TRADE AND MARKETS. 147 



The economists of the time were however tortured with 

 what they thought was disclosed to them by the figures of the 

 exports and imports, and the excess in value of the latter. 

 They were under the impression that the difference was loss, 

 and did not anticipate that it might mean gain, that the ex- 

 ports were paying for the imports, and that there was no evidence 

 that the balance of bargain was against the country. The 

 picture which Child gives, no doubt correctly, of the growing 

 wealth of the country, might have supplied a corrective to these 

 alarms, and have reassured the students of political arithmetic, 

 as these thinkers were called at the time, that constantly in- 

 creasing trade and constantly accumulating capital were in- 

 consistent with the theory that we were paying away too much 

 and were getting too little. 



In 1670 the King granted a charter to the Hudson's Bay 

 Company, a trading association which had a long career. 

 The King undoubtedly intended to grant his cousin Rupert, 

 with his associates, great rights over that part of America 

 which was as yet unoccupied ; but the Act of I Will. & Mary, 

 by which the concession of such rights is declared to be in 

 Parliament only, precluded the Company from obtaining the 

 absolute ownership of the district. Practically however the 

 Company obtained a monopoly of the American fur trade. 

 In 1672 Charles shut up the Exchequer, and appropriated the 

 goldsmiths' money, i.e. the money of their customers who 

 used them as a bank. According to Child, the practice of the 

 goldsmiths in taking money at six per cent, and lending it to 

 the Crown at eight was injurious to trade, and disadvantageous 

 to the tax-payer ; to the former because it discouraged the use 

 of capital in commerce, to the latter because it kept up the 

 of discount on unpaid revenue to a higher amount than 

 was natural. 



The war with the Dutch in 1672, unprovoked and in the 



icst degree discreditable, gave an irresistible influence to 



the party of the Prince of Orange, and inflicted enormous 



losses on Holland and England. Indeed nothing contributed 



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