Page 554 of 2651

For some time after the first discovery of America, silver would

continue to sell at its former, or not much below its former

price. The profits of mining would for some time be very great,

and much above their natural rate. Those who imported that metal

into Europe, however, would soon find that the whole annual

importation could not be disposed of at this high price. Silver

would gradually exchange for a smaller and a smaller quantity of

goods. Its price would sink gradually lower and lower, till it

fell to its natural price; or to what was just sufficient to pay,

according to their natural rates, the wages of the labour, the

profits of the stock, and the rent of the land, which must be

paid in order to bring it from the mine to the market. In the

greater part of the silver mines of Peru, the tax of the king of

Spain, amounting to a tenth of the gross produce, eats up, it has

already been observed, the whole rent of the land.