present day, the value of silver has fallen so much in the western parts of Europe, that the proportion* between that metal and gold, which, at the end of the 15th century, was as 1 to 11 or 1 to 12, is now, as 1 to 14 and even as 1 to 15%. This change would not have taken place if the increase of the respective masses of the two metals had been at all times as uniform† as at present. From what has just been stated, it is not accurate to advance, as has frequently been done, that the fecundity of the silver mines of America, surpasses that of the mines of the Old Continent, in much greater proportion than the gold mines. It is true that of the 70,000 marcs of gold annually supplied by America, five sixths are derived from washing places, established in alluvious grounds; but these washing places (lavaderos) are surprisingly uniform in their produce; and all who have visited the Spanish or Portuguese Colonies, know that the exportation of gold from America, must considerably increase with the progress of population and agriculture.

Till 1545, when the Cerro de Potosi began

* Under Philip-le-Bel a marc of gold was current for 10 marcs of silver. In Holland, the proportion in 1336, was as 10 to 1. In France it was in 1388 as 10 to 1. (Recherches sur le Commerce, Amsterdam. 1778, t. ii. p. ii.. p. 142.)

+ Nine Tenths.

to be worked, Europe appears to have received much more gold than silver from the New Continent. Five sixths of the booty which Cortez acquired at Tenochtitlan, and the treasures at Caxamarca and Cuzco consisted in gold; and the silver mines of Porco in Peru, and Tasco and Tlapujahua in Mexico, were very feebly wrought in the times of Cortez and Pizarro. It is only It is only since 1545 that Spain has been inundated with the silver of Peru. This accumulation produced the greater effect, as the civilization of Europe, was then more concentrated; as communication was less frequent; and as a smaller portion of the precious metals were re-exported for Asia. About the middle of the 16th, and the beginning of the 17th century, the proportion between gold and silver rapidly changed, especially in the south of Europe. In Holland it was still in 1589 as 113 to 1; but under the reign of Louis XIII. in 1641, we find it already in Flanders, as 12 to 1; in France, as 13 to 1; and in Spain as 14 to 1, and even beyond that. The extraction of gold has prodigiously increased in America since the end of the 17th century; and although the auriferous grounds of Brazil have been partly known ever since 1577, the working of the alluvious mines however, only commenced in the reign of Peter II. In the time of Charles V.

a quantity of gold of forty or fifty thousand marcs was sufficient to produce a sensible change in the proportion between gold and silver in Europe. On the other hand, this influence was hardly felt in the beginning of the 18th century, when commercial relations were very much multiplied. The gold of Brazil divided over a vast extent of country, could not produce the effect which it would have produced by a rapid accumulation on a single point of the globe.

We shall now enter upon a very important question, which has been very variously treated in works of political economy: namely, the quan tity of gold and silver which has flowed from the New Continent into the Old, since 1492 to this day. Instead of examining the progress of mining in America, and estimating the produce of the mines of each colony at different periods, they have laid down a hypothesis of a certain number of millions of piastres, which have been arbitrarily enough supposed to have been introduced annually into Portugal and Spain, during three centuries. It might have been easily foreseen that in calculating according to this principle, they would obtain results differing from one another in several thousands of millions of livres tournois, according as the annual importation was taken at ten or twelve millions of livres only, either below or above the truth

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Besides, the greatest number of the most celebrated authors ✶ instead of investigating for themselves, contented themselves with copying the valuations of Don Geronimo de Ustariz, as if merely to quote the particular opinion of a Spanish author was sufficient to inspire confidence. Before communicating my own results let us examine those calculations which have been hitherto before the pnblic.

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Ustariz in his excellent treatise of commerce and navigation † founds his calculations those of Don Sancho de Moncada and Don Pedro Fernandez de Navarete. The former who was professor in the University of Alcala, affirms vaguely, that "according to a repre"sentation made to the king, there has entered

A

into Spain between 1492 and 1595, in gold "and silver extracted from the mines of "America, two thousand millions of piastres; ❝ that at least the same quantity had entered " without being registered; and that of all "the gold and silver it would be difficult to "find in Spain, two hundred millions, one "hundred in coin, and another hundred in "household furniture." Ustariz adds to these two thousand millions, the quantity imported

Forbonnais, Raynal, Gerboux, and the judicious author

of the Recherches sur le Commerce (Amst. 1778.)

† Edition of Paris 1753, p. 11. Toze, kleine schriften, 1791, p. 99.

into Spain, between 1595 and 1724 which he estimates at 1536 millions, so that the total produce of Spanish America in gold and silver, from 1492 to 1724 amounted, according to this author, to 5536 millions of piastres.

It is easy to prove that this calculation does not rest on very solid foundations. Four thousand millions divided among one hundred and three years from 1492 to 1595, suppose an average annual produce of more than 38 millions. Now we learn from the history of the mines of America, that the quantity of gold and silver introduced into Spain between 1492 and 1535 was very small, and at most cannot be estimated at more than 130 or 140 millions. 140 millions. If however we admit 12 millions of piastres per annum, for this period the sum which Ustariz fixes for the period between 1595 and 1724, we shall find that the annual produce between 1535 and 1595 ought at least to be 58 millions. All the estimates are four or five times too high, as we may be convinced of by casting our eyes over the registers of Potosi and recollecting that the mines of New Spain till the beginning of the eighteenth century, never yielded above three millions of piastres per annum. Moreover Garcilasso and Herera, in speaking of the great wealth of the mines of the New Continent, expressly say that towards