Page 644 of 2651

As the woollen manufactures, too, of Ireland, are fully as much

discouraged as is consistent with justice and fair dealing, the

Irish can work up but a smaller part of their own wool at home,

and are therefore obliged to send a greater proportion of it to

Great Britain, the only market they are allowed.

I have not been able to find any such authentic records

concerning the price of raw hides in ancient times. Wool was

commonly paid as a subsidy to the king, and its valuation in that

subsidy ascertains, at least in some degree, what was its

ordinary price. But this seems not to have been the case with raw

hides. Fleetwood, however, from an account in 1425, between the

prior of Burcester Oxford and one of his canons, gives us their

price, at least as it was stated upon that particular occasion,

viz. five ox hides at twelve shillings; five cow hides at seven

shillings and threepence; thirtysix sheep skins of two years old

at nine shillings; sixteen calf skins at two shillings. In 1425,

twelve shillings contained about the same quantity of silver as

four-and-twenty shillings of our present money. An ox hide,

therefore, was in this account valued at the same quantity of

silver as 4s. ⅘ths of our present money. Its nominal price was a

good deal lower than at present.