¹ See Harte, N. B., “Trends in Publication on the Economic and Social History of Great Britain and Ireland, 1925–1974.” The Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 30 (02 1977), pp. 20–41;CrossRefGoogle ScholarChaloner, W. H. and Richardson, R. C., Bibliography of British Economic and Social History (Manchester, 1984).Google Scholar

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³ Deane, Phyllis and Cole, W. A., British Economic Growth, 1688–1959 (Cambridge, 1962), pp. 41–50, 82–89.Google Scholar

⁴ Rostow, W. W., The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto (Cambridge, 1960).Google Scholar See also two contemporary articles: Berrill, K., “International trade and the rate of economic growth,” Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 12 (04 1960), pp. 351–59;CrossRefGoogle ScholarHabakkuk, H. J. and Deane, Phyllis, “The Take-off in Britain,” in Rostow, W. W., ed., The Economics of Take-Off into Sustained Growth (London, 1963), pp. 63–82.Google Scholar

⁵ See, for example, Frank, André Gunder, World Accumulation, 1492–1789 (London, 1978);CrossRefGoogle ScholarWallerstein, Immanuel, The Modern World System II: Mercantilism and the Consolidation of the European World-Economy, 1600–1750 (New York, 1980).Google Scholar For a critique, see O'Brien, Patrick, “European Economic Development: the Contribution of the Periphery,” Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 35 (02 1982), pp. 1–18;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and the exchange of comments between O'Brien and Wallerstein in Ibid., 36 (Nov. 1983), pp. 580–85.

⁶ See in particular McKendrick, Neil, “Home Demand and Economic Growth: A New View of the Role of Women and Children in the Industrial Revolution,” in McKendrick, Neil, ed., Historical Perspectives: Studies in English Thought and Society in Honour of J. H. Plumb (London, 1974). pp. 152–210;Google Scholaridem, , “The Consumer Revolution of Eighteenth-Century England,” in McKendrick, Neil, Brewer, John and Plumb, J. H., eds., The Birth of a Consumer Society: The Commercialization of Eighteenth-Century England (London, 1982), pp. 9–33.Google Scholar It should be noted, however, that recent quantitative work has failed to demonstrate any measurable increase in total consumption per head before 1800. See Feinstein, C. H.. “Capital Accumulation and the Industrial Revolution” in Floud, Roderick and McCloskey, Donald, eds., The Economic History of Britain since 1700, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1981). p. 136.Google Scholar

⁷ The current standing of the “main line” approach to the problem is very ably presented and interpreted in Crafts, N. F. R., British Economic Growth during the Industrial Revolution (Oxford, 1985).Google Scholar especially chap. 7, and—on a briefer scale—in Lee, C. H., The British Economy since 1700: A Macroeconomic Perspective (Cambridge, 1986), especially chap. 6.Google Scholar See also Thomas, R. P. and McCloskey, D. N., “Overseas Trade and Empire, 1700–1860,” in Floud, and McCloskey, , eds., The Economic History of Britain, chap. 5.Google Scholar

⁸ Crafts, Economic Growth. pp. 147–48.Google Scholar No comparable data are available for the eighteenth century, but see McCusker, John J., “The Current Value of English Exports, 1697 to 1800,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., 28 (10 1971), pp. 607–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁹ Unless otherwise specified, all foreign trade data in this paper are from (in order of preference): Davis, Ralph, “English Foreign Trade, 1700–1774,” Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 15 (10 1962), pp. 285–303;Google Scholaridem, , The Industrial Revolution and British Overseas Trade (Leicester, 1979);Google ScholarHamilton, Henry, An Economic History of Scotland in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford, 1963), pp. 410–20;Google ScholarMitchell, B. R. and Deane, Phyllis, Abstract of British Historical Statistics (Cambridge, 1962);Google ScholarSchumpeter, Elizabeth Boody, English Overseas Trade Statistics, 1697–1808 (Oxford, 1960).Google Scholar All English population data in the article are from Wrigley, E. A. and Schofield, R. S., The Population History of England, 1541–1871 (Cambridge, MA, 1981), pp. 208–9.Google Scholar

¹⁰ For example, Smith, Adam, The Wealth of Nations, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1976), vol. 1, pp. 424, 448–49. For Pitt's speech of 9 03 1759, see British Library Add. MSS. 32, 888 ff. 428–429.Google Scholar

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¹² Between about 1670 and about 1770, population can be roughly estimated to have risen as follows: England and Wales: 5.3 to 6.9 million; Scotland: 1 to 1.3 million; Ireland: 2 to 3.6 million; British West Indies: 96.000 to 480,000; Thirteen Colonies: 112,000 to 2.148 million (with 117,000 extra for Canada at the latter date). See fn. 9, Mitchell and Deane, Abstract, p. 5;Google ScholarSmout, T. C., A History of the Scottish People, 1560–1830 (New York, 1969), chap. 11;Google ScholarMokyr, Joel and Gráda, Cormac ó, “New Developments in Irish Population History, 1700–1850,” Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 37 (11 1984), pp. 473–88;CrossRefGoogle ScholarBureau, U.S. of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States … to 1970 (Washington, D.C., 1975), vol. 2, p. 1168;Google ScholarMcCusker, John J. and Menard, Russell R., The Economy of British America, 1607–1789 (Chapel Hill, 1985), pp. 111, 154.Google Scholar

