CHAP. xxiv. WITH INCREASE OF COIN. 219 



same measure ; showing an advance of near three 

 hundred per cent. 1 This must have been attri- 

 butable chiefly to the great scarcity of corn which 

 was experienced in France at the beginning of 

 the revolution, and to similar deficiencies in the 

 supply of other countries. These, offering very 

 high rates, induced the transportation of corn 

 from distances in the interior of the continent to 

 Dantzic, which could not have been borne but for 

 the almost famine prices in other countries. 



The kindness of the officers of the royal hospital 

 at Chelsea has furnished the contract prices of the 

 chief articles consumed in that establishment for 

 the years 1730, 1731, and 1732, the oldest period 

 of which there are clear accounts ; and for the 

 years 1791, 1792, and 1793, after which the con- 

 tracts were made in a different manner. It ap- 

 pears by the account in Appendix, No. 6, that in 

 the sixty years the advance on bread, beef, mutton, 

 cheese, and butter had been at the rate of twenty 

 per cent., that on pease and oatmeal more, and 

 that on coals still more. On salt, beer, and can- 

 dles it is difficult to fix the accurate difference, as 

 it might be occasioned by alterations in the taxes 

 laid on those articles. As far as the account ex- 

 tends, it seems a conclusive proof of a gradual ad r 

 vance in the money-price of those kinds of neces- 



1 See Jacob's Corn Report, ordered to be printed by the 

 House of Commons, 14th May, 1826. 



