صفحة 230 من 2651

seems to have been rather above than below the market rate.

Before the late war, the government borrowed at three per cent.;

and people of good credit in the capital, and in many other parts

of the kingdom, at three and a-half, four, and four and a-half

per cent.

Since the time of Henry VIII. the wealth and revenue of the

country have been continually advancing, and in the course of

their progress, their pace seems rather to have been gradually

accelerated than retarded. They seem not only to have been going

on, but to have been going on faster and faster. The wages of

labour have been continually increasing during the same period,

and, in the greater part of the different branches of trade and

manufactures, the profits of stock have been diminishing.