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¹⁴ Price, Jacob M., “A Note on the Value of Colonial Exports of Shipping,” this Journal, 36 (09 1976), pp. 704–24.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Robert Brenner develops this theme in the opening chapters of his forthcoming Merchants and Revolution: Commercial Change and Political Conflict in the London Merchant Community, 1550–1660 (Princeton University Press).Google Scholar

¹⁶ Extensive literature on this subject includes Glamann, Kristof, Dutch-Asiatic Trade, 1620–1740 (Copenhagen, 1958), especially chap. 3;Google ScholarChaudhuri, K. N., “The East India Company and the Export of Treasure in the Early Seventeenth Century,” Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 16 (08 1963), pp. 23–38;CrossRefGoogle Scholaridem, , “Treasure and Trade Balances: the East India Company's Export Trade, 1660–1720,” Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 21 (12 1968), pp. 480–502;Google ScholarAttman, Artur, The Bullion Flow between Europe and the East, 1000–1750 (Göteborg, 1981);Google Scholaridem, , American Bullion in the European World Trade, 1600–1800 (Göteborg, [1986]).Google Scholar

¹⁷ Buck, Norman Sydney, The Development of the Organisation ofAnglo-Amnerican Trade, 1800–1850 (New Haven, 1925), especially pp. 131–51;Google ScholarWesterfield, Ray B., Early History of American Auctions (New Haven, 1920), pp. 159–210, esp. pp. 172–79;Google ScholarPrice, Jacob M., Capital and Credit in British Overseas Trade: the View from the Chesapeake, 1700–1776 (Cambridge, MA, 1980), pp. 143–46, 202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁸ References to the 2.5 percent freight charge can be found scattered in invoices in surviving eighteenth-century commercial papers, including Library of Congress, John Glassford & Co. Papers, vol. 31 ff. 15–;24, 55v, 72v–80v, 89v, 109v– 16v, 149v–50v, 17–76v, as well as in vols. 122, 123, 124. See also Price, Capital and Credit, pp. 156–57, in which freight on outbound goods is equated with commission (both 2.5 percent) but waived if goods ordered are paid on time.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Price, Capital and Credit, chap. 6, especially p. 119;Google ScholarHope, John, Letters on Credit (2d edn., London, 1784), pp. 9–10.Google Scholar There were, of course some trades where shorter credits were common and some—for example, guns—where no credit might be offered. See Robinson, Eric, “Boulton and Fothergill, 1762–1782, and the Birmingham export of hardware,” University of Birmingham Historical Journal, 7 (1959–1960), pp. 60–79;Google ScholarChapman, S. D., “Financial Restraints on the Growth of Firms in the Cotton Industry, 1790–1850,” Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 32 (02 1979), pp. 51–52.Google Scholar

²⁰ Price, Capital and Credit, pp. 112–13;Google Scholar[Defoe, Daniel], A Brief State of the Inland or Home Trade of England (London, 1730), pp. 21–22.Google Scholar

²¹ See Davis, Ralph, “English Foreign Trade. 1660–1700,” Economic History, 2nd ser., 7 (12 1954), p. 151. In 1699–1701, trade with America, Africa, and Asia came to 15.4 percent of total English imports and exports; it seems unlikely that they came to more than 10 percent in 1651–1660.Google Scholar

²² On such bill operations, see Price, J. M., “Multilateralism and/or Bilateralism: the Settlement of British Trade Balances with ‘The North,’ c. 1700,” Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 14 (12 1961), pp. 254–74.Google Scholar

²³ Malone, Joseph J., Pine Trees and Politics: The Naval Stores and Forest Policy in Colonial New England, 1691–1775 (London, 1964), pp. 26–27, passim;Google ScholarPrice, J. M., “The Map of Commerce,” The New Cambridge Modern History, (Cambridge, 1970), vol. 6, pp. 839–44.Google Scholar

²⁴ Warden, Alex J., The Linen Trade Ancient and Modern (London, 1864), pp. 663–66;Google ScholarGill, Conrad, The Rise of the Irish Linen Industry (Oxford, 1925), p. 71;Google ScholarHomer, John, The Linen Trade of Europe during the Spinning-Wheel Period (Belfast, 1920);Google ScholarDune, Alastair J., The Scottish Linen Industry in the Eighteenth Century (Edinburgh, 1979), pp. 52, 146–48, 151–55;Google ScholarHarte, N. B., “The Rise of Protection and the English Linen Trade, 1690–1790,” in Harte, N. B. and Ponting, K. G., eds., Textile History and Economic History (Manchester, 1973), pp. 74–112.Google ScholarSee Davis, “English Foreign Trade, 1700–1774,” p. 303, for decline in English woolen exports to northwest Europe and rise in English exports of British linen.Google Scholar

