1118페이지 중 846페이지

Don Gonzalo, to remedy this inconvenience, forbade, by another

decree of the 15th of December, the carrying out of the city

bread to the value of more than twenty pence; the penalty was a

fine of "_twenty-five crowns, and in case of inability, a public

flogging, and greater punishments still, at the discretion of his

excellency_."

The populace wished to procure abundance by pillage and

conflagration, the legal power wished to maintain it by the

galleys and the rope. Every method was resorted to to accomplish

their purpose, but the reader will soon learn the total failure

of them all. It is, besides, easy to see, and not useless to

observe, that these strange means had an intimate and necessary

connection with each other; each was the inevitable consequence

of the preceding, and all, in fact, flowed from the first error,

that of fixing upon bread a price so disproportioned to that

which ought to have resulted from the real state of things. Such

an expedient, however, has always appeared to the populace not

only conformable to equity, but very simple and easy of

execution; it is then very natural that in the agonies and misery

which are the necessary effects of scarcity, they should, if it

be in their power, adopt it.