Osamu Kojima
PROFESSOR OF ACCOUNTING KWANSEI GAKUIN UNIVERSITY

ACCOUNTING TEXTBOOKS IN SEVENTEENTH CENTURY ENGLAND — Chiefly About Collins’ Work

In Accounting in England and Scotland: 1543-1800, Professor B. S. Yamey writes, “In the 1630s there was a spurt in the publication of works on accounting: Carpenter’s Excellent Instruction came in 1632; in the next year the third (and earliest known) edition of Ralph Handson’s broadside, Analysis of Merchants Accompts , was issued; and in 1635 came the first edition of Richard Dafforne’s Merchants Mirrour, . . . . They mark the high point of Dutch influence on English writing in our field; after this group of publications, direct Dutch influence becomes progressively attenuated.” (p. 167) He continues, “After Dafforne, books on accounting appeared in increasing numbers.. . . between 1641 and 1740, over 30 new authors contributed books on accounting . . . . It is difficult to trace foreign influence on the books in English published after Dafforne and his immediate successors. The principal treatises of the last quarter of the seventeenth and the whole of the eighteenth century were es-sentially home-grown, with a preponderance of the best works be-ing published in Scotland, or in England by Scottish authors.” (p. 170) He refers to Robert Colinson’s Idea Rationaria, 1683, as the first book on accounting published in Scotland. In Richard Brown’s A History of Accounting and Accountants, 1905, J. Row Fogo says that Dafforne was succeeded by John Collins and Abraham Liset, “who both gave their instructions perfectly competently, but not in a manner which calls for particular notice.” (p. 155)

John Collins’ An Introduction To Merchants Accounts was pub-lished in London in 1653. The second edition was published under the title An Introduction to Merchant-Accompts in 1674 in London. This article will examine Collins’ textbooks to consider the influence of merchants’ current trading activities upon the accounting texts of those times.
*Based upon a paper delivered at the Second World Congress of Accounting Historians.

His life career and the social and economic background to his works will be examined on the basis of the preface of the second edition of his book and of Chapter 4 of William Letwin’s The Origins of Scientific Economics, London, 1963.

John Collins was born in 1625, the son of a poor minister in Wood Eaton, a village near Oxford. He was sent to the local grammar school, but both parents died and he was placed as an apprentice to a bookseller in Oxford who failed. He spent the years from 1639 to 1642 working under John Marr, Clerk of the Kitchen to the then Prince of Wales, later Charles II. Marr was an expert on sundials, and laid out several dials in the gardens of Whitehall Palace. He instructed Collins in this science and in mathematics. Unfortunately, due to the outbreak of the Civil War, Charles I had to retrench his expenses, especially on his household; so Collins had to go elsewhere.

He spent the next seven years, his seventeenth to twenty-fourth, at sea, on an English ship, which for much of the period was engaged in the Venetian service. The Venetians were involved in a prolonged, intermittent war with the Turks, and were recruiting mercenaries, some of them English. At the beginning of the seventeenth century the Ottomans still controlled a huge empire with great military resources. By land, it was a direct threat to Venetian control of the Adriatic, for the Venetian-ruled part of Dalmatia had been reduced in the sixteenth century to a very narrow strip, and Venice had barely a toehold in Albania. By sea, the Turkish threat was not direct as long as Venice held the lonian Islands and Crete. From the Turkish point of view, Crete in Christian hands threatened communications within their empire. When the Knights of St. John captured a ship from the Turkish fleet containing members of the sultan’s harem, the sultan mobilized a powerful armada to attack Crete, where the Knights of St. John had stopped for supplies on their way home.

For geographical and military considerations and national senti-ment Venice declared war on Turkey to defend Crete. Between 1645 and 1718 the Venetians intermittently fought the Turks in Dalmatia as well as in the Aegean and lonian Seas.’ During most of the seventeenth century, only the Dutch, English, and French navies were stronger than the Venetian navy in the Mediterranean.2 The English and Dutch in particular excelled in building, sailing, and fighting their ships.3

In the seventeenth century Venice began to hire English and Dutch ships as well as soldiers.4 Collins’ English ship was engaged in Venetian service to defend Crete. In the preface “To the Reader”
in the second edition of Collins’ text, he writes: “I went

Seven Years to Sea, most of it in an English Merchant-man, become a Man of Warr in the Venetian Service against the Turks, in which having leisure, I applyed part of my Studies to Mathematics, and Merchants-Accompts, and upon my return, fell to the Practice thereof, and afterwards profest Writing, Merchants-Accompts, and some parts of the Mathematics.” He seems to have been purser of the ship, perhaps because of his mathematical talent.

Collins returned to London in 1649, the yea; in which Charles I was executed at Whitehall Palace and the establishment of the “Commonwealth and Free State” was declared. Collins set up as a teacher of writing, mathematics, and accounting. In 1653 he published An Introduction To Merchants Accounts in London.5 It was bound up with Malynes’ Consuetudo, Vel Lex and Mercatoria, and Dafforne’s The Merchants Mirrour (1651), both of which were popular texts. It was reprinted in 1664 and 1665, but in 1666 the Great Fire consumed most of the copies available for sale.

With the good reputation of his accounting text, Collins was soon offered a position as auditor in the Excise Office. At the Restoration, with the help of Sir Robert Morray, the First President of the Royal Society, he became a clerk at Court and later married Bellona, daughter of William Austin, one of the King’s master cooks. By a direction from Charles II to the Lord Treasurer, he continued to work in the Excise Office. In the meanwhile, he continued his work in mathematics. In 1667 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, and entered on a volumnious correspondence with all the leading contemporary mathematicians. But his career in the Civil Service did not flourish. In 1667 he had not advanced, and the Excise Office was dismantled as he had feared. Shortly after the Second Dutch War (1664-67), the parliamentary opposition seized an opportunity to embarrass the King by questioning the financial ad-ministration of the war. Collins was appointed chief accountant of the Commission of Accounts to investigate the matter. But he was paid less than had been promised, because he urged things too far to the King’s advantage. By 1670 the Commissioners (without Collins’ help) had prepared a report very unfavorable to the War government. Charles II gave it to Sir Philip Warwick for criticism who refered it to Collins who pointed out its defects.

In the summer of 1670 a Council for Plantations-parallel to the Council for Trade-was established, and Collins was appointed as one of two clerks. In 1671, when the Council was enlarged, he was too busy even to attend the meetings of the Royal Society. His salary was supposed to have been £ 150 a year, the highest he had yet earned. But in those years, the King’s finances were more strained than ever and he was paid little more than a tithe of it. In addition, the half-pay pension awarded him for the loss of his place in the Excise Office was terminated in that year. His wife’s pay as a laundress to the Queen was also stopped. He had to make a living by doing some accounting work on the side. In order to economize, he took his large family (Letwin mentions seven children) to his father-in-law’s house. After working in his next em-ployment, the Farthing Office, for three and one half years, he en-tered the service of the Company of the Royal Fishery, then in its infancy, and worked as accountant to the Company almost until his death in 1683.

As a fellow of the Royal Society he enjoyed the friendship of Newton and other great British mathematicians of his time. He circulated information among them of each other’s latest writings, and of old and new books published. He was proud of his corres-pondence with the learned and of being a fellow of the Royal Society. He always signed himself “John Collins, Fellow of the Royal Society, Philomath.” On the title page of his second edition, we find this signature. But his published writings on navigation, gauging, and computations of discounts and interest were mainly applications learned from his great friends. His bookkeeping texts closely follow the Italian method; so both as an economist and mathematician, he was not an original worker.

