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CHAPTER 11 In the Balance By midcentury the doctrine that the nation’s economic health was in jeopardy whenever imports exceeded exports was so ‹rmly accepted that a massive political overhaul of the realm from monarchy to republic and back again could not dislodge it. The “Instructions to the Council of Trade” in 1650 required its members to consider of some way that a most exact account be kept of all commodities imported and exported through the land, to the end that a perfect balance of trade may be taken, whereby the Commonwealth may not be impoverished, by receiving of commodities yearly from foreign parts of a greater value than what was carried out.1 The “Instructions to the Council for Trade” in 1668 ordered its members to consider how a due and exact account may be kept of all the commodities exported from or imported into any of the ports or custom houses of this nation to the end that a perfect balance of trade may be taken.2 The trade balance model was alive and well at the century’s end. The 1697 report of the Commissioners “of Trade and Plantations” exhibits a continuing concern with merchants pro‹ting from trade at the nation’s expense, the ‹nite my-gain-is-your-loss mentality, and the bullionist conception of wealth underlying the balance theory: But ‹nding that we have imported from some countries goods to a greater original value than we have exported thither, and it being certain that some private persons may enrich themselves by trading in commodities which may at the same time diminish the wealth and treasure of the nation, to which no addition can be made by trade but what is gained from foreigners and foreign countries, and that such an overbalance has not been made good by any circulation in trade or exchange so as to make such trades advantageous for this nation as they of late been carried on, we have in our enquiries particularly distinguished the same from others that have a better foundation, conceiving that such trades have occasioned the exportation of coin or bullion or hindered the importation thereof.3 179 Perhaps the only innovation in this doctrine over the course of the century was the institution, in 1651, of the Navigation Acts. By prohibiting the importation of Asian, African, or American goods into England or any of its possessions unless carried in English vessels and of European goods unless in English vessels or those of the exporting country, Parliament could be said to have recognized the importance of the carrying trade’s contribution to the trade balance. It could also have been said to have recognized the importance of taking that trade away from the Dutch. Preventing imports from exceeding exports was hardly just an English concern. A proclamation issued by Philip IV of Spain on September 11, 1657, prohibited commerce “with the Realms of Portugal, France, and England . . . upon several penalties, even to the death of the transgressors, and loss of their Estates” because his “Realms have sustained, and do sustain very great damages, the silver and gold being carried out of them,” his “Subjects and vassals estates, [were] vainly spent in useless and unnecessary things,” and his enemies enjoyed “as much convenience and pro‹t as they could have done in time of peace, by the introduction of their Merchandizes .”4 It was translated into English and published in London before the year was out. What is different about balance of trade is that instead of being a model English economic writers merely borrowed from their general intellectual milieu, “balance” was a model to which they made important contributions . Of course, balance was both an integral part of Aristotelian moderation and the key to health according to the doctrine of the four humors, and balance scales were thousands of years older than bookkeeping balances. In fact, the use of the term balance probably made its way into bookkeeping from its role in weighing coins, as witness such weighty tomes as The Scales of Commerce and Trade (1660) by Thomas Willsford, a compendium of instruction in applied mathematics and bookkeeping with page after page of problems in exchanges worked out for the reader, whose title continues Ballancing betwixt the Buyer & Seller, Arti‹cer and Manufacture, Debitor and Creditor, etc.5 Nonetheless, we sometimes come across a borrowing so direct that it can have no other source. In his Treatise of Vocations (1603), William Perkins suggested that Christians...

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