English Navigation Laws—First Prohibitory Act, 1646—Further
Acts, 1650-1651—Their object and effect—War declared between
Great Britain and Holland, July 1652—The English capture
prizes—Peace of 1654—Alleged complaints against the Navigation
Acts of Cromwell—Navigation Act of Charles II.—The Maritime
Charter of England—Its main provisions recited—Trade with the
Dutch prohibited—The Dutch navigation seriously injured—Fresh
war with the Dutch, 1664—Its naval results—Action off Harwich,
1665—Dutch Smyrna fleet—Coalition between French and Dutch,
1666—Battle of June 1 and of July 24, 1666—Renewed negotiations
for peace, 1667—Dutch fleet burn ships at Chatham, threaten
London, and proceed to Portsmouth—Peace concluded—Its effects—The
Colonial system—Partial anomalies—Capital created—Economical
theories the prelude to final free trade—Eventual separation
from the mother country considered—Views of Sir Josiah Child
on the Navigation Laws—Relative value of British and Foreign
ships, 1666—British clearances, 1688, and value of exports—War
with France—Peace of Ryswick, 1697—Trade of the Colonies—African
trade—Newfoundland—Usages at the Fishery—Greenland Fishery—Russian
trade—Peter the Great—Effect of legislative union with Scotland,
1707—The maritime Commerce of Scotland—Buccaneers in the West
Indies—State of British shipping, temp. George I.—South Sea
Company, 1710.
[Sidenote: A.D. 1640-1650.]
[Sidenote: English Navigation Laws.]
[Sidenote: First Prohibitory Act, A.D. 1646.]
Although the English people were jealous of the maritime power of
Holland, and had often been annoyed by her arrogance, the two nations
were still at peace. England, distracted by civil war, was not then
prepared to adopt legislative measures which had for their object
the curtailment of the commerce and maritime influence of the Dutch;
but her rulers felt that they ought not to further encourage that
influence by granting to the ships of their rivals the same advantages
in her colonies they had so long possessed in her home ports. The
possessions of England were steadily increasing in population and
importance, and though she could not have contemplated such a
country as America has now become,[175] she saw sufficient in its
early progress to justify the resolution to exclude the Dutch from
participating in a trade she had herself established, and which bade
fair to afford a large amount of valuable employment to her merchant
shipping. Consequently, as soon as the English Parliament found time
amid the domestic troubles, it enacted that no one in any of the ports
of the Plantations of Virginia, Bermuda, “Barbadoes, and other places
in America,” should suffer any goods or produce of the manufacture or
growth of the plantations to be carried away to foreign ports except in
English ships.[176]
[Sidenote: Further Acts, 1650,]
[Sidenote: 1651.]
The shipowners of England speedily discovered that, under the
circumstances in which they were placed, they were now legislating
in a direction which, if not the wisest, was the only one that could
at the time afford them relief and increase the means of obtaining
remunerative employment for their property. Through their influence
the policy thus initiated was pursued and strengthened. Four years
afterwards they procured the passing of an Act prohibiting all foreign
ships whatever from trading with the plantations of America except
with a regular licence. And on the 9th of October of the following
year the measure which for nearly two centuries was known as the
“celebrated” Navigation Act of Cromwell came into operation. By
this Act the navigation of the Dutch received a very serious blow;
declaring as it did that no goods or commodities whatever of the
growth, production, or manufacture of Asia, Africa, or America should
be imported either into England, or Ireland, or any of the plantations
of Great Britain, except in British-built ships, owned by British
subjects, and of which the master and three-fourths of the crew
belonged to that country. The unequivocal object of this clause was to
secure to England, without however considering the interests of her
colonists, the whole carrying trade of the world, Europe alone excepted.
[Sidenote: Their object and effect.]
Having done all that then appeared possible to secure the carrying
trade of Asia, Africa, and America, the English Parliament now
sought to obtain as much as was practicable of the import trade of
Europe. Accordingly they further enacted that no goods of the growth,
production, or manufacture of any country in Europe should be imported
into Great Britain except in British ships, owned and navigated by
British subjects, “_or in such ships as were the real property of the
people of the country or place in which the goods were produced, or
from which they could only be, or most usually were exported_.”[177]
This stringent provision could only be aimed at the carrying trade of
the Dutch, who had little or no produce of their own to export, and
who for the reasons already mentioned had obtained a virtual monopoly
of the carrying trade to many foreign markets. In such acts as these
the long stifled feelings of animosity, animated by deep commercial
jealousy which had been smouldering for years against the Dutch, at
last found expression and relief. So strong indeed had these feelings
become, that when the States despatched an embassy to England to
solicit a revocation of the navigation laws just passed, it was found
necessary to appoint a guard to protect the envoys from the popular
resentment openly expressed against them.
[Sidenote: War declared between Great Britain and Holland, April 1652.]
England had now asserted the practical right to carry on her own
over-sea trade in her own ships, and to obtain as much foreign trade
as she could by her own industry and energy, and as this action was
practically a defiance of the maritime supremacy of Holland, a struggle
was evidently impending which could only be decided by an appeal to
arms. But the Dutch amused the English Parliament with negotiations
for a treaty, although in point of fact they had nothing to give as
an equivalent for any concessions that England might make. In the
meanwhile they got together one hundred and fifty vessels, and placing
them under the command of Martin Tromp,[178] declared war against her
in April 1652. As the desperate and sanguinary struggles which followed
are matters of general history, it will be sufficient for our purpose
if we recapitulate some only of the leading facts which show the effect
of the war upon the merchant shipping of both countries.
The Dutch were at first, if not throughout, by far the heavier
sufferers. Within a month of the declaration of war Blake captured
one hundred of their herring fleet, together with twelve frigates of
their convoy, sinking the thirteenth. He also made efforts to intercept
five East Indiamen under the Dutch flag, which had endeavoured to get
into port by sailing round Scotland, and he contrived to carry six
more frigates into Yarmouth Roads. About the same period Sir George
Ayscough, the admiral commanding in the Channel, having thirty-eight
ships under him, made an attempt to stop the passage of a fleet of
Dutch merchantmen, sailing under the protection of De Ruyter, another
distinguished Dutch admiral, but after a furious engagement he was
compelled to retire into Plymouth, and to leave a free passage for De
Ruyter’s convoy down Channel.
[Sidenote: The English capture prizes.]
[Sidenote: Peace of 1654.]