Collins’ Texts

On the title page of Collins’ An Introduction to Merchants Ac-counts, 1653, the table of contents lists “five questions” (exer-cises): 1. “An easie Question to enter Beginners, with Instructions to Post, 2. A question of a ‘Merchant, adventuring a Stock or Car-gazoon with the Purser or Sopracargo of a Ship, 3. A question of Factorage or goods received by Consignation and Returns shipt off, 4. a question of a ships fraightment, and 5. A question of double Exchanges”. These exercises chiefly treat ventures by agents, and pay little attention to instruction for beginners. His book may thus be supposed to have been written as an advanced course following Dafforne’s textbook. Below the name of the au-thor are the words: “And may serve as an Appendix to the Mer-chants Myrrour lately reprinted.” Collins’ text was published with a reprint of Dafforne’s.

In the preface to the second edition, we are given more information about the publication of the first and second editions. Stationers had urged him to alter and expand the first edition, presuming that he had been much concerned with important public accompts. He may have disappointed them for he enlarged the first edition by adding two new chapters,-A partable Accompt between three Dyers, and A Controversal Partable Accompt between three Turkey Merchants. The second edition was published in 1674, by Robert Horn, Stationer. After his death it was republished in 1697, entitled The Perfect Method of Merchants Accompts Demonstrated.

Collins gives two reasons for publishing his second edition. The first is that he might have an opportunity of showing appreciation to Sir Anthony, Earl of Shaftsbury, Lord President of His Majesties Council for Trade, and Plantations, who endeavoured to have him promoted to a clerkship in his Council and favored him with nominations for various public offices during his Lordship’s High Chancellorship. The second is that he had spent time in the study of merchants-accounts, ships-accounts, and in the computing of interest and the valuation of leases, mortgages, and annuities.

After the preface, in the “Direction To Post or Transport the Journal into the Ledger”, Collins describes the posting of entries from the journal to the ledger, the form of ledger account, and the method of entering the ledger. But he does not discuss the funda-mentals of double-entry bookkeeping for the guidance of beginners. After this introductory material, Collins comes to the first of the questions: “A Wast question to enter Beginners”.6 Here the waste book, the journal and the ledger are illustrated.
Illustrative Problems (“Questons”)

The transactions illustrated are from the Mediterranean trade of C. Dethick, a merchant of London. He adventured on a trading voyage with A. Bateman, his kinsman, who was supercargo of the Ship Jonas, and who had orders to sell the original cargo and to purchase new goods with the returns. He was to be allowed a certain percentage of all the goods bought or sold. The Ship Jonas carried

230 pigs of lead for Yarmouth, where the supercargo drew on his master in London and bought 312 barrels of herrings. At Allcante he sold 160 pigs of lead, 216 barrels of herrings and bought 420 searns of barilla (the raw material for soap). At Venice 96 barrels of herrings, the remaining 70 pigs of lead and the whole quantity of barilla were sold, and a part of the proceeds lent out to Jewish merchants who loaded corn at Ancona and were bound for Genoa. The supercargo purchased 16 searns of White Soap at Venice, and 92 butts of Provence olive oil and 5 hogsheads of capers at Toulon. After collecting the repayment of the loan from the Jewish merchants at Genoa, he returned to London.

At the first question, we have the illustration of Dethick’s journal and ledger, recording the sales of the goods brought by the Ship Jonas. The entire quantity of Venetian soap and olive oil were sold, but the capers remain unsold. Each kind of merchandise has its specific goods account.

Charges for the goods are entered on the debit side of the goods accounts and on the credit side of the money account. The unpaid freight is on the credit side of the Ship Jonas account. Dethick paid these charges with part of the funds received from the purchaser of the olive oil. However, the costs incurred for goods purchased abroad are not entered, the balances in the goods accounts, therefore, do not indicate the profit or loss made on the goods even after they were sold.

The second question, “Being the Sopracargo’s or Merchant-Ad-ventures Accounts, Stated two several ways” is divided into two parts. In the first part, are the copies of accounts maintained for every city or port at which the supercargo sold or bought goods on the account of his principal. The first entry is for Yarmouth where the supercargo purchased herrings with money drawn on the principal in London. Next, there are the accounts from Alicante where he sold lead and herrings and purchased barilla. There is also the copy of “Mr. Charles Dethick his Account current” from that place. On the credit side of this current account the balance of the money, after the purchase of herrings at Yarmouth, is transferred from the herrings account at Yarmouth, and after this, the proceeds of lead and herrings sales at Alicante are transferred from the credit side of each account. On the debit side of the current account is the amount of the barilla purchased (the debit balance of the barilla account) and the credit balance of this account with the statement to send it to the next port or city.

