CHAP. XXIV.

WITH INCREASE OF COIN.

same measure ; showing an advance of near threehundred per cent. 1 This must have been attri-butable chiefly to the great scarcity of corn whichwas experienced in France at the beginning ofthe revolution, and to similar deficiencies in thesupply of other countries. These, offering veryhigh rates, induced the transportation of cornfrom distances in the interior of the continent toDantzic, which could not have been borne but forthe almost famine prices in other countries.

The kindness of the officers of the royal hospitalat Chelsea has furnished the contract prices of thechief articles consumed in that establishment forthe years 1730, 1731, and 1732, the oldest periodof which there are clear accounts; and for theyears 1791, 1792, and 1793, after which the con-tracts were made in a different manner. It ap-pears by the account in Appendix , No. 6, that inthe sixty years the advance on bread, beef, mutton,cheese, and butter had been at the rate of twentyper cent., that on pease and oatmeal more, andthat on coals still more. On salt, beer, and can-dles it is difficult to fix the accurate difference, asit might be occasioned by alterations in the taxeslaid on those articles. As far as the account ex-tends, it seems a conclusive proof of a gradual ad-vance in the money-price of those kinds of neces-

1 See Jacob’s Corn Report, ordered to be printed by theHouse of Commons, 14th May, 1826.