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Making Mercantilism Work: London Merchants And Atlantic Trade in the Seventeenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Nuala Zahedieh
Nuala Zahedieh
Affiliation:
University of Aberdeen
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Extract

Authors of the surge of economic tracts and treatises published in late seventeenth-century England generally agreed that foreign trade underpinned the wealth, health, and strength of the nation. The merchant was hero

the same to the body politick as the liver, veins and arteries are to the natural; for he both raises and distributes treasure the vital blood of the common weal. He is the steward of the kingdom's stock which by his good or ill-management does proportionably increase or languish. One of the most useful members in a state without whom it can never be opulent in peace nor consequently formidable in war.'

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 9 , December 1999 , pp. 143 - 158
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1999

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References

1 Anon., Character and Qualifications of an Honest, Loyal Merchant (1686), 1.

2 The London port books surviving for 1686 record imports (excluding bullion) and exports of English manufactures. Records of re-exports were not found. Values are taken from official valuations assembled by D. W. Jones from the Inspector General's Ledgers. PRO E190/139/1; 141/5; 136/4; 143/1; 137/2. The commission business of a number of these West India merchants was discussed in K. G. Davis, ‘The Origins of the Commission System in the West India Trade’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (1951), 89–101.

3 Smith, Adam,An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (2vols,1776)Google Scholar, 11, Book 4.

4 McCusker, John J. and Menard, Russell R., The Economy of British America, 1607–1789 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1985)Google Scholar.

5 Harper, L. A., The English Navigation Laws: A Seventeenth Century Experiment in Social Engineering (New York, 1939)Google Scholar; Beer, G. L., The Origins of the British Colonial System, 1578–1660(New York, 1908)Google Scholar.

6 Zahedieh, Nuala, ‘Overseas Expansion and Trade in the Seventeenth Century’, in The Oxford History of the British Empire, ed. Canny, Nicholas (Oxford,1998),398–422Google Scholar.

7 Davis, Ralph, The Rise of the English Shipping Industry in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Newton Abbot, 1962),15Google Scholar.

8 Child, Josiah, A New Discourse of Trade (1692),91Google Scholar.

9 Cary, John, An Essay on the State of England in Relation to its Trade (Bristol, 1695), 68Google Scholar.

10 Coornaert, E. L. J., ‘European Economic Institutions and the New World: The Chartered Companies’, in The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, ed. Rich, E. E. and Wilson, C. H. (8vols, Cambridge, 1967), IV, 223–74Google Scholar; Companies and Trade: Essays on Overseas Trading Companies during the Ancien Regime, ed. Blussé, L. and Gaastra, F. (The Hague, 1981)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Carlos, A. M. and Nicholas, S., ‘Theory and History: Seventeenth Century Joint Stock Trading Companies’, Journal of Economic History (hereafter J. Ec. Hist.), 56 (1996), 916–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jones, S. R. M. and Ville, S., ‘Efficient Transactors or Rent-seeking Monopolies? The Rationale for Early Joint Stock Companies’, J. Ec. Hist., 56 (1996), 898–915CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Anon., A Discourse Consisting of Motives for the Enlargement and Freedom of Trade (1645).

12 Lee, Samuel, The Little London Directory of 1677 (1878)Google Scholar.

13 Price, Jacob M. and Clemens, P. G. E., ‘A Revolution of Scale in Overseas Trade:British Firms in the Chesapeake Trade’, J. Ec. Hist, 47, 1–43Google Scholar.

14 The 58 merchants are: Paul Allestree, William Barnes, Moses Barrow (otherwise known as Anthony Lauzado), William Baxter, Jospeh Bueno, Edward Carleton, Richard Cary, Thomas Clarke, William Coward, William Crouch, John Crow, Robert Curtis, John Daveson, Thomas Ducke, Thomas Elliot, John Eston, Francis Eyles, John Eyles, Christopher Fowler, Paul Freeman, John Gardner, Antony Gomezsera, William Gore, Bartholomew Gracedieu, Samuel Groome, Henry Hale, John Harwood, Gilbert Heathcote, Peter and Pierre Henriques, John Hill, Thomas Hunt, John Jackson, John Jefferies, Jeremy Johnson, Thomas Lane, John Lovero, Jacob Lucy, Joseph Martin, Manuel Mendez, Richard Merriweather, Arthur North, William Paggen, Emanuel Perara, Micajah Perry, Joseph Perkins, John Pitt, George Richards, Stephen Skinner, Benjamin Skutt, Thomas Starke, John Taylor, Dalby Thomas, William Thornburgh, Richard Tilden, Thomas Tryon, William Walker, William Wrayford. The biographical information available in wills, inventories, court records and business papers is uneven. For fuller discussion, see Nuala Zahedieh, The Capital and Commerce. London and the Plantation Trade in the Late Seventeenth Century (forthcoming).

