sterling, for example), but in so many ounces, either of pure silver, or of
silver of a certain standard.

The rents which have been reserved in corn, have preserved their value much
better than those which have been reserved in money, even where the
denomination of the coin has not been altered. By the 18th of Elizabeth, it
was enacted, that a third of the rent of all college leases should be
reserved in corn, to be paid either in kind, or according to the current
prices at the nearest public market. The money arising from this corn rent,
though originally but a third of the whole, is, in the present times,
according to Dr. Blackstone, commonly near double of what arises from the
other two-thirds. The old money rents of colleges must, according to this
account, have sunk almost to a fourth part of their ancient value, or are
worth little more than a fourth part of the corn which they were formerly
worth. But since the reign of Philip and Mary, the denomination of the
English coin has undergone little or no alteration, and the same number of
pounds, shillings, and pence, have contained very nearly the same quantity
of pure silver. This degradation, therefore, in the value of the money rents
of colleges, has arisen altogether from the degradation in the price of
silver.

When the degradation in the value of silver is combined with the diminution
of the quantity of it contained in the coin of the same denomination, the
loss is frequently still greater. In Scotland, where the denomination of the
coin has undergone much greater alterations than it ever did in England, and
in France, where it has undergone still greater than it ever did in
Scotland, some ancient rents, originally of considerable value, have, in
this manner, been reduced almost to nothing.

Equal quantities of labour will, at distant times, be purchased more nearly