[Rarebooks] fa: CHARLES DAVENANT - METHODS OF MAKING A PEOPLE GAINERS IN THE BALLANCE OF TRADE 1699 (Ex-lib E. F. Gay)

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, October 13. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/m3hzuff

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.

[Charles Davenant:] An Essay upon the Probable Methods of  Making a People Gainers in the Ballance of Trade. Treating of these Heads, viz. Of the People of England. Of the Land of England, and its Product. Of our Payments to the Publick, and in what manner the Ballance of Trade may be thereby affected. That a Country cannot increase in Wealth and Power but by private Men doing their Duty to the Publick, and but by a steady Course of Honesty and Wisdom, in such as are trusted with the Administration of Affairs. By the Author of The Essay on Ways and Means. London: Printed for James Knapton, at the Crown in St. Paul’s Church-yard, 1699. FIRST EDITION. Small 8vo (19.5 cm) in early/period calf, rebacked with modern calf; [16], 181, 183-184, 186-187, 189-190, 192-199, 300-308, 209-312 pp. (erratic pagination but text and registry are continuous and complete); with 8 tables, six of them folding (complete). Wing D309; Kress 2114; Goldsmiths 3580; ESTC R5221.

With a unique and fitting provenance: the front endpaper bears the signature of "E. F. Gay," Edwin Francis Gay (1867-1946), economist and publisher, the first dean of the Harvard Business School (1908-1919) and the first American economic historian to win international recognition.  Original boards worn and darkened, with flaking to the leather, loss to bottom corner of rear board; old paper repair to the fore-edge of the front endpaper, ditto to the bottom corner of the title-page; some dust-soiling/darkening to the top edge of the text block, occasional scattered light spotting; some of the later leaves with penciled (erasable) marginal marks, presumably made be Professor Gay, possibly by an earlier owner. A solid copy of a seminal work on political economy and trade, complete with all of the tables, including the six folding tables, often found wanting.

The work deals with mercantilism vs. free trade, population, natural resources, the poor laws, the origins of the Whig and Tory parties, etc. Of particular interest are its extensive quotations from the estimates of Gregory King, previously available only in manuscript. Charles  Davenant (1656-1714), son of the playwright and poet laureate William Davenant, was an MP and pioneering political economist. He served under Charles II and James II as Commissioner of Excise (1678-89) and under Queen Anne as Inspector-General of Exports and Imports from 1705 until his death. A strong advocate of mercantilism who showed "distinct tendencies towards what might almost be called a free-trade position" (Palgrave Dictionary of Economics), Davenant is credited with being the first to understand and discuss the concepts of Balance of Trade, Consumer Demand, and Perfect Competition. He published a number of treatises on politics and economics, including the present work and his Discourses on the Publick Revenues (see our other auctions). His ideas had a significant influence on Adam Smith, who cited Davenant numerous times in his own work.