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• Preface.
• A Select Collection of Early English Tracts On Commerce
• Thomas Mun, a Discoverse of Trade From England Vnto the East-indies: Answering to Diuerse Obiections Which Are Vsually Made Against the Same.
• Lewes Roberts, the Treasure of Traffike, Or a Discoourse of Forraigne Trade.
• Thomas Mun, England’s Treasure By Forraign Trade. Or. the Ballance of Our Forraign Trade Is the Rule of Our Treasure.
• Chap. I.: The Qualities Which Are Required In a Perfect Merchant of Forraign Trade.
• Chap. II.: The Means to Enrich This Kingdom, and to Encrease Our Treasure.
• Chap. III.: The Particular Ways and Means to Encrease the Exportation of Our Commodities, and to Decrease Our Consumption of Forraign Wares.
• Chap. IV.: The Exportation of Our Moneys In Trade of Merchandize Is a Means to Encrease Our Treasure.
• Chap. V.: Forraign Trade Is the Only Means to Improve the Price of Our Lands.
• Chap. VI.: The Spanish Treasure Cannot Be Kept From Other Kingdoms By Any Prohibition Made In Spain.
• Chap. VII.: The Diversity of Gain By Forraign Trade.
• Chap. VIII.: The Enhansing Or Debasing Our Moneys Cannot Enrich the Kingdom With Treasure, Nor Hinder the Exportation Thereof.
• Chap. IX.: A Toleration For Forraign Coins to Pass Currant Here At Higher Rates Then Their Value With Our Standard, Will Not Encrease Our Treasure.
• Chap. X.: The Observation of the Statute of Imployments to Be Made By Strangers, Cannot Encrease, Nor Yet Preserve Our Treasure.
• Chap. XI.: It Will Not Increase Our Treasure to Enjoyn the Merchant That Exporteth Fish, Corn Or Munition, to Return All Or Part of the Value In Money.
• Chap. XII.: The Undervaluing of Our Money Which Is Delivered Or Received By Bills of Exchange Here Or Beyond the Seas, Cannot Decrease Our Treasure.
• Chap. XIII.: The Merchant Who Is a Mere Exchanger of Money By Bills Cannot Increase Or Decrease Our Treasure.
• Chap. XIV.: The Admirable Feats Supposed to Be Done By Bankers and the Merchants Exchange.
• Chap. XV.: Of Some Excesses and Evils In the Commonwealth, Which Notwithstanding Decay Not Our Trade Nor Treasure.
• Chap. XVI.: How the Revenues and Incomes of Princes May Justly Be Raised.
• Chap. XVII.: Whether It Be Necessary For Great Princes to Lay Up Store of Treasure.
• Chap. XVIII.: How Much Treasure a Prince May Conveniently Lay Up Yearly.
• Chap. XIX.: Of Some Different Effects, Which Proceed From Naturall and Artificiall Wealth.
• Chap. XX.: The Order and Means Whereby We May Draw Up the Ballance of Our Forraign Trade.
• Chap. XXI.: The Conclusion Upon All That Hath Been Said, Concerning the Exportation Or Importation of Treasure.
• Samuel Fortrey, Englands Interest and Improvement.
• England’s Great Happiness; Or, a Dialogue Between Content and Complaint.
• Britannia Languens, Or a Discourse of Trade
• The Preface.
• The Introduction.
• Section I.: Trade National Or Private, Home Or Forreign Treasures Imported By Trade, Thence Land-rents, Populacy Increased, the Revenues of All Ranks of Men Depend Upon Trade, People and Treasure Make National Strength, Particular Advantages In Treasure,
• Sect. II.: The Several Kinds of Forreign Trade, of Trading With Home Or Forreign Navigation, Some General Application.
• Sect. III.: Of Forreign Trade Consisting In Exportation, of the Advantages of Home Manufactures, and Manufactures, Incidently Other Home Trades, and Imployments Are Considered; and Which of Them Enrich a Nation; of the Fishing-trade, and the Annual Export
• Sect. IV.: Of Forreign Trade From Port to Port, the Nature and Advantage of It, Differs From Meer Carriage, and Meer Importation; the Necessity of a Home Storehouse: the Ordinary Exporting of Money Or Bullion, of Dangerous Consequence; How to Be Avoided:
• Sect. V.: That Our Home and Forreign Market Is Incumbered, and Prejudiced By Extraordinary and Unequal Charges, and Cloggs In Our Merchandize Above What Are In Our Neighbour-nations, Viz. In the Building and Furniture of Our Ships, Victuals, Sea-mens Wa
• Sect. VI.: Other Cloggs On Our Trade, Viz. the Late Acts of Navigation, Which, With the Other Difficulties, Have Begot Monopolies; Made Our Navigation Yet Dearer, So Forreign Materials of Manufacture Cause Meer Importations, Hinder Our Forreign Vent of
• Sect. VII.: Forreigners Eased In Trade; Other Clogs and Difficulties Upon Ours; Want of Populacy, Incidently of Extream Prizes of Victuals, and How the Duration of Land-rents May Be Secured, Our People Restrained From Manufactures; the Abuse of the Act
• Sect. VIII.: That a Nation May Grow Poor By Forreign Trade, Viz. By an Excess of Meer Importations, Illustrated By Some Observations: This Facilitated By Exporting Money Or Bullion; the Fatal Consequences and Symptoms of a Consumptive Trade, Decay of Ma
• Sect. IX.: That a Consumptive Trade Must Render a Nation Still Weaker and Weaker: How Far the Meer Establishment of Absolute Power, Or Meer Liberty and Property, May Alter the Case.
• Sect. X.: Further Presumptions of Our Late National Overballance In Trade; an Account From the Mint In November 75. and Thence Our Former Ballance of Trade Estimated.
• Sect. XI.: Particular Decays In Our Exportations, and the Beneficial Parts of Our Trade; Instances In the Decay of Our Foreign-trade For Woollen Clothing, In the Several Countries and Ports We Traded To, In the Sinking of the Foreign Price of This Manufac
• Sect. XII.: Instances In Late Increases and Excesses of Our Forreign Importations, and Therein of the Decay of Some Other of Our Own Manufactures Which Supplyed Our Home Uses, Viz. In Linnens of All Sorts, More Dear Fine Linnens Used; Incidently of the
• Sect. XIII.: That a Considerable Part of Our Late Treasure Is Exhausted: Application to Our Publick and Private Revenues: Objections Answered, Viz. the Plenty of Money to Be Let On Securities, Stores of Money In London, Stocks In Merchandize, the Over
• Sect. XIV.: People and Treasure the True Pillars of the National Strength: the Odds In the Different Vse and Imployment of People. the Absoluteness of the French Monarchy No Cause of the Present French Grandure: the Late Application of the French Co
• Dudley North, Discourses Upon Trade
• The Preface.
• A Discourse Concerning the Abatement of Interest.
• A Discourse of Coyned Money.
• Postscript. Upon Farther Consideration of the Foregoing Matters, I Think Fit to Add the Following Notes.
• Considerations On the East-india Trade
• To the Reader.
• Chap. I.: The Objections Against the East-india Trade; Viz. the Exportation of Bullion For Manufactures to Be Consum’d In England; the Loss of the Labourer’s Employment; the Abatement of Rents Are Enforc’d.
• Chap. II.: The Exportation of Bullion For Indian Manufactures, Is an Exchange of Less For Greater Value.
• Chap. III.: A More Open East-india- Trade, Is More Profitable to the Kingdom.
• Chap. IV.: The East-india Trade Does Not So Much Diminish the Riches of Some Private Persons, As It Increases the Riches of the Kingdom.
• Chap. V.: The East-india Trade Is the Way to Increase Our Bullion.
• Chap. VI.: The East-india Trade Must Increase Our Exportations.
• Chap. VII.: Notwithstanding the Idleness of the Mint, the Money and the Bullion Are Increas’d.
• Chap. VIII.: The Increase of Paper Money Is to Be Ascrib’d to the Increase of Real Money, Rather Than the Apparent Plenty of Money to the Increase of Current Paper.
• Chap. IX.: The Kingdom Is Not More Impoverish’d By the Consumption of Indian Than of English Manufactures.
• Chap. X.: The East-india Trade Destroys No Imployment of the People Which Is Profitable to the Kingdom.
• Chap. XI.: The East-india Trade Is the Most Likely Way to Inlarge the Business In the Present Manufactures.
• Chap. XII.: By Being the Cause of the Invention of Arts and Engines, of Order and Regularity In Our Manufactures, the East-india Trade, Without Abating the Wages of Labourers, Abates the Price of Manufactures.
• Chap. XIII.: The East-india Trade Is the Most Likely Way to Set On Foot New Manufactures For Imployment of the People.
• Chap. XIV.: The East-india Trade Does Not Abate the Rents, By the Exportation of Bullion, By the Diminution of Consumers, By the Abatement of Wages; the Importation of Indian Manufactures Is Less Likely to Abate Rents Than the Importation of the Unwro
• Chap. XV.: The Importation of Indian Manufactures Abates Only the Price of Labour, But Raises the Price of the Produce of the Estate.
• Chap. XVI.: And This Is Confirm’d By Examples.
• Chap. XVII.: The East-india Trade Does Not Abate the Rents of the Landholder By Destroying His Monopoly.
• Chap. XVIII.: The Fishing-trade Is Not So Profitable As the Importation of Irish Cattel, Or of Indian Manufactures; and Is More Likely Than Either to Abate the Rents of England.
• Chap. XIX.: The Herring-fishery Not Practicable In the Present Circumstances of England; the Dutch Can Sell Cheaper.
• Chap. XX.: The Way to Bring England to Be Contented With As Little Profit In the Fishing-trade As Holland.
• Chap. XXI.: That the Way to Enable England to Catch and Cure Their Herrings As Cheap As Holland, Is, First to Have Materials For That Trade As Cheap: and That This Is Most Likely to Be Done, By Discharging the Customs Upon Such Things, By Making the T
• Chap. XXII.: The Way to Make English Labour In the Fishing-trade As Cheap As That of Holland; That the People Here Must Cohabit As Close Together; and the Most Probable Methods For Effecting This, Are to Erect a Free-port, to Impower Parishes to Send

