72
ADVANCE OF PRICES
CHAP. XIX.
Difficult as the task has been found even to con-jecture what has been the increase or decrease ofthe precious metals, and doubtful as are the re-sults at which we have arrived, any estimation ofthe increase of commodities generally in Europe would be a far more Herculean task, and the con-clusions that might be drawn would be infinitelymore disputable.
In order to approximate to truth as nearlyas the subject will admit, we shall advert tothe prices of commodities in the two periodsabout the years 1480 and 1599, both in Englandand in France . For reasons which have been be-fore stated at length 1 , we must have recourse tocorn, that commodity which can alone guide us,which, though the only one whose certain pricesare given, is, on account of the fluctuations inits productiveness, one of the most uncertain.It happens, too, that in the period under con-sideration the variations of several years seem tobe enormously great.
In a work entitled “ A true Relation of themost remarkable Dearths and Famines which havehappened in this Realm since the coming in ofWilliam the Conqueror up to Michaelmas, 1745,”4to. printed in 1748, there are some facts wellworth noticing and preserving. In the followingextracts the money of the several dates is re-