Wealth across the Seas Colonies and Trade Trade is the wealth of the world, said the novelist

Daniel Defoe in 1728. 'Trade makes the difference as to rich and poor, between one nation and another'. Defoe was right, for trade with the colonies was a vital factor in England's growing prosperity during this period. But although English merchants were among the wealthiest in Europe, they did not have things all their own way. The other seafaring nations of Western Europe, especially France, the Netherlands, Spain and Portugal, had long been rivals in the building up of trading empires in Asia, Africa and the Americas. Each country looked upon its colonies and trading posts as its own property, and foreign merchants were kept out. This explains the willingness of the Scots to unit with England (1707) for they had no colonies of their own and could only be admitted to the rich English trade if the two countries joined together as Great Britain. The British Empire in 1713 The colonial nations of Western Europe were frequently at war with each other in the eighteenth century, especially the two greatest rivals Britain and France. Hostilities were not confined to land battles. The side with the greatest naval strenght usually tried to capture the conolonies of the enemy, in the hope of reatining some in the peace treaty, Britain was in a good position because, from the beginning of the century, her navy was the mos powerful of all. As a result, when George I came form Hanover (1714) his new kingdom was already the foremost colonial power. A series of land and sea wars against Louis XIV of France had just been concluded by the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) which gratly increased Britains overseas possessions and trading rights, at the expense of France and Spain. The centre of British conolonising activity was North America and the Caribbean. Since the early seventeenth century, increasing numbers of English people had emigrated to make new homes on the east coast of North America. Twelve of the famous Thirteen Colonies were already established there before 1700. The thirteenth, Georgia, was founded early in George IIs reign (1733) and named afther the King. Many of the early American settlers had been escaping from religious persecution at home like the Pilgrim Fathers (1621) but they maintained links with the mother country. The governor and certain other officials in each colony were appointed by the Crown. in addition, each colony has its own elected assembly, which voted taxes. Whatever the reason for their original foundation, all the Thirteen Colonies were looked upon in Britain as actual or possible sources of wealth. they provided markests for the sale of British manufacturers, and sent in return tobacco, dyestuffs, coffee and rice (from the south) and pig iron, timber and tar (from the north). North of this Thirteen Colonies, in present day Canada, lay the territories surrendered by France at the Treaty of Utrecht (see map above). Newfoundland and Nova Scotia were centres of fishing, and the area aroung Hudson Bay supported a valuable fur trade. These lands were, for the most part too bleak and uninviting to attract much settlement; but fishermen and fur-trappers put up with the harsh climate because trading prospects were good. Some 2500 kilometres and more to the south were the West Indies. Barbados, Jamaica, the Leeward Islands and the Bahamas, together with some of the islands in the later Windward group, and Bermuda in the Atlantic, made up the

