An inquiry into the permanent causes of the decline and fall of powerful and wealthy nations

This book was copy typed by R.W. Jones (rwj@freeshell.org) from an original print of the 1st edition held by The British Library, London. (Shelfmark: 432d12/432.d.12). The resultant text was then compared, using a text to speech player, against an original print of the 2nd edition held by the Library (Archives & Rare Books), London School of Economics and Political Science. This e-text incorporates the (very few) modifications included in the later edition. Images of the four Charts are not included nor were they or the Indexes of the respective editions compared.
{Here appears before the fly-leaf the first chart, entitled

Chart
of
Universal Commercial History ,
from the year 1500 before the Christian Era
TO THE PRESENT YEAR 1805.
being a space of Three Thousand three hundred and four years,
by William Playfair.
Inventor of Linear Arithmetic }