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export of wool and woollens from the colonies to the British Isles or foreign countries or even from one colony to another.1 Probably the prohibition was no particular hardship at the time, even if it was enforced, for the individual colonies wished to retain the wool they grew for their own use, and the local manufacture of woollens had not made much progress. In the next year the more sensible step was taken of trying to discourage the development of the industry in the colonies by removing the heavy export duties which had been levied in England on woollens shipped to America. The manufacturers, however, still remained uneasy about possibilities in the colonies. The Board of Trade reported in 1703 that skilled English workers were being induced to emigrate, and there is evidence that during the War of the Spanish Succession the northern colonies had to supply their own requirements and that their manufacture of woollens made some progress. Joseph Dudley, Governor of Massachusetts, reported to the Board of Trade in March 1709 that "the woollen trade from England is in a great measure abated, the people here clothing themselves with their own wool".2 The reasons he ascribed for this were the high price of English woollens and the difficulty of securing return cargoes to pay for imports.

The members of the Board of Trade realised, indeed, that the growth of manufactures in the northern colonies could only be prevented if the colonists had a market for their provisions, and if they could discover some commodities which might be produced for export to the mother country. For while their provisions might advantageously be sold in the other Plantations, they could not be allowed to enter England. Ships sometimes waited in the northern ports for months before they could secure a return cargo. In these circumstances the Board of Trade took up again the old suggestion of giving encouragement to the production of naval stores. They had the advantage of the active support of Richard Coote, Earl of Bellomont, who as Governor of New York, Massachusetts and New Hampshire was convinced that the resources of the colonies could be exploited. He saw that, if the colonial commodities were to compete with the Baltic supplies, it was a question of working out very carefully the costs of production-particularly the labour costs and of facilitating transport. Bellomont died in office before he could do much, but his efforts would probably have been fruitless had not the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession raised a new issue. Sweden had formed a company-the Stockholm Tar Company-which was to enjoy a monopoly of the trade in tar and pitch. The Company regulated the quantities to be sold and thereby controlled prices, and it was also provided that the export of the tar and pitch should be confined to Swedish shipping. This action greatly strengthened the hands of the advocates of the scheme to encourage the 1 10 and 11 Will. III, cap. 10. 2 Cal. St. Pap. Col. 1708–9, p. 236.

PRODUCTION OF NAVAL STORES ENCOURAGED 575

production of naval stores in the British colonies. The Board of Trade recommended that subsidies should be offered for an initial period at least.1 In 1705, therefore, an Act was passed which was to remain in force for nine years in the first instance. Naval stores were included among the enumerated articles. Bounties were to be given on the importation into England of naval stores, £4 a ton on tar and pitch, £3 on resin and turpentine, £6 a ton on hemp and £1 a ton on masts, yards and bowsprits.2 The premium was to be paid on the receipt of the proper certificate by the Commissioners of the Navy. The attitude of Sweden and the payment of bounties gave the colonists the opportunity of establishing the industry, for they could now meet the high costs of production.

Lord Bellomont had entertained the idea of getting cheap labour by employing soldiers to prepare naval stores, giving them a small addition to their regular pay. In 1710a project of this kind was actually taken up by the Government in interesting circumstances. Three thousand Germans, who had sought refuge in England from the wardevastated Palatinate, were shipped to New York at the expense of the Government. They were to be indentured servants until they had repaid the capital advanced for their passage and settlement. During this period they were to produce tar, pitch, turpentine and resin from the trees on the banks of the Hudson River. The scheme proved a failure. The white pines of New York were not suited for the purpose; the Germans had no knowledge of the work they were expected to do and became discontented; and in the end the Government ceased to give any further financial support.3

Suspicion of the economic tendencies in the northern colonies was somewhat allayed by the course of events during the War of the Spanish Succession. It had to be acknowledged that as a source of supplies for the West Indian colonies they had played an important part. The Board of Trade itself reported in 1709 that the West Indies "would not be able to carry on their trade, or even to subsist (especially in time of war) without the necessary supplies from the northern Plantations of bread, drink, fish and flesh of cattle, and horses for cultivating their plantations, of lumber and staves for casks for their sugar, rum and molasses, and of timber for building their houses and sugar works".4 In addition, the advocates of the production of naval stores had, through favouring circumstances, been able to get the payment of bounties on them. In these two directions it might be possible to solve the problem of giving the growing population of the northern colonies the means of exchanging their natural products either indirectly or directly for the manufactures of the mother country.

1 Cal. St. Pap. Col. 1704-5, p. 177. 2 3 and 4 Anne, cap. 10.

* Cobb, S. H., The Story of the Palatines, ch. iv, v. • Quoted by Andrews, C. M., The Colonial Background of the American Revolution, p. 90.

But the prospects were not altogether reassuring. If the northern colonies devoted much attention to the supplying of the West Indies with provisions, they would probably arrive at a point when the British islands there would not afford a sufficiently extensive market. The temptation then would be to trade with the foreign islands, particularly with those belonging to France. With respect to naval stores it was already fairly clear that the bounties would be more successful in evoking supplies of tar and pitch than in encouraging the production of hemp and timber. Tar and pitch, however, came mainly from Carolina where the existence of suitable pine forests contributed the support of natural resources to the assistance of the bounty policy. Nor could the mercantilists overlook the fact that the Government had been induced to pay bounties not so much by their arguments as by the special circumstances of the moment. There might be a reaction against the policy when it proved expensive in peace time.

The terms of the Treaty of Utrecht influenced colonial history for the next generation. Not that Great Britain's acquisitions in America were particularly important in themselves. The abandonment by France of her territorial claims in Newfoundland must be set against the acknowledgment of her right to dry fish on a defined part of the coast about which disputes inevitably arose. The cession of Acadia and the recognition of British claims in the Hudson Bay territory also carried with them the seeds of future trouble because in neither case were definite boundaries established. Contemporary opinion, indeed, did not set much store on territorial expansion as such, the mercantilist view being that new land might be a source of weakness unless it were peopled, and the drain on the home population was already considerable enough. "Number of men", writes Wood, "are to be preferred to the largeness of dominion."1 The only acquisition which was obviously a gain was that of the French half of the island of St Christopher because it made it possible to reduce the British garrison in the island, and it added some 20,000 acres of land for sugar plantation.

From the commercial point of view the most important result of the peace negotiations with France was a negative one, namely, that they did not lead to the placing of trade relations between the two countries on a more liberal basis. The Tories, to whom the task of making the peace fell, proposed that Great Britain should adopt a low tariff on French commodities, and that each country should accord the other most favoured nation treatment. The Whigs, strongly supported by the merchants and manufacturers who profited from the existing system of high tariffs, and appealing to the bugbear of the balance, succeeded in defeating these proposals. While the Tories professed a belief in the ability of British manufactures to hold their own against French goods and insisted on the 1 Wood, p. 162.

THE BOUNTY POLICY

577 benefits which would arise from greater freedom of trade, their opponents were wedded to the idea of regulation. There was, they alleged, a certainty of a heavy adverse balance if the suggested commercial treaty was ratified. Joshua Gee, who was prominent in supporting the opposition, afterwards restated his conviction that "France, above all other nations, is the worst for England to trade with: it produces most things necessary for life, and wants very little either for luxury or convenience...";1 supplying her own requirements and having a large population and therefore cheap labour, she could, it was insisted, successfully invade the British market and deprive the country of its treasure. Consequently it was essential in the national interest to restrict trade with France and to find outlets elsewhere.

