British economist.

Collected and studied approximately 1500 economic treatises from the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Published prolificly on subjects ranging from taxes and interest rates to sailors’ wages and foundling hospitals (1750-64). Tried to curry favor with government and sought public employment as an economic writer, evidently without success. Unusual among economists of his day in his emphasis on the importance of agriculture and in his compilation and use of statistics.