Abstract

The aim of this essay is to survey the logic behind the Tory ministerial decision to bring a quick end to the hostilities with France in the early 1710s by looking at a tri-weekly journal called The Mercator (1713–14). Founded by Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke, then Secretary of State, and his economic advisor Charles Davenant, with a view to justifying their grandiose plan to liberalise the Anglo-French trade relationship as part of a new European order initiated by the Peace of Utrecht, this periodical shows us how the so-called neo-Roman synthesis of libertas and imperium was exploited by the Tory administration not only to defend its isolationist outlook, but more interestingly, to reprove the pro-Dutch policy of the previous Whig government. ☆ I am grateful to both the Acton Institute for the Study of Liberty and Religion and the Institute of the Humane Studies for their generous financial assistances in preparing this paper.