The English, however, again took possession of the Channel, and
scarcely a day passed without Dutch prizes being brought into English
ports: many of these having made long voyages to distant parts of
the world, were on their homeward voyage without apprehension of
war. Nor is it surprising that booty so valuable should have whetted
the appetite of the English people for war. But happily, on the 5th
of April 1654, a treaty of peace was concluded. Cromwell’s enemies
complained that in the treaty no mention was made of the sole right
of the English to the fishing on their own coast, nor of any annual
tribute to be paid by the Dutch for that privilege, which had been the
case in the reign of Charles. They were displeased also that he gave up
the right of search which Parliament had insisted upon; and, further,
that he did not limit the number of Dutch men-of-war to be thereafter
employed for the protection of their commerce. Cromwell, however,
required in the treaty an admission of the English sovereignty of the
seas, and the Dutch consented to strike their flag to the ships of
the Commonwealth.[179] We may add that this treaty made no reference
to the obnoxious Navigation Act, although this was in all probability
the actual cause of the war; as on this point neither Cromwell, the
Parliament, nor the nation felt disposed to yield in the smallest
degree.
[Sidenote: Alleged complaints against the Navigation Acts of Cromwell.]
It has been asserted that these laws at first occasioned loud
complaints, to the effect “that while our own people (the English) had
not shipping enough to import from all parts the goods they wanted,
they were, nevertheless, by the Navigation Act debarred from receiving
new supplies of merchandise from other nations, who only could, and
till then, did import them.”[180] At a later period it was said “No
doubt the people were right, the injustice was not seen at first, but
the complaints being unheeded, the wrong dropped out of sight.”[181]
No sudden revulsion, however, of a long established policy ever takes
place without deep complaints from the parties whose monopoly, real
or virtual, has been destroyed. But in this instance these alleged
complaints had doubtless their origin in the mortification felt by
foreign agents in London, whose principals abroad had for centuries
enjoyed an undue share of the shipping trade of this country.
[Sidenote: Navigation Act of Charles II.]
[Sidenote: The Maritime Charter of England.]
During the ten years which followed the passing of the Act of 1651,
the Legislature became more and more convinced of the efficacy of
these prohibitive laws, and was prepared to render them practically
even more stringent. If Charles II. could have reversed any of
Cromwell’s legislative measures with advantage or popularity, he and
his court would gladly have taken such a step. But Charles and his
ministers perceived the advantages which had already accrued from the
legislation of the preceding government, and in the first year of his
actual reign[182] passed an Act (12 Charles II.) which obtained even
from Sir Josiah Child, a liberal and enlightened merchant, the title
of ‘The Maritime Charter of England.’[183] This Act may be deemed the
complement of the Acts of 1646 and 1651, and its principles continued
in force until the year 1849, when, under a totally different state
of circumstances, they gave way to a system more liberal and better
adapted to preserve that share of the trade of the world, both as
manufacturers and carriers of merchandise, which Great Britain had
acquired on the transfer of the maritime power of the Dutch to her own
people two centuries before.
[Sidenote: Its main provisions recited.]
[Sidenote: Trade with the Dutch prohibited.]
The Act of Charles apparently modified Cromwell’s law, by making the
prohibition of “the importation of foreign commodities, except in
British ships, or in ships belonging to the country or place where the
goods were produced,” to apply only to the goods of Russia and Turkey
and to certain other specified articles, which could not be imported
into the United Kingdom except in British ships. But as the enumerated
articles comprehended almost all the chief articles of freight, it can
scarcely be said that any relaxation of the principles of Cromwell’s
law was thus sanctioned. At all events, the supplemental statute of
the 14th Charles II. fully carried into effect the declared intentions
of the Legislature. By this Act all importation of a long list of
enumerated goods, whether from Holland, the Netherlands, or Germany,
was prohibited under any circumstances and in any vessels, British or
foreign, under the penalty of the seizure and confiscation of the ships
and goods.
[Sidenote: The Dutch navigation seriously injured.]
It would be vain to deny that, whatever prospective results in after
times were produced by these laws, the Dutch trade and navigation
suffered most seriously from them. The triumphant career of Blake
against the Spanish navy in the Mediterranean had previously crippled
the maritime power of Spain. The English had acquired a vast territory
in North America, and rich islands in the West Indies with a virgin
soil. In the East they had surmounted their first difficulties in
making settlements, and only required such protection as their own
government could supply to become the general carriers of Indian
produce to the chief consuming nations of Europe. As it was idle to
expect relaxations of their prohibitive systems from France, Spain, or
Portugal, the Parliament and the people saw clearly the necessity of
maintaining at all hazards the maritime superiority of England, and by
such means too as were then within their reach.
[Sidenote: Fresh war with the Dutch, 1664.]
[Sidenote: Its naval incidents.]
[Sidenote: Action off Harwich, 1665.]
The Dutch perceived in these regulations the augury of their maritime
downfall, and a fresh war in consequence supervened, the origin of
which we need not here discuss; indeed many circumstances concurred
to bring about this second rupture. France had endeavoured, by secret
intrigues, to embroil the English and the Dutch, in order that when
their fleets had been crippled and destroyed, she might step in and
acquire an undisputed maritime ascendency. The conduct of the Dutch
on the coast of Africa in excluding the African Company from trading
to that country had given great umbrage. The King sent a fleet there,
doubtless with no friendly intentions. On the other hand the Dutch
complained that the English had forbidden the importation of Dutch
commodities into England. The two countries were therefore ripe for
a fresh war, but the Dutch endeavoured to gain time, so that their
fleet of merchantmen might reach home previously to the declaration
of war. Charles, however, without waiting for a formal declaration of
hostilities, seized one hundred and thirty of their ships, laden with
wine and brandy, homeward bound from Bordeaux, conveying them into
English ports, where they were condemned as lawful prizes. Though such
an act was rightly condemned as unjustifiable by the law of nations,
the voice of the people forced the King into the war, and his desire
to gain prize-money only accorded too well with the eagerness of
the shipowners to plunge into another struggle with their powerful
commercial opponents. War was consequently again declared, and a battle
off Harwich took place on the 3rd (or 14th N. S.) of June 1665. The
Dutch fleet under Cortenaar, Evertz, and Cornelis van Tromp, son of
the famous Martin Tromp, was ordered to seek out the English, whose
fleet was under the command of the Duke of York, Prince Rupert, and the
Earl of Sandwich. It is unnecessary to detail the particulars of this
celebrated engagement; suffice it to say that the Dutch lost nineteen
ships, burnt and sunk, with about six thousand men. The English lost
only four vessels, and about fifteen hundred men; but the Dutch
retired, with their remaining ships, to their own coasts, and the Duke
of York refrained from pursuing them.[184]
[Sidenote: Dutch Smyrna fleet.]
