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 in prices: for if there was a scarcity of them as in the past times, it is very certain that everything would be as much cheaper as the gold and silver were dearer."

A book with practically the same purpose was published in England shortly after Bodin's by W. S. (William Stafford), in which the rise in prices is again discussed, and shown to be due to the influx of gold and silver from America. About the same time two Italian writers, Count Gasparo Scaruffi and Bernardo Davanzati, both published works dealing with the money question. Both attack the debasement of the coinage, and the former propounds a scheme for the adoption of universal money. A little later Antonio Serra published his "Brief Tract on the Causes which produce abundance of gold and silver."

The first writer who employed the term "political economy" in its modern sense was a Frenchman named M. Chrétien de Watteville. In his "Treatise on Political Economy," he gives a formal exposition of the mercantile system. This system also found in Thomas Mun, a large English merchant, a zealous and able defender. Mun wrote two works, one published at the beginning of the century on the East India trade, and the second in 1664, with the title, "England's Treasure by Foreign Trade." The latter work contains the following statements, which embody the teaching of the mercantile school: "The ordinary