Name Malachy Postlethwayt | ||
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Died September 13, 1767, London, United Kingdom Books Britain's commercial interest explained and improved, Great Britain's true system, Selected Works |
Malachy Postlethwayt (1707? – 1767) was a British commercial expert famous for his publication of the commercial dictionary titled The Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce in 1757. The dictionary was a translation and adaptation of the Dictionnaire universel du commerce of the French Inspector General of the Manufactures for the King, Jacques Savary des Brûlons.
Contents
Postlethwayt wrote several works on the benefits to the British economy from the African slave trade to the colonies in North America.
Life
Born about 1707, Postlethwayt was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London on 21 March 1734. From some time in the 1730s he worked for the Royal Africa Company, and wrote in its defence.
Postlethwayt died suddenly on 13 September 1767. He was buried in the Old Street churchyard, in Clerkenwell, London.
Works
Postlethwayt spent 20 years preparing The Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce, London, 1751 (3rd edit. London, 1766; 4th edit. London, 1774), a translation, with large additions, from the French work of Jacques Savary des Bruslons. Postlethwayt collected information, freely plagiarising other writers, but presented his results haphazardly.
Postlethwayt also published:
Eric Williams cited the work of Postlethwayt on the slave trade in his Capitalism and Slavery (1944).