The Authorship of Sir Dudley North's Discourses on Trade

Abstract

Sir Dudley North's Discourses on Trade, published in I69I, have been lauded as the first great exposition of free-trade doctrines. Economists have extolled Sir Dudley for his profound understanding and precise logic, and have acclaimed him a great, if not the greatest, predecessor of Adam Smith. The tradition which assigns him such a high place, like many other traditions of interpretation, combines with its accumulated insight into the subject a highly developed body of myth. The earliest printed study of Sir Dudley North is Roger North's biography. This work appeared in London as part of a group published in two quarto volumes: the first, The Life of the Rt. Hon. Francis North, Baron Guilford, in I742, and the second, Lives of the Hon. Sir Dudley North ... and the Hon. and Rev. Dr. )7ohn North, in I744. Its author as well as its subjects were sons of Dudley, fourth Baron North, a Cavalier country gentleman, whose small claims to historical prominence rest on a few devotional and technical pamphlets, and on the eminence of his family.' Of this distinguished family, the sons of the fourth Baron were undoubtedly the most eminent generation. The eldest son, Charles (I630-I690), is an historical nonentity. He lived a retired life, and because of the distance he maintained between himself and his biographer brother, Roger, little at all is known of him. The next brother in age was Francis