The discoveries in the New World had led to a large development of the European currencies. The old feudal economy, founded principally on dealings in kind, had given way before the new “money economy,” and the dimensions of the latter were everywhere expanding. Circulation was becoming more rapid, distant communications more frequent, city life and movable property more important. The mercantilists were impressed by the fact that money is wealth sui generis that it is at all times in universal demand, and that it puts into the hands of its possessor the power of acquiring all other commodities. The period, again, was marked by the formation of great states, with powerful governments at their head. These governments required men and money for the maintenance of permanent armies, which, especially for the religious and Italian wars, were kept up on a great scale. Court expenses, too, were more lavish than ever before, and a larger number of civil officials was employed. The royal domains and dues were insufficient to meet these requirements, and taxation grew with the demands of the monarchies. Statesmen saw that for their own political ends industry must flourish. But manufactures make possible a denser population and a higher total value of exports than agriculture; they open a less limited and more promptly extensible field to enterprise. Hence they became the object of special governmental favour and patronage, whilst agriculture fell comparatively into the background. The growth of manufactures reacted on commerce, to which a new and mighty arena had been opened by the establishment of colonies. These were then viewed simply as estates to be worked for the advantage of the mother countries, and the aim of statesmen was to make the colonial trade a new source of public revenue. Each nation, as a whole, working for its own power, and the greater ones for predominance, they entered into a competitive struggle in the economic no less than in the political field, success in the former being indeed, by the rulers, regarded as instrumental to pre-eminence in the latter. A national economic interest came to exist, of which the government made itself the representative head. States became a sort of artificial hothouse for the rearing of urban industries. Production was subjected to systematic regulation, with the object of securing the goodness and cheapness of the exported articles, and so maintaining the place of the nation in foreign markets. The industrial control was exercised, in part directly by the state, but largely also through privileged corporations and trading companies. High duties on imports were resorted to, at first perhaps mainly for revenue, but afterwards in the interest of national production. Commercial treaties were a principal object of diplomacy, the end in view being to exclude the competition of other nations in foreign markets, whilst in the home market as little room as possible was given for the introduction of anything but raw materials from abroad. The colonies were prohibited from trading with other European nations than the parent country, to which they supplied either the precious metals or raw produce purchased with home manufactures.
That the efforts of governments for the furtherance of manufactures and commerce under the mercantile system were really effective towards that end is admitted by Adam Smith, and cannot reasonably be doubted, though doctrinaire free-traders have often denied it. Technical skill must have been promoted by their encouragements; whilst new forms of national production were fostered by attracting workmen from other countries, and by lightening the burden of taxation on struggling industries. Communication and transport by land and sea were more rapidly improved; and the social dignity of the industrial professions was enhanced relatively to that of the classes before exclusively dominant.
The foundation of the mercantile system was at the time when it took its rise inspired by the situation of the European nations. Such a policy had been already in some degree practised in the 14th and 15th centuries, thus preceding any formal exposition or defence of its speculative basis. At the commencement of the 16th century it began to exercise a widely extended influence. Charles V. adopted it, and his example contributed much to its predominance. Henry VIII. and Elizabeth conformed their measures to it. The leading states soon entered on a universal competition for manufacturing and commercial preponderance. Through almost the whole of the 17th century the prize, so far as commerce was concerned, remained in the possession of Holland, Italy having lost her former ascendancy by the opening of the new maritime routes, and Spain and Germany being depressed by protracted wars and internal dissensions. The admiring envy of Holland felt by English politicians and economists appears in such writers as Raleigh, Mun, Child and Temple. Cromwell, by his Navigation Act, which destroyed the carrying trade of Holland and founded the English empire of the sea, and Colbert, by his whole economic policy, domestic and international, were the chief practical representatives of the mercantile system. .
See G. Schmoller, The Mercantile System (Eng. trans., 1896); also the articles, Balance of Trade; Free Trade; Protection; Physiocratic School, &c.
MERCAPTANS (Thio-alcohols), organic chemical compounds
of the type R.SH (R＝an alkyl group). The name is derived
from mercurium captans, in allusion to the fact that these
compounds react readily with mercuric oxide to form crystalline
mercury derivatives. The mercaptans may be prepared by
the action of the alkyl halides on an alcoholic solution of potassium
hydrosulphide; by the reduction of the sulpho-chlorides,
e.g. C2H5SO2Cl (chlorides of sulphonic acids), by heating the salts
of esters of sulphuric acid with potassium hydrosulphide, and
by heating the alcohols with phosphorus pentasulphide. They
are colourless liquids, which are insoluble in water and possess
a characteristic offensive smell. On oxidation by nitric acid
they yield sulphonic acids. They combine with aldehyde’s
and ketones, with elimination of water and formation of mercaptals
and mercaptols. (See Sulphonal.)
Methyl mercaptan, CH3.SH, is a liquid which boils at 5·8° C. (752 mm.), and forms a crystalline hydrate with water. Ethyl mercaptan, C2H5.SH, is a colourless liquid which boils at 36·2° C. It is used commercially in the preparation of sulphonal (q.v.). The mercury salt, Hg(SC2H5)2, crystallizes from alcohol in plates. When heated with alcohol to 190° C. it decomposes into mercury and ethyldisulphide.
MERCATOR, GERARDUS [latinized form of Gerhard Kremer]
(1512–1594), Flemish mathematician and geographer,
was born at Rupelmonde, in Flanders, on the 5th of March 1512.
Having studied at Bois-le-Duc and Louvain (where he matriculated
on the 29th of August 1530, and became licentiate in
October 1532), he met Gemma Frisius, a pupil of Apian of
Ingolstadt, who at the request of the emperor Charles V. had
settled in Louvain. From Frisius young Kremer derived much
of his inclination to cartography and scientific geography. In
1534 he founded his geographical establishment at Louvain; in
1537 he published his earliest known map, now lost (Terrae
sanctae descriptio). In 1537–1540 he executed his famous survey
and map of Flanders (Exactissima Flandriae descriptio), of which
a copy exists in the Musée Plantin, Antwerp. At the order of
Charles V. Mercator made a complete set of instruments of
observation for the emperor’s campaigns: when these were
destroyed by fire, in 1546, another set was ordered of the same
maker. In 1538 appeared Mercator’s map of the world in (north
and south) hemispheres, which was rediscovered in 1878 in New
York; this work shows Ptolemy’s influence still dominant over
Mercatorian cartography. In 1541 he issued the celebrated
terrestrial globe, which he dedicated to Nicolas Perrenot, father
of Cardinal Granvelle: this was accompanied by his Libellus de
usu globi, which is said to have been presented to Charles V. In
1551 a celestial globe followed. Mercator early began to incline
towards Protestantism; in 1533 he had retired for a time from
Louvain to Antwerp, partly to avoid inquiry into his religious
beliefs; in 1544 he was arrested and prosecuted for heresy, but
escaped serious consequences (two of the forty-two arrested with
him were burnt, one beheaded, two buried alive). He now
thought seriously of emigrating; and when in 1552 Cassander,
ordered by the duke of Juliers, Cleves and Berg to organize a
university at Duisburg, offered Mercator the chair of cosmography
the offer was accepted. The organization of the
