Chamberlen hugh (3 Ergebnisse)

First edition, defending Chamberlen and Robert Murray's 1682 scheme to establish a bank of credit in the City of London. "Chamberlen deflected attention away from the potentially corruptible human element involved in the issuance of credit and instead highlighted the materiality of the security backing credit" (Wennerlind, pp. 104-5). In the early 1680s, Chamberlen and Murray "proposed a number of revenue-raising schemes to the corporation of London. The most significant of these was for a bank of credit, which accepted both subscriptions of money and deposits of goods. Arrangements were made for subscriptions from the mayor and common councilmen to establish the office, and although some members of the corporation were persuaded to subscribe to the bank, the scheme foundered" (ODNB). A fellow of the Royal Society and a medical man by training, Chamberlen served as the physician in ordinary to the king in 1673. He is equally notable as a monetary projector; after this early venture with Murray he became the chief promoter of the land-bank schemes of the 1690s. The pamphlet is revised from Chamberlen's 1665 tract A description of the Office of Credit (ESTC R20510). ESTC R25335; Goldsmiths' 2473. Carl Wennerlind, Casualties of Credit: The English Financial Revolution, 1620-1720, 2011. Small quarto (184 x 136 mm), pp. 26. Disbound. Cropped, with some loss to text, lightly browned and spotted: a good copy.…

First edition, of great rarity, with only four other copies traced, the Guildhall Library and Longleat House copies in the UK, the Université de Poitiers copy in France, and in a Sotheby's auction record of 1988. The work is a reply to the anonymous pro-Bank pamphlet Observations on the Bank of England (dated 1695, but must have been published prior to this reply), which had opposed Chamberlen's earlier writings proposing a bank of credit based on land security. Chamberlen dismisses the pamphlet as "a trivial and impertinent account of foreign banks; some bold commendations of the Bank of England, and as confident, and ignorant discommendations of my proposal of land credit". In bitter and aggressive terms, Chamberlen attacks both the author and the newly-established Bank of England, accusing the former of fraudulent claims and duplicity, and the latter of failing to achieve any benefits, and of hoarding the wealth of the nation and consequently exacerbating the shortage of specie. Chamberlen fastidiously goes through and responds to every single paragraph. More broadly, Chamberlen uses his reply to continue to promote his land bank scheme, which he had been promoting in print since 1690. "Landowners would be issued with paper money equivalent to the value of the land they held, in the assumption that, because all paper money corresponded to a piece of land, it would be secure. His plans were mathematically flawed, as he thought that lending could occur on the basis of one hundred times the annual rent of the land, and he was not able to appreciate the inflationary effects. When the alternative measure, the Bank of England, was set up in 1694, other land bank campaigners - such as his friend and adviser John Briscoe - modified their schemes, but Chamberlen remained interested in a pure land bank. By 1699 he had gone into exile, possibly because of debt, settling first in Scotland, where he continued to issue pamphlets offering variations on a land bank and developed a plan to unify England and Scotland, and then in 1705 moving to the Netherlands, where he died after 1720" (ODNB). ESTC R173656; Wing C1886A. Small quarto (203 x 155 mm), pp. 16. Disbound pamphlet, earlier sew-holes in margin, later stitching. Light fox mark to first few leaves, final leaf faintly soiled, a little closely cropped at head, tiny wormholes. Still a very good, well-preserved copy.…

One of two editions, this a quarto of eight pages, the other a folio of 20 pages, without established priority. Part of the series of publications in which Chamberlen promoted his land bank scheme, which he first proposed in 1690. England had by this stage rejected his proposals, and so he turned to Scotland, which would also reject them, as too would Ireland in the following years. ODNB summarizes his plan thus: "Landowners would be issued with paper money equivalent to the value of the land they held, in the assumption that, because all paper money corresponded to a piece of land, it would be secure. His plans were mathematically flawed, as he thought that lending could occur on the basis of one hundred times the annual rent of the land, and he was not able to appreciate the inflationary effects. When the alternative measure, the Bank of England, was set up in 1694, other land bank campaigners - such as his friend and adviser John Briscoe - modified their schemes, but Chamberlen remained interested in a pure land bank. By 1699 he had gone into exile, possibly because of debt, settling first in Scotland, where he continued to issue pamphlets offering variations on a land bank and developed a plan to unify England and Scotland, and then in 1705 moving to the Netherlands, where he died after 1720" (ODNB). Very scarce - ESTC locates copies of this edition in only seven institutions (with eight institutions recorded with the folio edition), and the last record at auction for either of the editions was in 1963. ESTC R215105; Wing C1877A. Small quarto (222 x 191 mm). Disbound pamphlet. Closely cropped with some loss to text at foot, some creasing and soiling, tiny chip to final leaf marginally affecting text. A good copy.…