Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/283

Rh a farthing in ours; which makes about eight ninths difference.

This is plain also from the old custom upon many estates in England to let for leases of lives (renewable at pleasure) where the reserved rent is usually about twelve pence a pound, which then was near the half real value: and although the fines be not fixed, yet the landlord gets altogether not above three shillings in the pound of the worth of his land: and the tenants are so wedded to this custom, that if the owner suffer three lives to expire, none of them will take a lease on other conditions; or if he brings in a foreigner who will agree to pay a reasonable rent, the other tenants, by all manner of injuries, will make that foreigner so uneasy, that he must be forced to quit the farm; as the late earl of Bath felt by the experience of above ten thousand pounds loss.

The gradual decrease for about two hundred years after, was not considerable, and therefore I do not rely on the account given by some historians, that Harry the seventh left behind him eighteen hundred thousand pounds; for although the West Indies were discovered before his death, and although he had the best talents and instruments for exacting money, ever possessed by any prince since the time of Vespasian (whom he resembled in many particulars) yet I conceive, that in his days the whole coin of England could hardly amount to such a sum. For in the reign of Philip and Mary, sir Thomas Cokaine , Rh