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price of labour might be doubled, and, conſequently, that labour might have been worth, at the time of the ſurvey, eleven pence of our money by the week.
If we can thus diſcover the proportion between the price of labour at that period, and at the preſent, we may, probably, not be far from ſolving the queſtion. I ſhall take it for granted, that the general price of labour is now ſeven ſhillings a week, and therefore, as eleven pence is to ſeven ſhillings, ſo will be the difference of the value of money, between the time of the ſurvey, and the preſent period. It will appear, by this calculation, that the difference is ſomething more than ſeven and a half, and that we mull multiply the valuations in Domeſday by twenty-two and a half (the pounds in Domeſday being equal in weight to three ſterling pounds) before we can pretend to form any judgment of the value affixed to the eſtates deſcribed in that book.
I am aware, that the value, thus multiplied, will be far from being adequate to the preſent rents of the eſtates; though, perhaps, if no improvements of any kind had been made in huſbandry, and the original erroneous mode of cultivation had been implicitly continued, it might not have been greatly wide of the
