Page:Thoughts on the causes and consequences of the present high price of provisions.djvu/20

[ 12 ] or forty years, by a large trade and strict œconomy, he amassed together as many thousand pounds, now acquires in a quarter of that time double that sum, or breaks for a greater, and vies all the while with the first of our nobility, in his houses, table, furniture, and equipage: the shop-keeper, who used to be well contented with one dish of meat, one fire, and one maid, has now two or three times as many of each; his wife has her tea, her card-parties, and her dressing-room; and his prentice has climbed from the kitchen-fire to the front-boxes at the play-house. The lowest manufacturer and meanest mechanic will touch nothing but the very best pieces of meat, and the finest white bread; and, if he cannot obtain double the wages for being idle, to what he formerly received for working hard, he thinks he has a right to seek for a redress of his grievances, by riot and rebellion. Since then the value of our money is decreased by its quantity, our consumption increased by universal luxury, and the sup- plies,