THE WEALTH OK NATIONS.

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the price of bread, or than six shillings and eight-pence ofthe money of those times, containing four ounces of silver,Tower-weight.

From these different facts, therefore, we seem to have somereason to conclude, that about the middle of the fourteenthcentury, and for a considerable time before, the average orordinary price of the quaiter of wheat was not supposed tobe less than four ounces of silver, Tower-weight.

From about the middle of the fourteenth to the beginningof the sixteenth century, what was reckoned the reasonableand moderate, that is, the ordinary or average price of wheat,seems to have sunk gradually to about one-half of this price;so as at last to have fallen to about two ounces of silver,Tower-weight, equal to about ten shillings of our presentmoney. It continued to be estimated at this price tillabout 1570.

In the household-book of Henry, the fifth earl of Northum-berland, drawn up in 1512, there are two different estimationsof wheat. In one of them it is computed at six shillings andeight-pence the quarter, in the other at five shillings and eight-pence only. In 1512, six shillings and eight-pence containedonly two ounces of silver, Tower-weight, and were equal toabout ten shillings of our present money.

From the 25th of Edward III . to the beginning of the reignof Elizabeth, during the space of more than two hundredyears, six shillings and eight-pence, it appears from severaldifferent statutes, had continued to be considered as what iscalled the moderate and reasonable, that is, the ordinary oraverage price of wheat. The quantity of silver, however,contained in that nominal sum was, during the course of thisperiod, continually diminishing, in consequence of some alte-rations which were made in the coin. But the increase ofthe value of silver had, it seems, so far compensated the di-minution of the quantity ol it contained in the same nominalsum, that the legislature did not think it worth while to attendto this circumstance.

Thus in 1430 it was enacted, that wheat might be exportedwithout a licence when the price was so low as six shillingsand eight-pence; ami in 1403 it was enacted, that no wheatshould be imported if the price was not above six shillingsand eight-pence the quarter. The legislature had imagined,that when the price was so low, there could be no inconve-niency in exportation, but that when it rose higher, it became