A Merchant or a French Atlantic? Eighteenth-century account books as narratives of a transnational merchant political economy

In the eighteenth century, merchant financial accounting, especially double-entry accounting, should be of interest, and not only to accounting historians. The many account books left by traders the world over show how credit structured the early modern economy and society. Trade took place on credit, not with cash; Bordeaux merchant Abraham Gradis borrowed and loaned millions of Livres, and maintained a network of partners in France and the colonies across the Atlantic (Martinique, Saint-Domingue and Canada), shipping and/or selling as commission merchant wine, flour, sugar, coffee… Cash was used for smaller transactions, but commercial paper, and above all book credit, was key to merchant success. Because traders depended crucially on extended credit networks, the social construction of credit took precedence over all other considerations, including regional ones. Through the control of book credit, the largest merchants were able to establish themselves as a truly international ruling class.