Ch. V. OfPoor-Laws. 71 



1801 it was said to be ten millions. An additional 

 seven millions acting at the bottom of the scale,* 

 and employed exclusively in the purchase of pro- 

 visions, joined to a considerable advance in the 

 price of wages in many parts of the kingdom, 

 and increased by a prodigious sum expended in 

 voluntary charity, must have had a most powerful 

 effect in raising the price of the necessaries of 

 life, if any reliance can be placed on the clearest 

 general principles confirmed as much as possible 

 by appearances. A man with a family has re- 

 ceived, to my kno\^edge, fourteen shillings a 

 week from the parish. His common earnings 

 were ten shillings a week, and his weekly revenue, 

 therefore, twenty-four. Before the scarcity he 

 had been in the habit of purchasing a bushel of 

 flour a week with eight shillings perhaps, and, 

 consequently, had two shillings out of his ten, to 

 spare for other necessaries. During the scarcity 

 he was enabled to purchase the same quantity at 

 nearly three times the price. He paid twenty- 

 two shillings for his bushel of flour, and had, as 

 before, two shillings remaining for other wants. 



* See a small pamphlet publisbed in November, 1 800, entitled. 

 An Investigation of the Cause of the present high Price of Provi- 

 sions. This pamphlet was mistaken by some for an inquiiy into 

 the cause of the scarcity, and as such it would naturally appear 

 to be incomplete, adverting, as it does, principally to a single 

 cause. But the sole object of the pamphlet was to give the princi- 

 pal reason for the extreme high price of provisions, in proportion 

 to the degree of the scarcity, admitting the deficiency of one- 

 fourth, as stated in the Duke of Portland's letter ; which, 1 am 

 much inclined to think, was very near the truth. 



