THE FISHERIES.- -COMMERCIAL PORTS.

113

the purpose of maintaining them. The fisheries, though thus unprofitable on a large scale, were, nevertheless, the subject of frequent contention with foreign nations, and the settlement of the rights to fishing has continued to be a fruitful source of dispute even to the present time. During the thirteenth century the contentions on this account between the English and Flemings became so violent that in 1274 the Flemings attacked the English fishermen and killed 1200 of them.

Bristol, Hull, Newcastle, and even York, are often mentioned in the earlier chronicles of the kingdom, as ports where much of the shipping trade was conducted; but it is not until the middle of the seventeenth century that Liverpool comes into notice. It is mentioned as having had some trade with the West Indies in 1670, the extent of which must have been very small, for the first dock was not completed till the end

of the century. The number of inhabitants in Liverpool at that time was about 5700, and the ships belonging to the port only numbered sixty.

The rapid increase in the customs' duties during this period affords substantial proof of the commercial prosperity of the country. At the

I

114 INCREASE OF THE CUSTOMS. THE TRADE OF SCOTLAND.

commencement of the reign of Queen Elizabeth the customs were farmed for £14,000; but in 1590 they produced nearly quadruple that amount. In 1622 the customs' duties produced £168,220, which sum was raised in 1665 to £510,000; the receipts fell during the year of the great fire of London to £303,766; but in 1680 they had increased to £440,232; in 1688 they were £781,987; and in 1709 the customs amounted to £2,319,320—a sum one hundred and sixty times greater than they produced in the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth.

The rapid increase of wealth and luxury during the latter half of the seventeenth century is strongly represented by Sir Josiah Child in his "Observations Concerning Trade," published in 1669. He states that in 1688 there were on the Exchange more men worth £10,000, than there were in 1650 worth £1000; that £500 was, in the latter period, considered a larger portion to bestow on a daughter on her marriage than £2000 in the former; that gentlewomen in 1650 thought themselves well dressed in a serge gown that a chambermaid would be ashamed to appear in at the end of the century; and that besides the great increase of rich clothes, jewels, plate, and household furniture, the number of private coaches was increased a hundred-fold.

The commerce of Scotland during the early portion of this period continued very backward compared with the progress 'of England. A restrictive commercial policy cramped the energies of trade. Laws were passed in the middle of the sixteenth century, prohibiting all but freemen of the royal burghs from engaging in trade; and no one was allowed to commence business unless he possessed a stated quantity of money and goods. Foreign commerce was further restricted by a statute, purporting to be for the protection of merchandise and shipping, forbidding voyages to be made during the three winter months. Leith had risen to be a port of some consequence in 1554, but the low condition of trade, even eighty years later, is indicated by another enactment that limited all trading to towns. After the union of the crowns of England and Scotland, on the accession of James I., Scotland made rapid strides in her manufactures and commerce, and followed closely in all her commercial regulations the example of England. The consolidation of the two kingdoms at the commencement of the eighteenth century put an end to the separate history of Scotland, which thenceforth became an integral part of the kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

TRADE WITH THE COLONIES OF NORTH AMERICA.

115

CHAPTER IV.

THE EIGHTEENTH AND NINETEENTH CENTURIES.

THE preceding sketch of the progress of commerce to the end of the seventeenth century exhibits the gradual development of trade at the time the manufactures and shipping of this country were struggling to equal those of the commercial nations on the Continent; but in the period we are now entering, the commerce of Great Britain, like her manufactures, having attained equality, rose far above all rivalry, and this country became supreme in manufacturing skill and industry, and in commercial enterprise, not only over any one nation, but over all other countries in the world combined.

As commerce is the handmaid of manufactures, the great improvements in the industrial arts, noticed in the preceding section as having taken place within the last and especially in the present century, were followed, almost as a matter of course, by corresponding extensions in commercial transactions at home and abroad. Our merchants having been enabled to sell the manufactured goods of this country of a better quality and at a lower price, the demand for them consequently increased, and in exchange for those commodities they brought home a greater quantity of foreign produce, or the equivalent value in money.

It had been an established maxim, that trade could be most advantageously carried on with a poor country that had no manufactures to sell in exchange for our goods; therefore it was supposed that the interests of commerce were best promoted by impoverishing other manufacturing nations. But a more enlarged view of commercial policy now shows that trade can be most profitably carried on with rich and prosperous countries, and the contracted opinion generally entertained, until a recent date, that the trade with any country is either favourable or the contrary, according to the excess of exports above imports, is rapidly giving place to more liberal ideas respecting the advantages and regulations of commerce.

The growing importance of the British colonies in North America and in the West Indies is the most distinguishing feature in the commercial history of this country in the eighteenth century, and in the present a new world has sprung into existence at the antipodes, peopled by adventurous and enterprising emigrants, which opens a boundless

116

THE EAST INDIA COMPANY.

space for the extension of our commerce, and contains stores of metallic treasures almost realizing those of the fabled El Dorado. Our commerce with those distant regions is now incomparably greater than the whole amount of our traffic with European nations at the commencement of this period; but commercial intercourse with the Continent and the home trade have expanded in a proportionate degree, so that the tonnage of the mercantile navy of Great Britain, which, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, was vauntingly stated to be 270,000 tons, had increased in 1750 to 600,000 tons; at the end of the century it amounted to 1,600,000 tons, whilst at the present time it is estimated to exceed 4,500,000. To trace the various steps by which the commerce of this country has advanced to such prodigious magnitude, and to notice all the vicissitudes it has undergone, and the various causes that have contributed to its vast development, would require an ample volume instead of the brief space that can be devoted to the subject in this general history of the progress of Great Britain; we must, therefore, content ourselves with pointing out the most remarkable characteristics.

Though the current of trade was directed principally westward after the middle of the eighteenth century, the East Indies continued, in the early part of that century, to attract most attention. A new company that had been chartered by King William to trade thither, on condition of lending the Government two millions sterling, inundated the Indies with English manufactures, and caused great embarrassment; but the old and the new company united in 1708, and by their combined operations they obtained a large accession of territory, and founded our Indian empire. The frequent extension of the Company's possessions and their occupation by the Company's servants greatly enlarged the traffic with the East, and the East India Company became the most opulent trading community that the world had ever seen. Their ships were the largest merchantmen that sailed on the ocean their docks were of enormous size and were crowded with shipping, and many of their merchants acquired princely fortunes. At the commencement of the reign of George III. the exports of the Company amounted to £845,797, and their imports were nearly equal to them. The trade continued to increase at a rapid rate, and at the end of the century the exports and imports of the East India Company amounted to £11,699,000.

The charter of the Company having expired in 1813, the trade was

OPENING OF THE EAST INDIA TRADE.

117

thrown open, except to China, and numbers of merchants who wished to participate in the wealth of the Indian trade glutted the markets with goods, and in their eagerness for gain many of them suffered severe losses and ruin. The experience thus obtained soon regulated the supply to the demand, and the beneficial effects of throwing open the commerce to the East Indies showed itself in a greatly extended traffic, the shipments to India becoming doubled within the first fourteen years that the trade was opened. The private merchants pursued their advantage so energetically, that they gradually drove the Company out

of the market; and on the renewal of the charter in 1833, not only was their monopoly of the trade with China destroyed, but the Company were prevented from carrying on any mercantile operations whatever.

The constant flow of emigration to the settlements in North America, and the active enterprise and industry of the settlers, rendered those colonies so prosperous that, before the middle of the eighteenth century, their trade became of great importance. The colonial possessions of England excited the jealousy of her Continental rivals, as it was imagined that the greatness of this country was dependent on