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COMPARISON OP TRICES

CRAP. XXIV.

It appears by the Windsor prices, as kept atEton College , that the average prices of wheat ofthe whole of the years between 1665 and 1695was two pounds and sixpence halfpenny the Win-chester quarter of eight gallons. The averageprice of the corresponding years in the followingcentury, or between 1765 and 1795, was twopounds eleven shillings and a penny-halfpenny.By the Oxford prices in the Appendix , No. 4,it will appear that the wheat sold there, whoseprices are taken at two periods in each year, viz.Lady-day and Michaelmas, was, on the average ofthe same two periods of thirty years, as follows :in the first series at one pound sixteen shillingsand ten-pence per quarter, and in the secondseries two pounds nine shillings and sixpence. Ifthese two tables of prices are classed together, thebases of the calculation will be more extended,and the rise on the century will be from one poundeighteen shillings and eight-pence to two poundsten shillings and three-pence, and show an advanceof thirty per cent on the earliest prices.

This coincidence between the increase of thestock of coin and of the price of wheat in thecourse of a century may be accidental, or may belocal and applicable to England, and not to thecountries on the continent of Europe ; but as faras a judgment can be formed from the few datathat can be collected, the advance was similarduring the part of the period for which accounts