CHAP. XXIV.

AMOUNT OF COIN.

215

putation, and the coin had increased from twohundred and ninety-seven millions of pounds in1699 to three hundred and eighty millions ofpounds in 1809, the addition would be at therate of about twenty-eight per cent. This com-putation, though by a very different process, givesa result so nearly approaching to those by For-bonnais, Gerboux, and Heron de Villefosse, thatit seems more entitled to confidence than thatof Necker, who rated the coin of France to benearly equal to that of all Europe , and the col-lective stock not much to exceed one half ofthis estimate.

In drawing a comparison between the pricesof wheat, which in spite of the objections to itthat have been stated in former parts of the in-quiry we are compelled to adopt, it is necessaryto take the average of a long series of years. Itseemed also desirable to avoid years in which de-rangements of the current coin of the kingdomwere in operation. On that account it was ad-visable not to include any of the years after thesuspension of the bank payments in specie: thatsuspension had some effect on prices, but theextent to which it operated in various periodsmust have been a subject of discussion too longand too doubtful to be entered upon here. Theperiods for comparison are the thirty years be-tween 1665 and 1695, and the same number ofyears between 1765 and 1795.