Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/281

Rh desolation made in the country by engrossing graziers, and the great yearly importation of corn from England, are lamentable instances under what discouragement it lies.

But, notwithstanding all these mortifications, I suppose there is no well-wisher to his country without a little hope, that in time the kingdom may be on a better foot in some of the articles abovementioned. But it would be hard, if ecclesiastical bodies should be the only persons excluded from any share in publick advantages, which yet can never happen, without a greater share of profit to their tenants: if God sends rain equally upon the just and the unjust, why should those who wait at his altars, and are instructers of the people, be cut off from partaking in the general benefits of law or of nature?

But, as this way of reasoning may seem to bear a more favourable eye to the clergy, than perhaps will suit with the present disposition or fashion of the age; I shall therefore dwell more largely upon the second reason for the rise of land, which is the perpetual decrease of the value of gold and silver.

This may be observed from the course of the Roman history above two thousand years before those inexhaustible silver mines of Potosi were known. The value of an obolus, and of every other coin between the time of Romulus and that of Augustus, gradually sunk above five parts in six, as appears by several passages out of the best authors. And yet the prodigious wealth of that state did not arise from the increase of bullion in the world by the discovery of new mines, but from a much more accidental cause, which was the spreading of their. V.