Page:Thoughts on the causes and consequences of the present high price of provisions.djvu/21

[ 13 ] plies, which we used to receive from poorer countries, now also grown rich, greatly diminished, the present exorbitant price of all the necessaries of life can be no wonder.

From what has been here offered, I think this may be readily accounted for, without having recourse to forestallers, regraters, engrossers, monopolizers, higglers, badgers, bounties, post-chaises, turnpike-roads, enlarging of farms, and the extension of the metropolis, with all that ridiculous catalogue of causes, which have been assigned by essay-writers to this evil, and frequently adopted by the absurdity of their readers. How far all or any of these have accidentally, collaterally, or locally contributed to augment the price of provisions, I cannot determine, nor do I think it of much importance to inquire; because I am satisfied, whatever may have been their effects, they could have had none at all, had they not been assisted by the first and great cause,