Europe was undergoing a period of disorganization as it readjusted to peacetime production and commerce in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars. The general effect was a decline in prices throughout the Western world, due to a scarcity of gold and silver specie. Britain had advanced its industrial capacity to fully meet its wartime demands, but post-war continental Europe was temporarily too devastated to absorb Britain's surplus manufactured goods. Moreover, European agriculture production, exhausted by years of warfare, was unable to feed its own population. The economy of the United States was not immune to the chaos that afflicted Europe, and therein lay the roots of the Panic of 1819.