210 THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF

lowest price for which it is possible to bring it thither, thanthe price of Spanish silver. When all expenses are computed,the whole quantity of the one metal, it would seem, cannot,in the Spanish market, be disposed of so advantageously asthe whole quantity of the other. The tax, indeed, of the kingof Portugal upon the gold of the Brazils, is the same with theancient tax of the king of Spain upon the silver of Mexico and Peru ; or one-fifth part of the standard metal. It may,therefore, be uncertain whether to the general market of Eu-rope the whole mass of American gold comes at a price nearerto the lowest for which it is possible to bring it thither, thanthe whole mass of American silver.

The price of diamonds and other precious stones may, perliaps, be still nearer to the lowest price at which it is possi-ble to bring them to market, than even the price of gold.

Though it is not very probable that any part of a tax whichis not only imposed upon one of the most proper subjects oftaxation, a mere luxury and superfluity, but which affords sovery important a revenue, as the tax upon silver, will ever begiven up as long as it is possible to pay it; yet the same im-possibility of paying it, which in 1736 made it necessary toreduce it from one-fifth to one-tenth, may in time make it ne-cessary to reduce it still further; in the same manner as itmade it necessary to reduce the tax upon gold to one-twen-tieth. That the silver-mines of Spanish America, like allother mines, become gradually more expensive in the work-ing, on account of the greater depths at which it is necessaryto carry on the works, and of the greater expense of drawingout the water, and of supplying them with fresh air at thosedepths, is acknowledged by every body who has inquiredinto the state of those mines.

These causes, which are equivalent to a growing scarcityof silver (for a commodity may be said to grow scarcer whenit becomes more difficult and expensive to collect a certainquantity of it), must, in time, produce one or other of thethree following events. The increase of the expense musteither, first, be compensated altogether by a proportionableincrease in the price of the metal; or secondly, it must becompensated altogether by a proportionable diminution ofthe tax upon silver; or thirdly, it must be compensated partlyby the one, and partly by the other of those two expedients.This third event is very possible. As gold rose in its pricein proportion to silver, notwithstanding a great diminution of