ABSTRACT This essay examines modes of English governance in the trading outposts of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century mercantile capitalism in order to argue for the constitutive role of commercial practices in the shift to the modern forms of governmentality associated with the political liberal state. Reading the different kinds of writing that debated the transformative power of global trade during this time, including fictional travel narratives, economic pamphlets and East India Company factory records, it is possible to discern how values like religious tolerance, cultural relativism and contractual equality were crucial not only for the peaceful carrying out of European trade before colonialism but that such ‘European’ values were first implemented as principles of governance in some of the trading outposts outside Europe. We can see these practices manifest in the vast theatre of trade involving the Indian subcontinent before the East India Company was in a position to colonise trade routes, resources, land and people through military might.

中文翻译：

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权宜之计和新兴：殖民地哨所的政府模式

摘要本文探讨了17世纪和18世纪商业资本主义贸易哨所中的英国治理模式，以便论证商业实践在向与政治自由国家相关的现代政府形式的转变中的构成作用。阅读这段时期辩论全球贸易变革力量的各种著作，包括虚构的旅行叙述，经济小册子和东印度公司的工厂记录，有可能辨别宗教宽容，文化相对主义和契约平等等价值观念如何至关重要不仅是为了在殖民主义统治之前和平进行欧洲贸易，而且这种“欧洲”价值首先在欧洲以外的一些贸易基地被作为施政原则而实施。