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 of 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 Cokayne of Derbyshire, [1] the best housekeeper of his quality in the county, allowed his lady fifty pounds a year for maintaining the family, one pound a year wages to each servant, and two pounds to the steward; as I was told by a person of quality who had seen the original account of his economy.  Now this sum of fifty pound, added to the advantages of a large domain, might be equal to about five hundred pounds a year at present, or somewhat more than four-fifths.

[Footnote 1:  Sir Thomas Cokayne (1519?-1592), known as “a professed hunter and not a scholler.”  He was the eldest son of Francis Cokayne, or Cockaine, of Ashbourne, Derbyshire.  One of his sons, Edward, was the father of Thomas Cokayne, the lexicographer.  Sir Thomas, in 1591, published “A Short Treatise of Hunting, compyled for the Delight of Noblemen and Gentlemen.” [T.  S.]]

The great plenty of silver in England began in Queen Elizabeth’s reign, when Drake, and others, took vast quantities of coin and bullion from the Spaniards, either upon their own American coasts, or in their return to Spain.  However, so much hath been imported annually from that time to this, that the value of money in England, and most parts of Europe, is sunk above one half within the space of an hundred years, notwithstanding the great export of silver for about eighty years past, to the East Indies, from whence it never returns.  But gold being not liable to the same accident, and by new discoveries growing every day more plentiful, seems in danger of becoming a drug.

This hath been the progress of the value of money in former ages, and must of necessity continue so for the future, without some new invasion of Goths and Vandals to destroy law, property and religion, alter the very face of nature; and turn the world upside down.