By Amy Weng
This book, printed in 1697, features two separate texts bound and sold together: A discourse of trade, coyn, and paper credit, and of ways and means to gain, and retain riches by the merchant and political economist John Pollexfen, and The argument of a learned counsel upon an action of a case brought by the East-India-Company against Mr. Sands the interloper by the lawyer and politician Sir Henry Pollexfen. It was sold at the Royal Exchange, England’s center of commerce.
There is no information on when the two texts were initially written by their respective authors. However, the bookseller Brabazon Aylmer’s foreword reveals that John Pollexfen’s manuscript came privately into his hands without any attestation from the author. Fearing of “giving offence,” Aylmer had hesitated about selling the book until “some Persons of great Judgment” convinced him that the text was both “very Innocent” and “very deserving to be Publisht for Common good.” He may have feared backlash from individuals implicated in monopolistic trade. However, Aylmer decided that exposing the inner workings of trade would be conducive for the prosperity of the nation, since “the welfare of the Nation doth so much depend upon the retaining and Increasing of the Coyn we have, and using such ways and means as may be proper for that end. It being the first Step to a Remedy to find out the Nature, Quallity and Root of the Disease.” From this statement, Aylmer may have given merit to the idea that the nation was suffering from detrimental trade practices.
In Discourse of trade, coyn, and paper credit, J. Pollexfen provides a comprehensive overview of the major trading routes, currencies and exchange rates, commodities, international relations, and commercial laws of England. Pollexfen argues that EIC’s monopoly was unreasonable (122) because all trade restrictions undermined the “Publick Good” (141).
That the East-India Trade imploys many Ships, and some very good, but that it is rather a Consumption than Nursery of Seamen… sometimes burying half of them: That the long possession this Company have had of this Trade for near Forty Years, makes against them, it being not reasonable any set of Men should keep so great a part of the Trade of the Nation in succession to perpetuity, exclusive to others, who have as much right to it as they. (122)
Corporations in Trade with Joint-Stocks should appear to be in their own Nature to all intents and purposes Monopolies, mischievous to Trade. (123)
In particular, Pollexfen’s juxtaposition of “consumption” to “nursery” in the first quote implies the economic usage of human resources and the medical sense of waste. Consumption originated as a name for wasting diseases like pulmonary tuberculosis, of the body literally wasting away, but there was a linguistic shift to applying the term on economic actions by a “body politic” in the 17th century. See the Body Politic page for more details. On the other hand, a nursery was a place of young life, nurture, and care—a polar opposite to the life-depriving force of consumption. The sailors who embark on the long journey to the East Indies risk their lives and livelihoods for low reward, either by being devoured by the ocean itself or deprived of opportunities due to the restrictive monopoly.
Trade is to the Body Politick as Blood to the Body Natural, if have it’s Circulation apt to relieve the Wounded, or most needy Part, (the meanest) but if obstructed, or otherways disordered in Motion, may probably weaken one part, and over nourish others. (107)
some Trades will prove to the Body Politick, as a Canker or Consumption to the Body Natural. (150)
No Trades can be more secure, to be for the Interest of this Nation, then what are carried on by the Exportation of our Products and Manufactories, or by such Goods as come here from our Plantations, because of the Advantages we have by the Exportation, in the Consumption of our Product, and Imployment of the Poor…As Trades carried on by the Exportation of our Products or Fish cannot be pernicious, so Trades carried on by the Exportation of Bullion, are dangerous. (5)
If a stop be put to the Consumption here of Goods Manufactured in the East-Indies, then the Woollen Goods that Company are now obliged to send out, with a much less Sum of Bullion then hitherto, may be sufficient to purchase the Goods brought home to be Transported, which may prevent the Exportation of much Bullion Annually. (128)
In the same vein, Pollexfen states that while trade is essential for the nation’s health, some trades are inherently injurious: those that export domestic English products and fish are advantageous whereas those that import foreign goods from distant lands are bad exchanges. He concludes his work with a polemic against luxury and excess. He thought that companies like the EIC were cankers (ulcerous sores) because the exportation of bullion, or gold and silver coins, would squander the nation of its treasure and destroy its labor force. This notion is not new but rather echoes the judgments of the economic writers earlier in the century. In fact, he even states that cutting off East-Indian goods would increase England’s wool exportation and decrease its bullion outflow. These maladies were then further worsened by the moral debauchery of importing luxury goods like raw silk from the east. A major theme of this book is to argue against trade deficits, labor outsourcing, and consumption of foreign goods to the detriment of domestic industries, topics which are still very much debated today.
In the other text, initially printed in 1696 and then bound at the back to Discourse of trade, coyn, and paper credit, Sir Henry Pollexfen discusses the 1684 lawsuit of East India Company vs. Sandys, in which the judge had ruled in favor of the EIC to find private merchants, or “interlopers,” like Captain Thomas Sandys who tried to participate in the East Indian trade. See our East India Company page for more on this lawsuit. In J. Pollexfen’s section on the EIC, he expressly requested that his brother’s text be appended to the end of his own as a way to refer readers to a structured argument against monopolies:
The Reasons upon which the Lord Chief-Justice Jefferies grounded his Judgment, in the Case between the East-India-Company and Sands, as to the validity of their Charter having been Printed and Published; it is thought convenient to make Publick at the end of this Treatise, the Argument of one of the Learned Council that Argued in the behalf of Sands upon that occasion. (144)
In his argument, H. Pollexfen named three evils of monopoly, or sole trade:
First, That the Price of the Commodity they sell, shall be kept and risen higher than otherwise it would be. (20-21)
Secondly, A second Mischief or Evil is, that Monopolies or sole Trade is pro privato paululorum quaestu[1]. (21)
Thirdly, Another Evil or Mischief of Monopolies or sole Trade, is the Impoverishment and Oppression of the King’s Subjects. (21)
The Evils and Mischiefs attending your Patent and sole Trade, are perhaps the greatest, because your sole Trade is the greatest that ever England knew. (23)
Beyond giving an argument for why the charter for the EIC’s monopoly was against the common law and a cause for the impoverishment of people, H. Pollexfen describes the notion that the company is an “invisible Body…a Body Politick, without Soul or Conscience” (43), which is another example of the anthropomorphizing of social entities and the expansion of the scope of a “body politic” beyond the church or state.
[1] For very little private gain
