Marquer, Éric <br/><br/>
Controversies About the Nature of Commerce Amongst Pioneer English Mercantilists 

 -  2003.<br/>							 
<br/><br/> 91 
<br/><br/> The analysis of the treatises of commerce published during the first seventeenth century shows the theoretical and practical importance of the discourses about trade in a crucial moment of economic history. When the development of international trade increases their power, merchants, who want to legitimate their activity, consider commercial practices from a social and political point of view, with philosophical and moral arguments. Nevertheless, these treatises don’t show the interest of a homogeneous class, but the divergent interests of their authors.