all commodities are taken off, apply themselves with alacrity to the raising more; and at the same time can afford to take better and more clothes from their tradesmen, whose price is the same as formerly, and their industry only whetted by so much new gain. It is easy to trace the money in its progress through the whole commonwealth; where we shall find that it must first quicken the diligence of every individual, before it increase the price of labour.
And that the specie may increase to a considerable pitch before it have this latter effect appears, amongst other instances, from the frequent operations of the French king on the money; where it was always found that the augmenting the numerary value did not produce a proportional rise of the prices, at least for some time. In the last year of Louis XIV. money was raised three-sevenths, but prices augmented only one. Corn in France is now sold at the same price, or for the same number of livres it was in 1683; though silver was then at thirty livres the mark, and is now at fifty;14 not to mention the great addition of gold and {p33} silver which may have come into that kingdom since the former period.