A University of Sussex PhD thesis Available online via Sussex Research Online: http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/ This thesis is protected by copyright which belongs to the author. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Please visit Sussex Research Online for more information and further details ‘Providence and Political Economy’: Josiah Tucker’s Providential Argument for Free Trade Peter Xavier Price PhD Thesis in Intellectual History University of Sussex April 2016 2 University of Sussex Peter Xavier Price Submitted for the award of a PhD in Intellectual History ‘Providence and Political Economy’: Josiah Tucker’s Providential Argument for Free Trade Thesis Summary Josiah Tucker, who was the Anglican Dean of Gloucester from 1758 until his death in 1799, is best known as a political pamphleteer, controversialist and political economist. Regularly called upon by Britain’s leading statesmen, and most significantly the Younger Pitt, to advise them on the best course of British economic development, in a large variety of writings he speculated on the consequences of North American independence for the global economy and for international relations; upon the complicated relations between small and large states; and on the related issue of whether low wage costs in poor countries might always erode the competitive advantage of richer nations, thereby establishing perpetual cycles of rise and decline. As a vehement critic of war in all its forms, Tucker was a staunch opponent of Britain’s mercantile system – a pejorative term connoting, amongst other things, the aggressive control of global trade for the benefit of the mother country so as to encourage imperial expansion throughout known parts of the world. Though recognising Tucker to be a pioneer of the anti-mercantilist free trade school, extant Tucker scholarship has tended to concentrate on the perceived similarities and dissimilarities between he and the classical economists, particularly Adam Smith. Yet whilst acknowledging the veracity of these various connections and claims, this thesis approaches Tucker from an alternative perspective. Placing Tucker in his proper historical context, the main purpose of this study is to explore the intellectual, political and theo-philosophical background to Tucker’s economic thought. Its most original and profound contribution consisting in a detailed and critical analysis of Tucker’s links with his ecclesiastical mentor Bishop Joseph Butler, its central concern is to argue the case for Butler’s crucial influence over Tucker’s free trade ideas – particularly in the guise of the neo-Stoic, Anglican providentialism that buttressed much of Butler’s own theories in the field of meta-ethics and moral philosophy. 3 To the memory of my Father, Peter Michael Price, and Grandmother, Mary Florence Price. 4 Acknowledgements. This thesis has been many years in the making. Consequently, I have accrued many debts along the way. First and foremost, my sincere thanks go to my primary supervisor Richard Whatmore, who originally put to me the importance of Tucker, whose expertise and enthusiasm I have drawn lavishly from and been inspired by; and whose mastery in the art of ‘slackening or tightening the rope’ has afforded me both the freedom and direction that is required for intellectual nourishment and growth. My second thanks goes, fittingly, to my secondary – albeit unofficial – supervisor Donald Winch, who has offered a number of valuable insights and clarifications at different stages of the research, and whose support and confidence along the way has proved galvanising, convincing me of the worth of my task. In the latter stages of this thesis, I am also particularly grateful to Iain McDaniel, whose detailed feedback and unfailingly kind advice enabled me to tighten certain aspects of the work that might otherwise have been overlooked, thereby deepening my findings and pushing me over the finishing line. I have benefitted greatly, too, from the stimulating intellectual environment that is the University of Sussex, and in particular all those participants and affiliates of the Sussex Centre for Intellectual History who have influenced and inspired me at different times and in many different ways, though they are likely unaware of it. This being said, I should like extend my sincere thanks to Knud Haakonssen, Cesare Cuttica, Rob Iliffe, Deborah Madden, Andy Mansfield, Sophie Bissett, Kris Grint, Darrow Schecter, Rose Holmes, Claudia Siebrecht, Claire Langhamer, Hester Barrow, Molly Butterworth, Fiona Allen, Christopher Warne; and lastly to all my First and Second Year students, particularly Lilian Rice, who reminded me of both the importance and fruitfulness of youthful curiosity. The research conducted in preparation for this thesis could not have been carried out without the financial support of a number of institutions. I am firstly