hops, that are usually dearest those years they are worst. But, if it happen to be a species of commodity, whose defects may be fupplied by some other, the making of it worse does lessen its price, because it hinders its vent. For, if rye should any year prove generally smutty, or grown, no question it would yield less money than otherwise, because the deficiency of that might be, in some measure made up by wheat, and other grain. But, if it be a sort of commodity, whose use no other known thing can supply, it is not its being better, or worse, but its quantity, and vent, is that alone which regulates, and determines its value.

To apply it now to money, as capable of different rates of interest. To money, considered in its proper use as a commodity passing in exchange from one to another, all that is done by interest, is but the adding to it by agreement, or public authority, a faculty, which naturally it has not, of increasing every year six per cent. Now, if public authority sink use to four per cent. it is certain it diminishes this good quality in money one-third, But yet this making the money of England not one farthing more than it was, it alters not the measures upon which all changeable commodities increase, or sink their price; and so makes not money exchange for less of any commodity, than it would without this alteration of its interest. If lessening use to four per cent. should at all alter the quantity of money, and make it less, it would make money, as it has the nature of a commodity, dearer, i. e. a less quantity of money would exchange for a greater quantity of another commodity, than it would before. This perhaps will appear a little plainer by these following particulars:

1. That the intrinsic, natural worth of any thing, consists in its fitness to supply the necessities, or serve the conveniencies of human life; and the more necessary it is to our being, or the more it contributes to our well-being, the greater is its worth. But yet,

2. That there is no such intrinsic, natural settled value in any thing, as to make any assigned quantity of it constantly worth any assigned quantity of another.

3. The marketable value of any assigned quantities of two, or more commodities, are (pro hic et nunc) equal, when they will exchange one for another. As, supposing one bushel of wheat, two bushels of barley, thirty pounds of lead, and one ounce of silver, will now in the market be taken one for another, they are then of equal worth: and, our coin being that which Englishmen reckon by, an Englishman would say, that now one bushel of wheat, two bushels of barley, thirty pounds of lead, and one ounce of silver, were equally worth five shillings.

4. The change of this marketable value of any commodity, in respect of another commodity, or in respect of a standing, common measure, is not the altering of any intrinsic value, or quality, in the commodity; (for musty and smutty corn will sell dearer at one time, than the clean and sweet at another) but the alteration of some proportion, which that commodity bears to something else.

5. This proportion in all commodities, whereof money is one, is the proportion of their quantity to the yent. The vent is nothing else but the passing of commodities from one owner to another, in exchange: and is then called quicker, when a greater quantity of any species of commodity is taken off from the owners of it; in an equal space of time.

6. This vent is regulated, i. e. made quicker or slower, as greater or less quantities of any saleable commodity are removed out of the way and course of trade; separated from publick commerce; and no longer lie within the reach of exchange. For, though any commodity thould shift hands ever so fast, and be exchanged from one man to another; yet, if they were not thereby exempted from trade and sale, and did not cease to be any longer traffic, this would not at all make, or quicken their vent. But this, seldom or never happening, makes very little or no alteration.

7. Things are removed out of the market, or hands of commerce, and so their vent altered three ways: 1. By consumption, when the commodity in its use is destroyed, as, meat, drink, and cloaths, &c, all that

is so consumed is quite gone out of the trade of the world. 2. By exportation; and all that is so carried away, is gone out of the trade of England, and con cerns Englishmen no more in the price of their commodities among themselves for their own use, than if it were out of the world. 3. By buying and laying up for a man's private use. For what is by any of these ways shut out of the market, and no longer moveable, by the hand of commerce, makes no longer any part of merchantable ware, and so, in respect of trade, and the quantity of any commodity, is not more considerable than if it were not in being. All these three terminating at last in consumption of all commodities, (excepting only jewels and plate, and some few others, which wear out but insensibly) may properly enough pass under that name. Engrossing too has some influence on the present vent: but this inclosing some considerable part of any commodity, (for if the engrossing be of all the commodity, and it be of general use, the price is at the will of the engrosser) out of the free common of trade, only for some time, and afterwards returning again to sale, makes not usually so sensible and general an alteration in the vent, as the others do: but yet influences the price, and the vent more, according as it extends itself to a larger portion of the commodity, and hoards it up longer.

