92 ADAM SMITH. 



period in the work of Ferdinando Paoletti, a Florentine, 

 entitled, ' Veri Mezzi di rendere felice le Societal So 

 that, before and after the French economists' began their 

 useful and enlightened labours, the fundamental doctrine 

 of Adam Smith's celebrated work had been laid down by 

 a great number of writers in the different parts of the 

 Italian Peninsula." 5 ' 



The progress made in France by the same class of 

 philosophers and statesmen was very considerable, and 

 about the same time. Although the Italian writers rather 

 preceded, yet there is no doubt their works were unknown 

 beyond the Alps for many years after the French had 

 applied themselves successfully to the cultivation of 

 economical science. It is supposed, and apparently with 

 reason, that a mercantile man, who also held the rank of 

 a landed gentleman, Vincent Seigneur de Gournay of 

 St. Malo, educated for trade at Cadiz, but always a bold 

 thinker and a diligent student, was the first who adopted 

 the principles of a liberal and enlightened commercial 

 policy. His reputation both as an eminent merchant 

 and as a learned inquirer had become considerable, when 

 he was appointed, in 1751, to the office of Intendant de 

 Commerce, answering in some sort to our President of 

 the Board of Trade. His administration was a constant 

 struggle with the narrow prejudices of the old system, 

 which rests on encouragement, protection, prohibition, 

 endless intermeddling with the distribution of capital, 



* Not having access to Custodi's work, and only having seen 

 some of the treatises contained in it, I have relied on the statement 

 given in the learned article on Political Economy, ('Penny Cyclo- 

 paedia/ vol. xviii. p. 339-40.) 