grateful to the University of Sussex for the Sussex Founders’ Scholarship Award, which provided the necessary platform to begin with the earliest stages of research; and which, moreover, allowed me to catalogue the late John W. Burrow Papers at the University of Sussex 5 Library, Special Collections (now The Keep, Brighton). In doing so, Burrow has certainly inspired me from beyond the grave. However, I should also like to thank those colleagues who supported, trained, or were simply present with me whilst on this placement, particularly Fiona Courage, Rose Lock, Adam Harwood, Jessica Scantlebury, Jo Baines, Alexa Neale and Anthony McCoubrey. Special thanks must also go to the Arts and Humanities Research Council for providing the bulk of funding in support of this study. In addition, I am particularly grateful to the ARHC for granted a period of ‘secondment’ for six months as a Resident Scholar at the Library of Congress, Washington D. C. This was an experience that broadened the intellectual parameters of this thesis; and for my warm and memorable time spent there, it is only right that I thank the staff at the John W. Kluge Center, especially Mary-Lou Reker, Travis Hensley and Jason Steinhauer, alongside my fellow Research Fellows who are too numerous to list. On this score, however, profound thanks go to Oksana Marafioti, who shared this unique experience with me in ways that remain simply inexpressible. From this meeting, I was also able to write a significant portion of the thesis at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and I am therefore extremely grateful to her and the staff that harboured me there. Other aspects of this thesis were also made possible through comparably modest, though nonetheless highly significant, sources of funding, and I would like to thank in particular the Royal Historical Society and The Royal Economic Society for their generous financial support. Last but not least, I thank my closest friends David Fendt and Luke Edwards, for pointing out in many amusing ways the ironies of life as I wrote this work. And above all, of course, I thank my family – especially Ludovica, Jeanne, Peter Leonard, Peter Smith, Jennifer, Harrison, Anne, Stephen, Mei-Mei, Iris, KC and Raymond. But for their support and unconditional love, I would have been left floundering long ago. This being said, my greatest debt and gratitude goes to my steadfast and loving mother. The fact that I end with her indicates that she is both the root and the pinnacle of all that I achieve, and hope to achieve in future. 6 Table of Contents. List of Abbreviations. 8 Introduction. 12 I. Note on Method. 16 Part I. The Theo-Philosophical Background. 21 Chap. One: ‘Providence and Political Economy’. 22 I. Introduction: Divine Providence. 23 II. Political Economy. 26 III. The Conjunction Between Providence and Political Economy: Epicureanism, Stoicism and Augustinianism. 30 IV. Competing Visions of Providence. 36 V. The Relationship between Christian Stoicism and Protestant Natural Law. 39 VI. Concluding Remarks: Butler and Tucker’s Relevance to Modern Scholarship. 47 Chap. Two: Christian Virtue, Commercial Society, and Eighteenth- Century Anglicanism. 53 I. Introduction: The Eighteenth-Century Anglican Church. 56 II. The Thirty-Nine Articles and the Book of Common Prayer. 60 III. ‘The Point of Departure’: The Anglican Response to Commercial Modernity. 64 IV. Private Vices, Public Benefits: The Mandevillean Critique. 69 V. William Law’s Rejoinder. 75 VI. Concluding Remarks: Christian Virtue or Commercial Society? 78 Part II. The ‘Butler-Tucker Axis’. 82 Chap. Three: Sociability and Self-Love in Butler’s Fifteen Sermons. 83 I. Introduction: Butler’s Early Life, and the Tewkesbury-Leiden Connection. 84 II. The Butler-Clarke Exchange: Permeable Lines Between Establishment and Dissent. 90 III. ‘Conscience’ and ‘Reflection’ in Fifteen Sermons. 98 IV. The Pastoral Function of Fifteen Sermons. 103 V. Towards a Conception of Society: Butler on Anger, Empathy and Friendship. 108 VI. Concluding Remarks: The ‘Cements of Society’. 114 7 Chap. Four: In Defence of Orthodoxy: The Analogy of Religion and the Methodist Controversy. 118 I. Introduction: Tucker’s Early Life and Meeting With Butler. 125 II. The Analogy of Religion I. Probability and Provability. 129 III. The Analogy of Religion II. Faith and Doubt. 134 IV. The Methodist Controversy I. Tucker, Whitefield, and the ‘Marks of the New Birth’. 140 V. The Methodist Controversy II. Butler, Wesley, and the ‘Virtuous Temper of Mind’. 147 VI. The Methodist Controversy III. The Principles of Methodism. 154 VII. Laodicean Rationalism. 161 VIII. A Brief and Dispassionate View of the Trinitarian, Arian and Socinian Systems. 167 IX. Concluding Remarks: The ‘Butler-Tucker Axis’. 172 Part III. Tuckerian Political Economy. 175 Chap. Five: The Economic Tracts. 176 I. Introduction: Appetites, Affections and Rational Agency. 178 II.