… is from page 48 of Douglas Irwin’s splendid 1996 volume, Against the Tide: An Intellectual History of Free Trade (link added):
Even if something approaching certainty about the balance of trade could be established, critics [of received mercantilist doctrine] began to question whether an “unfavorable” balance implied anything about the well-being of the country. Roger Coke [writing in 1671] observed the following contradiction: “The Dutch we see import all, yet thrive upon trade, and the Irish export eight times more than they import, yet grow poorer.”
