Note 186-10 — Chapter IV

The coöperation of most of the causes above mentioned raised the English rate of interest which had sunk to 3 per cent. to an average of 5, from about 1760 to 1816. Thus Gauss, in a manuscript work which I have used, relates that the fund for the support of professors' widows in Göttingen was, in 1794, expected to pay only 3 per cent. In 1799, the trustees observed that their capital could often be safely invested at 4 per cent.; somewhat later the rate of interest rose to 5 per cent., at which point it remained for years. About 1843 ff. the rate of interest in old Bavaria was only 4 per cent.; in more highly cultured Rhenish Bavaria, 5 per cent.