guests at the first request, without seeming to
think that they had made them any very valuable
present. They were astonished to observe
the rage of the Spaniards to obtain
them; and had no notion that there could
anywhere be a country in which many people
had the disposal of so great a superfluity of
food; so scanty always among themselves,
that, for a very small quantity of those glittering
baubles, they would willingly give as
much as might maintain a whole family for
many years. Could they have been made to
understand this, the passion of the Spaniards
would not have surprised them.
Part III.—Of the variations in the Proportion
between the respective Values of that
sort of Produce which always affords Rent,
and of that which sometimes does, and sometimes
does not, afford Rent.
The increasing abundance of food, in consequence
of the increasing improvement and
cultivation, must necessarily increase the demand
for every part of the produce of land
which is not food, and which can be applied
either to use or to ornament. In the whole
progress of improvement, it might, therefore,
be expected there should be only one variation
in the comparative values of those two different
sorts of produce. The value of that sort
which sometimes does, and sometimes does
not afford rent, should constantly rise in proportion
to that which always affords some
rent. As art and industry advance, the materials
of clothing and lodging, the useful fossils
and materials of the earth, the precious
metals and the precious stones, should gradually
come to be more and more in demand,
should gradually exchange for a greater and
a greater quantity of food; or, in other words,
should gradually become dearer and dearer.
This, accordingly, has been the case with most
of these things upon most occasions, and
would have been the case with all of them
upon all occasions, if particular accidents had
not, upon some occasions, increased the supply
of some of them in a still greater proportion
than the demand.
The value of a free-stone quarry, for example,
will necessarily increase with the increasing
improvement and population of the
country round about it, especially if it should
be the only one in the neighbourhood. But
the value of a silver mine, even though there
should not be another within a thousand miles
of it, will not necessarily increase with the
improvement of the country in which it is situated.
The market for the produce of a
free-stone quarry can seldom extend more
than a few miles round about it, and the demand
must generally be in proportion to the
improvement and population of that small district;
but the market for the produce of a silver
mine may extend over the whole known
world. Unless the world in general, therefore,
be advancing in improvement and population,
the demand for silver might not be at
all increased by the improvement even of a
large country in the neighbourhood of the
mine. Even though the world in general
were improving, yet if, in the course of its
improvements, new mines should be discovered,
much more fertile than any which had
been known before, though the demand for
silver would necessarily increase, yet the supply
might increase in so much a greater proportion,
that the real price of that metal might
gradually fall; that is, any given quantity, a
pound weight of it, for example, might gradually
purchase or command a smaller and a
smaller quantity of labour, or exchange for a
smaller and a smaller quantity of corn, the
principal part of the subsistence of the labourer.
The great market for silver is the commercial
and civilized part of the world.
If, by the general progress of improvement,
the demand of this market should increase,
while, at the same time, the supply did not
increase in the same proportion, the value of
silver would gradually rise in proportion to
that of corn. Any given quantity of silver
would exchange for a greater and a greater
quantity of corn; or, in other words, the average
money price of corn would gradually become
cheaper and cheaper.
If, on the contrary, the supply, by some accident,
should increase, for many years together,
in a greater proportion than the demand,
that metal would gradually become
cheaper and cheaper; or, in other words, the
average money price of corn would, in spite
of all improvements, gradually become dearer
and dearer.
But if, on the other hand, the supply of
that metal should increase nearly in the same
proportion as the demand, it would continue
to purchase or exchange for nearly the same
quantity of corn; and the average money price
of corn would, in spite of all improvements,
continue very nearly the same.
These three seem to exhaust all the possible
combinations of events which can happen in
the progress of improvement; and during the
course of the four centuries preceding the
present, if we may judge by what has happened
both in France and Great Britain, each of
those three different combinations seems to
have taken place in the European market, and
nearly in the same order, too, in which I have
here set them down.
Digression concerning the Variations in the value
of Silver during the Course of the Four
last Centuries.
First Period.—In 1350, and for some time
before, the average price of the quarter of