CHAP. XXXV.
WITH INCREASE OF COIN.
217
are to be found. Thus in Spain the average priceof wheat in the market of Seville , from the year1701 to 1726, was fourteen reals 1 2 thirty-onemaravedis the fanega; from 1727 to 1752 it wasseventeen reals twenty-two maravedis; and from1765 to I787 it was twenty-six reals eleven ma-ravedis 8 .
This shows a greater advance than appears bythe English accounts. It may not, however, beproper to assume the price of wheat in Spain as ascale to measure the value of gold and silver withthe same confidence as may be given to the pricein England. It is not so universally the food ofman as with us, and the variations in price aremore enormous. In the hundred years we areconsidering, the lowest price of wheat in Englandwas one pound three shillings and a penny, andthe highest price three pounds nine shillings andfour-:pence, thus varying as from one to three ; butin Spain the lowest price was seven reals, and thehighest thirty-nine, or from one to five and a half.
Not having correct prices of wheat in France at the latter portion of the eighteenth century, wemust make the contrast between two periods at acentury from each other, the first beginning with
1 The real is the twentieth part of a dollar, and is dividedinto thirty-four maravedis. The fanega is two-thirds of anEnglish bushel.