PREFACE.
COLUMBUS DISCOVERING AMERICA. 1492.
At the Christian era the metallic money of the Roman empire amounted to $1,800,000,000. By the end of the fifteenth century it had shrunk to $200,000,000. (Dr. Adam Smith informs us that in 1455 the price of wheat in England was two pence per bushel.) Population dwindled, and commerce, arts, wealth and freedom all disappeared. The people were reduced by poverty and misery to the most degraded conditions of serfdom and slavery. The disintegration of society was almost complete. History records no such disastrous transition as that from the Roman empire to the dark ages. The discovery of the New World by Columbus, restored the volume of precious metals, brought with it rising prices, enabled society to reunite its shattered links, shake off the shackles of feudalism, and to relight and uplift the almost extinguished torch of civilization.—Report U. S. Monetary Commission of 1878.
