eing paid by their
employers and by the parish. This method of obtaining work was known
as the 'roundsman system'.[523]

Landlords, however, and farmers were profiting greatly by the high
prices, which fortunately received a check by the abundant harvest of
1796, which, with large imports,[524] caused the price of wheat to
fall to 57s. 3d., and in 1798 to 47s. 10d. It is difficult to conceive
what instability, speculation, and disaster such fluctuations must
have led to. In 1797 the Bank Restriction Act was passed, suspending
cash payments, and thereby causing a huge growth in credit
transactions, a great factor in the inflated prosperity of this
period. In January, 1799, wool was 2s. a lb., and prices at
Smithfield:

s. d. s. d.

Beef, per stone of 8 lb. 3 0 to 3 4
Mutton " " 3 0 " 4 2
Pork " " 2 8 " 3 8

The summer of that year was uninterruptedly wet; some corn in the
north was uncut in November, so that wheat went up to 94s. 2d., and in
June, 1800, was 134s. 5d., the scarcity being aggravated by the
Russian Government laying an embargo on British shipping.[525] Yet
Pitt denied that the high prices were due to the war.[526] They were
due, indeed, to several causes:

1. Frequent years of scarcity.

2. Increase of consumption, owing to the great growth of
the manufacturing population, England during the war having
almost a monopoly of the trade of Europe.

3. Napoleon's obstructions to importation.

4. The unprecedented fall of foreign exchanges.

5. The rise in the price of labour, scanty as it was.

6. Suspension of cash payments, which produced a medium
of circulation of an unlimited nature, and led to speculation.[527]

In March, 1801, wheat was 156s.; beef at Smithfield, 5s. to 6s. 6d. a
stone; and mutton, 6s. 6d. to 8s. A rise in wages was allowed on all
sides to be imperative, but the labourer even now got on an average
little more than 9s. a week,[528] a very inadequate pittance, though
generally supplemented by the parish. Arthur Young[529] tells of a
person living near Bury in 1801, who, before the era of high prices,
earned 5s. a week, and with that could purchase:

A bushel of wheat.
" malt.
1 lb. of butter.
1 lb. of cheese.
A pennyworth of tobacco.

But in 1801 the same articles cost him:

s. d.

A bus