CHAP. XXVI.
313
capable of absorbing a larger portion of thosemetals, but they are also the great workshops inwhich are fabricated many of those luxuriousornaments and utensils which are furnished tothe gratifications of the richer inhabitants of othercountries, of countries where the few ornamentsof the numerous less rich individuals are suppliedby small internal manufacturers. If it be takeninto consideration that the small portions of goldand silver which the inferior classes make use ofmust, from their vastly greater numbers, exceedthat used by the rich, it will not be deemed anunfair assumption to calculate, that the hundredand sixty millions of persons in the rest of Europe annually consume two-fifths as much as the fiftyor sixty millions who inhabit England, France ,and Switzerland . At this rate we shall considerthe whole application of the precious metals toornamental and luxurious purposes to be asfollows:—
Prance ..... 1,200,000
4 , 007,221
Estimated amount for the whole of the rest ofEurope being two-fifths . . . 1,605,490
thus making £5,612,711
To this must be added the consumption of theUnited States of North America , of the newlycreated states in Spanish and Portuguese America,