Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/297

 RICHARD CANTILLON 275 livres, 10 sols,' orders that Cantillon's heirs, legatees, and suc- cessors, stand bound to the holders of tickets or winners of lots, that the latter be preferred to all other creditors, and that Cantil- lon's goods be sold if necessary for their satisfaction. Another Arrt exactly a year later (20th August, 1718) declares that the passive debts of the late Richard Cantilion amount to 305,963 livres 5 sols, including his debts to the lottery, but excluding 4,036 livres, the cost of inventory, wages, &c. The assets available to discharge this total of 310,000 livres amount only to 68,200 livres, consisting of scrip of the Hotel de ille, Government notes, merchandise, furniture, and debts to the estate. The Arrt concludes by making arrangements for the complete payment of the winners in the lottery.  According to the Revue Historique de la Noblesse, already cited, the economist had a cousin, Richard Cantilion, who com- manded a company of dragoons at the Battle of the Boyne, was wounded there, went to Paris in King James's suite, and, dying in 1717, was buried at St. Getmain l'Auxerrois (Extrait des Archives de cette laroisse). It is fortunate that this extract was made before the parochial archives were burned durhg the Commune. Now, as the Revue asserts tha each of the cousins was chevalier, we are confronted with the question how far the previous passages relate to the author of the Essai. The history which follows may be thought to justify a suspicion that the economist, skilful to make use of identity of name, was the real though not the nominal banker in 1717. For in a sworn state- ment he admitted that he had himself carried on the banking business at Paris for many years before 1719. If the old soldier's bank was separate and concurrent, the A rrts would almost certainly have distinguished one Richard Cantilion, banker at Paris, from the other. And we find the relations with Boling- broke, with Arthur, and Clifford, and the Benedictines, kept up after 1717 as well as before. Two further references, and we come upon more connected ound and are able to call Cantilion himself as a witness to several facts of his life. On the 2nd February, 1718, Lord Bolingbroke writes to the Abb6 Alari asldng him to send a packet of old books to the address of Mr. Cantilion, Rue de l'Arbre Sec; and, writing again next day, says, ' A clerk of Mr. Cantilion will bring you this letter, have the goodness to hand him the parcel.' a On the 28th June, 1721, he gives the Abb another address for his  E. 918, 1983, 1986. -" Lcttrs de L'olinffbroke, dition Grimoard, Paris, 1808, ii. 452,455. T2