15 The best sources for data on age were court depositions. Age data was obtained for 48 men. PRO HCA 13/77–80; HCA 14/55–7; C24/1129–35; Corporation of London Record Office (hereafter CLRO) Mayors Court Depositions, MCD 40–2.

16 For example, see inventory of William Walker, CLRO, CSB v, 184.

17 Dickson, P. G. M., The Financial Revolution in England: A Study in the Development of Public Credit, 1688–1757 (1967)Google Scholar.

18 Heathcote, Evelyn D., An Account of Some of the Families Bearing the Name of Heathcote (Winchester,1899)Google Scholar. Sedgwick, Romney, The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1715–1754 (2, Oxford,1970)Google Scholar.

19 Honest, Loyal Merchant, 7.

20 An advertisement for instruction of merchants' accounts allow the most ‘exact, plain, short, full and practical method’ is in BL Tracts on Trade, 41.

21 Discussion of the appropriate education for an intending merchant is often found in wills and subsequent litigation. For example, PRO Prob 11/401, Will of Thomas Brailsford, 16 Sept. 1690; PRO C9/177/28, Brailsford and Taylors v. Peeres and Tooke.

22 PRO Prob 11/360, fos. 321–323 Will of John Gould, 15 Apr. 1678; CLRO MC6/452A Case of John Booth and Basil Booth v. William Coward.

23 Unfreemen (such as William Freeman) could avoid higher duties by trading in partnership with a freeman (William Baxter) to whom goods were consigned. Institute of Jamaica, Kingston, Jamaica (hereafter IJ), MS. 134, Letterbook of William Freeman, Letter, 6 Sept. 1680.

24 William Barnes, Thomas Clarke, John and Francis Eyles, John Gardner, William Gore, Bartholomew Gracedieu, Gilbert Heathcote, John Jeffries, Jacob Lucy, Joseph Martin, Benjamin Skutt, Richard Tilden, William Walker.

25 Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston (hereafter MHS), Jeffries Family Papers, VII, Francis Clarke to David Jeffries, fo. 66.

26 Josiah Child claimed that attention to the education of women as well as men was a reason for Dutch success in commerce. Child, Josiah, A Discourse Concerning Trade (1693), 4–6Google Scholar.

27 Barbon, Nicholas, A Discourse of Trade (1690), 27Google Scholar.

28 Examples include Honest, Loyal Merchant, Steele, Richard, A Tradesman's Calling (1686)Google Scholar; A Description of Plain Dealing, Truth and Death which all Men Ought to Mind whilst they do Live on Earth (1686).

29 Steele, , Tradesman's Calling, 31Google Scholar.

30 Ibid, 58.

31 Anon., Case of the Fair Trader (1686).

32 James Claypook's Letterbook, London and Philadelphia, 1681–1684 ed. Balderston, Marion (San Marino, 1967), 173 and 183Google Scholar.

33 Steele, , Tradesman's Calling, 28Google Scholar.

34 Barbon, , Discourse, 12Google Scholar.

35 MHS, Jeffries Family Papers, VIIGoogle Scholar, fo. 124.

36 Davis, , English Shipping Industry, 122–32Google Scholar.

37 Iigon, Richard, A True and Exact History of Barbadoes (1657),IIIGoogle Scholar; Letters from the Halls in Port Royal, Jamaica, 1688–92, provide a detailed insight into the work of colonial correspondents. PRO C110/152, Brailsford v. Peers and Tooke.

38 Claypoole's Letterbook, ed.Balderston, , 149Google Scholar.

39 PRO CO 142/13, Naval Officer's Returns, Jamaica, 1682–1705.

40 Examples abound in High Court of Admiralty depositions. PRO HCA 13/79–81, 131,132.

41 Claypooles Letterbook, ed. Balderston, , 183, 119–20, 127Google Scholar, Thomas Knight to Thomas Brailsford, 24 April 1690, PRO C110/152, Brailsford v. Peers and Tooke.

