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  to do with the East India Company's affairs. His case, however, was taken up by the privy council, and reparation was made (Court Minutes, 24 and 26 Nov. 1628).

Misselden threw himself heartily into Laud's schemes for bringing the practice of the English congregations abroad into conformity with that of the church of England. The merchant adventurers at Delft were strongly presbyterian, and John Forbes, their preacher, exercised great influence. Misselden's attempts to thrust the prayer-book upon them were met by plots to eject him from his position, and he and Forbes were ‘irreconcilably at variance’ (William Boswell to the council, 18 March 1633, State Papers, Dom. Ser.) He was ultimately turned out, and the company chose in his place Samuel Avery, an ardent presbyterian. Two years later (1635) abortive attempts were made to obtain his election as deputy-governor at Rotterdam, and the king addressed a letter to the Merchant Adventurers' Company vainly recommending them to deprive Robert Edwards, whom they had recently chosen for that post (the king to the merchant adventurers, 19 May 1635, ib.) His aid in thrusting the prayer-book on the merchant adventurers did not constitute Misselden's sole claim to recognition; he had furnished Philip Burlamachi with large sums for the king's service, of which, in May 1633, 13,000l. remained unpaid. He was to be satisfied out of Burlamachi's estate ‘as soon as possible.’

Misselden was subsequently employed by the Merchant Adventurers' Company on various missions. A rumour at the end of 1649 that he was to be appointed deputy at Hamburg gave some dissatisfaction, for he was ‘reported to be not only a royal malignant but a scandalous man in his life and conversation’ (Walter Strickland to the council of state, 23-13 Dec. 1649;, Memorials of the Civil War, ii. 207). He was at Hamburg in the following year on some business of the merchant adventurers. He was ‘well-accepted’ and likely to ‘prove very serviceable to the company’ (Richard Bradshaw to my Lord President, 3 Sept. 1650, Hist. MSS. Comm. 6th Rep. p. 430). It is probable that he was at this time trying to find favour with the parliament. Four years later he addressed a letter to Cromwell, pointing out his previous services (, iii. 13). He had furnished the council of state with maps of Holland and Brabant, particulars relative to the navigation of the Scheldt, and a narrative of the Amboyna negotiations. But he ‘never received an answere, nor soe much as his charges for lawyers' fees, and length of time, study, and labour.’

Misselden's economic writings were primarily called forth by the appointment of the standing commission on trade (1622). In his ‘Free Trade, or the Means to make Trade flourish,’ London, 1622, he discussed the causes of the alleged decay of trade, which he attributed to the excessive consumption of foreign commodities, the exportation of bullion by the East India Company, and defective searching in the cloth trade. His object appears to have been to disarm the opposition to the regulated companies, especially the Merchant Adventurers', and turn it against the joint-stock associations. The views which he put forth on the East India trade are inconsistent with those which he advocated in the following year. [q. v.] immediately attacked his pamphlet, urging in opposition the principles of foreign exchange with which his name is identified. In reply Misselden published ‘The Circle of Commerce, or the Ballance of Trade, in Defence of Free Trade, opposed to Malynes’ “Little Fish and his Great Whale,” and poized against them in the Scale,’ London, 1623, 4to. After refuting Malynes's views, and stating a substantially accurate theory of exchange, he discussed the balance of trade. He defended the exportation of bullion on the ground that by the re-exportation of the commodities which the country was thus enabled to purchase the treasure of the nation was augmented. His theory of the balance of trade differs in no important respect from that which was afterwards elaborated by [q. v.] Like Mun, Misselden lived at one time at Hackney; the two writers must have been brought into close relations with each other during the Amboyna negotiations.



MISSON, FRANCIS MAXIMILIAN (1650?–1722), traveller and author, was born in France about 1650, and was one of the protestant judges in the ‘chamber of the edict’ in the parlement of Paris. On the revocation in 1685 he found refuge in England, and was chosen by, first duke of Ormonde [q. v.], to be tutor to his younger grandson, Charles Butler, afterwards Earl of Arran. Misson made the grand tour with his pupil during 1687 and 1688, travelling to Italy through Rotterdam, Cologne, Nuremberg, Munich, and Innspruck, over the Brenner, and thence