thumb|Report to the honourable the commissioners, 1712
Charles Davenant (1656 – 1714) was an English economist, Tory politician and pamphleteer who sat in the Parliament of England representing the parliamentary constituencies of St Ives and Great Bedwyn.
Life
He was born in London as the eldest son of Sir William Davenant, the poet. He was educated at Cheam grammar school and Balliol College, Oxford, but left the university without taking a degree. He became manager of his father's theatre. Having taken the degree of LL.D., he became a member of Doctors' Commons.
In 1678 Davenant was appointed Commissioner of the Excise, earning £500 per year (); taxes were collected using the "farming system". In 1683 when Britain ended the tax farming system, Davenant received £1000 per year as Commissioner. In 1685 he was elected to Parliament as M.P. for St Ives. However, the revolution of 1688 saw James II exiled to France and William of Orange installed as king by Parliament. In 1689 Davenant lost his position as Commissioner of the Excise, and his loan to James II was nullified.
In 1692 he applied for Controller of the Excise, with Godolphin's support, but did not get the position. He applied again in 1694 and again failed to get the position, probably due to objections by Charles Montagu, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. In 1696 his friends in government, Shrewsbury and Godolphin, were under political attack. Godolphin resigned shortly afterward, and Davenant lost his main supporter for appointment to a public office. He also reversed his stance from Memorial Concerning the Free Trade now Tolerated between France and Holland and argued that the Dutch were benefitting from trade with France while "Britain bore the burden of the war."
In November 1695 he wrote and read Memorial Concerning the Coyn of England to the Privy Council. This work, commissioned by the Lords Justices, was an argument against the majority party's proposal that England's coins should be devalued to pay for the war with France.
In 1696 he published A Memorial Concerning a Council of Trade, which promoted his idea that trade should be protected, and A Memorial Concerning Credit and the Means and Methods whereby it may be Restored, generally viewed as an attempt to curry favour with the party in power to gain a post in the Excise department. In October 1696 he published Essay on Publick Virtue, a diatribe against the ruling Whig Junto. In 1696, also, he published Essay on the East India Trade in which he "opposed the protection of English Textiles against Indian competition on the grounds that commerce with East India improved Britain's balance of trade, and he refuted the arguments of the protectionists with further applications of the balance of trade concept." Davenant still believed that land tax was unfair because it placed the heaviest burden of generating public income on the landed gentry, and that the long-term result would be that the gentry would be forced to sell their land to "monied men and usurers" to pay the taxes. Davenant's writings begin to shift away from purely economic discussions to political commentary designed to curry favour with the ruling party to secure employment. In 1701 he published Essays upon I The Balance of Power II The Right of Making War, Peace, and Alliances III Universal Monarchy, "a highly partisan attack on William III's foreign policy." This pamphlet angered his friends in the Tory party because it was in opposition to the policies the party was pushing at the time. Before 1702, he was the leading promoter of party ideas. With this essay, he was falling out of favour and gaining a reputation for promoting whatever idea benefits him the most personally.
In 1704 Davenant proposed compiling trade numbers for the previous 25 years. The cost of clerks to do the actual tabulation was the primary reason for denial of his request. He wrote, but did not publish, Memorial Concerning the Free Trade now Tolerated between France and Holland. The goal was to find support for the current policy of permitting trade between France and Holland. King does not describe a formal definition of the law in his journal, which is the primary source of his writings, as opposed to taking on long-term debt and increasing taxes on landowners.
In 1696, Davenant wrote Essay on the East-India Trade, which continued the argument that imports should not be restricted because England was a net exporter of the goods imported from India. even though bias against the Dutch stems more from fear of a political challenger to England than fear of losing the competitive advantage of England's monopoly in India.
See also
- Gross domestic product