brightest jewel in the British Crown. They were particularly valuable to Britain because the produced crops which would not grow in a European climate. Vast quantities of sugar (some made into rum and molasses) and raw cotton, were shipped to Britain from slave-worked plantations in the Caribbean. The British empire in the New World (the Americas) was mainly one of settlement and plantation. Here colonisation (the setting up of communities dependent on the mother country) was necessary to create trade where previously there had been none. However, in many other parts of the world, it was sufficient merely to establish trading posts. For example, in India and the Far East valuable goods were already being produced by the local inhabitants long before European traders arrived on the scene. The East India Company, which was founded in England (1600) to trade with this area, did not establish colonies. It contented itself with factories (trading stations) on the Indian coast at Calcutta, Madras, Bombay and Surat. From these bases, the Companys ships brought back silk and printed cottons, coffee, pepper and spices, indigo and slatpetre. By 1700 the Company had a foothold in China, at Canton, from which increasing quantities of tea were imported into Britain. A number of other British trading companies had bases overseas- including the Hudsons Bay Company (1690), the short-lived South Sea Company (1711) which colpased in a financial crisis known as the South Sea Bubble (1720-1) and the Royal African Company. The last, which played an important part in the English slave trade, had forts and trading post along the west coast of Africa- espcecially in the Gold Coast (present day Ghana). there were also British territories which served as naval bases and so helped in the protection of the Empire. The two most recently acquired were Gibraltar (1704) and Minorca (1708) in the Mediterranean- both from Spain and retained in the Treaty of Utrecht. The slave trade Slave is as old as civilisation itself. The pharaons of Acient Egypt used slave labour to build pyramids, and the great empires of Greece and Rome were built on slavery. But the slave trade in our period was of a very special kind. It involved the shipping of Negroes from West Africa acroos the Atlantic to the New World, where they were sold to the owners of plantations. This trade was started in the early sixteenth century by the Spanish and Portuguese. They were the first to establish colonies in the New World, but, in the process, they almost exterminated the native populations, especially in the West Indies, by their brutality and the diseases they passed on. Consequently they began to import Negroes to work for them in their new colonies. Realising that sizeable profits could be made from selling shiploads of Negroes, English seamen soon broke the Spanish and Portuguese monopoly of th slave traffic. One of the earliest was Sir John Hawkins, whose firts slaving voyage was in 1562. From then on Englands share of the slave trade increased rapidly, assisted by the declining power of Spain and Portugal in the seventeenth century. Eventually, as part of the Treaty of Utrecht, Spain sold England a monopoly of the slave trade with the Spanish colonies in the New World. In the next twenty years 150,000 Negroes were shipped to the English and Spanish colonies. Still the demand went on increasing, so that by 1770 more than 100,000 slaves were traded each year, half of them in British ships. Bristol had profited most fom the British slave traffic in the early eighteenth century, but by about 1800 the merchants of Liverpool controlled six-sevenths of the trade and were among the richest in the kingdom.

The early slave traders worked on a small scale, gaining the protection and assistance of the head men in the African villages by giving them presents. Before long, however, the volume of trade was so great that European agents built coastal forts from which the collection of slaves from the interior could be supervised. Many of the slaves

Were criminals or prisoners from the numerous tribal wars. The chieftains would probably have cut their thraots if they had not been able to trade them. The slave traders offered this as an excuse whenever they were accused of cruelty. But before the AntiSlavery Movement of the late eighteenth century (see page 119) remarkably few voices were raised in protest against the slave traffic. Many traders sincerely believed that they were helping the Negroes by giving them a chance to become Christians and to escape from the 'primitive' life in the 'dark continent' of Africa. The slave traffic was part of a larger enterprise the Triangular Trade so called because it involved three connected vayages. On the first of these, manufactured goods were taken to Africa. Cargoes of cloth, guns, hardware especially pots and pansbeads, rings and ornaments, spirits and tobacco were exchanged for slaves. Then followed the second of Middle Passage across the Atlantic. The wretched slaves, chained below deck, were often packed shoulder-to-shoulder to fill every available space, so in the likely event of epidemic disease breaking out they died by the score. Unless great care was taken, up to a quarter of the precious cargo might be dead before the three months passage was over. On arrival in the New World, the slaves were sold, usually by auction, and the ships were reloaded with local produce. Barring accidents, all that now remained was the third stage the return voyage home, with money and a rich cargo into the bargain. The Laws of Trade British colonies, like those of other European nations, were possessions, not independent territories. Their defence and much of their administration was paid for out of British taxes. So Parliament felt it had a right to control the trade of the colonies to ensure that Britain and Britain alone- gained maximum benefit from them. since the mid seventeeth century, a series of Navigation Acts, known as the 'Laws of Trade', hade regulated British shipping and colonial trade in the interest of the mother country. The original Navigation Acts of 1651, 1660 and 1663 were altered from time to time, but there remained three basic principles governing all colonial trade in this period:

1. All trade to and from British colonies had to be carried in British or colonial ships. This was intended to encourage both the growth of the British shipping industry and the training of seamen who could defend the country in time of war. 2. British colonies had to purchase all their manufactured goods via Britain. The development of British industry was thereby assisted by having guaranteed markets overseas. 3. British colonies were prevented from sending ceratin commodities, such as sugar, tobacco, cotton and rice, to any countries outside the Empire. This resulted in a valuable re-export trade. The British people could consume only a small proportion of the produce of the colonies. Large surpluses were therefore available for re-export to the Continent at a handsome profit. The Laws of Trade gave the colonies the task of supplying commodities which could not be produced in Britainfor example, sugar, cotton and tobacco, all of which required a warm climate. In addition, the colonies were forbidden from competing with the mother country in the production of manufactured goods. Britains industries served the whole Empire. Wollen cloth was the chief export, followed by all kinds of metal goods, hardware and cutlery. Small quantities of coal, lead, tin and copper were also exported to the colonies. The government further encouraged the growth of British industry through its financial policies. Sir Robert Walpole, for example, in the 1720s and 1730s, removed customs duties on British exports and on imported raw materials, such as cotton, which were necessary to supply manufacturing industries. At the same time, he discouraged imports of foreign manufatures by keeping high duties on them which artificially raised their price to the British buyer. Despite the growing volume of trade with the colonies, more than half of the British exports in the eighteent century went to the Continent. Re-exports of colonial commodities were an important part of this trade much of it concentrated on the porst of Antwep, Amsterdams, Rotterdam and Hamburg. The Portuguese ports of Lisbon and Oporto also hadled much British trade, especially after the Methen Treaty (1703) with Portugal. This led to increased sales of port duty on Portuguese wines. Generally, however, Britain tried to avoid importing goods from Europe, especially if the colonies were capable of producing them. Nevertheless, most of the essential naval supplies pitch, tar, hemp, tiber and bar iron came from Scandinavia and the Baltic ports. The northern colonies of America sent some timber, tar and pig iron, but not enough to meet Britains needs. Large quantities of goods from Europeand elsewhere entered Britain illegally. There were so many complicated trade regulations that they could not be enforced effectively. In any case, customs duties on imported luxury articles were so high that smuggling was exceptionlly profitable. In 1733 it was estimated that as much as a third of the total trade with France and the Netherlands was smuggled. French wine and brandy, tea from China and tobacco from America were the main items in this illegal trade. The understaffed revenue authorities found it very difficult to catch the culprits, for smugglers were very checked until customes duties were reduced to a level which made it no longer profitable risk. William Pitts Ministry made an important start in this direction after 1784 (see page 152).

War and discovery, 1739-1783 The peace of 1713 was little more than a pause in the colonial rivalries of the European sea powers. Between 1739 and 1783, Britain was involved in three major wars on land and sea. Her main opponent in each case was France. So many colonies changed hands in these years that the British empire of the late eighteenth century was vastly different from that of 1713. Walpole, for most of the 1720s and 1730s, kept Britain out of expensive foreign wars. He believed peace was essential for prosperity. Many City merchants and businessmen disagreed. They saw no reason to avoid war, for they were confident that British naval superiority would lead to the capture of valuable overseas territories. Their views were strongly represented in Parliament, and they further influenced government policy throuhg close contacts with several of the Kings ministers. In 1739, the 'commercial intetest' had its way. Britain went to war with Spain over trading disputes in the Caribbean. Hostility towards Spain had been aroused by a certain Captain Jenkins, who showedMPs an ear which he claimed had been torn off him by Spaniards. In this situation, Walpoles pleas for peace were ignored. Withing a year a full-scale European war had broken out over the disputed succession to the Austrian throne. The War of Austrian Succession (1740-8) spread to India. North America and the high seas, where the main struggle was between Britain and France. No clear victor emerged from the Anglo-French constest, however, until the Seven Year's War (175663). It saw the rise to power of one of the greatest war statesmen in British history William Pitt, later Earl of Chathman. From 1757 to 1761 he dominated the Government, in spite of George IIs dislike of him, and saw much of the French empire destroyed. Britain dominated the seas and captured West Indian islands and West African trading posts from France. Even more important, through the efforts of Robert Clive, an East India Company clerk who became general, French power in south-east India was broken. Clives great victory at Plassey (1757) laid the foundations for future British supremacy over the whole of India. In North America, France controlled the great fertile plain of the interior, from which she planned to keep the Thirteen Colonies penned into the coastlands. Pitt had other ideas, and ordered an all-out attack on Canada (1758). It was a brilliant success for the skillful young generals he put in command, James Wolfes capture of Quebec (1759), which cost him himself, led to the collapse of the French empire in North America. In the Treaty of Paris (1763) Briatin kept, among other territories, Canada and all of North America down to the Mississippi. Britain was riding on the crest of a wave but a shock was in store, The Thirteen Colonies, the backbone of the American empire, were becoming increasingly restless under British rule. They objected to being taxed by a Parliament in London in which they were not represented, and complained of the restrictiones put uponthem by the Laws of Trade. Before 1763 they had needed British military protection against the French, but noe they could stand on their own feet. George III and his ministers foollishly ignored mounting opposition in the Colonies. They continued to keep a British army in North America, even though the colonists thought it unnecessary and hated paying taxes to support it. What began as a quarrel soon grew into a full-scale revolutionary war. The Thirteen Colonies banded together and made a Declaration of Independence on 4 July 1776. Helped by France and Spain, who joined the rebels to gain revenge on Britain, they forced the Crown to recognise their Independence as the United States of America (1783).