In the meantime the Dutch Smyrna fleet and several of their East
Indiamen, not daring to enter the English Channel, took refuge in the
port of Bergen in Norway; but a plot was concerted between the kings
of England and Denmark to seize these ships, worth several millions,
and to divide the spoil. Through mismanagement, however, the scheme
was defeated, and the Earl of Sandwich, who had been sent to carry
out this intrigue, was so severely handled by the governor of Bergen,
that the English ships were compelled to return home. A strong fleet
of ninety-three ships, well equipped, under the command of De Ruyter,
was then despatched from Holland to convey home the valuable merchant
ships from Bergen, but a storm severely damaged this expedition, and
ultimately twenty of the ships fell into the hands of the English.
[Sidenote: Coalition between the French and Dutch, 1666.]
[Sidenote: Battle of June 1,]
In the following year the affairs of England looked alarming, the
States-General having induced the king of France to declare war
against England, at the same time subsidising the king of Denmark, to
enable him to keep a fleet at sea in the service of the allies. It is
irrelevant to our main purpose to describe the tactics of the English
and allied fleets; it will be only necessary to remind our readers that
the English admirals, Monk and Prince Rupert, engaged the Dutch fleet
under De Ruyter and Cornelis Van Tromp on the 1st of June, 1666, off
the coast of Flanders, and, after a bloody struggle for four days, the
English lost two admirals and twenty-three great ships, besides smaller
vessels, six thousand men, and two thousand six hundred prisoners,
while the losses of the Dutch amounted to four admirals, six ships,
two thousand eight hundred soldiers, and eighty sailors. The latter of
course claimed the victory, but the Londoners made bonfires as if they
were the conquerors.[185]
[Sidenote: and of July 24, 1666.]
The two fleets soon put to sea again, and met on the 24th July, when
another formidable struggle took place between the contending parties.
The English had a hundred sail, the Dutch had eighty ships of the
line and nineteen fireships, the battle being fiercely disputed on
each side with unequal and varying success; but, through an error of
Van Tromp, the English beat De Ruyter, driving him into port; and
afterwards made a descent upon the Dutch coasts, burning a hundred
of their merchant ships and two men-of-war destined for convoys. The
French fleet appeared in the Channel _after_ the campaign was over, but
whether it was in intelligence with the English court, while Louis XIV.
only amused the Dutch with a hollow alliance, secretly rejoicing in
the destruction of both the English and Dutch navies, and hoping that
France might then step in and reap the benefit, certain it is that the
Dutch received no real assistance from France.
[Sidenote: Renewed negotiations for peace, 1667.]
[Sidenote: The Dutch fleet burn ships at Chatham, threaten London, and
proceed to Portsmouth.]
Renewed efforts were then made to procure peace. Charles, however,
procrastinated until he had obtained a fresh and liberal vote of money
from Parliament; and when, at length, negotiations were opened at
Breda, claimed satisfaction for losses sustained before the treaty of
1662. The Dutch, believing the King to be trifling, and finding that
he had not taken precaution to maintain his fleet upon a war footing,
despatched De Ruyter to the Thames to force the English to come to
terms. The Londoners were greatly alarmed. A strong chain was thrown
across the Medway, but the Dutch, with an easterly wind and a strong
tide, broke through it, destroyed the fortifications of Sheerness,
burnt three large merchant ships, the _Matthias_, the _Unity_, and the
_Charles V._, which had been taken from them during the present war,
and carried away with them the hull of the _Royal Charles_, besides
burning and damaging several others. After this they pushed up the
Medway as far as Upnor Castle, near Chatham, and burnt the _Royal Oak_,
the _Royal London_, and the _Great James_ before the eyes of the Dukes
of York and Albemarle, who had just arrived with some troops. Fearing
that the Dutch fleet would sail up to London Bridge, the English sunk
thirteen ships at Woolwich, and four at Blackwall, and raised various
platforms furnished with artillery to defend the approaches to the
city. After committing all the damage he could in the Thames, De Ruyter
sailed for Portsmouth with a design to burn the ships in the harbour,
but, finding them secured, passed on down Channel and captured several
vessels in Torbay. Thence proceeding eastwards, he routed the English
off Harwich, and chased a squadron of nineteen men-of-war under Sir
Edward Spragge, who was forced to retire into the Thames, thus keeping
the English coasts in continual alarm until the Treaty of Peace was
signed in the following July.[186]
[Sidenote: Peace concluded.]
By the Treaty of Breda each nation retained the goods and moveables
they had respectively captured; and, by the nineteenth article, all
ships of war as well as merchant vessels belonging to the United
Provinces, meeting on British waters any of her ships of war, were
required “to strike the flag and lower the sail as had been formerly
practised.” Thus terminated this bitter and bloody struggle. If England
suffered much, Holland, with a larger capital but fewer permanent
resources, suffered still more severely.
[Sidenote: Its effects.]
Turning to events more within our province, it may be mentioned that,
on the authority of Sir Josiah Child, the opponents of the Navigation
Laws point out with exultation that, thirty years after these stringent
Acts came into operation, “the Dutch were beating us in every quarter.”
Such may have been the case in some special branches of commerce, but
it is undeniable that, from the date of these laws, the merchant navy
of England steadily increased; and that soon afterwards the power over
the seas previously claimed by the Dutch was permanently transferred
to the English. Whatever may have been the cause of these changes,
whether the Navigation Acts, or “the stoppage of trade, insecurity of
capital, inherited debts, and taxes on ships” sustained by the Dutch
during the war, England’s maritime resources increased, while those of
Holland declined; and London became what Amsterdam once was, the chief
emporium of the commercial world. Perhaps the resolution of England
to depend upon her own people instead of courting foreign aid by
legislative measures, combined with the exclusion of foreign shipping
from her rapidly-increasing colonial trade, had more to do with these
changes than the other combined reasons which the political economists
of various ages have assigned.
[Sidenote: The colonial system.]
[Sidenote: Partial anomalies.]
