ABSTRACT
In 1771 Sir James Steuart was invited to advise the East India Company on the reform of money in Bengal.2 A year later in response to this invitation he published a 35,000 word report, The Principles of Money Applied to the Present State of the Coin of Bengal, and described this as ‘An INQUIRY into the Methods to be used for correcting the Defects of the present Currency; for stopping the Drains which carry off the Coin; and for extending the Circulation by the Means of Paper Credit’ (Steuart [1772] 1805:5 1).
