If, when the annual consumption has become equal to the annual importation, the annual importation should gradually diminish, the annual consumption may, for some time, exceed the annual importation.

The mass of those metals may gradually and insensibly diminish, and their value gradually and insensibly rise, till the annual importation become again stationary, the annual consumption will gradually and insensibly accommodate itself to what that annual importation can maintain.

GROUNDS OF THE SUSPICION THAT THE VALUE OF SILVER STILL CONTINUES TO DECREASE

The increase of the wealth of Europe, and the popular notion that, as the quantity of the precious metals naturally increases with the increase of wealth so their value diminishes as their quantity