[Sidenote: Capital created,]
[Sidenote: Economical theories the prelude to final free trade.]
By what was known as the “Colonial System,” Great Britain secured not
merely the exclusive carrying trade of all produce derived from her
own plantations, but she exercised the monopoly of supplying them from
this side of the Atlantic with such articles as they required or could
afford to consume, while sharing in the carrying trade and commerce
of those parts of the world to which she had access in common with
other maritime states. Many anomalies and some positive self-injuries,
however, sprang out of this exclusive system, which of late years have
been exposed in all their deformities. But it cannot be disputed,
that whatever flagrant evils the exclusive colonial system engendered
it was upon the whole one which tended materially to develop the
maritime energies of British shipowners; and the rapidity with which
the colonies in the West Indian Archipelago and on the continent of
America rose to importance both in wealth and population, demonstrates
that though not so advantageous as it otherwise might have been, it
was certainly not as disastrous to the colonists as partial American
historians would have us believe. There may at first have existed a
paucity of sufficient capital and a deficiency of English ships to
carry on with the fullest advantage the trade thus created; but this
want was speedily supplied, and the foundation laid for an exclusive
but highly flourishing trade and navigation, which continued in
full vigour for more than a century, when the revolt of the North
American Colonies formed a new epoch in history, and, by raising up
an independent maritime people as direct rivals in the carrying trade
of the world, gave a deathblow to a system no longer fitted for the
new state of things. During this long interval the theory of trade and
navigation became better understood. The French economists,[187] made
intelligible and even popular by Adam Smith’s great work, threw a flood
of light on the faults prevailing in the most economical distribution
of wealth in relation with colonies. But the arguments of theorists
would have remained disregarded had the increasing number and influence
of the American colonists and the attitude assumed by the Northern
maritime powers not rendered it impossible to maintain a system now
become obsolete, and the wisdom of the governments of both England and
the United States effected a change which has proved not only to be
safe, but salutary for all parties interested in this great commercial
revolution.
[Sidenote: Eventual separation from the mother country considered.]
In the middle of the seventeenth century it was indeed unreasonable
to expect that England, after her heavy expenditure on settlements
all over the globe, would relinquish advantages from which the first
adventurers, and ultimately the entire nation, anticipated some
return for the amount invested in the plantations and in the ships
fitted out for the carrying trade. Even those writers who expatiate
on the general unremunerative character of her colonial possessions,
with especial reference to Canada, do not consider the foundation of
colonies inexpedient, but, on the contrary, admit unreservedly “that
colonies have been in their consequences highly advantageous to this,
as they have been to most old settled countries in all ages.”[188]
Therefore, whatever differences of opinion may prevail respecting the
relinquishment of the governmental powers of the mother country over
a powerful colony as soon as it is capable of defending itself and
of directing its own affairs, every person concurs in the expediency
of forming new colonies, their eventual severance from the parent
state being only a question of the more or less satisfactory progress
they may make towards a position of independence. At the period when
the English Navigation Laws were inaugurated in imitation of the
successful policy of pre-existing maritime states, there is no doubt
that the Dutch[189] naval predominance on the seas rendered the distant
possessions of Great Britain not only extremely insecure, but enabled
her acute neighbours to carry away part of the prey which had been
really acquired by her “bow and spear.”
[Sidenote: Views of Sir Josiah Child on the Navigation Laws.]
[Sidenote: Relative value of British and foreign ships, 1666.]
When these Acts were passed, and for some years afterwards, they
created quite as much excitement and discussion as their repeal has
caused in our own time. Even Sir Josiah Child,[190] who took the lead
among the few merchants of the period who questioned their policy,
appears to have had strong protectionist views, one of which may be
noticed, as it throws some light upon the cost of shipbuilding at that
period. He proposes to impose a customs duty of no less than fifty per
cent. on all Eastland commodities, timber, boards, pipe-staves, and
salt imported into England and Ireland in any other than English-built
ships, or at least in such as were not sailed by English masters and a
crew whereof three-fourths were English. His reasons for this highly
protectionist proceeding are that “the Danes, Swedes, and Easterlings
will certainly, in a few years, carry off the whole trade, by reason
of the difference of the cost of building the requisite ships, there
and in this country.” Similar statements, we may remark, were the
protectionist arguments used in our own day against the repeal of these
same laws. “The cost,” he goes on to state, “of building a fly-boat of
three hundred tons in those countries would be 1300_l._ or 1400_l._,
whereas in England she could not be constructed for less than from
2200_l._ to 2400_l._, which is so vast a disproportion,” he adds,
“that it is impossible for an Englishman to cope with a Dane in that
navigation under such discouragement.” The stranger’s duty of five
or six pounds per ship each voyage was the only set-off against this
alleged disadvantage, and in his opinion the prizes taken in the Dutch
war alone enabled us to withstand that competition, Sir Josiah averring
that “during the seventeen years the Act of Navigation had been in
force, not one single English ship had been built for this, which we
may call the Lower Baltic trade.”
Sir Josiah, it will be seen, estimates the cost of constructing an
English ship at that time at somewhat under eight pounds per ton, while
a vessel could be built by the Danes and Swedes at very little more
than one half that price. We must, however, remember that in stating
these prices he was arguing in favour of a certain line of policy, and,
in doing so, may have made the cost of construction in the Northern
ports of Europe considerably less than it actually was. Besides, so
much depends upon quality and outfit that a price per ton, unless all
the particulars are stated, gives only a vague idea of the actual value.
Another well-known writer of that period, Sir Henry Petty,[191]
estimates the value of the whole of the shipping of Europe, old
and new, at eight pounds per ton. He also furnishes some valuable
information with regard to the extent of the shipping of Europe at
the time he wrote. Estimating the whole at 2,000,000 of tons, he
apportions to the English 500,000, the Dutch 900,000, the French
100,000, the Hamburgers, with the subjects of Denmark and Sweden, and
the town of Dantzic 250,000 tons, and he gives, which seems small, the
remaining 250,000 tons as belonging to Spain, Portugal, and Italy. He
further states that the Dutch East India Company had then a capital of
3,000,000_l._, and that goods to the value of that sum were annually
exported from Holland into England. The shipping belonging to France
was then, it would appear, only one-ninth of that belonging to the
Dutch, or one-fifth of that of Great Britain, which, on the authority
of Dr. Charles Devonport, had doubled between 1666 and 1688, while
her royal navy had in the same time increased from 62,594 to 101,032
tons.[192]
[Sidenote: British clearances, 1688, and value of exports.]
