[Massie, Joseph (d.1784), attributed to]

in which the author discusses many aspects of commerce and finance, giving particular consideration to taxation, its effects "on the general economy", on "the price of living", how taxes on different commodities tend to be bourne by producers or consumers, price theory, the role of money and the rate of interest; the manuscript written in a single hand in brown ink, comprising 187 numbered paragraphs (or "aphorisms"), divided into twenty-six headed sections, dealing with taxes, wealth, commodities, pledges, trade, borrowing, lending, labour, export, monopolies, prohibition, value of land and others, many paragraphs bearing references to Massie's sources added in the same hand, including 33 to Wilkinson, 13 to John Locke and one each Sir Josiah Child, Sir William Temple and Charles Davenant, 68 numbered pages, 4to (c.22 x 16.5cms),1750s or 1760s



[bound with:] 13 printed French tax almanacs ("Recueil des nouveaux tarifs des Droicts" and "Tarif pour des droicts de subvention" (12 volumes), Paris: Rocolet, 1641-1642; together with "Tariffa d'ingresso...alla regolazione del commercio e cinque savi alla mercanzia", 117 pages, Venice: sons of Pinelli, 1751,



3 volumes in one, late eighteenth-century French calf-backed mottled boards, gilt-lettered label to spine ("melange oeconom. etrang."), pages 21-24 misbound, closely trimmed, affecting some paginations

Abbé André Morellet (economist, 1727-1819), with his bookplate and autograph inscription to flyleaf ("de la Bibliothèque de l'abbé Morellet")

A. Murphy, 'The Elements of Commerce Delineated in Aphorisms', An analysis of a newly discovered manuscript written by Joseph Massie', in European Journal of Economic Thought, volume 14, no.1 (January 2007), 1-24.

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This recently discovered manuscript has been identified as a work by John Massie (d.1784), and fulfills Massie's declared intention to write a work dealing with the "elements of commerce".  The text also contains many similarities to Massie's published works, the Essay on the Governing Causes of the Natural Rate of Interest (1750), and his A Representation Concerning the Knowledge of Commerce as a National Concern (1760).  The work is notable for several advanced concepts, not generally considered in the eighteenth-century, including the effects of tax on the economy as a whole and the budgets of consumers in particular.