The Trade Crisis of the Early 1620's and English Economic Thought

Abstract

The export crisis of the early 1620's, the causes of which formed the subject of an earlier paper, was without doubt one of the most widely discussed topics of the day. It figured largely in the Parliamentary debates of 1621 and 1624; it gave rise to much official inquiry and unofficial documentary discussion; and it produced a number of books which, though published as frank livres de circonstance, have come down to us as representative of the economic views of the period in general. A careful reconsideration of these works in the light of the immediate circumstances that prompted diem would help t o explain die peculiarity of some of the arguments put forward, and would be a valuable essay on die origins of Mercantilist concepts. The aim of the present paper is to select two particular topics which illustrate how close the connection was between die discussion of immediate issues and what passes for more abstract Mercantilist “theory.”