Scholars of late have come to reevaluate and appreciate the achievements of merchant companies that fostered commercial networks and established new global trade routes. This research would seem to lend support to historians who have characterized early seventeenth-century calls for “free trade” as mere sloganeering driven by provincial merchants suspicious of the London-dominated corporations. This article challenges this view and argues that free trade ideas had deep roots in early modern political culture. It traces the origins of these ideas to protests in the sixteenth century and shows how a broad coalition of interests drew upon ideas of property rights and the ancient constitution to challenge the new companies. So compelling were free trade arguments that they became a commonplace in the economic debates of an emerging public sphere. A reconsideration of the free trade campaign that is attentive to interactions and negotiations between the Privy Council, Parliament, and the public highlights the ability of the early modern state before the 1630s to readjust the political economy of the commonwealth.

中文翻译：

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“国王真正的臣民”的“自由通行”：企业时代自由贸易的意义，1555-1624

最近，学者们开始重新评估和欣赏商业公司在培育商业网络和建立新的全球贸易路线方面所取得的成就。这项研究似乎为历史学家提供了支持，他们将 17 世纪初对“自由贸易”的呼吁定性为对伦敦主导的公司持怀疑态度的外省商人的口号而已。本文挑战了这一观点，并认为自由贸易思想深深植根于早期现代政治文化。它追溯了这些思想的起源于 16 世纪的抗议活动，并展示了广泛的利益联盟如何利用产权思想和古代宪法来挑战新公司。自由贸易论点如此引人注目，以至于它们成为新兴公共领域经济辩论中的常见内容。对自由贸易运动的重新思考，关注枢密院、议会和公众之间的互动和谈判，凸显了1630年代之前的早期现代国家重新调整英联邦政治经济的能力。