Merchants [ Commerce ]
… 5 Merchants were active participants in what historians have called ‘polite and commercial society’. 6 In The Present State of Great Britain (1716), it was declared that: ‘next to the purity of religion we are the most considerable of any … and extensiveness of our trade’. 7 Contemporaries saw commerce as the foundation of British greatness, driving the state’s power and wealth. This culture of commerce crossed party divisions and social boundaries, and became an essential … 1727-1783 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992). 7 . John Chamberlayne, Magnae Britanniae Notitia: Or, the Present State of Great Britain (London: Timothy Goodwin, Matthew Wotton, Benjamin Tooke, Daniel Midwinter, and Jacob Tonson, …
Commerce | Merchants | Middling sort | North America | Politeness
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