CHAP. XXII r.

OF GOLD TO SILVER.

189

value of gold to silver during the two past cen-turies it would be difficult to determine. But onething is certain, that as prices rose w'ith the in-creased quantity of both precious metals, therewould be a larger portion of gold used as coin tomake large payments, for which silver antecedentlywas used, and of silver to make those paymentsfor which copper or other inferior metals had suf-ficed.

From hence it may be concluded that the pro-portionate value of the gold in the form of coinhad changed its relation to that of silver. Bothhad vastly increased, but gold in rather the greaterdegree. There was action and re-action. The me-tallic wealth acted on material wealth by raisingthe prices of it; and that re-acted on the pre-cious metals by requiring a larger portion of themto effect the necessary exchanges.

Taking into the calculation the superior valueof the gold which was used for ornamental pur-poses on the one hand, and which must have beenwithdrawn or withheld from its application to coin-age, as will be hereafter shown in detail; andadverting to the vastly superior value of the silverwhich came from America in the form of coinedmoney on the other hand; it seems fair to pre-sume that the proportion of one coin to the otherin circulation had been changed towards the endof the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth