BENTHAM (Jeremy). Defense of Usury, or Letters... Lot 72

BENTHAM (Jeremy). Defense of Usury, or Letters on the Disadvantages of the Laws, which fix the Rate of Interest on Money, translated from the English on the 4th edition; followed by a Memoir on the Lending of Money, by Turgot, and preceded by an Introduction containing a Dissertation on Lending at Interest. Paris, Mahler et compagnie, 1828. In-8, VI-293 pp, one f. errata, 4 pp. publisher's catalog, blond half-calf with corners, spine ribbed and decorated with gilt garlands, gilt fillets and fleurons, marbled edges (period binding). Some foxing. Covers restored. Second French translation, by Saint-Amand Bazard, of Defence of usury: shewing the impolicy of the present legal restraint on the terms of pecuniary bargains in a series of letters to a friend (1787). The first one had been published in 1790 under the somewhat solicitous title of Apology of Usury, written in the form of letters to a friend. Unlike Adam Smith, who advocated the maintenance of the prohibitive provisions of usury to avoid the multiplication of high-risk investments, Bentham wished to abolish them in order to establish an equitable distribution between investments in high-risk and low-risk enterprises. Turgot's Memoir was published in 1789 (Memoirs on the interest loan and on the iron trade). Bound in the suite: CHARDON (Olivier-Jacques): De l'Usure dans l'état actuel de la législation. Paris, Antoine Bavoux, 1823, XIV-146 pp. Dupin, p. 741 and 1994. Original edition: the text will be later included in the three volumes of the Traité du dol et de la fraude en matière civile et commerciale (1827). A good copy.