An Essay, on the Coyn and Credit of England: As They Stand with Respect to Its Trade.

CARY, John.

$15,000.00

Item Number: 109827

London: Printed by Will. Bonny, and sold by the booksellers of London and Bristol, 1696.

First edition of this work by Cary, a pioneer in the field of economics. Small octavo, bound in full contemporary calf, raised bands, gilt titles and tooling to the spine, marbled endpapers. In very good condition. Rare with no examples appearing at auction in the last eighty years.

John Cary was a prominent English merchant and writer on matters regarding trade during the eighteenth century. Cary has been heralded as a pioneer in establishing economics as a separate field of "scientific" inquiry, a proponent of a "favorable balance of trade," and an objector to the idea that low wages were desirable. During the turn of the eighteenth century, Cary's writings and pamphlets incorporate more legal vernacular and elements of legal theory as he emphasized the idea of "proof" and "evidence."[1] In the 1717 edition of the Essay, he revealed the need for economics to be a science in that "Trade hath its principles as other Science have." This conclusion arose from the fact that Cary had been a first-hand observer and participant in trade, which allowed him to conclude of the mechanisms which facilitated international trade. While Cary did not fully possess the knowledge and skill to cement economics as a science, Cary was appreciative of the "argumentative value of evidence" and experience based on "coercive rhetoric and factual logic" (Reinert Sophus, Translated Empire).