Besides Mun, Sir Josiah Child,' (whose work, though founded on the principles of the mercantile system, contains many sound and liberal views,) Sir William Petty, and Sir Dudley North, are the most distinguished economical writers of the seventeenth century. The latter not only rose above the established prejudices of the time, but had sagacity enough to detect the more refined and less obvious errors that were newly coming into fashion. His tract, entitled, "Discourses on Trade, principally directed to the Cases of Interest, Coinage, Clipping, and Increase of Money," published in 1691, contains a far more able statement of the true principles of commerce than any that had then appeared. North is throughout the intelligent and consistent advocate of commercial freedom. He is not, like the most eminent of his predecessors, well informed on one subject, and erroneous on another. His system is consentaneous in its parts, and complete. He shows that, in commercial matters, nations have the same interests as individuals; and forcibly exposes the absurdity of supposing, that any trade advantageous to the merchant can be injurious to the public. His opinions respecting a seignorage on coinage and sumptuary laws, then very popular, are equally enlightened.

1 "A New Discourse of Trade," first published in 1668; but greatly enlarged and improved in the second edition, published in 1690.

"Quantulumcunque," published in 1682; "Political Anatomy of Ireland," published in 1672; and other works.

The general principles laid down and illustrated in this tract, are announced in the preface as follows:"That the world as to trade is but as one nation. or people, and therein nations are as persons.

"That the loss of a trade with one nation is not that only, separately considered, but so much of the trade of the world rescinded and lost, for all is combined together.

"That there can be no trade unprofitable to the public; for if any prove so, men leave it off; and wherever the traders thrive, the public, of which they are a part, thrive also.

"That to force men to deal in any prescribed manner, may profit such as happen to serve them; but the public gains not, because it is taken from one subject to give to another.

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That no laws can set prices in trade, the rates of which must and will make themselves. But when such laws do happen to lay any hold, it is so much impediment to trade, and therefore prejudicial.

"That money is a merchandise, whereof there may be a glut as well as a scarcity, and that even to an inconvenience.

"That a people cannot want money to serve the ordinary dealing, and more than enough they will not have.

"That no man will be the richer for the making much money, nor have any part of it, but as he buys it for an equivalent price.

"That the free coynage is a perpetual motion found out, whereby to melt and coyn without ceasing,

and so to feed goldsmiths and coyners at the public charge.

"That debasing the coyn is defrauding one another, and to the public there is no sort of advantage from it; for that admits no character, or value, but intrinsick.

"That the sinking by alloy or weight is all one.

That exchange and ready money are the same, nothing but carriage and recarriage being saved.

"That money exported in trade is an increase to the wealth of the nation; but spent in war, and payments abroad, is so much impoverishment.

"In short, that all favour to one trade, or interest, is an abuse, and cuts so much of profit from the public."

Unluckily, this admirable tract never obtained any considerable circulation. There is good reason, indeed, for supposing that it was designedly suppressed.1 At all events, it speedily became excessively scarce; and we are not aware that it was ever quoted by any subsequent writer previously to the first edition of this work.

The same enlarged views that had found so able a supporter in Sir Dudley North, were afterwards advocated to a greater or less extent by Locke,' the anonymous author of a pamphlet on the East India

1 See the Honourable Roger North's "Life of his Brother, the Honourable Sir Dudley North," p. 179.

"Considerations on the Lowering of Interest and Raising the Value of Money," 1691; and "Further considerations on Raising the Value of Money," 1695.

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Trade,1 Vanderlint,2 Richardson, Hume, and Harris. But their efforts were ineffectual to the subversion of the mercantile system. Their notions respecting the nature of wealth were confused and contradictory; and as they neither attempted to investigate its sources, nor to trace the causes of national opulence, their arguments in favour of a liberal system of commerce had somewhat of an empirical aspect, and failed of making the impression that is always made by reasonings logically deduced from wellestablished principles, and shown to be consistent with experience. The opinions entertained by Locke, respecting the paramount influence of labour in the production of wealth, were at once original and correct; but he did not prosecute his investigations in the view of elucidating the principles of the science, and made no reference to them in his subsequent writings. And though Harris adopted Locke's views, and deduced from them some important practical inferences, his general principles are merely introduced by way of preface to his Treatise on Money; and are not explained at any length, or in that systematic manner necessary in scientific investigations.

"Considerations on the East India Trade," 1701. This is a very remarkable pamphlet. The author has successfully refuted. the various arguments advanced in justification of the prohibition of importing East Indian manufactured goods; and has given a very striking illustration of the effects of the division of labour.

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Money Answers all Things," 1734.

3 "Essay on the Causes of the Decline of Foreign Trade,” 1744. "Political Essays," 1752.

But what had thus been left undone by others, was now attempted by a French philosopher, equally distinguished for the subtlety and originality of his understanding, and the integrity and simplicity of his character. The celebrated M. Quesnay, a physician attached to the court of Louis XV., has the merit of being the first who attempted to investigate and analyze the sources of wealth, in the view of ascertaining the fundamental principles of Political Economy and who, in consequence, gave it a systematic form, and raised it to the rank of a science. Quesnay's father was a small proprietor; and having been educated in the country, he was naturally inclined to regard agriculture with more than ordinary partiality. At an early period of his life he was struck with its depressed state in France, and set himself to discover the causes which had prevented its making that progress which the industry of the inhabitants, the fertility of the soil, and the excellence of the climate, seemed to ensure. In the course of this inquiry he speedily discovered that the prevention of the exportation of corn, and the preference given in the policy of Colbert to manufactures and commerce over agriculture, formed the most powerful obstacles to the progress and improvement of the latter. But Quesnay was not satisfied with exposing the injustice of this preference, and its pernicious consequences: his zeal for the interests of agriculture led him, not merely to place it on the same level with manufactures and commerce, but to raise it above them, by endeavouring to show that it is the only