We have seen that upon the institution of coinage and seigniorage, the yard of cloth fell to 92 grains; because then it was impossible to procure coin at a less price than 8 _per cent._ but when the balance of trade had sunk the coin to the value of bullion, then the 92 grains of the _coin_ being to be purchased with 92 grains of _bullion_, it was reasonable that the cloth should rise to its former price; because then no body could say that the coin of 92 grains had cost 100 to procure it. But this theory does not hold in practice, nor can it possibly hold, as long as the greatest part of a people are ignorant of, and even do not feel the revolutions we have been here describing. [Sidenote: How traders obstruct the operation of these principles, while the balance of trade continues fluctuating,] The price of bullion is entirely regulated by merchants, who have the whole correspondence in their hands. It rises and falls in countries where coinage is imposed, in proportion to the state of the balance of trade at the time. The smallest rise or fall in the demand for bullion in the market, is immediately marked by the price of it, and that ought (by the principles we have been laying down) to regulate the rise and fall of every commodity. But this is by no means the case. Commodities rise and fall only after a certain time; and of this interval merchants will constantly profit. Does the price of bullion rise, they immediately sell to strangers as if all prices were immediately risen; but with regard to manufacturers, they hide the revolution with great care, and preserve prices from rising, until the competition among themselves discovers the secret. Does the price of bullion fall, they do all they can to keep up the prices of every commodity which they sell to strangers, until the competition among themselves obliges them to bring them down; and with regard to manufactures, they are all in one interest to reduce the prices in proportion to the fall of the bullion, which works its effects by slow degrees. [Sidenote: and how an overturned balance of trade attaches prices to the denominations of coin.] These are the operations of traders, in times when there is a _fluctuation_ in the balance of the trade of a country; that is to say, in times when the balance is sometimes favourable and sometimes not. At such times the true influence which trade ought to have upon prices is never exactly known, but to the merchants, who seldom fail to profit of their knowledge, in place of communicating it for the benefit of the society. But that is not the case when the balance of trade is quite _overturned_, that is, when it remains for a long time against a nation, without any favourable vibration; as we shall presently explain.