Who benefited under a mercantile system? who did not benefit?

Mercantilism had its critics. In 1776 economist Adam Smith (1723–1790) in his Wealth of Nations defined a country's wealth in terms of labor and not money. Smith advocated the free play of individual enterprise and free trade. Historians such as George Bancroft (1800–1891) condemned mercantilism as the source of foreign policy. He concluded that the Navigation Acts and mercantilism in general were the basic causes of the American Revolution hope this helps