A New Discourse of Trade, Wherein is Recommended several weighty Points relating to Companies of Merchants. The Act of Navigation. Naturalization of Strangers. And our Woollen Manufactures. The Ballance of Trade. And the Nature of Plantations, and their Consequences in Relation to the Kingdom, are seriously Discussed. And some Proposals for erecting a Court of Merchants for determining Controversies, relating to Maritime Affairs, and for a Law for Transferrance of Bills of Debts, are humbly Offered.

Second edition, the first to name Child, of his major work of economic theory, an enduringly influential work of pre-Smithian economics. This copy was taken on a merchant's sea crossing to New London, Connecticut, in the 1740s. Sir Josiah Child (c. 1631-1699) built a fortune as a food merchant, served as governor of the East India Company, and sat on a parliamentary trade committee from 1668 to 1672. He was "another of the truly remarkable individuals populating the early history of financial economics" (Poitras, p. 322). The publication of this edition coincided with a parliamentary effort to lower national interest rates, among Child's most forcefully made arguments in the Discourse. The work was first published in 1690, although Child wrote it immediately after the Fire of London. This second edition omits the original publisher's 20-page preface; the sheets are otherwise reissued. The first chapter, the 37-page A Discourse Concerning Trade, &c., was previously published as the standalone Brief Observations Concerning Trade and Interest of Money in 1668. This copy belonged to William Donaldson, a Scottish merchant who moved from St Andrews to New Jersey in the early 1730s. Donaldson's 1738 ownership inscription is on the imprimatur leaf (recto), while a contemporary "SRBM St. Andrews" inscription is on the rear free endpaper. As a merchant, Josiah Child traded extensively with the American colonies, while the Discourse outlines a mercantilist analysis of Anglo-American trade. A poem on the imprimatur leaf (verso) was written, according to an accompanying note, at "Oyster Ponds" (an area on the opposite side of Long Island Sound) while "waiting for a passage to New London" in October 1748. ESTC R5732; Goldsmiths' 2964; Kress 1811; Sabin 12708; Wing C3860. Geoffrey Poitras, The Early History of Financial Economics, 1478-1776, 2000. Octavo (155 x 97 mm), pp. [54], 37, [1], 208, 205-234, [2]. Contemporary panelled calf, rebacked to style, spine ruled and decorated in blind, later red morocco label. Extremities restored, light scuffing, minor browning and foxing, a couple of short closed tears, several small burn holes to sigs. F7-8 & N7, touching text: a very good copy.…