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A DICTIONARY,

PRACTICAL, THEORETICAL, AND HISTORICAL,

OF

COMMERCE AND COMMERCIAL NAVIGATION.

BY J. R. M'CULLOCH, Esq.

EDITED BY HENRY VETHAKE, LL. D.

ONE OF THE PROFESSORS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA; MEMBER OF THE AMERICAN
PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY; AUTHOR OF A TREATISE ON POLITICAL ECONOMY, ETC.

WITH AN APPENDIX, CONTAINING

THE NEW TARIFF OF 1846,

TOGETHER WITH

THE TARIFF OF 1842,

REDUCED TO AD VALOREM RATES AS FAR AS PRACTICABLE.

ALSO

THE SUB-TREASURY, WAREHOUSING, AND THE CANADIAN
TRANSIT BILLS, OF 1846.

LIKEWISE,

THE NEW BRITISH TARIFF,

AS AMENDED BY THE PASSAGE OF THE NEW CORN LAW AND SUGAR DUTIES.

WITH

A TABLE OF ALL FOREIGN GOLD AND SILVER COIN,
REDUCED TO FEDERAL CURRENCY, &c. &c. &c.

IN TWO VOLUMES.-VOL. I.

PHILADELPHIA:

A. HART, LATE CAREY AND HART,

126 CHESTNUT STREET.

1852.

HF1001
.M2

"Though immediately and primarily written for the merchants, this Commercial Dictionary will be of use to every man of business or of curiosity. There is no man who is not in some degree a merchant; who has not something to buy and something to sell, and who does not therefore want such instructions as may teach him the true value of possessions or commodities. The descriptions of the productions of the earth and water which this volume contains, may be equally pleasing and useful to the speculatist with any other Natural History. The descriptions of ports and cities may instruct the geographer as well as if they were found in books appropriated only to his own science; and the doctrines of funds, insurances, currency, monopolies, exchanges, and duties, is so necessary to the politician, that without it he can be of no use either in the council or the senate, nor can speak or think justly either on war or trade.

"We, therefore, hope that we shall not repent the labour of compiling this work, nor flatter our#cives unreasonably, in predicting a favourable reception to a book which no condition of life can render useless, which may contribute to the advantage of all that make or receive laws, of all that buy or sell, of all that wish to keep or improve their possessions, of all that desire to be rich, and all that desire to be wise."

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JOHNSON, Preface to Rolt's Dict.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1839, by

THOMAS WARDLE,

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Printed by T. K. & P. G. Collins.

PREFACE

OF

THE AMERICAN EDITOR.

IN offering to the public an American edition of Mr. McCulloch's valuable Commercial Dictionary, it is unnecessary to add any thing, concerning the object and plan of the work, to what will be found in the subjoined extracts from the author's prefaces to the several editions of it which have appeared in England.

With respect to the labours of the present editor, he has for the most part confined himself to matters relating to his own country, or of especial interest to its citizens. Considerable information of this nature will be found appended to the articles Aliens, Banking, Coal, Coins, Cotton, Importation and Exportation, Imports and Exports, Iron, Roads, Silk, and Tariff, as well as others. A few articles have been inserted on subjects not treated by the author; such as Admiralty Courts, Liverpool, London, &c.

There is, generally speaking, an extreme difficulty in the United States of procuring statistical information, which may be depended upon for its accuracy. Besides the reports, from time to time made to Congress, by the Secretary of the Treasury, and by committees of that body, the principal sources that have been consulted for the purpose are the commercial newspapers published in some of our large cities, particularly the Philadelphia Commercial List,-Mr. Raguet's "Financial Register, and the "United States Commercial and Statistical Register," edited by Samuel Hazard. The former of the two works just mentioned contains a greater mass of facts, mingled with much valuable disquisition, respecting the subjects to which it is devoted, than is to be found elsewhere. Mr. Hazard's work has just reached the close of its first volume. It is published in weekly numbers, abounds in useful information, and is deserving of extensive patronage.

It is proper to mention that this American has been reprinted from the last English edition. The supplement to this, however, not having been received in time, a page or two was unavoidably omitted to be incorporated with the rest of it in the body of the work, but will be found in a supplement at the end of the second volume. In the same supplement, too, the reader will find further additions by the American editor; some of which, relating to the United States, (the article Fish, for example,) could not be prepared for an earlier insertion; and others, again, consist of the statistics of the commerce of certain foreign ports, brought down to a later date than is given by the author.

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