[Sidenote: 1692.]
From another return[193] we for the first time ascertain the annual
clearances outwards from Great Britain, and the value of the cargoes
of the ships. These in 1688 amounted to 190,533 tons of English, and
95,267 tons of foreign vessels, the gross value of these exports being
4,486,087_l._, showing an annual increase not merely steady but rapid
during the previous ten years. War, however, again harassed the people.
France, the old enemy of England, now sought to pluck from her the
laurels she had won from the Dutch, and to claim a maritime supremacy
over both nations. Her naval force had now become so formidable, being
augmented by numerous privateers, that it played havoc among the
merchant vessels of Great Britain, destroying or capturing nearly the
whole Smyrna fleet, consisting of many richly laden vessels, as also
two of the English men-of-war which accompanied them.[194]
[Sidenote: War with France.]
Such a disaster upon the element where England claimed supremacy
was keenly felt, not merely by those persons who were interested in
maritime affairs, but by the entire nation, while the direct loss
sustained by the English was estimated by the French at one million
sterling.[195] The Turkey Company complained that, the Admiralty
had neglected its duty; that spies in the pay of the French monarch
were allowed facilities for ascertaining the strength and movements
of the English fleets, and the destination of any ships worthy of
capture. Numerous complaints were also made in Parliament, but, in
the sequel, nothing was done to satisfy the nation or to compensate
the parties directly interested for the losses they had sustained.
The attitude, however, taken soon afterwards by the English fleet in
the Mediterranean under the command of Admiral Russell,[196] and the
raising of the siege of Barcelona, with the undisputed command which
she recovered over the Narrow Seas, restored the prestige of England,
and forced the French to keep themselves cooped up in their harbours.
But the war had proved disastrous to her commerce and her shipping;
the clearances at its close, in 1696, having fallen to 91,767 tons,
showing a decrease of no less than 98,766 tons in eight years, while
the value of her exports during that period had declined to the extent
of 1,356,567_l._[197]
[Sidenote: Peace of Ryswick, 1697.]
The Treaty of Peace of Ryswick, concluded in 1697, brought with it
great prosperity, the clearances outwards of British ships averaging in
the following three years 393,703 tons annually, while the gross value
of produce exported on the average in each of the same years reached
6,709,881, or three times more than it had been in 1696.
At this period the government paid for the hire of transports from the
merchant service 716,220_l._ per annum, on an average of ten years.[198]
[Sidenote: Trade of the colonies.]
[Sidenote: African trade.]
From the period of the Revolution in 1688 to the death of Queen Anne,
the trade of the plantations had steadily and rapidly increased,
employing five hundred sail of vessels, a large proportion of them
being engaged in the transport of negroes from the coast of Africa.
Though originally a monopoly in the hands of the African Company,[199]
private speculation had entered so largely into it that, in 1698,
an Act of Parliament gave permission to all the King’s subjects,
whether of England or of America, to trade to Africa on payment of a
certain per centage to the Company on all goods exported or imported,
negro slaves being nevertheless exempted from this contribution.
The advocates of free trade considered the exemption a great boon
to the colonies, as the competition of the private merchant vessels
had greatly reduced the prices of slaves, whereby the British negro
colonies had been enabled to undersell their rivals in the general
market of the world. This process seems, however, to have had a
twofold effect, or to have cut both ways. The keenest partisans for
the unbounded liberty of commerce felt no scruple of conscience in
depriving the poor Africans, who were only guilty of having black
skins and woolly hair, of their liberty, in whatever part of the world
they could be found; and on the east coast of Africa, where negroes
were cheaper than elsewhere, the competition of the traders of various
nations raised the price of human flesh.[200] Although the most
hideous cruelties were practised to procure these slaves, the traffic
continued to increase and, half a century afterwards, one hundred and
fifty vessels were fitted out in one year for the east coast of Africa
from the ports of France alone, transporting in the course of that year
twenty thousand slaves to the island of St. Domingo.
[Sidenote: Newfoundland.]
[Sidenote: Usages at the fishery.]
The French, indeed, during the reign of Louis XIV. had encroached
at all points on the English trade, especially on her fisheries at
Newfoundland; hence William III. in his declaration of war against
that country in 1689, intimated “that whereas not long since the
French had been accustomed to take licences from the British governor
of Newfoundland for fishing in the seas upon that coast, and to pay
tribute for such licences as an acknowledgment of the sole right of the
Crown of England to that island, yet of late their encroachments upon
his subjects’ trade and fishery there had been more like the invasions
of an enemy than of becoming friends who enjoyed the advantages of the
said trade only by permission.” But the capture of Nova Scotia at the
commencement of this war restored English supremacy in that quarter.
The preamble of an Act passed in 1698 for the encouragement of the
trade with Newfoundland, declared it to be a beneficial trade to Great
Britain, not only in so far as it employed great numbers of ships and
seamen in those fisheries, but also in that it procured returns of
valuable commodities direct from other countries in exchange for the
produce of those fisheries. The prevailing customs at the fisheries
were sanctioned expressly in this Act, one of the most important being
that the master of any vessel from England who happened first to enter
any harbour or creek in the island after the 25th of March should be
admiral of the said harbour or creek during the ensuing fishing season,
and should see the rules and orders laid down in the Act duly put into
execution within the limits of the jurisdiction thus assigned to him.
It was also expressly enacted that no subject of any foreign power
“shall at any time hereafter take any bait, or use any sort of trade
or fishing in Newfoundland, or in any of the adjacent islands;” though
this complete exclusion of other rivals was not persevered in.
[Sidenote: Greenland fishery.]
