190

THE NATUUE AND CAUSES OF

middle wheat comes out to have been about 1/. 12s. 8§d., orabout six ounces and one-third of an ounce of silver.

From 1G21 to 1G3G, both inclusive, the average price ofthe same measure of the best wheat at the same market ap-pears, from the same accounts, to have been 21. 10s.; fromwhich, making the like deductions as in the foregoing case,the average price of the quarter of eight bushels of middlewheat come out to have been 1 1. 19s. Gd. or about seven ouncesand two-thirds of an ounce of silver.

THIRD PERIOD.

Between 1630 and 1G40, or about 1G3G, the effect of thediscovery of the mines of America in reducing the value ofsilver appears to have been completed, and the value of thatmetal seems never to have sunk lower in proportion to that ofcorn than it was about that time. It seems to have risensomewhat in the course of the present century, and it hadprobably begun to do so even some time before the end ofthe last.

From 1G37 to 1700, both inclusive, being the sixty-fourlast years of the last century, the average price of the quarterof nine bushels of the best wheat at Windsor market appears,from the same accounts, to have been 21. 1 l.v. 0 }d.; which isonly Is. Op/, dearer than it had been during the sixteen yearsbefore. But in the course of these sixty-four years therehappened two events which must have produced a muchgreater scarcity of corn than what the course of the seasonswould otherwise have occasioned, and which, therefore, with-out supposing any further reduction in the value of silver, willmuch more than account for this very small enhancement ofprice.

The first of these events was the civil war, which, by dis-couraging tillage, and interrupting commerce, must haveraised the price of corn much above what the course of theseasons would otherwise have occasioned. It must have hadthis effect more or less at all the different markets in the king-dom, but particularly at those in the neighbourhood of London ,which require to be supplied from the greatest distance. In1648, accordingly, the price of the best wheat at Windsormarket appears, from the same accounts, to have been 4/. 5,t.and in 1649 to have been 4/. the quarter of nine bushels. Theexcess of those two years above 21. lOs. (the average price ofthe sixteen years preceding 1637) is 3/.5s.; which, divided