ign of Elizabeth, and some sorts a great deal later.

[Sidenote: Changes in value of money.]

I should leave this slight survey of economical history still more
imperfect, were I to make no observation on the relative values of
money. Without something like precision in our notions upon this
subject, every statistical inquiry becomes a source of confusion and
error. But considerable difficulties attend the discussion. These arise
principally from two causes; the inaccuracy or partial representations
of historical writers, on whom we are accustomed too implicitly to rely,
and the change of manners, which renders a certain command over articles
of purchase less adequate to our wants than it was in former ages.

The first of these difficulties is capable of being removed by a
circumspect use of authorities. When this part of statistical history
began to excite attention, which was hardly perhaps before the
publication of Bishop Fleetwood's Chronicon Preciosum, so few authentic
documents had been published with respect to prices, that inquirers were
glad to have recourse to historians, even when not contemporary, for
such facts as they had thought fit to record. But these historians were
sometimes too distant from the times concerning which they wrote, and
too careless in their general character, to merit much regard; and even
when contemporary, were often credulous, remote from the concerns of the
world, and, at the best, more apt to register some extraordinary
phenomenon of scarcity or cheapness, than the average rate of pecuniary
dealings. The one ought, in my opinion, to be absolutely rejected as
testimonies, the other to be sparingly and diffidently admitted.[715]
For it is no longer necessary to lean upon such uncertain witnesses.
During the last century a very laudable industry has been shown by
antiquaries in the publication of account-books belonging to private
persons, registers of expenses in convents, returns of markets,
valuations of goods, tavern-bills, and in short every document, however
trifling in itself, by which this important subject can be illustrated.
A sufficient number of such authorities, proving the ordinary tenor of
prices rather than any remarkable deviations from it, are the true basis
of a table, by which all changes in the value of money should be
measured. I have little doubt but that such a table might be constructed
from the data we possess with tolerable exactness, sufficient at least
t