In the decades following the Stuart Restoration, it became increasingly clear that the dilemma classically formulated by Sallust and pointedly revived by Machiavelli was coming under challenge as a prescription for modern Europe and its overseas possessions. The growth of commerce marked a novel epoch in human affairs, in which the Roman and neo-Roman apprehension that liberty might be threatened by empire was less relevant, and less revealing, because the very definition of ‘empire’ itself was changing. The warnings of classical and modern republicans, in this regard at least, might be of only limited guidance to understanding contemporary politics. As Nicholas Barbon argued in 1690,

Writing fifty years later, David Hume agreed: ‘Trade was never esteemed an affair of state till the last century; and there is scarcely any ancient writer on politics, who has made mention of it. Even the ITALIANS have kept a profound silence with regard to it, though it has now engaged the chief attention, as well of ministers of state, as of speculative reasoners.’