CANTILLON
Reprinted for Harvard University
BOSTON
GEO. H. ELLIS, 141 FRANKLIN STREET
1892
NOTE.
The Essai sur la Nature du Commerceen Général was written between1730 and 1734 by Richard Cantillon,a natural-born British subject, of thefamily of Cantillon of Ballyheigue, co.Kerry, Ireland. He was probably bornbetween 1680 and 1690. In 1716 he establishedhimself as a banker in Paris,where his cousin, the Chevalier RichardCantillon (died in 1717), had long traded,first as a silk mercer, then as a banker.Our author soon became flourishing;but, having given umbrage to John Lawby his outspoken belief in the ultimatefailure of the Mississippi scheme, hefound it dangerous to remain in France.He therefore quitted that country in1719, but continued his Paris businessin the name of a nephew, Richard Cantillon,and gained enormous profits byspeculating for the fall of Mississippishares. Out of these speculations aroseseveral lawsuits, in the course of whichhe was once arrested in Paris, and spenta night in prison. He married, in 1726,-iv-Mary Anne Mahony, daughter of theLady Clare. He was murdered in hisbed at Albemarle Street, London, onthe 15th of May, 1734, by a dischargedman-servant, who stole some of hispapers and set fire to the house beforeescaping.
The Essai was written by Cantillonin English, and by himself translatedinto its present form for the use of aFrench friend. The original Englishwork, with its statistical supplement,was never published. It was possiblyin the possession of Philip Cantillon,a second cousin, when he brought out TheAnalysis of Trade, London, 1759,professedly based upon it. The fictitiousimprint “A Londres, Chez FletcherGyles, dans Holborn, M.DCC.LV.” appearsalso upon the title-page of Questionsimportantes sur le Commerce, aFrench translation by Turgot of Tucker's Reflectionson the Expediency of a Lawfor the Naturalization of Foreign Protestants.
Cantillon is said to have been a prolificwriter, an indefatigable traveller,and to have joined the experience ofa silk mercer and a wine merchantto that of a banker. He was an enthusiastin agricultural and monetary-v-science. This the only surviving fragmentof his work greatly influenced theearly French economists,—Gournay,Quesnay, Mirabeau, Turgot, Condillac,Mably, Graslin. It is one of the fewworks referred to by Adam Smith, andJevons called it the first treatise oneconomics. Three editions of it areknown,—the 1755 edition of 436 pages,12mo, now reprinted; an edition insmaller form (probably from anotherpress) in 1756, 432 pages, 12mo; andthe reprint appended to Mauvillon'stranslation of the Discours Politiquesof Hume (in vol. iii.), Amsterdam, 1755.
See the articles by F. von Sivers, Jahrbücherfür Nationalökonomie, 1874,p. 145; S. Bauer, ibid., 1890, p. 145;W. S. Jevons, Contemporary Review,1881, p. 61; Henry Higgs, The Economic Journal,1891, p. 262. AlsoA. Espinas, Histoire des Doctrines Économiques,Paris, 1891.
H. H.
This edition attempts to reproduce thatof 1755 so far as is possible with type notmanufactured for the purpose. The oldpagination is preserved, and even typographicalerrors and irregularities are leftunchanged.
ESSAI
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