[Rarebooks] fa: THE BRITISH MERCHANT - Trade with France, Spain, Portugal, &c. - 3 vols. 1748

[ArCh]

Auction ending Sunday, November 14. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

https://tinyurl.com/4yuvxwj5

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


[Charles King (ed.):] The British Merchant: containing the Sentiments of the most eminent and judicious Merchants of the City of London, concerning the Trade and Commerce of these Kingdoms; more particularly that which relates to France, Spain and Portugal. And illustrated with Notes and Maxims useful to Trade in general. Originally compos'd by a Body of Merchants (whose Names are mention'd in the Preface)... Now re-publish'd compleat, with Improvements. The third edition. [London:] Printed for Tho. Osborne, in Gray's-Inn, 1748. Hanson 1851n; ESTC N15701.

Three volumes, 12mo (17 cm), in early/period speckled calf, gilt-lettered spine labels; xxiv, 343, [1] pp.; iv, 383, [1] pp.; [2], vi, 324, [28] pp.; woodcut initials and head- and tail-pieces. Bindings with some rubbing to the spines, wear to the edges and spine ends, one spine label lost, cracking to a couple of joints, but all the boards are secure; intermittent toning to the leaves and some occasional light spotting, else very clean and sound, firmly bound.

First published in bi-weekly parts in 1713, then subsequently edited and collected in book form by Charles King with financial support from the administration of Robert Walpole, The British Merchant "may thus be supposed to represent the views of Walpole's government... upon economic matters. It was, however, less an exposition of theory than an appeal to contemporary common sense, and to the interests involved in the Methuen treaty of 1703 with Portugal against the supposed fallacious doctrine of reciprocity advanced by Bolingbroke, and set forth in Defoe's 'Essay on the Treaty of Commerce with France,' 1713. Such general theories as it did contain were based... upon the treatise... of Thomas Mun, showing that the object of commercial policy was 'to encrease the exportation of our commodities and to decrease the consumption of foreign wares.' The British Merchant enjoyed unique authority during the forty years following its publication, and its statistics (though by no means invariably accurate) on British commerce, the extent of markets, price of labour, and kindred subjects render it indispensable to the historian of commerce during the early Georgian era" (DNB).