132

INCREASE OF COIN AND

chap. xxr.

money at the end of 1599 at one hundred andthirty million pounds, and of that stock at the endof 1699 at two hundred and ninety-seven millionpounds, we find an increase in the hundred yearsat the rate of about one hundred and fifty percent., or double and a half.

The doubts respecting the prices of corn havebeen before fully stated, but at the two periodswhose comparison it is now necessary to make,though still subject to doubt, there are moreaccurate records than in the preceding series ofyears, when for want of better criteria recoursehas been reluctantly had to them.

The prices of corn here referred to are those ofOxford, taken from the valuable publication ofMr. Lloyd 1 5 and to avoid the influence of variationon the productiveness ofthe series of years, a greaternumber of years is comprehended in the estimation.In the twenty years from 1483 to 1502, bothincluded, the average price of wheat was twenty-seven shillings the Winchester quarter; in thetwenty years from 1583 to 1602 the price wasthirty-six shillings per quarter, or an advance ofthirty-three per cent. Malt* in the first periodwas sixteen shillings and a penny, in the lastperiod twenty-two shillings and a penny, whichshows an advance of thirty-eight per cent. This

1 See Appendix , No. IV., in Lloyd, p. 325.

4 In the prices of malt no allowance is made in this calculationfor the duty of four shillings per quarter first imposed in 1597,and for the subsequent alterations in the rate of duty.