The following estimate of the annual and universal product of the mines, however deficient, is the best we can obtain.

Gold was once at ten to eleven for one in exchange for silver, but since the discovery of America, silver has fallen faster than gold; it is now in all exchanges near 17 ounces for one of gold.

The circulation of specie in most instances may be exemplified by the recital from M. de Pinto's essay on circulation and credit, viz. At the siege of Tournay in 1745, when all communication with the country was cut off from the besieged, through this circumstance they were under the greatest distress for want of specie to pay the troops, and the resource was to borrow from the suttlers all the ready money they possessed, which amounted to 7,000 florins. At the end of the week these 7,000 florins had returned to the suttlers, from whom the same sum was borrowed a second time. This operation was repeated for seven weeks, until the surrender of the place; so that the same 7,000 florins did the office of 49,000.

Nothing is more dangerous to a community than the hoarding of money in the public treasury, a vice for which Henry the 7th has been often accused. The effects are the reverse of brisk circulations.

There have been many attempts since those of sir William Petty, who was the first political arithmetician of any note in Europe, who calculated the quantity of specie in circulation; by the most approved authorities metallic money may be now in nearly the following proportion, if averaged for the population of each country, viz.

In England,.
France,

Holland,

50 dollars a head.

Although these proportions may be tolerably well supported by the authority of names, it is not probable that there are above 25 dollars a head for an average of the commercial and trading countries of Europe; but as even this would give them a great advantage over the citizens of these states, the expediency of attending to a point of such importance cannot be too often considered in all its various relations, and combinations with the most important interests of individuals, and of associations, with that of the national weal; but although this may be the whole amount in facile money, if we include the circulations of above 500 town and country banks, their facile money must be immense, in the amount exclusive of the operation of their enormous public debt, which is now often paid and received as money in commercial exchanges. So are their stocks in banks, turnpikes, canals, and all their other permanent companies and associations with defined capitals.

STATE of London market prices at different periods, from Nicholson's
Philosophical Journal, viz.

the circuls

8761

of Brite

It ought here to be observed that the difference of weight in the pound sterling was in anno 1066 as 11 ounces, 5 pennyweight, are to 3 ounces, 17 pennyweight, 10 grains, which last is about the present value of twenty British shillings, sterling, or the pound sterling. The

variations in the pound sterling were frequent till the year 1410, when it was near 8 pennyweight, or nearly double what it now is.. Dr. Priestley states that the English pound weighed but 3 ounces, 6 pennyweight and 16 grains, in the year 1549, but this is probably a mistake, and so is Dr. Adam Smith's statement, that the Scots pound, from king Alexander's reign to the time of Bruce, was in weight equal to 36 pounds modern, although by an examination of old records, while on a visit to Oxford in 1786, it was found that there were as great and frequent changes both before as since the time of Robert Bruce, but it is believed there never was so great a difference as is stated by Dr. Smith, between the old and modern Scots pound, or in the English pound sterling.*

An article of intelligence the most immediately necessary for information in finance, is how to make a just estimate of the riches and power of ancient and remote nations, and to compare them with those of our own age and nation, by means of the expressions which historians have used to denote the riches and power of states, and particularly by their sums of money.

There are two things which make an alteration in the representative power of money. The one is a change of the idea annexed to any common name of a piece, or a sum of money, and the other is an alteration of the proportion between the quantity of money in a state, and the commodities represented by it. We shall explain each of these more particularly.

If a change be made in the standard of a coin, which continues to go by the same name, it is plain that the same name no longer expresses the same idea, and therefore, if we be not aware of this change, we shall be misled by the expressions. For instance, if the quantity of silver which we call a pound be at this time but half the quantity which was formerly called by that name, it is plain that if we would form a just idea of the value of a pound in times previous to the alteration, we must consider it to be two of our present pounds, instead of one.

The tables of modern coin only show the proportion which sums denoted by particular names, as pounds, shillings, pence, &c. bear to one another; and though these sums may have always kept the same proportion, the absolute value of them may have changed. And tables, which shew the value of ancient or foreign money, are always calculated according to the last standard of both, which is generally the lowest. The modern tables, therefore, are not sufficient to inform a reader of history of the true value of sums of money expended, or acquired, in early times. He must also have an historical account of those changes in the value of coin, which alter the quantity of metal contained in it, either by diminishing the size of the current pieces, or lessening the fineness of the metal by a greater proportion of alloy.

By pounds and shillings we allude to English sterling throughout.

