In The Last Year
Of The Seventeenth Century, According To The Same Official Authority, There
Was Exported To England From All Parts, 6,788,166_L_.:
Of this sum, our
woollen manufactures were to the value of 2,932,292_l_.; so that there was
an increase of our exports since 1662, of 4,765,534_l_.
The yearly average
of all the merchandize imported from, and exported to the north of Europe,
from Michaelmas, 1697, to Christmas, 1701, is exhibited in the following
table:
Annual Countries. Imported from. Exported to. Loss
Denmark and Sweden 76,215_l_ 39,543_l. 36,672_l_.
East Country 181,296 149,893 31,403
Russia 112,252 58,884 53,568
Sweden 212,094 57,555 154,539
- - - - -
Total annual average loss 275,982_l_.
II. Ships. In the year 1530, the ship which first sailed on a trading
voyage to Guinea, and thence to the Brazils, was regarded as remarkably
large; her burden amounted to 250 tons. And in Wheeler's Treatise of
Commerce, published in 1601, we are informed, that about 60 years before he
wrote (which would be about 1541), there were not above four ships (besides
those of the royal navy) that were above 120 tons each, in the river
Thames; and we learn from Monson, in his Naval Tracts, that about 20 years
later, most of our ships of burden were purchased from the east countrymen,
or inhabitants of the south shores of the Baltic, who likewise carried on
the greatest trade of our merchants in their own vessels. He adds, to bid
adieu to that trade and those ships, the Jesus of Lubec. a vessel then
esteemed of great burden and strength, was the last ship bought by the
queen. In 1582, there were 135 merchant vessels in England, many of them of
500 tons each: and in the beginning of King James's reign, there were 400,
but these were not so large, not above four of these being of 400 tons. In
1615, it appears, that the East India Company, from the beginning of their
charter, had employed only 24 ships, four of which had been lost. The
largest was 1293 tons; one 1100, one 1060, one 900, one 800, and the
remainder from 600 to 150. In the same year, 20 ships sailed to Naples,
Genoa, Leghorn, and other parts of the Mediterranean, chiefly laden with
herrings; and 30 from Ireland, to the same ports, laden with pipe staves:
to Portugal and Amsterdam, 20 ships for wines, sugar, fruit, and West India
drugs: to Bourdeaux, 60 ships for wines: to Hamburgh and Middleburgh, 35
ships: to Dantzic, Koningsberg, 30 ships: to Norway 5; - while the Dutch
sent above 40 large ships. The Newcastle coal trade employed 400 sail; - 200
for London, and 200 for the rest of England. It appears, that at this time
many foreign ships resorted to Newcastle for coals: whole fleets of 50 sail
together from France, besides many from Bremen, Holland, &c. The Greenland
fishery employed 14 ships.
The following calculation of the shipping of Europe in 1690, is given by
Sir William Petty. England, 500,000 tons; the United Provinces, 900,000;
France, 100,000; Hamburgh, Denmark, Sweden, Dantzic, 250,000; Spain,
Portugal, Italy, 250,000: total 2,000,000. But that this calculation is
exceeding loose, so far as regards England at least, is evident from the
returns made to circular letters of the commissioners of customs: according
to these returns, there belonged to all the ports of England, in January
1701-2., 3281 vessels, measuring 261,222 tons, and carrying 27,196 men, and
5660 guns. As we wish to be minute and enter into detail, while our
commerce and shipping were yet in their infancy, in order to mark more
decidedly its progress, we shall subjoin the particulars of this return.
None of the other ports had 100 vessels: Newcastle had sixty-three,
measuring 11,000 tons; and Ipswich thirty-nine, measuring 11,170; but there
certainly is some mistake in these two instances, either in the number of
the ships, or the tonnage. The small number of men employed at Hull arose
from eighty of their ships being at that time laid up.
III. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the great rivals of
the English in their commerce were the Dutch: they had preceded the English
to most countries; and, even where the latter had preceded them, they soon
insinuated themselves and became formidable rivals: this was the case
particularly with respect to the trade to Archangel. Some curious and
interesting particulars of this rivalry are given by Sir Walter Raleigh, in
his Observations concerning the Trade and Commerce of England with the
Dutch and other foreign Nations, which he had laid before King James. In
this work he maintains that the Dutch have the advantage over the English
by reason of the privileges they gave to foreigners, by making their
country the storehouse of all foreign commodities; by the lowness of their
customs; by the structure of their ships, which hold more, and require
fewer hands than the English; and by their fishery. He contends that
England is better situated for a general storehouse for the rest of Europe
than Holland: yet no sooner does a dearth of corn, wine, fish, &c. happen
in England, than forthwith the Hollanders, Embedners, or Humburghers, load
50 or 100 ships, and bring their articles to England. Amsterdam, he
observes, is never without 700,000 quarters of corn, none of it the growth
of Holland; and a dearth of only one year in any other part of Europe
enriches Holland for seven years. In the course of a year and a half,
during a scarcity in England, there was carried away from the ports of
Southampton, Bristol, and Exeter alone, nearly 200,000_l_.: and if London
and the rest of England were included, there must have been 2,000,000 more.
The Dutch, he adds, have a regular trade to England with 500 or 600 vessels
annually, whereas we trade, not with fifty to their country.
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