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At the end of the accounts annexed to this chapter the reader

will find the particular account of those ten years separated

from the rest. He will find there, too, the particular account of

the preceding ten years, of which the average is likewise below,

though not so much below, the general average of the sixty-four

first years of the century. The year 1740, however, was a year of

extraordinary scarcity. These twenty years preceding 1750 may

very well be set in opposition to the twenty preceding 1770. As

the former were a good deal below the general average of the

century, notwithstanding the intervention of one or two dear

years; so the latter have been a good deal above it,

notwithstanding the intervention of one or two cheap ones, of

1759, for example. If the former have not been as much below the

general average as the latter have been above it, we ought

probably to impute it to the bounty.