As it is a maxim in trade, that every thing will find its value, (and indeed the value which the exchange of any thing, in buying and selling has, is its real value, that is, its true relative value with respect to other things), the accounts of sums exchanged for commodities in history are the only data we have given us, to determine this relative value of money; and if we have enough of these accounts, they will be sufficient for the purpose.

To judge of the proportion between the quantity of circulating cash in different nations, or different periods of the same nation, it is evident that we must not be guided by the price of any single article, particularly in an article of luxury; because the prices of these things depend upon fancy and caprice, which are continually changing. The best guide upon the whole seems to be the price of mere labour, estimated by the wages given to persons of the lowest occupations. For these, except in the United States, have been observed, in all ages and nations, to be little more than a bare subsistence, and the articles of their expense must be the necessaries of life.

We shall endeavour to find the proportion between money and the necessaries of life in the different periods of those histories with which all literary persons would choose to be best acquainted, and at the same time that we endeavour, in this manner to determine the proportion which the quantity of current money has borne to vendi. ble commodities, we likewise take notice of the price of money with regard to itself, that is, the interest it has borne. It is true that the interest of money has been very justly called the barometer of states with respect to other things than those now under notice; but in the mean time it may not be amiss to take notice of it, at present, as a commodity, and on many occasions one of the most necessary. For since money may be of use like any other commodity which a person may make advantage of, he is the richest man (cæt. par.) whose stated revenues can purchase the most extensive use of it.

The Greek coins underwent very little change compared with that of the Roman money, or of the money of modern European states, and therefore is the less worthy of our notice. All the allowance we are to make for the changes of value in the Drachma (a coin equal to the Roman Denarius, and worth about sixteen cents of our present money) and to which the changes of value in the rest of their money corresponded is, that from Solon to the time of Alexander we must reckon sixty-seven grains for the weight of it, from thence to the subjection of Greece by the Romans, sixty-five, and under the Romans sixty-two and an half, a change which is very inconsiderable. The constant and stated rate of the value of gold to silver among the Jews, Greeks and Romans, in the whole period of ancient times, was ten to one, with very little variation, and the rate of silver to Cyprian brass, one hundred to one; and the general supposition is, that there was one fiftieth part of alloy in the gold coins of the ancients. At present gold is to silver as above sixteen to one, and silver to copper as near seventy to one.

Numa, or Servius Tullius, first stamped brass money among the Romans; silver was not stamped by them till the year of the city four hundred and eighty-five, the time of their war with Pyrrhus, and gold not till sixty-two years after.

The As, from being a pound weight averdupois, fell to two ounces in the first Punic war, in the second Punic war to one ounce, and presently after it was fixed by the Papyrian law to half an ounce. These alteration were occasioned by the necessities of the commonwealth; but, as Arburthnot observes, the plenty of gold and silver would have done the same thing, and have brought down such an enormous brass coin; or rather silver coins of an equal value and of less weight, would have been introduced.

It may easily be imagined how scarce silver was at Rome when, in all the early times of the Roman history, eight hundred and forty pounds of brass were equivalent to one of siiver. Some say the proportion between these two metals before the first Punic war was nine hundred and sixty to one. The different proportion which was just now observed to have taken place in Greece, during the same period, shows how little communication there was between Greece and Rome in those times. Indeed the commonwealth gradually reduced this proportion, probably in consequence of a freer intercourse with other nations, which would necessarily be attended with the introduction of silver where it was so scarce.

The adulteration of the Roman coin in some periods of their history exceeds any thing we read of with respect to other countries. The money of Caracalla had more than one half alloy, that of Alexander Severus two-thirds, and under Gallienus it was nothing more than gilt copper.

To enable us to judge of the proportion of money to commodities, we select some of the accounts concerning the most necessary articles of consumption in the several countries and ages.

Corn was commonly reckoned in Greece at a drachma the me dimnus, which, reduced to our computation, is one dollar for eight bushels. In Demosthenes's time it was much higher; being five drachmas the medimnus, which is about one pound two shillings and seven pence per quarter. In times of plenty in Greece the price of a sheep was eight pence, of a hog two shillings, an ox three pounds three shillings; and a soldier served for a drachma a day, which is about eight pence. Upon the whole, we may perhaps allow that the proportion of money to commodities in the most flourishing time of Greece, or the time in which the classical historians wrote, was about the same that it was in Europe before the discovery of America.

As the common people of Rome lived very much upon bread corn, the price of that article will be a better guide to us than any other single circumstance in judging of the proportion between money and the necessaries of life among them. The ancient price of corn in Rome, and to which it was reduced at the burning of Rome by Nero, was