A few years after the Revolution measures were taken to revive the
Greenland fishery; and in 1692 a company, incorporated for carrying it
on with a capital of 40,000_l._, was granted by charter the exclusive
possession of the trade for fourteen years. The preamble of their Act
describes the previous trade to Greenland as “quite decayed and lost,”
the merchants, who had been encouraged to enter into this business,
in virtue of the previous Act of 1673, having only imported a small
quantity of oil, blubber, and whale fins. They had found other nations
enter into the trade with so large a number of ships, that the English
fishermen were not enabled to compete with them on their separate
interests; indeed the whole trade was then or soon after engrossed by
foreigners. At length it was represented to the government that for
several years no ships had been despatched from England to Greenland,
and that the produce of those fisheries had been wholly bought from
foreigners, the prices paid being six times the rates they formerly
were; and the memorial added that there were few, if any, English
harpooners or English seamen skilled and exercised in whale-catching,
so that “the said trade could not be regained nor carried on without
foreign harpinierers, or upon individual risks without a joint-stock
fund.” As, however, the Greenland fishery did not rally under the
protective charter conferred upon the parties subscribing, an
additional capital of 42,000_l._ was raised in 1696, and a new Act
obtained, exempting the Company from all duties upon oil, blubber,
and whale fins imported during the term of their charter, but before
it expired the entire capital was lost, and the Company relinquished
the business. Under these circumstances the trade in 1702 was thrown
open by Parliament, the Act pronouncing that it had been neglected by
the Company, and thus lost to the nation. Twenty years afterwards, in
1721, the number of foreign ships engaged in the Greenland and Davis’s
Straits fishery were three hundred and fifty-five, of which Holland
sent two hundred and fifty-one ships, Hamburg fifty-five, Bremen
twenty-four, Biscay twenty, and Bergen, in Norway, five.
[Sidenote: Russian trade.]
[Sidenote: Peter the Great.]
In 1699 the trade with Russia, now daily becoming of greater
importance, in consequence of the impulse given to the Russian
mercantile navy by Peter the Great, was also practically thrown open
by an Act entitling any person to admission to the Russia Company upon
payment of an entrance fee of five pounds. It was about this time
that the Czar abdicated temporarily his high functions as a powerful
barbarian prince, and, assuming a pilot’s dress, repaired to the Dutch
city of Saardam, then celebrated for its extensive ship-building, where
he purchased a small vessel, at the finishing of which he worked with
his own hands. He afterwards worked at every branch of ship-building,
associating freely with his fellow artisans. Inscribed on the roll of
ships’ carpenters as Peter Michaeloff, he passed among the workmen
by the name of Master Peter. After having visited Amsterdam and
other towns of Holland, this extraordinary man proceeded to England,
where he worked in the dockyard at Deptford in the same industrious,
unostentatious manner as he had done in Holland. The Dutch had taught
him the mere routine of their method of ship-building; in England he
was instructed in the higher branches of the art, and was soon rendered
capable of giving instructions to others. It is said that he assisted
in building one of the best sailing vessels that had yet been launched.
Soon after his return home Russia became a naval power, possessing for
the first time a considerable fleet.[201]
[Sidenote: Effect of legislative union with Scotland, 1707.]
[Sidenote: The maritime commerce of Scotland.]
Although by the accession of James VI. of Scotland and I. of England
these two countries were brought under the same sovereign, they, until
the reign of Queen Anne, were for all purposes of trade and legislation
foreign and antagonistic states. There was little or no commercial,
much less social, intercourse between them; and the advantages enjoyed
by either one, and acquired by foreign treaties, were rigorously
withheld from the other. The whole amount of trade between the two
countries rarely exceeding in value 150,000_l._ per annum, the amount
of shipping employed in it was consequently altogether insignificant;
but the Legislative Union in time gave an immense impulse to the
commerce of Scotland, and opened to that country the rich fields of
the English colonial possessions as well as her home markets. The
merchants of Glasgow and Greenock were the first to reap the advantages
of the Union, but their commercial operations were confined in a great
measure, throughout the whole of the last century, to the West Indies,
and to the plantations of British North America, more especially to
Virginia, while the insurrection in favour of the son of James II.,
known as the “Pretender,” very materially retarded the incipient
maritime prosperity of that portion of the now thoroughly united
kingdom, obliging as it did the English to maintain a considerable
fleet cruising off the coasts of Scotland. But when this insurrection
was suppressed the trade of Scotland again steadily increased, and
may be said to have gone hand-in-hand with England ever since, though
interrupted for a time by the more serious rebellion of 1745-6.
Various circumstances tended to strengthen this commercial intercourse,
and, not the least among the number, may be mentioned the establishment
of the Board of Trade, which, though originally formed under Charles
II. in 1668, only became a permanent establishment in 1696, consisting
of a royal commission under the style of the “Commissioners for
promoting the trade of the Kingdom, and for inspecting and improving
the Plantations in America and elsewhere.” This Board afforded
resources for enlarging and materially benefiting the trade of the
United Kingdom by the publication of its statistical returns, and in
numerous other ways, and had the exclusive superintendence of the
commerce of the plantations, and indeed of their government until 1786,
when a Secretary of State was appointed for the colonies, and a new
council for the affairs of trade organised on its present plan.
[Sidenote: Buccaneers in the West Indies.]
No sooner had England become distracted at home by the civil war of the
first Pretender and by the rupture with Charles XII. of Sweden, than
the pirates of Barbary issued from their secret haunts, and greatly
interrupted every branch of her maritime commerce. In the West Indies,
too, the losses sustained by the ravages of the piratical buccaneers
became so extensive that the most serious complaints were preferred
against the Admiralty for tolerating the grievance, the result being a
proclamation offering a reward of 100_l._ head-money for every captain,
40_l._ for a lieutenant down to a gunner, 30_l._ for an inferior
officer, and 20_l._ for every private captured: more than this, any
pirate who delivered up his captain or commander was entitled upon his
conviction to a reward of 200_l._[202]
[Sidenote: State of British merchant shipping, temp. George I.]
War, as we have too frequently seen, is a terrible obstacle to all
industrial pursuits, and to no branch of commerce—however much a
certain class of shipowners may have realised by having their vessels
employed as government transports—is it a greater source of lasting
injury than to the mercantile marine. This branch of industry, indeed,
suffered not merely by the war itself, but by the hordes of privateers,
buccaneers, and pirates which, up to the close of the last century,
infested the seas whenever war was declared, thus interrupting
legitimate commerce, and plundering wherever they had an opportunity,
either by land or sea, too often with little regard whether the
property they plundered was that of a friend or a foe. In the early
part of the reign of George I. these marauders were almost as daring
and as lawless as the pirates had been during the reign of Elizabeth
and of the Henrys, and none more so than an Englishman named Roberts,
who, in three vessels armed as frigates, the largest mounting forty
guns, and commanded by himself, desolated the coasts of Africa and the
West India Islands, plundering the ships of his own country with as
little remorse as he did those of any other nation.
[Sidenote: South Sea Company, 1710.]
