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It has been the opinion, however, of the greater part of those

who have written upon the prices of commodities in ancient times,

that, from the Conquest, perhaps from the invasion of Julius

Caesar, till the discovery of the mines of America, the value of

silver was continually diminishing. This opinion they seem to

have been led into, partly by the observations which they had

occasion to make upon the prices both of corn and of some other

parts of the rude produce of land, and partly by the popular

notion, that as the quantity of silver naturally increases in

every country with the increase of wealth, so its value

diminishes as it quantity increases.

In their observations upon the prices of corn, three different

circumstances seem frequently to have misled them.