Chap. VI.

The Spanish Treasure cannot be kept from other Kingdoms by any prohibition made in Spain.

ALL the Mines of Gold and Silver which are as yet discovered in the sundry places of the world, are not of so great value as those of the West-Indies which are in the possession of the King of Spain: who thereby is enabled not onely to keep in subjection many goodly States and Provinces in Italy and elsewhere (which otherwise would soon fall from his obeisance) but also by a continual war taking his advantages doth still enlarge his Dominions, ambitiously aiming at a Monarchy by the power of his Moneys, which are the very sinews of his strength, that lies so far dispersed into so many Countreys, yet hereby united, and his wants supplied both for war and peace in a plentiful manner from all the parts of Christendom, which are therefore partakers of his treasure by a Necessity of Commerce; wherein the Spanish policy hath ever endeavoured to prevent all other Nations the most it could:The policie and benefit of Spain by the trade to the East Indies. For finding Spain to be too poor and barren to supply it self and the West-Indies with those varieties of forraign wares whereof they stand in need, they knew well that when their Native Commodities come short to this purpose, their Moneys must serve to make up the reckoning; whereupon they found an incredible advantage to adde the traffick of the East-Indies to the treasure of the West: for the last of these being employed in the first, they stored themselves infinitely with rich wares to barter with all the parts of Christendom for their Commodities, and so furnishing their own necessities, prevented others for carrying away their moneys: which in point of state they hold less dangerous to impart to the remote Indians, than to their neighbour Princes, lest it should too much enable them to resist (if not offend) their enemies. And this Spanish policy against others is the more remarkable, being done likewise so much to their own advantage; for every Ryal of Eight which they sent to the East-Indies brought home so much wares as saved them the disbursing of five Ryals of Eight here in Europe (at the least) to their neighbours, especially in those times when that trade was only in their hands: but now this great profit is failed, and the mischief removed by the English, Dutch, and others which partake in those East-India trades as ample as the Spanish Subjects.

It is further to be considered, that besides the disability of the Spaniards by their native commodities to provide forraign wares for their necessities, (whereby they are forced to supply the want with mony) they have likewise that canker of war, which doth infinitely exhaust their treasure, and disperse it into Christendom even to their enemies, part by reprisal, but especially through a necessary maintenance of those armies which are composed of strangers, and lie so far remote, that they cannot feed, clothe, or otherwise provide them out of their own native means and provisions, but must receive this relief from other Nations:The effects of different wars concerning Treasure. which kind of war is far different to that which a Prince maketh upon his own confines, or in his Navies by Sea, where the Souldier receiving money for his wages, must every day deliver it out again for his necessities, whereby the treasure remains still in the Kingdom, although it be exhausted from the King: But we see that the Spaniard (trusting in the power of his Treasure) undertakes wars in Germany, and in other remote places, which would soon begger the richest Kingdom in Christendom of all their mony; the want whereof would presently disorder and bring the armies to confusion, as it falleth out sometimes with Spain it self, who have the Fountain of mony, when either it is stopt in the passage by the force of their enemies, or drawn out faster than it flows by their own occasions; whereby also we often see that Gold and silver is so scant in Spain, that they are forced to use base copper money, to the great confusion of their Trade, and not without the undoing also of many of their own people.

But now that we have seen the occasions by which the Spanish treasure is dispersed into so many places of the world, let us likewise discover how and in what proportion each Countrey doth enjoy these Moneys, for we find that Turkey and divers other Nations have great plenty thereof, although they drive no trade with Spain, which seems to contradict the former reason, where we say that this treasure is obtained by a Necessity of Commerce. But to clear this point, we must know that all Nations (who have no Mines of their own) are enriched with Gold and Silver by one and the same means, which is already shewed to be the ballance of their forraign Trade: And this is not strictly tyed to be done in those Countries where the fountain of treasure is, but rather with such order and observations as are prescribed. For suppose England by trade with Spain may gain and bring home five hundred thousand Ryals of 8. yearly, if we lose as much by our trade in Turkey, and therefore carry the mony thither, it is not then the English but the Turks which have got this treasure, although they have no trade with Spain from whence it was first brought. Again, if England having thus lost with Turkey, do notwithstanding gain twice as much by France, Italy, and other members of her general trade, then will there remain five hundred thousand Ryals of eight cleer gains by the ballance of this trade: and this comparison holds between all other Nations, both for the manner of getting, and the proportion that is yearly gotten.

But if yet a question should be made, whether all Nations get treasure and Spain only lose it? I answer no; for some Countreys by war or by excess do lose that which they had gotten, as well as Spain by war and want of wares doth lose that which was its own.