216 COMPARISON OF PRICES CHAP. XXIV. 



It appears by the Windsor prices, as kept at 

 Eton College, that the average prices of wheat of 

 the whole of the years between 1665 and 1695 

 was two pounds and sixpence halfpenny the Win- 

 chester quarter of eight gallons. The average 

 price of the corresponding years in the following 

 century, or between 1J65 and 1795, was two 

 pounds eleven shillings and a penny-halfpenrfy. 

 By the Oxford prices in the Appendix, No. 4, 

 it will appear that the wheat sold there, whose 

 prices are taken at two periods in each year, viz. 

 Lady-day and Michaelmas, was, on the average of 

 the same two periods of thirty years, as follows : 

 in the first series at one pound sixteen shillings 

 and ten-pence per quarter, and in the second 

 series two pounds nine shillings and sixpence. If 

 these two tables of prices are classed together, the 

 bases of the calculation will be more extended, 

 and the rise on the century will be from one pound 

 eighteen shillings and eight-pence to two pounds 

 ten shillings and three-pence, and show an advance 

 of thirty per cent on the earliest prices. 



This coincidence between the increase of the 

 stock of coin and of the price of wheat in the 

 course of a century may be accidental, or may be 

 local and applicable to England, and not to the 

 countries on the continent of Europe ; but as far 

 as a judgment can be formed from the few data 

 that can be collected, the advance was similar 

 during the part of the period for which accounts 



