Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 2.djvu/216

214 rise in the amount exported both of goods and of bullion. Thus in 1749 the value of the goods was 275,890l., of the bullion 909,136l.; in 1750, of the goods 305,068l., of the bullion, 816,310l.; in 1751 of the goods 341,633l., of the bullion 944,471l.; in 1752 of the goods 410,968l., of the bullion 840,417l.; in 1753, of the goods 418,015l., of the bullion 951,951l.—making together 1,369,966l., which was the largest amount to which the total exports rose within the present period. From this date there was, with the exception of one or two years, a great decline in the amount of the bullion, and some falling off also in that of the goods; so that in 1755 the value of the goods was only 245,030l. and that of the bullion 625,485l.; in 1758, of the goods 358,949l., of the bullion 174,099l.; in 1759, of the goods 366,974l., of the bullion 144,160l.,—making together only 511,134l., which was a lower point than the total amount of exports had descended to since 1715. In 1760 the value of the goods exported was 520,719l., but the amount of bullion was only 91,924l. The number of ships annually sent out usually ranged from sixteen to twenty; some few times it was twenty-two or twenty-four, but in other years it was only fourteen. Of the Company's imports the chief article in which there appears to have been a steady increase was tea: of that the home consumption gradually rose from 141,995 lbs. in 1711, to 237,994 lbs. in 1720, to 537,016 lbs. in 1730, to 1,380,199 lbs. in 1735, to 2,209,183 lbs. in 1745, and to 2,738,136 lbs. in 1755. In 1760 it appears to have fallen to 2,293,613 lbs.; but that proved only a temporary check. Perhaps it would not be easy to find a better evidence of the advancing refinement as well as comfort of the great body of the people than is furnished by this steadily extending preference for what may be called the temperate man's wine—"the cup that cheers but not inebriates."

The active spirit of the national industry, and the growth of our trade and manufactures, throughout the greater part of the present period, were shown by nothing more remarkably than Iw the continued extension of the metropolis and most of our other long established centres