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8°, recent period calf, spine gilt with raised bands in 5 compartments, crimson lettering piece in second compartment from head. Browned, some stains, repairs to title-page not affecting text. In good condition. xii, 75 pp. *** FIRST and ONLY EDITION of this highly interesting account of England's commercial relations with Portugal during the mid-eighteenth century. Collected here are 11 letters, said in the preface to have been previously published in various English newspapers, by an unidentified English merchant. Letters II-III (pp. 4-16) provide a detailed overview of Portugal's trade with other European nations, listing Portuguese imports and exports, including goods re-exported from Portuguese colonies in America, Africa and Asia. Letter IV (pp. 16-22) summarizes Portuguese trade with Great Britain and its North American colonies, including codfish and ships from New England, rice from the Carolinas, and wheat, Indian corn, pipe staves, beeswax and lumber from New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland. Mercator then discusses the impediments to unrestricted English trade with Portugal. English merchants in Portugal are faulted for neglecting to master the local laws, language, and customs and for failing to organize themselves as a community. He describes the difficulties Protestant merchants have in trading with Roman Catholics, and Portugal's long-standing complaints that English merchants were depleting the country's supply of gold bullion. The various privileges accorded to English merchants are then enumerated, along with those the English wish to obtain, e.g. the right to trade directly with Brazil, greater freedom for English magistrates to adjudicate business disputes, and collection of debts owed by Portuguese imprisoned by the king (which is permitted in the case of Portuguese punished by the Inquisition). Mercator then describes several recent cases in which English merchants have suffered "arbitrary insolences and plunderings" at the hands of Portuguese officials, such as actions of health officers during 1752 to manipulate the grain trade for their own profit by confiscating stocks owned by English merchants, the levying of illegally high customs duties on English textile imports, and unfair punishments threatened for Englishmen caught smuggling diamonds.*** Kress S.3992. Not in Sabin. Not in Borba de Moraes. Not in JFB (1994) or JCB. NUC: PU, MWA, CtY, KU, NNC, MB, MH. Seller Inventory # 22504
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