CHAP. XXiir. OF GOLD TO SILVER. 189 



value of gold to silver during the two past cen- 

 turies it would be difficult to determine. But one 

 thing is certain, that as prices rose with the in- 

 creased quantity of both precious metals, there 

 would be a larger portion of gold used as coin to 

 make large payments, for which silver antecedently 

 was used, and of silver to make those payments 

 for which copper or other inferior metals had suf- 

 ficed. 



From hence it may be concluded that the pro- 

 portionate value of the gold in the form of coin 

 had changed its relation to that of silver. Both 

 had vastly increased, but gold in rather the greater 

 degree. There was action and re-action. The me- 

 tallic wealth acted on material wealth by raising 

 the prices of it ; and that re-acted on the pre- 

 cious metals by requiring a larger portion of them 

 to effect the necessary exchanges. 



Taking into the calculation the superior value 

 of the gold which was used for ornamental pur- 

 poses on the one hand, and which must have been 

 withdrawn or withheld from its application to coin- 

 age, as will be hereafter shown in detail ; and 

 adverting to the vastly superior value of the silver 

 which came from America in the form of coined 

 money on the other hand ; it seems fair to pre- 

 sume that the proportion of one coin to the other 

 in circulation had been changed towards the end 

 of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth 



