Commerce

17127 — A Leyde, 1754. Title printed in red and black. vi, (8), 408 pp. 12mo. Contemporary marbled calf, spine richly gilt with floral ornaments, red morocco label with gilt lettering, red edges. Kress 5381; Goldsmiths 8916; Higgs 742; Leblanc, De Thomas More à Chaptal, 123; Mattioli 2861; Weulersse, i, p. xix; INED 3607; not in Einaudi (other editions); not in Menger. Second edition. In all, four editions were published in 1754. The work was being published as a translation but was actually written by Louis-Joseph Plumart (or Plumard) de Dangeul who used the pseudonym of John Nickolis. 'd'Argenson admire beaucoup cet ouvrage, qu'il place même audessus de l'Esprit des Lois de Montesquieu' (Stourm, p. 98). 'Documentation particulièrement riche, accompagnée d'observations personnelles sur la population, les classes sociales, le commerce, l'économie' (INED). 'Mid-eighteenth-century populationism is best represented in the works of Plumard de Dangeul, Goyon de la Plambaine and Jaubert. Dangeul was concerned primarily to combat celibacy, the principal check (in his opinion) to population growth; for he looked upon such growth as a ''certain sign'' of the "health of the body politic'', as a stimulator of agriculture and manufactures, and as a partial source of relief to the taxpayers (the cost of government being relatively fixed).' 'The forces unfavorable to population growth operated more powerfully in some social classes than in others. Both the marriage rate and fertility within marriage were lower in the military class than in any other group; they increased in the following order: magistrates, financiers, merchants, artisans, comfortable laborers, and uncomfortable laborers. In general, Dangeul concluded, the French social system valued least and burdened most heavily the more useful classes, and thereby checked their increase and that of the population as a whole' (Spengler, French predeccessors of Malthus, pp. 82-86). The second part of the work deals with England: advantages of its geographical isolation, its natural ressources, its government and its commerce. - Beautiful copy.