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colonies by their individual and narrow outlook; and New France, which could have been conquered by a united imperial effort, lost only its fringes in 1713.1

Certain other topics need mention to complete the survey of the Restoration Empire. The Newfoundland colony was very small, not attaining a permanent population of 1000 during this period, but the fishery was important as a source of men for the Navy. The great majority of the fishermen returned to English ports for the winter, and their spokesmen made ceaseless complaints of the conduct of the colonists. But for the rivalry of the French and the fear that they would claim the whole island, it is probable that the English Government would have compelled its own colonists to evacuate their villages in response to the demands of the seasonal fishermen. As it was, a French colony was planted and lived side by side with the English until the Treaty of Utrecht settled the matter by giving England the sovereignty of the island although with a reservation of French fishing rights. A parallel question was that of Hudson Bay. Charles II's charter in 1670 gave the Company a monopoly of trade within the watershed surrounding the coast.2 French invaders by sea and overland from Canada captured most of its forts during the wars of William III, and these posts were not restored until 1713, when the Company resumed the profitable trade it had followed before 1689. The fortunes of the Royal African Company are described later.3

Finally, the East India Company must be noticed, although its history is dealt with elsewhere.4 Charles II and his brother were its patrons and defenders against the jealousy of the non-privileged traders. After the Revolution these latter obtained the support of Parliament and a charter of incorporation in 1698. There were thus two East India Companies, the old or London, and the new or English. After a bitter struggle they agreed to amalgamate in 1702; seven years later the fusion was completed and the United East India Company began its career.5

In the course of its trading operations the East India Company had founded a small colony in addition to its eastern factories. The voyage round the Cape of Good Hope was so long as to necessitate a halt for water and fresh provisions at some point in its course, for the crews carried by the Indiamen were much more numerous in proportion to the tonnage than those of modern sailing-ships. Under the old conditions scurvy and starvation were constant dangers in crowded vessels, and the East India trade caused a serious wastage of the national strength of seamen. In the early seventeenth century the

1 See Guttridge, op. cit., and the Prefaces of Calendars of State Papers Colonial for the period.

2 Willson, B., The Great Company; Scott, W. R., Joint Stock Companies, vol. 1, chap. xv, vol. 11, pp. 228-37.

3 See chapter xv.

4 See volume IV.

Scott, vol. 1, chap. xvi, vol. 1, pp. 128-88.

THE DARIEN SCHEME

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English and the Dutch were in the habit of calling at the Cape for refreshment. In 1652 the Dutch took formal possession, organised a little settlement to grow foodstuffs, and naturally excluded their competitors from its advantages. The English Company therefore looked for another site, and in 1659, after its reorganisation by the Protectorate, occupied St Helena. The first colony had an unhappy history of dissensions between the settlers and the authorities, and came to an end when the Dutch captured the island early in 1673. Later in the same year St Helena was retaken and the colony refounded. Thenceforward it continued its career, unobtrusively fulfilling its function in the great process of eastern trade. Modern changes in shipping and trade routes have diminished its importance. 1

The East India trade excited the ambition of Scotland to share in oceanic enterprise. By the terms of the Navigation Acts the Scots were excluded from trade with English possessions, although their seamen were tacitly accepted as "English" for the legal manning of English-owned ships. In 1695 the Scottish Parliament passed an Act establishing a national company to trade with Africa and the East and West Indies. Its chief activity was an attempt to plant a colony in Darien, and its disastrous failure had much to do with the exasperation of Scottish feeling for which the Union of 1707 proved the ultimate remedy.2

Whether Scotland had a real grievance about Darien is now happily nothing but an academic question. The scheme failed by reason of its own unsoundness, for the promoters sent their men filibustering in time of peace, whilst at home they gambled upon the undefined constitutional relations of a common Crown with two independent legislatures. But behind the effort, and lending passion to untenable arguments, was the greater question of Scotland's destiny. The Lowland Scots, a people akin to the English, had long carried on a trade across the North Sea and had shared in the fisheries of the Iceland coast. At the opening of the sixteenth century James IV had built a fighting fleet of considerable strength, and Scottish privateers had been active in European waters throughout the warfare of the Reformation. Scotland had thus a maritime tradition. In the seventeenth century, a time of almost continuous peace, her mercantile interest had grown strong and accumulated capital. At the same time the more fortunate maritime States were demonstrating how great a national power and wealth could be derived from the colonial and Asiatic trades. It was therefore natural that patriotic Scots should grow tired of fighting for Dutch merchants and German princes and

1 See "The History of St Helena and the Route to the Indies, 1659-1702”, an unpublished thesis by W. C. Palmer in the Library of the University of London.

Insh, G. P., Papers relating to the Company of Scotland; Barbour, J. S., William Paterson and the Darien Company; Scott, 11, 207–27.

should demand an opening to the wealth of the oceans. With the Darien Company they tried on separatist lines and failed; there was no room for an infant oceanic power at this late date in European expansion. But the Act of Union made them free of the English Empire, which from 1707 became the British Empire, with nothing but benefit to both the partners. The English treasury indemnified the Darien shareholders, and the English Navigation Acts were extended to share with Scotland the huge monopoly they had built up.

To the narrow view the English maritime interest was making a sacrifice; but it was well repaid. The United Kingdom, dreamed of by Edward I and Henry VIII, became a fact. The liberties of both countries were secured; the Stuart attacks of the eighteenth century were supported only by a Scottish faction and not by the Scottish nation, as they might otherwise have been. Across the ocean the Plantation trades brought wealth to the merchants of Glasgow and Edinburgh and opened a market to the manufactures of an industrial belt which has greatly increased the population of Scotland. The Scots on their side added strength to the Empire. Canada owes much to them, first as factors and explorers for the Hudson's Bay Company, and afterwards as settlers in Ontario and the prairies. The Highlands, effectively incorporated in the kingdom after 1745, furnished to the American colonies settlers who were for the most part loyalists in the War of Independence, and to the Empire at large soldiers who have made their mark all over the world. Scottish names are prominent in the later history of British India, in the colonisation of Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, and in the development of all the tropical dependencies. