As I have no access to look into records, I content myself with less authentic documents. I find then by the London news-papers, that, from the 9th of April to the 13th of August 1757, while great scarcity was felt in England, there were declared in the port of London no more than 71,728 quarters of wheat, of which 15,529 were not then arrived. So that the whole quantity there imported to relieve the scarcity, was 56,199 quarters. Not one month’s provision for the inhabitants of that city, reckoning them at 800,000 souls! One who has access to look into the registers of the trade in grain, might in a moment determine this question. Another reason which induces me to believe what the above arguments seem to prove, I draw from what I see at present passing in Germany; I mean the universal complaints of scarcity in those armies which are now assembled, [1757] When we compare the numbers of an army, let it be of a hundred thousand men, suppose the suite of it to be as many more, and forty thousand horses, all strangers, (for the others I reckon nothing extraordinary) what an inconsiderable number does this appear, in proportion to the inhabitants of this vast country of Germany! Yet let us observe the quantity of provisions of all sorts constantly coming down the Rhine, the Moselle, and many other rivers, collected from foreign provinces on all hands; the numbers of cattle coming from Hungary; the loads of corn from Poland; and all this in a year which has produced what at any other time would have been called an excellent crop. After these foreign supplies, must not one be astonished to find scarcity complained of in the provinces where the war is carried on, and high prices every where else. From such circumstances I must conclude, that people are generally very much deceived in their estimation of plenty and scarcity, when they talk of two or three years subsistence for a country being found upon their lands at once. I may indeed be mistaken in my conclusions; but the more I have reflected upon this subject, the more I find myself confirmed in them, even from the familiar examples of the sudden rise of markets from very inconsiderable monopolies, and of their sudden fall by inconsiderable quantities imported. I could cite many examples of these vicissitudes, were it necessary, to prove what every one must observe. I come now to resolve a difficulty which naturally results from this doctrine, and with which I shall close the chapter.