Together with the loss of the Thirteen Colonies, Britain was forced to return some of her previous gains from France and Spain, including Florida, Minorca and the West African trading centre of Senegal (won in the Seven Years War). Nevertheless, in spite of this setback, trade with the new United States of America was soon greater than ever before, and important additions to the Empire were made elsewhere. Since the Seven Years War, Britain had established many new trading posts and naval stations, taken firm control of India and above all, brought a whole new continent under the Crown. Captain James Cook claimed both Australia and New Zealand for Britain in 1770. A Spaniard and a Dutchman had sailed there in the seventeeth century, but their coasts had never been fully explored by Europeans before Cooks voyage. At first Britain only seemed interested in Australia as a place to send convicts. But in the nineteenth century (see page 216) the British realised the great value of the new continent for settlement and trade. Timeline 1651,1660,1663 1713 1739 1740-8 1756-63 1757 1759 1763 1770 1776-83 Questions 1. Look at the picture of slaves being put in chains (page 22). a) Although vastly outnumbered in a foreign land, the white traders are lightly armed and in no apparent dander. Why? b) What was the voyage from Africa to the New World called? c) Why was there a need for slaves in the New World? d) Name two British ports which were centres of the slave trade. e) What excuse did slave traders make whenever they were accused of inhuman behaviour? 2. Mr Banister having lately taken from the smugglers a freight of brandy, entertained Mr C, Mr F and myself, in the even, with a bowl of punch. (Diary of Thomas Turner, a Suxxes shopkeeper, 1763) a) b) c) d) Apart from brandy, name three other articles commonly smuggled at this time. Why was smuggling so common in the eighteenth century? Why did the authorities find it so difficult to bring smugglers to justice? What change in government policy eventuallymade smuggling no longer worth the risk? Navigation Acts. Treaty of Utrecht, War of Jenkins Ear War of Austrian Succession. Seven Years War. Battle of Plassey (Clive). Battle of Quebec (Wolfe). Treaty of Paris. Captain Cook claims Australia and New Zealand. American Revolution.

3. On two blank outline maps of the world, show the extent of Britain's overseas possessions

a) In 1713, after the Treaty of Utrecht b) In 1783, after the American Revolution. Then summarise, in one paragraph, the main changes that occurred in the space of seventy years. 4. Colonies are like fruit which drops from the tree when ripe, said a French statesman in the late eighteenth century. What factors made the American colonists ripe for revolution? 5. Write a paragraph on each of the following: a) British naval power in the eighteenth century b) The East India Company c) The re-export trade d) The Seven Years War