PREFACE.

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In subsequent and frequent conversations withMr. Huskisson, he suggested the utility of takinga more comprehensive view of the subject, and ofexamining into the sources of those large accumu-lations of gold and silver which are represented tohave existed in the early ages of the world—of their gradual decrease in quantity—and thecauses of the disappearance of a large portionof them. These subjects he thought might becombined with the state of the prices of com-modities, and connected with the renewed increasewhich has arisen from the discovery of America and the mining operations. The present workmust be considered as an attempt to follow out thesuggestions in the several quarters of the world.

I had made some progress in the collection offacts from the sacred and profane writers of an-tiquity, and on some other later parts of the in-quiry, when the dreadful accident occurred bywhich his country and the world were deprived ofthe services of that eminent and estimable man;but in the last conversation I had with him, a fewweeks before his death, he expressed much in-terest in the advance I had made, and assistedme by his advice in that mode of arranging thematerials which has been adopted in this inquiry.