112 History of the Eriglish Landed Interest, 



transaction ultimately returning a larger quantity of specie than 

 originally went abroad. Thus, for example, though the works 

 of Richard Jones ^ relating to this period bear witness to many 

 elaborate schemes of the economists for checking the exporta- 

 tion and encouraging the importation of gold and silver, we 

 have the mercantilist Mun ^ remonstrating against such doc- 

 trines, and instancing cases where exceptions would ultimately 

 prove of greater benefit to the community. 



By thus pointing out how, on occasion, the individual could 

 best benefit the society by managing his own affairs in his 

 own way, the mercantilists were tending towards that policy 

 of natural freedom which was shortly to become the watch- 

 word of the so-called physiocrats. 



In England as well as in France there were not wanting 

 advocates of this last phase of philosophical thought. Hobbes, 

 as we shall see later on, had crude but wholesome notions on 

 the true nature of wealth. Dudley North ^ was a pronounced 

 champion of Free Trade, Locke was cautiously advancing 

 along the right track, and Petty and Hume were giving 

 birth to occasional utterances which afterward became the 

 very essence of physiocratic teaching. But here in England 

 the force of circumstances was not so powerful to direct 

 thinkers in the right direction as it was in France. There the 

 luxury of the court, the unlimited privileges of the upper 

 classes, and the debased condition of the lower classes, com- 

 bined to urge men like Cantillon and Quesnai to seek some 

 outlet of escape from that artificial civilisation which was at 

 the root of all their social distress. A company of politicians 

 and literary men, with Quesnai, the physician of Louis XV., as 

 their leader, began to teach the doctrines of a Free Trade even 

 more comprehensive than those already promulgated on this 

 side of the Channel by Sir Dudley North. Quesnai, in oppo- 

 sition to Colbert's predilection for fostering commerce at the 

 expense of agriculture, advanced the theory that, by prevent- 



^ Eichard Jones, a Professor of Haileybury College, who flourished 

 circa 1790-1855. 

 ^ England's Treasure by Forraign Trade, 1664. 

 * Discourses upon Trade. Sir Dudley North, 1691. 