42 Masters in the West India trade were paid £6 per month in the 1680s and given the benefit of free freight to the value of £200 or so. PRO HCA 13/79.

43 H.N. The Compleat Tradesman (1686),155Google Scholar.

44 Printed and manuscript merchant correspondence are rich sources. Examples include: Claypoole's Letterbook, ed. Balderston, ; The Correspondence of the Three William Byrds of Westover Virginia, 1684–1776 (Charlottesville, Va., 1977)Google Scholar; William Fitzjiugh and his Chesapeake World, 1676–1701. The Fithugh Letters and Other Documents, ed. Davis, R. B. (Chapel Hill, NC, 1963)Google ScholarMHS, Jeffries Family Papers; PRO C110/152, Brailsford v. Peers and Tooke.

45 Ij, MS. 134, ‘Letterbook of William Freeman’ fo. 387, letter, 14 Sept. 1682.

46 PRO E112/475/2127.

47 Bodleian Library, Ashurst Letterbook, Ms Dom. c. 169 p. 35, Letter 5 Auf. 1684.

48 Claypoole's Letterbook, ed. Balderston, , 184, 219Google Scholar, PRO C110/152, Brailsford v. Peers and Tooke.

49 Ben-Porath, Y., ‘The F-Connection: Families, Friends and Firms and the Organization of Exchange’, Pop. Deo. Review, 6 (1980), 1–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50 The Haberdashers were Francis Eyles (it is usually assumed that John Eyles was also a Haberdasher but there is no record of his membership in company records), Joseph Martin, Richard Merriweather, Micajah Perry, Thomas Starke. On the company, see Archer, Ian W., The History of the Haberdasher's Company (Chichester,1991)Google Scholar.

51 Probable and certain Quakers include William Barnes, Thomas Clarke, William Coward, William Crouch, John Crow, Robert Curtis, John Daveson, Samuel Groome, Henry Hale, John Harwood, John Taylor, William Wrayford. Jewish merchants were Moses Barrow (otherwise Anthony Lauzado), Joseph Bueno, Anthony Gomezsera, Peter and Pierre Henriques, Manuel Mendez, Emanuel Perara.

52 F. B. Tolles, Meeting House and Counting House. The Quaker Merchants of Colonial Philadelphia 1682–1763 (Chapel Hill, Nc, 1948).

53 Friends House, London, Yearly Meeting Minutes, I, 19–20, 27 March 1675.

54 Crouch, William, Posthuma Christiana or a Collection of some of William Crouch Being a Brief Historical Account under his Hard (1712), 131, 182Google Scholar.

55 Friends House, Epistles Received, Vol. I (1683–1706); Minutes, I, 19 20, 27 March 1675.

56 Story, T., A Journal of the Life of Thomas Story (Newcastle, 1747)Google Scholar.

57 American Philosophical Society Library, Philadelphia (hereafter APSL), MS. 917, 29/WH55, George Welch, ‘A Journal of My Voyage in 1671’.

58 Israel, J. I., European Jewry in the Age of Mercantilism, 1550-1750 (Oxford,1985),154–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.Bloom, Herbert I., The Economic Activities of the Jews in Amsterdam in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (Williamsburg,1939)Google Scholar.The depositions of an Admiralty Court Case of 1672 provide detailed information about the wandering careers of a group of prominent Jewish merchants. PRO HCA 13/77, Abraham Perera and Anthony Gomezsera v. Jacob Calloway, 25 Sept. 1672.

59 On the rapid penetration of Jews into Jamaica's contraband commerce, see Nuala Zahedieh, 'The Capture of the Blue Dove, 1664, Policy, Profits, and Protection in Early English Jamaica', inWest Indies Accounts, Essays on the History of the British Caribbean and the Atlantic Economy in Honour of Richard Sheridan, ed. R. McDonald (Kingston, Jamaica, 1996), 29–47.

60 Woolf, Maurice, ‘Foreign Trade of London Jews in the Seventeenth Century’, Jewish Historical Society of England Transactions (hereafter JHSET), XIII (1932–1935), 1—97Google Scholar.Dunn, Richard S, Sugar and Slaves. The Rise of the Planter Class in the English West Indies, 1624–1713 (Chapel Hill, NC, 1372), 106–8, 183Google Scholar.