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74 and on the other branches of naticnal industry, which issued from the press, in the short interval between the Restoration and the Revolution; an interval during which the sudden and immense extension of the trade of England, and the corresponding rise of the commercial interest, must have presented a spectacle peculiarly calculated to awaken the curiosity of inquisitive observers. It is a very remarkable circumstance with respect to these economical researches, which now engage so much of the attention both of statesmen and of philosophers, that they are altogether of modern origin. “There is scarcely,” says Mr Hume, “any ancient writer on politics who has made mention of trade; nor was it ever considered as an affair of state till the seventecuth century.” —The work of the celebrated John de Witt, entitled, “The true interest and political maxims of the republic of Holland and West Friesland,” is the earliest publication of any note, in which commerce is treated of as an object of national and political concern, in opposition to the partial interests of corporations and of monopolists.

Of the English publications to which I have just alluded, the greater part consists of anonymous pamphlets, now only to be met with in the collections of the curious. A few bear the names of eminent English merchants. I shall have occasion to refer to them more particularly afterwards, when I come to speak of the writings of Smith, Quesnay, and Turgot. At present, I shall only observe, that, in these fugitive and now neglected tracts, are to be found the first rudiments of that science of Political Economy which is justly considered as the boast of the present age; and which, although the aid of learning and philosophy was necessary to rear it to maturity, may be justly said to have had its cradle in the Royal Exchange of London.

Mr Locke was one of the first retired theorists (and this singular feature in his history has not been sufficiently attended to by his biographers), who condescended to treat of trade as an object of liberal study. Notwithstanding the manifold errors into which he fell in the course of his reasonings concerning it, it may be fairly questioned, if he has anywhere else given greater proofs, either of the vigour or of the originality of his genius. But the name of Locke reminds me, that it is now time to interrupt these national details; and to turn our attention to the progress of science on the Continent, since the times of Bodinus and of Campanella.