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The price of silver in the European market might, perhaps, have

fallen still lower, and it might have become necessary either to

reduce the tax upon it, not only to one-tenth, as in 1736, but to

one twentieth, in the same manner as that upon gold, or to give

up working the greater part of the American mines which are now

wrought. The gradual increase of the demand for silver, or the

gradual enlargement of the market for the produce of the silver

mines of America, is probably the cause which has prevented this

from happening, and which has not only kept up the value of

silver in the European market, but has perhaps even raised it

somewhat higher than it was about the middle of the last century.

Since the first discovery of America, the market for the produce

of its silver mines has been growing gradually more and more

extensive.