ABSTRACT
The East India Company represented a new type of trading organization, one that did little trade in home-grown staples, and as a result it had to convince established constituencies of its worth. In this petition to Parliament the East India merchants insisted that they desired ‘nothing more than to obteine their private wealth, with the publique good’. This chapter reflects ongoing debates on the nature of trade and the mechanisms that would ensure wealth and prosperity to the kingdom. A chorus of critics attacked the East India Company practice of exporting quantities of coin to buy Indian commodities. There was still a general sense that prosperity was equated with chests of money held close in the Treasury and if specie left the country this meant ruin. Others, like Thomas Mun, explained the importance of the circulation of currency and its role in increasing the flow of goods that could be re-exported for profit.
