It was reprinted in Waterston's ‘Cyclopædia of Commerce,’ London, 1847, 8vo.
In 1832 McCulloch published his most important work, ‘A Dictionary, Practical, Theoretical, and Historical, of Commerce and Commercial Navigation,’ London, 8vo, an admirable compendium of information on all matters connected with commercial transactions, based on consular reports and other exact statistics, embodying the results of researches extending over twenty years, and which, frequently revised, held throughout McCulloch's life, and still retains, the rank of a work of authority. It was followed by ‘A Statistical Account of the British Empire’ (Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge), London, 1837, 8vo, 1839, 2 vols. 8vo, in which eminent scientific specialists collaborated.
In 1838 McCulloch was appointed to the comptrollership of the stationery office, and discharged the duties of the office with great efficiency until his death.
He still pursued his favourite studies with hardly abated energy. In 1841 he published ‘A Dictionary, Geographical, Statistical, and Historical, of the Various Countries, Places, and Principal Natural Objects in the World,’ London, 2 vols. 8vo (latest edition by Martin, London, 1866, 4 vols. 8vo); in 1845 ‘A Treatise on the Principles and Practical Influence of Taxation and the Funding System,’ London, 8vo, and ‘The Literature of Political Economy: a Classified Catalogue of Select Publications in the different Departments of that Science; with Historical, Critical, and Bibliographical Notices,’ London, 8vo—an excellent bibliography, marred by a somewhat inadequate treatment of foreign writers.
In 1846 he edited ‘The Works of David Ricardo, with a Notice of the Life and Writings of the Author,’ London, 8vo. In 1848 appeared his ‘Treatise on the Succession to Property Vacant by Death: including Inquiries into the Influence of Primogeniture, Entails, Compulsory Partition, &c., over the Public Interests,’ London, 8vo. In 1853 he published a volume of ‘Treatises and Essays on Subjects connected with Economical Policy; with Biographical Sketches of Quesnay, Adam Smith, and Ricardo,’ Edinburgh, 8vo; 2nd edit. enlarged, 1859. For the Political Economy Club, of which he was an original member, he edited in 1856 ‘A Select Collection of Scarce and Valuable Tracts on Money, from the Originals of Vaughan, Cotton, Petty, Lowndes, Newton, Prior, Harris, and others,’ London, 8vo; for his friend Lord Overstone in 1857, ‘A Select Collection of Scarce and Valuable Tracts and other Publications on the National Debt and the Sinking Fund, from the Originals of Harley, Gould, Pulteney, Walpole, Hume, Price, Hamilton, and others,’ London, 8vo, and a similar collection ‘On Paper Currency and Banking, from the Originals of Hume, Wallace, Thornton, Ricardo, Blake, Huskisson, and others,’ London, 8vo; in 1858 ‘Tracts and other Publications on Metallic and Paper Currency,’ London, 8vo; and in 1859 ‘A Select Collection of Scarce and Valuable Tracts on Commerce, from the Originals of Evelyn, Defoe, Richardson, Tucker, Temple, and others,’ London, 8vo. In 1860 he contributed the article on ‘Taxation’ to the eighth edition of the ‘Encyclopædia Britannica,’ vol. xxi. (reprinted separately the same year, Edinburgh, fol.).
After some years of failing health McCulloch died at the stationery office on 11 Nov. 1864. His valuable library, of over ten thousand volumes, passed to Lord Overstone.
McCulloch was elected in 1843 a foreign associate of the Institute of France, and from 1846 was in receipt of a government pension of 200l. a year. He married, on 11 Nov. 1811, Isabella Stewart, by whom he had four sons and six daughters. His wife was buried by his side in Brompton cemetery in July 1867.
A portrait of McCulloch by Sir Daniel Macnee is in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
McCulloch's place is rather among statisticians than economists. Completely dominated by his masters, Adam Smith and Ricardo, he shrank from no conclusion, however paradoxical, which seemed deducible from their principles, and practically did little more than restate their views in the most unqualified and dogmatic terms (cf. J. B. Say, Œuvres Diverses, 1848, pp. 261 et seq.) His ‘Principles,’ however, had the merit of extreme lucidity, were translated into French, German, and Italian, and, until superseded by the great work of Mill, constituted a sort of manual of politico-economical orthodoxy. His habit of repeating himself in the ‘Edinburgh Review’ is exposed with much humour by Wilson (Christopher North) in ‘Some Illustrations of Mr. McCulloch's Principles of Political Economy, by Mordecai Mullion,’ Edinburgh and London, 1826. Amusing notices of him, sometimes under the nickname of ‘The Stot,’ will also be found scattered through the ‘Noctes Ambrosianæ’ (see also Blackwood, xxvi. 511 et seq., 677 et seq., xxix. 311, 394, and xxxiii. 439). As a diligent collector, however, of economic facts, McCulloch did eminently useful work. He was a man of immense physical strength and sturdy and strongly marked individuality, and, despite his long residence in London, retained to the end his broad Scottish accent, and his attach-
