ABSTRACT
There has been a strong presumption in the literature that Sir James Steuart was familiar with the work of Richard Cantillon. In his English/French edition of the Essai sur la nature du commerce en général of 1931, Henry Higgs, by then the leading authority on Cantillon, claimed that Sir James Steuart cited Cantillon’s Essai in his Works (Higgs 1931:392). Higgs was followed in this surmise, but not in his reference,1 by Johnson (1937:337); by Sen (1957:198), who cites the same reference as Johnson; by Groenewegen (1983:51-3; 1994:28) and by Hutchison (1988:337). Vickers (1960:244, 253) is more cautious: he refers comparatively to Cantillon’s work in his chapter on Steuart but draws no inferences about indebtedness. Brewer (1992: esp. 175-6) is likewise cautious:
there is no evidence that Steuart knew Cantillon’s work (though he did refer to Philip Cantillon, whose book, The Analysis of Trade, was based on Richard Cantillon’s Essai) but sections of the Inquiry read very much as if they were based on Cantillon.2
