CHAPTER XXVI. 



ON PRICES GENERALLY BETWEEN 1583 AND 1702. 



AMONG the facts which the examination of prices during 

 this period elicits, the most obvious, and to many readers the 

 most important, is that during the seventeenth century the 

 full effect of the new silver, and to a slight extent of the new 

 gold, which the mines of Spanish America were pouring into 

 Europe, was made manifest. By the middle of the century, 

 general prices attained that level which, except in so far as 

 they are affected by the seasons and by improvements in the 

 production and conveyance of merchantable articles, they 

 retained down to the beginning of the last quarter of the 

 eighteenth century. If any reader cares to compare the 

 prices which will be collected in this chapter, with those 

 which are given so constantly in Arthur Young's Tours, he 

 will find what I have said verified. 



It is a commonplace with economists, that the only way 

 in which a country, which does not produce the precious 

 metals or produces them only in small quantities, can supply 

 itself with the material for a metallic currency, is by the foreign 

 exchanges. It must sell or have sold more than it buys in 

 money value, and must receive or have received a balance in 

 coin or bullion. When a nation possesses a foreign trade, 

 either directly or indirectly, with countries which produce gold 

 or silver, the adaptation of the currency in the community to 

 the wants of circulation, and in the end to a general level of 



