228

THE NATURE AND CAUSES OI'

the woollen manufactures too of Ireland are fully as muchdiscouraged as is consistent with justice and fair dealing,the Irish can work up but a small part of their own woolat home, and are, therefore, obliged to send a greater pro-portion of it to Great Britain , the only market they areallowed.

I have not been able to find any such authentic recordsconcerning the price of raw hides in ancient times. Woolwas commonly paid as a subsidy to the king, and its valu-ation in that subsidy ascertains, at least in some degree,what was its ordinary price. But this seems not to havebeen the case with raw hides. Fleetwood, however, froman account in 1425, between the prior of Burcester Oxfordand one of liis canons, gives us their price, at least as it wasstated, upon that particular occasion; viz. five ox hides attwelve shillings; five cow hides at seven shillings and three-pence ; thirty-six sheep skins of two years old at nine shil-lings ; sixteen calf skins at two shillings. In 1425, twelveshillings contained about the same quantity of silver as four-and-twenty shillings of our present money. An ox hide,therefore, was in this account valued at tjie same quantity ofsilver as As. fths of our present money. Its nominal pricewas a good deal lower than at present. But at the rate ofsix shillings and eight-pence the quarter, twelve shillingswould in those times have purchased fourteen bushels andfour-fifths of a bushel of wheat, which, at three and six-pence the bushel, would in the present times cost 51 s. 4 d.An ox hide, therefore, would in those times have purchasedas much corn as ten shillings and three-pence would pur-chase at present. Its real value was equal to ten shillingsand three-pence of our present money. In those ancienttimes when the cattle were half starved during the greaterpart of the winter, we cannot suppose that they were of avery large size. An ox hide which weighs four stone ofsixteen pounds of avoirdupois, is not in the present timesreckoned a bad one; and in those ancient times would pro-bably have been reckoned a very good one. But at half acrown the stone, which at this moment (February 1773)1understand to be the common price, such a hide would atpresent cost only ten shillings. Though its nominal price,therefore, is higher in the present than it was in those an-cient times, its real price, the real quantity of subsistencewhich it will purchase or command, is rather somewhat