[MILDMAY, William, Sir.]

The Laws and Policy of England, relating to Trade, examined by the Maxims and Principles of Trade in general; and by the Laws and Policy of other trading Nations … London, printed and sold by T. Harrison … and by J. Robson … 1765.

4to, pp. 125, [3], with a terminal advertisement leaf; a fine, crisp copy in recent wrappers.

£350

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The Laws and Policy of England, relating to Trade, examined by the Maxims and Principles of Trade in general; and by the Laws and Policy of other trading Nations …

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First edition, an unjustly neglected study of the politics and economics of international trade, inspired in part by comparison with France, where Mildmay spent five years in the 1750s.

Mildmay proposes the necessity of population growth, via both natural propagation and immigration – the latter to be encouraged by liberty of religion, liberty of conscience, mildness of government, and the ‘free exercise of all trades and employments’. Cultivation and manufacture have primacy, with native deficiencies of the native climate and resources to made up ‘by the assistance of our colonies and plantations in America’; and with regard to foreign trade, export of wrought goods is to be encouraged, that of raw materials to limited to only that which is surplus to national need.

Adams 65–16; Goldsmiths’ 10094; Higgs 3415.

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[MILDMAY, William, Sir.]

The Laws and Policy of England, relating to Trade, examined by the Maxims and Principles of Trade in general; and by the Laws and Policy of other trading Nations … London, printed and sold by T. Harrison … and by J. Robson … 1765.