But while the buccaneers at this period scoured the seas, there were
knavish speculators on land who, under the pretence of fostering
and developing the commercial and maritime resources of England,
were really its greatest enemies. Among the numerous concerns then
floated as joint stock companies, no one was more conspicuous or more
disastrous than the “South Sea Bubble.” Having for its professed object
the trade of the South Seas, yet with no basis for its operations
beyond the dishonourable privilege of supplying Spanish America for
thirty years with slaves torn from Africa, a very questionable favour
granted to Great Britain by the Treaty of Utrecht, this company, in
competition with the Bank of England, sought and obtained a monopoly
of the South Sea trade on condition that the national floating debt,
then about ten millions, should be paid out of its surplus profits!!
Though perhaps no wilder scheme was ever propounded, it readily
received the sanction of Parliament, and consequently a thousand and
one other bubbles were speedily projected. The disastrous results are
well known: thousands of families once well to do were irretrievably
ruined, and the frenzy with which the people were seized, together with
the impulse given to every form of gambling instead of to the steady
pursuits of industry, materially aided the convulsion caused by the
bursting of these bubbles, thus for many years paralysing commerce in
all its branches, and laying prostrate the energies of the country.
Seized for a time with the spirit of insane speculation, the people
thought of nothing else, and though in our own day we have witnessed
many wild schemes submitted for public support, none have really proved
so thoroughly disastrous in their results as those which were then
launched. South Sea stock of 100_l._ sold for 1000_l._; the Orkney
Fishery stock rose from 25_l._ to 250_l._; the York Buildings stock,
whose shares were 10_l._, reached 260_l._ The latter, a company erected
to cut timber for ship-building and other purposes in Scotland, in
spite of a protectionist bounty, proved a ruinous failure. There were
besides eleven fishing projects; ten insurance companies; two companies
for the remittance of money; four salt companies; two sugar companies;
eleven companies for settlements in, or trading to, America; two
building companies; thirteen land companies; six oil companies; four
harbour and river companies; four companies for supplying London with
coal, cattle, and hay, and for paving the streets; six hemp, flax, and
linen companies; five companies for carrying on the manufacture of
silks and cottons; one for planting mulberry-trees in Chelsea Park,
and breeding silkworms;[203] fifteen mining companies; and some sixty
more miscellaneous bubbles of the most preposterous character. One
undertaking actually obtained subscriptions for an object “which in due
time should be revealed!”
[Sidenote: The bubble bursts, 1720.]
But the South Sea Company, the greatest bubble of the lot, having
prosecuted some of the rival bubble companies, and obtained a writ of
_scire facias_ from the Queen’s Bench, all stocks fell suddenly; and
the South Sea scheme itself collapsed in the general ruin which ensued.
The price of its stock fell from 1000_l._ to 175_l._ in a few weeks.
The delusion was at an end, and the English nation awaking from its
dreams of boundless wealth to a sense of its degradation, a terrible
commercial distress ensued. Parliament stepped in at last with a bill
to remedy the mischief which had been done, and which it had itself
encouraged. Proofs were given of the deep and fraudulent complicity of
the then Chancellor of the Exchequer (Aislabie), as well as of several
South Sea directors and other persons of the highest rank at court and
in the city. In the sequel, four members of the House of Commons who
were South Sea directors were expelled the House; Aislabie was sent
to the Tower; Knight, the cashier of the Company, absconded, and the
estates of the chief criminals were confiscated.
But amid the numerous wildly speculative concerns then projected and
launched, there were others which were sound and legitimate; among
these may be mentioned the Royal Exchange Assurance Company, with
a capital of 500,000_l._, and the London Assurance Company, with
a subscription list of four times that amount. Each of these have
maintained their position to this day, ranking high as marine and fire
insurance associations. By their original charters they were empowered
to insure ships and merchandise from the dangers and accidents of
the sea, and were also authorised to lend money on bottomry bonds.
Subsequently they obtained charters for insuring from loss by fire.
From the first they have had no exclusive privileges, although they
might well have demanded them, for, just before their formation, the
losses of private underwriters had been so great that no fewer than one
hundred and fifty of them had become insolvent in the previous five
years.[204]
FOOTNOTES:
[175] There is a passage in Mr. Burke’s famous speech on Conciliation
with America, March 22, 1775, where he states her growth in the life of
one man, Lord Bathurst, which reads now almost like a prophecy.
[176] The Ordinance is quoted in Macpherson, ii. p. 430.
[177] Details of the Navigation Act of 1651 (confirmed in 1660) will be
found in Macpherson, ii. pp. 442-444.
[178] Martin Tromp, who fought this action, is often confounded with
his even more famous son, Cornelis Van Tromp. In Dutch history he is
always called Tromp. There would seem to have been five actions in the
years 1652 and 1653. The first between Blake and Tromp, off Dover,
May 29, 1652, when Blake was successful; the second in December, in
which Blake was thoroughly beaten. After this occasion, Tromp placed
the broom at his mainmast-head. The third on February 28, 1653,
off Portland, when the Dutch were beaten, and lost three hundred
merchantmen they had previously captured. The fourth on June 2, when
the Dutch were again beaten. The fifth on August 10, an indecisive
action, wherein Monk commanded the English instead of Blake, and Tromp
was killed, leaving De Witt in command. The action between Ayscough and
De Ruyter was fought on August 26, 1652.—See Sir E. Cust’s ‘Lives of
the Admirals,’ etc., i. p. 370.
[179] Art. xiii. of this treaty requires the striking of the flag
(Macpherson, ii. p. 453).
[180] _Vide_ Macpherson, ii. pp. 442-444.
[181] Ricardo’s ‘Anatomy of Navigation Laws.’
[182] As all Cromwell’s Acts were ignored, the new laws were dated from
the death of Charles I.; hence the Navigation Act of Charles II. is
dated as passed in the _twelfth_ of his regnal years, although really
in the _first_ of his actual reign.
[183] The principal enacting clauses of this Act are given in
Macpherson, ii. pp. 484-486. Roger Coke, in his ‘Discourse on Trade,’
states that owing to the Acts of 1651 and 1660, the building of ships
in England had become one-third dearer.
[184] A full account is given by Gérard Brandt of this celebrated
action, quoted in Sir E. Cust’s ‘Lives of the Admirals,’ vol. ii. pp.
452-454.
[185] All the accounts of the respective losses of the two fleets vary;
but it is clear, from the life of Sir W. Penn, that the English had
quite enough of the battle (Cust, vol. ii. p. 384).