The Supercargo entered in English pounds in the account for Yarmouth, but Alicante transactions are recorded in French money (livres). In the copy of Mr. Dethick’s account current at Venice, the balance of the current account at Alicante and the net proceeds from lead, herrings and barilla sold at Venice are entered on its credit side. The amount of Venice soap purchased, the money lent to the Jewish merchants, and the balance of the credit side as the balance remaining in the supercargo’s hands are found on the debit side. The accounts of lead, herrings, barilla and white soap at Venice are entered in Venetian money (duccat), but Levant dollars are used in this current account.

The account of trades at Toulon are reported to London from Genoa. Mr. Charles Dethick’s account current at Toulon contains the amount collected from the Jewish merchants and the balance of the current account at Venice, on the credit side and the purchase of capers and olive oil with the balance of the credit side, on its debit side. This current account is recorded in Levant dollars as are the goods accounts which also have the amounts noted in Genoese florin. The supercargo uses the currency of the actual lo-cations of transactions in his account book. The calculation of the trades in the master’s account in every city is balanced at each city and transferred to his current account for the next port. At last, Dethick’s servant was ordered to sell the goods brought back in the Ship Jonas to London. The illustration contains the accounts from the supercargo, and the servant and “Charles Dethick his Account of Stock or Cargazoon”, or his financial statement (Appendix I), which is drawn up from the receipts and payments made by him and from various other accounting materials. The balance on the credit side of this account indicates the net profit of this adventure. Dethick uses an unsystematic accounting method, based on the accounting reports from his supercargo and servant and his own cash book, but in the latter half of the second question, he enters the same transactions in the double-entry method.

The third question, “Being a Question of Factorage”— concerns the accounts kept by a factor (agent) in his. own account books. Thomas Sweet, a merchant, removing to settle at Seville or Sanlu-care, appoints T. Wood his factor to dispose of his property—he debts owed to or by other merchants, his interest in the Ship Speedwell, his house, the goods belonging to him, the partable (share capital) of Turkey Company, etc.,—and to make returns in lead and fustians from England. In Sweet’s inventory we find Barbados’ cot-ten wool, West-India ginger and the imitation Venetian fustians of

English manufacture. After this inventory the waste-book continues with transactions in merchandise as follows: the sale of Barbados’ cotton wool to an English merchant, the purchase of lead and Lancashire imitation Milan fustians, the barter of ginger and lead and the consignment of Spanish tobacco from Sweet. These English imitations of foreign fustians were probably to be re-exported from Spain to the New World or West lndies Islands.

The fourth question is about a shipping freight. Collins instructs us that a note or pocket book, a book of the ships expenses, charges or disbursements, a book of mariners wages’ and a freight book are necessary to keep ships accounts. At the end of the first edition, he deals with the account of double exchange.

There are no new developments of accounting method in Collins’ accounting textbooks. Collins does not try to use the synthetic entry method of the journal and the ledger (general goods account, sundries etc.), and his accounting system is formed simply with specific goods accounts and personal accounts, without nominal accounts. The charges upon the goods are entered in each goods account or personal account. The stock account is in the name of the master. The illustrations in his textbook are mainly about factorage adventures which may have had their origin in his experiences as purser of an English ship on a Mediterranean trading voyage.
Illustrations Reflect English Commercial Activity

Collins’ illustrations contain the records of transactions with mer-chants in the following cities: London, Yarmouth, Lisbon, Seville, Sanlucar, Alicante, Valencia, Toulon, Genoa, Leghorn, Venice, Zante etc. The kinds of goods traded include herrings, lead, cloth from England, soap from Venice, barilla, capers, olive oil, currants, West-Indian ginger from Spain, and Spanish tobacco. Collins’ illustrations reflect English foreign policy and trade of those time including trading ventures with the southern coast of Spain and the Mediterranean cities. English merchants in the Elizabethan age traded with the merchants of Venice, the Greek Islands, and Turkish cities across the Mediterranean even during the war with Spain. In the seventeenth century they came to regard Venice as their southern trading base. Even in the age of the Commonwealth, Oliver Cromwell recognized the important position of England in the Mediterranean and dispatched Blake’s fleet to that sea not only to defend the English merchants but also to demonstrate English foreign policy.

