A Catalogue of Books on English Trade 1700-1750. Quaritch Catalogue No. 888 1968

London: Bernard Quaritch. Very Good. 1968. First Edition; First Edition. Original Wrappers. 140 pages. With illustrations. Occasional slight foxing. Spine, covers & corners slightly worn & slightly yellowed with age. ; Book; Octavo (standard book size); The following catalogue consists almost entirely of the bottom of a remarkable West Country barrel - the library of the Somerset Carew+s. It was probably the finest Parliamentary library ever formed, but the bulk of it was sold, in 1903, at a time when political history was little considered. For instance the sole verbatim account of Bacon+s impeachment, printed for the Camden Society in 1870, was sold for a few shillings, and another Camden Society publication, of Sir John Borough+s notes on the Treaty of Ripon (the only close account we have) made even less. Volumes of similar papers were sold for between 2s. And ú5 and seem to have excited so little interest that the representative of this firm did not even bother to record many of the prices. Eighty-two volumes of 17th century tracts including many Americana fetched a total of ú138 9s. 6d. , and 18th century tracts were clearly not considered worth selling. These stayed in the library until largely destroyed by a recent fire. What remained after this was the contents of an alcove in the stable block (which included most of the bound volumes in this collection) and an old box of stitched pamphlets. The last were presumably those pamphlets that the recipient did not consider worth having bound, and were merely part of the propaganda to which an influential country gentleman was subjected. Most of the manuscripts seem to have been collected by Thomas Carew (1702-1766) , M. P. For Minehead from 1739 to 1747, but the unbound pamphlets, being on the whole earlier in date, were probably received by his father, also called Thomas. In addition a number of volumes bear the signature of George Carew, the younger brother of the M. P. And apparently a lawyer. The Carew+s were Tory squires, and most of the economic pamphlets and broad-sheets in this catalogue would have found a ready audience among the disgruntled and often debt-ridden country gentry of which they were typical. The other side of the coin to their discontent was their eager indulgence in all forms of projects and money-making schemes - particularly after the Harleian takeover of 1710-11 and the end of the war. Most of the +Cases+, being ephemeral and privately printed, are extremely rare, as may be seen from the holdings of the few that have strayed into Wing. This catalogue is divided into four parts, the first of purely economic works printed between 1700 and 1750, arranged according to subject, the second of books on trade printed in the preceding half century, the third of manuscripts, and the fourth of pamphlets on the social and political background from 1700 to 1750 ; these last three sections are arranged alphabetically by authors. .