commonly paid for it in silver, and more than two thousand times the bulk of the same price in gold, and consequently just so many times more difficult to smuggle.

It is partly owing to the easy transportation of gold and silver from the places where they abound to those where they are wanted that the price of those metals does not fluctuate continually like that of the greater part of other commodities, which are hindered by their bulk from shifting their situation when the market happens to be either over or under-stocked with them.

The. price of those metals, indeed, is not altogether exempted from variation, but the changes to which it is liable are generally slow, gradual and uniform. In Europe, for example, it is supposed, without much foundation, perhaps, that during the course of