8. Most other portable commodities (excepting jewels, plate, &c.) decaying quickly in their use, but money being less consumed, or increased, i. e. by slower degrees removed from, or brought into the free commerce of any country, than the greatest part of other merchandize; and so the proportion between its quantity and vent, altering slower than in most other commodities; it is commonly looked on as a standing measure, to judge of the value of all things, especially being adapted to it by its weight and denomination in coinage.

9. Money, whilst the same quantity of it is passing up and down the kingdom in trade, is really a standing measure of the falling and rising value of other things, in reference to one another: and the alteration of price

is truly in them only. But if you increase, or lessen, the quantity of money, current in traffic, in any place, then the alteration of value is in the money: and, if at the same time wheat keep its proportion of vent to quantity, money, to speak truly, alters its worth, and wheat does not, though it sell for a greater, or less price, than it did before. For money, being looked upon as the standing measure of other commodities, men consider and speak of it still, as if it were a standing measure, though when it has varied its quantity, it is plain it is not.

10. But the value or price of all commodities, amongst which money passing in trade is truly one, consisting in proportion, you alter this, as you do all other proportions, whether you increase one, or lessen the other.

11. In all other commodities, the owners, when they design them for traffic, endeavour, as much as they can, to have them vented and gone, i. e. removed out of the reach of commerce, by consumption, exportation, or laying up: but money never lying upon people's hands, or wanting vent, (for any one may part with it in exchange, when he pleases;) the provident public and private care is to keep it from venting, or consuming, i. e. from exportation, which is its proper consumption; and from hoarding up by others, which is a sort of engrossing. Hence it is that other commodities have sometimes a quicker, sometimes a slower vent: for nobody lays out his money in them, but according to the use he has of them, and that has bounds. But every body being ready to receive money without bounds, and keep it by him, because it answers all things: therefore the vent of money is always sufficient, or more than enough. This being so, its quantity alone is enough to regulate and determine its value, without considering any proportion between its quantity and vent, as in other commodities.

12. Therefore the lessening of use, not bringing one penny of money more into the trade, or exchange of any country, but rather drawing it away from trade, and so making it less, does not at all sink its value, and

make

make it buy less of any commodity, but rather

more.

13. That which raises the natural interest of money, is the same that raises the rent of land, i. e. its aptness to bring in yearly to him that manages it a greater overplus of income above his rent, as a reward to his labour. That which causes this in land, is the greater quantity of its product, in proportion to the same vent to that particular fruit, or the same quantity of product, in proportion to a greater vent of that single commodity; but that which causes increase of profit to the borrower of money, is the less quantity of money, in proportion to trade, or to the vent of all commodities, taken together, and vice versa.

14. The natural value of money, as it is apt to yield such a yearly income by interest, depends on the whole quantity of the then passing money of the kingdom, in proportion to the whole trade of the kingdom, i. e. the general vent of all the commodities. But the natural value of money, in exchanging for any one commodity, is the quantity of the trading money of the kingdom, designed for that commodity, in proportion to that single commodity and its vent. For though any single man's necessity and want, either of money, or any species of commodity, being known, may make him pay dearer for money, or that commodity, yet this is but a particular case, that does not at the same time alter this constant and general rule.

15. That supposing wheat a standing measure, that is, that there is constantly the same quantity of it, in proportion to its vent, we shall find money to run the same variety of changes in its value, as all other commodities do. Now that wheat in England does come nearest to a standing measure, is evident by comparing wheat with other commodities, money, and the yearly income of land, in Henry the Seventh's time, and now; for, supposing that primo Hen. VII. N. let 100 acres of land to A. for 6d. per annum per acre, rackrent, and to B. another 100 acres of land, of the same soil and yearly worth with the former, for a bushel of wheat per acre, rack-rent, (a bushel of wheat about that