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²⁶ McCusker and Menard. The Economy of British America. p. 284; Schumpeter, Trade Statistics, pp. 63–69. In the woolen-worsted group, the American colonies took 70.4 percent of English exports of “Spanish cloth,” 42.6 percent of flannel, 36.8 percent of “short cloths,” and lesser quantities of other varieties. Some additional English cloth was exported to America from Scotland.Google Scholar

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²⁸ Price, Jacob M., France and the Chesapeake: A History of the French Tobacco Monopoly, 1674–1791 …, 2 vols. (Ann Arbor, 1973), especially vol. 2, pp. 845–49.Google ScholarFor coffee and rum re-exports, see Schumpeter, Trade Statistics, pp. 60–61. For rice, see PRO C.O.390/5 f. 119 (England, 1717–1723), T.70/1205/A.16 (England, 1731–1745), C.O.390/9 if. 4, 56 (England, 1752–1753), T.36/13 f. 258 (Scotland, 1756–1762).Google Scholar

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³¹ Historical Statistics of the United States, vol. 2, p. 1190. For coffee, re-exports were over 90 percent then: for rice, re-exports were 86.8 to 89.3 percent of English imports about 1717 to 1762; and 92.8 to 95.4 percent of Scottish imports about 1756 to 1768. See fn. 28.Google Scholar

³² Based on “official values” as given in Davis, “English Foreign Trade, 1700–1774,” and Hamilton, An Economic History of Scotland. The figures in Mitchell and Deane, British Historical Statistics, p. 281, give the re-export percentage as 40 percent, using values “adjusted” by Deane and Cole (British Economic Growth, p. 318).Google Scholar

³³ Asian trade was, of course, confined exclusively to London because of the monopoly of the East India Company. For port concentration in the sugar and tobacco trades, see Price, Jacob M. and Clemens, Paul G. E., “A Revolution of Scale in Overseas Trade: British Firms in the Chesapeake Trade, 1675–1775,” this JOURNAL, 47 (03 1987), pp. 33, 39–40.Google Scholar

³⁴ For the operation of a counting house, see Price, Jacob M., ed., “Directions for the Conduct of a Merchant's Counting House, 1766,” Business History, 28 (07 1986), pp. 134–50.Google Scholar

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³⁶ Price, Capital and Credit, pp. 107–8;Google Scholaridem, , “One Family's Empire: the Russell-Lee-Clerk Connection in Maryland, Britain, and India, 1707–1857,” Maryland Historical Magazine, 72 (Summer 1977), p. 177.Google Scholar Almost nothing has been published on commodity brokers, but there are some references to them in Joshua Johnson's Letterbook, 1771–1774 …, ed. Price, Jacob M., London Record Society Publications 15 (London, 1979).Google Scholar

³⁷ For general discussion, see Thornton, Henry, An Enquiry into the Nature and Effects of the Paper Credit of Great Britain (1802), ed. von Hayek, F. A. (London, 1939), pp. 75–77;Google Scholarfor credit in export trades, see Price, Capital and Credit, chap. 6;Google Scholar for credit in woolen manufacture, see Hudson, Pat, The Genesis of Industrial Capital: A Study of the West Riding Wool Textile Industry, c. 1750–1850 (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 17, 111–19, 122, 124, 128, 156–60, 217.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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³⁹ The American commission was sometimes given as 10 percent, incorporating 5 percent for sale of outbound cargo, and 5 percent for purchase of return cargo. This was convenient when the outbound cargo was sold for return commodities. See Mair, John, Book-keeping Methodiz'd… (5th edn., Dublin, 1754), p. 224. However, in the slave trade a 10 percent commission was charged when the selling factor was expected to guarantee collections on credit sales.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ The author expects to publish a paper on the credit conventions in the slave trade in 1990 for the W. E. B. DuBois Center of Harvard University.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Price, Capital and Credit, chap. 4.Google Scholar

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⁴⁹ Price, Capital and Credit, chap. 5:Google ScholarPrice, F. G. Hilton, A Handbook of London Bankers (London, 1876; enlarged edn., 1890–1891), passim.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ For examples, see Devine, T. M., The Tobacco Lords: A Study of the Tobacco Merchants of Glasgow … c. 1740–90 (Edinburgh, 1975), chap. 3:Google Scholaridem, , “The Colonial Trades and Industrial Development in Scotland, c. 1700–1815,” Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 29 (02 1976), pp. 1–13;Google ScholarAtkinson, Michael and Baber, Cohn, The Growth and Decline of the South Wales Iron Industry, 1760–1880 (Cardiff, 1987), especially pp. 48–52;Google ScholarCrouzet, François, The First Industrialists: the Problem of Origins (Cambridge, 1985), chap. 7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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⁵³ Foodstuffs declined from 17.6 percent of English domestic exports in 1722–1724 to 5.8 percent in 1772–1774. Davis, “English Foreign trade, 1700–1774,” p. 302.Google Scholar

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