Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1845 edition. Excerpt: ...most general use is, therefore, but a bad measure of value at great distances of place. Nor are the precious metals by any means a correct one: their value is indubitably not so great in North America and the West Indies, as in Europe, and much greater in every part of Asia, as the constant efflux of specie thither sufficiently proves. Yet the frequency of communication between these different parts of the world, and the facility of transport, give us reason to suppose them the least liable to fluctuation of value on their passage from one climate to another. There is happily no necessity, for the purposes of commerce, to compare the relative value of goods and of metals in two distant parts of the world; it is quite enough to know their relation to other commodities in each country. When a merchant remits to China half an ounce of silver, it is of little importance to him, whether it has more relative value in China than in Europe. All he wants to know is, whether he can buy with it at Canton a pound of tea of a certain quality, which he can re-sell in Europe, say for two ounces of silver. With these data, and in expectation of receiving, at the close of the speculation, a gross profit of an ounce and a half of silver, he calculates whether that profit will leave him a sufficient net profit, after covering the charges and risk out and home; and this is all he cares about If, instead of bullion, he remit goods, it is enough for him to know; 1. The relation between the value of these goods and silver in Europe; that is to say, how much they will cost; 2. The relation between their value and that of Chinese products at Canton; that is to say, what he can get in exchange for them; and, lastly, the relation between these latter and silver in...
