THE FIRST SIXTY YEARS. 797 



building materials of all kinds, and in clothing. On the other 

 hand, the price of Eastern produce rather declines, and that 

 of linen is almost stationary. Now a rise which is so general, 

 and with few exceptions so regular, must I am confident be 

 largely ascribed to that cause to which superficial writers and 

 speakers always assign too great a force, the progressive 

 cheapening of money. Now, according to Ruding, Elizabeth 

 coined on an average 125,311 a year, James .241,236, and 

 the Queen's coinage includes in the re-coinage (.733,248) the 

 average of about six years in a single issue. The coinage 

 of James may therefore be fairly taken at double that of 

 Elizabeth annually. How the increase was obtained is not 

 quite so clear, but I imagine that the principal agent in the 

 operation was the East India Company's trade, and the 

 development of textile industries at home. The compara- 

 tively slight rise in woven products points to exports, and 

 the condition of Central Europe at the time, during the 

 horrible war of religion known as the Thirty Years' War, 

 suggests the market, for though the non-combatants were 

 half-extirpated, the soldiers were clothed and fed. So, in 

 spite of the Berlin and Milan decrees, the English clothiers 

 did most successful business during the Continental War, for 

 Napoleon's soldiers were clad in the cloth of which the ad- 

 venturer forbad the sale, and by a trade on which this idol 

 of idiots denounced the penalties of piracy. 



After the middle of the seventeenth century the rise of 

 prices slowly continued, as I have pointed out in the course 

 of this chapter. But the rise is comparatively slight. In 

 grain it is 20 per cent., in other provisions and salt 40 per 

 cent., in fire and light nearly 40 per cent., the rise being 

 chiefly in charcoal (due to the destruction of the woods), in 

 metals 18 per cent., in building materials 27^ per cent., in 

 linen nearly 9 per cent., in woollen cloth I2j per cent. 

 These prices arc partly due I believe to scarcity, partly to 

 growing wealth, for it will be admitted that as a community 

 contains an increasing number of non-producers, prices tend 



