ered as the earliest expositor of what has been called the mercantile system of Commercial policy" ; Hallam (Literature of Europe, 3rd ed., 1847) remarks that "Mun is generally reckoned the founder of…the mercantile system" ; and Richard Jones (Primitive Political Economy of England in Quarterly Review, 1847, and in Literary Remains, 1859) declares that his "book was received as the gospel of finance and commercial policy."
The copy of the first edition, from which the present has been exactly reprinted, was presented to Harvard University in 1765, after the destruction of the old Library by fire, by the Rev. John Barnard of Marblehead. It is interesting to see from his Autobiography (printed in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 3rd series, vol. v, 1836), how completely the donor agreed with the fundamental idea of Mun's work. Recalling with pride the impetus he had himself given to business enterprise in Marblehead, he observes, "When I came," in 1714, "they had their houses built by country workmen, and their clothes made out of town, and supplied themselves with beef and pork from Boston, which drained the town of its money."
Some missing leaves have been supplied from the copy in the library of Professor Seligman of Columbia College. Upon one of the blank pages at the end is the following curious memorandum :
| July 10th 1664. | |
| Borrowed of Sr Winston Churchill ye | l - s -d |
| day and yeare above written ye sum | |
| of six pounds to be repaid upon | 6. 0. 0 |
| demand | |
| John Churchill | |
