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APPLICATION OF

CIIAP. XXI.

the silver and gold which was transferred fromAmerica to India through Europe amounted an-nually to one-tenth of the supply furnished by thewestern continent. Although the Dutch , theEnglish, and the French had shared with thePortuguese in the trade to India , and had en-larged it very considerably, yet there is no reasonto conclude that the demand for silver' and goldfor the trade with Asia had proceeded throughthe whole of the century at a rate which wouldmake it necessary to send to the east a larger pro-portion of the whole produce than in the pre-ceding century. If then, as before, the supply forthe east be taken as one-tenth, the additionalquantity to be applied to Europe would be threehundred and four million seven hundred andfifty thousand pounds.

It is difficult to fix what proportion of thisamount would be applied to other purposes thanthat of money. It is natural to conclude thatwith the low price of any commodity the con-sumption of it will increase. This is the samewith the precious metals as with every other com-modity, though some confusion of ideas arisesfrom viewing them most commonly in their othercharacter, that of a measure of the value of allother commodities. An ounce of silver may beconsidered as worth at all times five shillings orsix francs, and therefore an alteration in its valueis marked in a different manner from that of other