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As to the high price of corn during these last ten or twelve

years, it can be sufficiently accounted for from the badness of

the seasons, without supposing any degradation in the value of

silver.

The opinion, therefore, that silver is continually sinking in its

value, seems not to be founded upon any good observations, either

upon the prices of corn, or upon those of other provisions.

The same quantity of silver, it may perhaps be said, will, in the

present times, even according to the account which has been here

given, purchase a much smaller quantity of several sorts of

provisions than it would have done during some part of the last

century; and to ascertain whether this change be owing to a rise

in the value of those goods, or to a fall in the value of silver,

is only to establish a vain and useless distinction, which can be

of no sort of service to the man who has only a certain quantity

of silver to go to market with, or a certain fixed revenue in

money. I certainly do not pretend that the knowledge of this

distinction will enable him to buy cheaper. It may not, however,

upon that account be altogether useless.