Proposals and reasons for constituting a Council of Trade.

Edinburgh, [n. p.], 1701.

8vo, pp. [xvi], 199, [1 blank]; some soiling, particularly to the title-page and first quire, and some foxing, a short marginal tear to the last leaf (not touching text), but a very good copy, in contemporary speckled calf; joints cracked but holding firm, cover rubbed and scratched, corners worn.

£1200

Approximately:
US $1514€1404

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First edition, rare, of a plan for the setting up of a council of trade in Scotland for the purpose of controlling and directing the nation’s ailing economy at the turn of the century, by a remarkably entrepreneurial proto-banker who participated in the Darien project and became one of the founders of the Bank of England. The proposal, both in this first and in its second edition published 50 years later, were often erroneously attributed to John Law (see Higgs and Hanson). No copies other than this have appeared in auction records since 1968.

‘Paterson […] was born in April 1658 in Skipmyre, Dumfriesshire. …The first reliable record of his activities records his membership of the Merchant Taylors’ Company on 16 November 1681; he was admitted to the livery of the company on 21 October 1689. In the years between, he had evidently been pursuing a precocious career as a merchant and projector in Europe, particularly in the Netherlands. His later career was spent promoting projects for an English bank on the Dutch model, for reform of the public revenues, and for a colony on the isthmus of Darien in Panama.

‘Paterson first came to public notice in 1691, when he joined a group of London merchants who proposed that England should set up a bank of credit on the Dutch model. ... In 1694 parliament approved a plan drawn up by Paterson, the merchant Michael Godfrey, and the Treasury commissioner Charles Montagu for a fund to support long-term public borrowing, a bank to administer it, and the mortgaging of future revenue for payment of interest to investors.

‘Paterson was thus among the first directors of the Bank of England when it was chartered on 27 July 1694. In a pattern typical of his career, he soon overreached himself and fell out with his colleagues. … Thereafter, he turned to promote the longest-cherished of all his schemes, the plan for a colony on the isthmus of Darien. … Paterson subscribed for £3000 of company stock and in July 1696 was instrumental in persuading the company to create a free port and colony in Darien. He travelled to Hamburg to encourage foreign subscriptions and organize the building of a fleet for the company. Paterson eventually accompanied the first, ill-fated, Scottish voyage to Darien in July 1698. After the collapse of a second expedition, and in the face of both Spanish and English opposition, the Scots abandoned the colony.

In 1701 Paterson proposed an interventionist council of trade to control Scotland’s ailing economy in his Proposals and Reasons for Constituting a Council of Trade. The Scottish parliament did not take up his suggestion, and in London in 1701–2 he instead urged William III to revive the Darien Colony as a pan-British venture to counterbalance the Spanish-American empire in the face of the impending crisis over the Spanish succession; he also offered the king further plans for Anglo-Scottish union and the reform of public credit. … The last session of the independent Scottish parliament in 1707 recommended Paterson to Queen Anne ‘for his good service’, and he was later returned as a member of the new parliament of the United Kingdom for Dumfriesshire in the election of 1708, though he was denied his seat on a technicality’ (David Armitage in ODNB).

Goldsmiths’ 3756; Hanson 13; Kress 2313; McLeod 304; see Higgs 6.

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