[186] There is no doubt that in this raid on the English coast the
Dutch were successful in doing a great amount of damage to the English
marine; but at the same time more credit is due than has been usually
given to Sir Edward Spragge, who, on two successive days, with only a
small force of five frigates and seventeen fire-ships, repulsed the
Dutch fleet under Van Nes, though on the first he was compelled to fall
back for a few hours under the guns of Tilbury Fort. Van Nes had been
sent by De Ruyter to force his way up the Thames, and Spragge deserves
to be recorded as the English admiral who stopped his further advance
(Cust, vol. ii. p. 391). There is at Hampton Court an original painting
by Vandevelde of the later action of August 1673, in which Spragge was
drowned.
[187] It is remarkable that the free trade theories, which had their
origin in France, should have been so long altogether neglected in the
legislation of that great country; but the most republican governments
there, as elsewhere, seem to have been the most jealous champions of
the protectionist system.
[188] _Vide_ notes on Smith’s ‘Wealth of Nations’ by J. R. McCulloch,
4th edition, p. 607; and E. Gibbon Wakefield’s ‘View of the Art of
Colonisation,’ Lond. 1849.
[189] See remarks on what the Dutch had done to the apparent injury of
the English colonies previous to the passing of the Navigation Acts
(Macpherson, ii. p. 487).
[190] ‘New Discourse on Trade,’ by Josiah Child, 1665, Glasgow, ed.
1751.
[191] _Vide_ ‘Political Arithmetick,’ 4th ed. p. 103.
[192] ‘Discourse on the Trade of England,’ vol. i. pp. 129, 363.
[193] Chambers’s ‘Estimate of the Strength of Great Britain,’ p. 68.
[194] A list of these vessels will be found in the _Gazette_, No. 2888.
[195] The French navy was, however, nearly destroyed in the great
battle of La Hogue, fought by Admiral Russell on May 12, 1692.
[196] See ‘Life of Admiral Russell, Earl of Oxford,’ by Sir E. Cust,
ii. p. 556.
[197] In 1701-1702 there were 3281 vessels measuring, or rather
estimated at 261,222 tons, carrying 27,196 men, and 5660 guns,
belonging respectively to the following ports:—
Ships. Tons. Men.
London 560 84,882 10,065
Bristol 165 17,338 2,357
Yarmouth 143 9,914 668
Exeter 121 7,107 978
Hull 115 7,564 187
Whitby 110 8,292 571
Liverpool 102 8,619 1,101
Scarborough 102 6,860 506
No other ports of the kingdom possessed, at the time the return was
made, one hundred vessels; but though Newcastle-on-Tyne owned then only
thirty-nine vessels, they measured 11,170 tons, giving an average of
two hundred and seventy-one tons to each. In reply to the circular from
the Commissioners of Customs calling for this return, Hull accounted
for her small number of seamen by stating that as it was winter (most
of her vessels, no doubt, being employed in the Baltic and north of
Europe trade, or in whaling) eighty vessels were laid up, and had
consequently no crews on board. It is curious to note that no farther
back than the commencement of the last century, such places as Yarmouth
and Exeter owned more ships than Liverpool, which now owns a larger
amount of tonnage than London; while there are now numerous ports in
the kingdom of infinitely greater maritime importance than either
Scarborough or Whitby, of which no mention whatever is made (Chambers’s
Estimates, p. 68; ibid. pp. 89, 90).
[198] ‘History of the Debt’ (Appendix), London 1753.
[199] The African Company arose out of the slave dealing along the
coasts of Africa, but was at first occupied in a legitimate trade in
gold and ivory from Guinea (Macph. ii. pp. 72, 115, S.A. 1531-1553),
Captain John Hawkins being the first Englishman to trade in negroes,
1562. In 1571 a treaty was made between the Portuguese (who claimed
the coast of Guinea as their own), which allowed equal rights of trade
to the English (Macph. ii. 153). The French would seem to have had a
considerable trade with Senegal at a much earlier period (Macph. ii.
390). In 1637 the Dutch secured a direct commerce in negroes by taking
from the Portuguese the castle of St. George del Mina, on the coast
of Guinea; and, in 1642, by a special treaty, the Portuguese were
permitted to hire English ships wherein to carry their negroes (Macph.
ii. 420). At the peace, the result of Lord Rodney’s action, England
restored to France, in 1783, what she had taken from her along the
coast of Africa. The Royal African Company was first incorporated in
1631. It was constantly in trouble, chiefly with the Dutch, and was
repeatedly renewed with fresh privileges. As late as 1800 it received
from government an annual grant of 20,000_l._ (Macph. iv. 501).
[200] _Vide_ Macpherson, ii. pp. 277-278.
[201] One of the last acts of the life of Peter the Great was to plan
the survey, entrusted to Behring, a Dane, to determine whether Russia
was or was not joined to America. The expedition started, July 1728,
from Kamsachkatka, and Behring discovered the straits named after him,
but did not himself see America (‘Mar. and Inl. Disc.’ ii. p. 345).
[202] A full account of the daring adventures of the buccaneers may
be read in ‘Mar. and Inl. Discovery,’ vol. ii. pp. 298-315; and in
Archenholtz, ‘Hist. des Filibustiers,’ 8vo. 1806.
[203] The attempt to grow mulberry-trees in England with the view of
providing food for silkworms was not new. It had been suggested by
James I. in 1608, indeed a patent had been granted for the same purpose
to Walter Lord Aston in 1629 (see Macpherson, ii. pp. 250 and 358).
But this scheme had failed, probably owing to the coldness or damp of
the English climate; even in France, as is well known, mulberries are
not found to grow sufficiently well north of the Loire. The ground
secured for the mulberry plantation, in 1721, was Lord Wharton’s park,
of about forty acres, at Chelsea. In Reed’s ‘Weekly Journal,’ Aug.
21, 1721, it is stated that “there is a great concourse of foreigners
and others daily in Chelsea Park to see the Raw Silk undertaking, for
which a patent was granted by his present Majesty.” One very ancient
mulberry-tree still survives in the garden of Tudor House, No. 16
Cheyne Walk, and is perhaps the only survivor of the two thousand said
to have been planted in the neighbourhood.
[204] See Reports to the Attorney-General, 1718-1720, and full details
on this subject in Macpherson, vol. iii. pp. 77-114.