The illustration of trade in J. Peele’s first work (1553) uses the account-books of a London grocer engaged in domestic trade with London, Dartmouth, Totnes, Salisbury, Hawkhurst, Derby, Norwich etc. dealing with Wiltshire white, Kentish cloth, Kersey canvas, Norwich worsted, Devonshire kersies, oil, French wines etc. There is also one foreign trade, the consignment of Devonshire kersies to a servant in Antwerp (Flanders account). By contrast, there are many examples of foreign trade in the illustration in Peele’s second book (1569) which is said to have been influenced by Weddington’s accounting book of 1567. Frauncis Twyford, a London mercer, exports Northern Kersies from Suffolk or Kent, Devonshire cloth, Man-Chester cotton etc., to his factor at Vigo in Spain, and imports wax, civil oil, basterdes, soap, alum, raisins of Malaga, etc. Manchester cotton, Welsh cotton, and wax are exported to a factor at Rouen, and the imported goods are cap paper, playing cards, racket, Parish thread, Vascon and Bordeaux wines. He also engaged in trade with merchants in Venice and Florence. Raisins of Malaga and basterdes from Spain are re-exported and fine cloths bought in Kent and Suffolk are sent to the factor in Antwerp. Furthermore, he imports wainscot, chapboard, woad, madder, Lukes satin, holmes fustians, etc.

In the seventeenth century, Richard Dafforne gives us another illustration of trade in his The Merchants Mirrour (1635). An English merchant of London is engaged in domestic trade with merchants in Colchester and Plymouth, and in foreign trade with merchants in Amsterdam, Antwerp, Flushing, Roanne, Lisbon, Danzig etc., in company with them, or employing them as factors. Sometimes he acts as their factor. Merchandise includes Leeds dozens, kersies, sayes, cambrics, figs, silver, sugar, pepper, raisins, bayes, and wines. Cambric is imported from Holland, and figs, raisins, sugar, etc., from Lisbon, and silver from France. Pepper is exported, but it may have been bought in Lisbon. The geographical extent of the commercial activities in Dafforne’s textbook includes the cities along the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.

English merchants’ activities from the cities of England to the foreign cities on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean in the illustrations in English accounting textbooks up to the first half of the seven-teenth century reflect the actual development of English foreign trade. From the beginning of this century the English government began to recognize the strategic importance of the Straits of

Gibraltar and moved to the domination of the Mediterranean. Col-lins’ accounting textbook shows this development in the trading pattern. As we know from Brown’s A History of Accounting and Accountants, no progress in accounting methods is to be found in Collins’ accounting book; but it surely shows that the merchant’s accounts are the mirror in which a countries commercial activities are reflected. This, perhaps, is the meaning of the title of Daf-forne’s accounting text.

FOOTNOTES

1Lane, pp. 408-09.
2Lane, p. 4071.
3Lane, p, 401.
4Lane, p. 399.

5According to Letwin’s book and the preface of the second edition of Collins’ textbook, this work was written in 1652, but on its title page the year of its publi-cation is 1653. We can find no evidence of a book published in 1652.

6The titles of the questions given in the table of contents differ somewhat with those used in the body of the text.
7Trevelyan, Part 4, Chapter 4.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Lane, Frederic C., Venice A Maritime Republic, The John Hopkins University Press,
Baltimore and London, 1973. Trevelyan, C. M., History of England, 4th Edition, Longmans, Green and Company,
London, 1958.