1545), and full sixteen years after the epoch; from which is dated that rapid fall in the value of silver, which in the course of seventy years, caused the average price of corn and of all other commodities, to be tripled or even quadrupled.

At that very moment the average cost of wheat in England was sixty-four shillings the quarter, or about seven and sixpence sterling the bushel, and in the markets of Holland, which in truth regulated all others, the same prices prevailed.

A bushel of wheat in England was equal therefore to eight bushels in Brussels.
Thus the silver mines, which were the Spanish King's property, had produced their effect everywhere more signally than within the obedient Provinces.

The South American specie found its way to Philip's coffers, thence to the paymasters of his troops in Flanders, and thence to the commercial centres of Holland and England.

Those countries, first to feel and obey the favourable expanding impulse of the age, were moving surely and steadily on before it to greatness.