rse of Trade_ (1668 and
1690). He was a moderate in those days of the "mercantile system," and
has sometimes been regarded as a sort of pioneer in the development of
the free-trade doctrines of the 18th century. He made various proposals
for improving British trade by following Dutch example, and advocated a
low rate of interest as the "_causa causans_ of all the other causes of
the riches of the Dutch people." This low rate of interest he thought
should be created and maintained by public authority. Child, whilst
adhering to the doctrine of the balance of trade, observed that a people
cannot always sell to foreigners without ever buying from them, and
denied that the export of the precious metals was necessarily
detrimental. He had the mercantilist partiality for a numerous
population, and became prominent with a new scheme for the relief and
employment of the poor; it is noteworthy also that he advocated the
reservation by the mother country of the sole right of trade with her
colonies. Sir Josiah Child's eldest son, Richard, was created Viscount
Castlemain in 1718 and earl of Tylney in 1731.

See also Macaulay, _History of England_, vol. iv.; R. Grant, _Sketch
of the History of the East India Company_ (1813); D. Macpherson,
_Annals of Commerce_ (1805); B. Willson, _Ledger and Sword_ (1903).
(T. A. I.)

CHILD, LYDIA MARIA (1802-1880), American author, was born at Medford,
Massachusetts, on the 11th of February 1802. She was educated at an
academy in her native town and by her brother Convers Francis
(1795-1863), a Unitarian minister and from 1842 to 1863 Parkman
professor in the Harvard Divinity School. Her first stories, _Hobomok_
(1824) and _The Rebels_ (1825), were popular successes. She was a
schoolmistress until 1828, when she married David Lee Child (1794-1874),
a brilliant but erratic Boston lawyer and journalist. From 1826 to 1834
she edited _The Juvenile Miscellany_, the first children's monthly
periodical in the United States. About 1831 both she and her husband
began to identify themselves with the anti-slavery cause, and in 1833
she published _An Appeal for that Class of Americans called Africans_, a
stirring portrayal of the evils of slavery, and an argument for
immediate abolition, which had a powerful influence in winning recruits
to the anti-slavery cause. Henceforth her time was largely devoted to
the anti-slavery cause. From 1840 to 1844, assisted by her husband, she
edited the _A