James C.W. Ahiakpor writes: 

>  How is it that Tye doesn't recognise that having a line of credit permits
one to acquire goods without surrendering money (cash), and that such a line
of credit is a substitute for money as an immediate means of payment? 

I find this a puzzling comment.  I did recognise it.  The point I made is
that a line of credit is most certainly a substitute for cash, but if
non-negotiable, it is an inferior substitute.  

This is a simple enough idea, understood by at least 30 generations of men
in England (for instance) as is indicated by successive truck acts from the
15th to the 20th centuries

> I don't think mercantilism or its whiff has anything to do with
recognizing the distinction between credit and money (cash).

Then I would urge you to read the passages I cited from Adam Smith more
carefully.

Bolton is discussing a period (14th/15th centuries) when silver was being
exported from England by the merchant community, inevitably restricting cash
availability for the greater part of the population.

Something very similar happened in the 17th/18th centuries, triggered by the
abolition of seigniorage by the restoration government (a very recent paper
by Mayhew highlighted just how far this process went).

Adam Smith apparently coined the term mercantile system himself, and in WN
IV, vi, 20-32, he makes the abolition of seigniorage and consequent
diminution of cash a specific error of that mercantile system.  (It is Locke
and his associates, rather than Mun, that Smith is primarily criticising
there). 

As I tried to suggest at the outset, I am attempting to be a historian. 
That includes focusing upon the richness of the historical events, and not
being diverted by an impoverished mathematical model.  

It also includes focusing upon the meaning of the term ‘mercantile system’
in the thought and writing of its creator, Smith, rather than a more modern
and I would argue, again, impoverished usage of the term.

Rob Tye, York, UK