somewhat lower than it was during the sixty-four last years

of the preceding century. This fact is attested, not only by the accounts

of Windsor market, but by the public fiars of all the different counties

of Scotland, and by the accounts of several different markets in France,

which have been collected with great diligence and fidelity by Mr

Messance, and by Mr Dupré de St Maur. The evidence is more complete than

could well have been expected in a matter which is naturally so very

difficult to be ascertained.

As to the high price of corn during these last ten or twelve years, it can

be sufficiently accounted for from the badness of the seasons, without

supposing any degradation in the value of silver.

The opinion, therefore, that silver is continually sinking in its value,

seems not to be founded upon any good observations, either upon the prices

of corn, or upon those of other provisions.

The same quantity of silver, it may perhaps be said, will, in the present

times, even according to the account which has been here given, purchase a

much smaller quantity of several sorts of provisions than it would have

done during some part of the last century; and to ascertain whether this

change be owing to a rise in the value of those goods, or to a fall in the

value of silver, is only to establish a vain and useless distinction,

which can be of no sort of service to the man who has only a certain

quantity of silver to go to market with, or a certain fixed revenue in

money. I certainly do not pretend that the knowledge of this distinction

will enable him to buy cheaper. It may not, however, upon that account be

altogether useless.

It may be of some use to the public, by affording an easy proof of the

prosperous condition of the country. If the rise in the price of some

sorts of provisions be owing altogether to a fall in the value of silver,

it is owing to a circumstance, from which nothing can be inferred but the

fertility of the American mines. The real wealth of the country, the

annual produce of its land and labour, may, notwithstanding this

circumstance, be either gradually declining, as in Portugal and Poland; or

gradually advancing, as in most other parts of Europe. But if this rise in

the price of some sorts of provisions be owing to a rise in the real value

of the land which produces them, to its increased fertility, or, in

consequence of more extended improvement and good cultivation, to its

having been rendered fit for producing corn; it is owing to a circumstance

which indicates, in the clearest manner, the prosperous and advancing

state of the country. The land constitutes by far the greatest, the most

important, and the most durable part of the wealth of every extensive

country. It may surely be of some use, or, at least, it may give some

satisfaction to the public, to have so decisive a proof of the increasing

value of by far the greatest, the most important, and the most durable

part of its wealth.

It may, too, be of some use to the public, in regulating the pecuniary

reward of some of its inferior servants. If this rise in the price of some

sorts of provisions be owing to a fall in the value of silver, their

pecuniary reward, provided it was not too large before, ought certainly to

be augmented in proportion to the extent of this fall. If it is not

augmented, their real recompence will evidently be so much diminished. But

if this rise of price is owing to the increased value, in consequence of

the improved fertility of the land which produces such provisions, it

becomes a much nicer matter to judge, either in what proportion any

pecuniary reward ought to be augmented, or whether it ought to be

augmented at all. The extension of improvement and cultivation, as it

necessarily raises more or less, in proportion to the price of corn, that

of every sort of animal food, so it as necessarily lowers that of, I

believe, every sort of vegetable food. It raises the price of animal food;

because a great part of the land which produces it, being rendered fit for

producing corn, must afford to the landlord and farmer the rent and

profit of corn land. It lowers the price of vegetable food; because, by

increasing the fertility of the land, it increases its abundance. The

improvements of agriculture, too, introduce many sorts of vegetable food,

which requiring less land, and not more labour than corn, come much

cheaper to market. Such are potatoes and maize, or what is called Indian

corn, the two most important improvements which the agriculture of Europe,

perhaps, which Europe itself, has received from the great extension of its

commerce and navigation. Many sorts of vegetable food, besides, which in

the rude state of agriculture are confined to the kitchen-garden, and

raised only by the spade, come, in its improved state, to be introduced

into common fields, and to be raised by the plough; such as turnips,

carrots, cabbages, etc. If, in the progress of improvement, therefore, the

real price of one species of food necessarily rises, that of another as

necessarily falls; and it becomes a matter of more nicety to judge how far

the rise in the one may be compensated by the fall in the other. When the

real price of butcher’s meat has once got to its height (which, with

regard to every sort, except perhaps that of hogs flesh, it seems to have

done through a great part of England more than a century ago), any rise

which can afterwards happen in that of any other sort of animal food,

cannot much affect the circumstances of the inferior ranks of people. The

circumstances of the poor, through a great part of England, cannot surely

be so much distressed by any rise in the price of poultry, fish,

wild-fowl, or venison, as they must be relieved by the fall in that of

potatoes.

In the present season of scarcity, the high price of corn no doubt

distresses the poor. But in times of moderate plenty, when corn is at its

ordinary or average price, the natural rise in the price of any other sort

of rude produce cannot much affect them. They suffer more, perhaps, by the

artificial rise which has been occasioned by taxes in the price of some

manufactured commodities, as of salt, soap, leather, candles, malt, beer,

ale, etc.

_Effects of the Progress of Improvement upon the real Price of

Manufactures._

It is the natural effect of improvement, however, to diminish gradually

the real price of almost all manufactures. That of the manufacturing

workmanship diminishes, perhaps, in all of them without exception. In

consequence of better machinery, of greater dexterity, and of a more

proper division and distribution of work, all of which are the natural

effects of improvement, a much smaller quantity of labour becomes

requisite for executing any particular piece of work; and though, in

consequence of the flourishing circumstances of the society, the real

price of labour should rise very considerably, yet the great diminution of

the quantity will generally much more than compensate the greatest rise

which can happen in the price.

There are, indeed, a few manufactures, in which the necessary rise in the

real price of the rude materials will more than compensate all the

advantages which improvement can introduce into the execution of the work.

In carpenters’ and joiners’ work, and in the coarser sort of cabinet work,

the necessary rise in the real price of barren timber, in consequence of

the improvement of land, will more than compensate all the advantages

which can be derived from the best machinery, the greatest dexterity, and

the most proper division and distribution of work.

But in all cases in which the real price of the rude material either does

not rise at all, or does not rise very much, that of the manufactured

commodity sinks very considerably.

This diminution of price has, in the course of the present and preceding

century, been most remarkable in those manufactures of which the materials

are the coarser metals. A better movement of a watch, than about the

middle of the last century could have been bought for twenty pounds, may

now perhaps be had for twenty shillings. In the work of cutlers and

locksmiths, in all the toys which are made of the coarser metals, and in

all those goods which are commonly known by the name of Birmingham and

Sheffield ware, there has been, during the same period, a very great

reduction of price, though not altogether so great as in watch-work. It

has, however, been sufficient to astonish the workmen of every other part

of Europe, who in many cases acknowledge that they can produce no work of

equal goodness for double or even for triple the price. There are perhaps

no manufactures, in which the division of labour can be carried further,

or in which the machinery employed admits of a greater variety of

improvements, than those of which the materials are the coarser metals.