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more eafy; the Editor will be extremely obliged to any gentleman, particularly those who are engaged in the business of teaching, for fuch hints or obfervations as may tend towards the improvement, and will spare neither expense nor trouble in making the best use of their information.

PREFACE

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ROLT'S DICTIONARY*.

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O expectation is more fallacious than that which authors form of the reception which their labours will find among mankind. Scarcely any man publishes a book, whatever it be, without believing that he has caught the moment when the publick attention is vacant to his call, and the world is dif pofed in a particular manner to learn the art which he undertakes to teach.

The writers of this volume are not fo far exempt from epidemical prejudices, but that they likewife please themselves with imagining, that they have referved their labours to a propitious conjuncture, and that this is the proper time for the publication of a Dictionary of Commerce.

The predictions of an author are very far from infallibility; but in juftification of fome degree of confidence it may be properly obferved, that there was never from the earliest ages a time in which trade so much engaged the attention of mankind, or commercial gain was fought with fuch general emulation. Nations which have hitherto cultivated no art but that of war, nor conceived any means of increasing riches but by plunder, are awakened to

A new Dictionary of Trade and Commerce, compiled from the Information of the most eminent Merchants, and from the Works of the best Writers on commercial Subjects in all Languages, by Mr. Rek. Folio, 1757

more

more inoffenfive induftry. Those whom the poffeffion of fubterraneous treasures, have long difpofed to accommodate themfelves by foreign industry, are at last convinced that idlenefs never will be rich. The mer

chant is now invited to every port, manufactures are established in all cities, and princes who juft can view the fea from fome fingle corner of their dominions, are enlarging harbours, erecting mercantile companies, and preparing to traffick in the remoteft countries.

Nor is the form of this work lefs popular than the fubject. It has lately been the practice of the learned. to range knowledge by the alphabet, and publifh dictionaries of every kind of literature. This practice has perhaps been carried too far by the force of fashion. Sciences, in themfelves fyftematical and coherent, are not very properly broken into fuch fortuitous diftributions. A dictionary of arithmetick or geometry can ferve only to confound: but commerce, confidered in its whole extent, feems to refufe any other method of arrangement, as it comprifes innumerable particulars unconnected with each other, among which there is no reason why any fhould be firft or laft, better than is furnished by the letters that compose their names.

We cannot indeed boaft ourselves the inventors of a fcheme fo commodious and comprehenfive. The French, among innumerable projects for the promotion of traffick, have taken care to fupply their merchants with a Dictionnaire de Commerce, collected with geat induftry and exactness, but too large for common use, and adapted to their own trade. This book, as well as others, has been carefully confulted, that VOL. II.

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our

our merchants may not be ignorant of any thing known by their enemies or rivals.

Such indeed is the extent of our undertaking, that it was neceffary to folicit every information, to confult the living and the dead. The great qualification of him that attempts a work thus general, is diligence of enquiry. No man has opportunity or ability to acquaint himself with all the fubjects of a commercial dictionary, so as to describe from his own knowledge, or affert on his own experience. He must therefore often depend upon the veracity of others, as every man depends in common life, and have no other fkill to boaft than that of felecting judicioufly, and arranging properly.

But to him who confiders the extent of our fubject, limited only by the bounds of nature and of art, the tafk of felection and method will appear fufficient to overburden industry and diftract attention. Many branches of commerce are fub-divided into fmaller and finaller parts, till at laft they become fo minute as not eafily to be noted by obfervation. Many interefts are fo woven among each other as not to be difentangled without long enquiry; many arts are industrioufly kept fecret, and many practices neceffary to be known, are carried on in parts too remote for intelligence.

But the knowledge of trade is of fo much importance to a maritime nation, that no labour can be thought great by which information may be obtained; and therefore we hope the reader will not have reason to complain, that, of what he might juftly expect to find, any thing is omitted.

To give a detail or analysis of our work is very

difficult;

difficult; a volume intended to contain whatever is requifite to be known by every trader,, neceffarily becomes fo mifcellaneous and unconnected as not to be easily reducible to heads; yet, finçe we pretend in fome measure to treat of traffick as a fcience, and to make that regular and fyftematical which has hitherto been to a great degree fortuitous and conjectural, and has often fucceeded by chance rather than by conduct, it will be proper to fhew that a diftribution of parts has been attempted, which, though rude and inadequate, will at leaft preferve fome order, and enable the mind to take a methodical and fucceffive view of this defign.

In the dictionary which we here offer to the publick, we propofe to exhibit the materials, the places, and the means of traffick.

The materials or fubjects of traffick are whatever is bought and fold, and include therefore every manufac ture of art, and almoft every production of nature.

In giving an account of the commodities of nature, whether thofe which are to be used in their original ftate, as drugs and fpices, or thofe which become ufeful when they receive a new form from human art, as flux, cotton, and metals, we shall fhew the places of their production, the manner in which they grow, the art of cultivating or collecting them, their difcrimina tions and varieties, by which the best forts are known from the worse, and genuine from fictitious, the arts by which they are counterfeited, the cafualties by which they are impaired, and the practices by which the damage is palliated or concealed. We fhall likewife fhew their virtues and ufes, and trace them through all the changes which they undergo. S 2

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