2

The desire to avoid unfavourable balances with particular countries led to the conception of a self-contained Empire, each part making its contribution to the development of the whole. The course of trade was to be turned to the British colonies in America and diverted from the natural channels which caused it to flow towards the Baltic, France and other foreign countries. In this way it was supposed that all the advantages of trade would be conserved, no foreign country being able to gain any advantages on the balance. The defeat of the Tory policy in 1713 placed upon the Board of Trade the responsibility of working out the details of such a scheme. It was a formidable task. The merchants who had become prominent in the controversy regarding the proposed commercial treaty were constantly consulted about the best course to take. They naturally recommended that the encouragement given to the production of naval stores should be maintained. In 1713 the principle of granting bounties on colonial produce was extended for a further period, but the enthusiasts found that the policy was not generally acceptable. The Admiralty criticised the quality of the colonial products, the Treasury was alarmed at the expense involved, and the Eastland merchants were naturally anxious to maintain the Baltic trade. To meet the attacks on the quality it was agreed that the Custom House officers should have the right to open and test barrels of tar and pitch before granting the certificate for the payment of the bounty. As to the cost to the Treasury, William Wood argued "we ought not to regard the expense of any present encouragement at first, when we consider the future advantages and security, not only of our trade and navigation, but of all His Majesty's dominions: and 'tis most certain, whatever shall be paid the northern colonies as a bounty at first to enter heartily and cheerfully upon the doing of this will not be lost to the nation, but still remain with us; which cannot be said of what we pay to the East Country (over and above what they take from us in manufactures) which... amounts to about £200,000 a year, and 3 5 Geo. I, cap. 2, secs. 16 and 17. 37

1 Gee, p. 14.

CHBEI

2 12 Anne, cap. 9.

would be so much saved to the nation, could we have the same from our own people". Joshua Gee in his Trade and Navigation of Great Britain considered gives some account of the enquiries conducted by the Board of Trade immediately after the Peace of 1713. He was consulted and asked to commit his recommendations to writing; and in the memorandum he prepared he sketched an ambitious programme. He wished to see the production of tar and pitch further encouraged, iron obtained from the colonies, and large ships built suitable for the timber trade. The members of the Board, he says, were favourable to his proposals, but he was disappointed with the attitude of the House of Commons, where "very few gentlemen seemed to have any notion of the difficulty we were under for naval stores, nor of the great advantage of being independent of all foreign powers for those commodities, nor apprehensive of the difference of purchasing every thing we wanted with our ready money from foreigners, and raising them in our own Plantations, nor of the advantages of raising materials for employing and setting to work more than a million of vagrant indolent wretches, whose time is spent in corrupting the industrious, or roving about the kingdom, or begging from door to door". It is quite clear from this and other indications that the landed interest in the House of Commons could not easily be aroused to support the schemes of the mercantilists. Gee's contention that new enterprises will always be subject to accidents and discouragements too difficult for private persons to surmount without the assistance of the public probably struck them as a doctrine which might involve heavy financial liabilities. Nor were they likely to accept his conclusion that, because bounties on corn had proved advantageous, other bounties would, therefore, necessarily be of benefit to the nation, though here he would seem to be addressing himself to their prejudices.5

The Board of Trade, however, continued to press the case for naval stores. In a comprehensive review made in 1721 the Board declared that supplies of tar and pitch from the colonies had been so abundant that home prices had been reduced and much money had been saved on the balance of trade with the Baltic. The King's speech at the opening of Parliament in October of the same year made special reference to the subject. This was followed by an Act which continued the bounty on hemp and also removed the customs duty on clean hemp entering this country from the colonies. It had been complained that the colonial tar was too hot and burned the cordage, and provision was made that the bounty should not be paid unless the governor of the colony gave a certificate that the tar had been prepared in the prescribed manner.

1 Wood, A Survey of Trade, p. 150.

2 Gee, Trade and Navigation (new ed. 1767), pp. 210-11.
Ibid. p. 224.
5 Ibid. p. 226.

3 Ibid. pp. 211–12.

68 Geo. I, cap. 12.

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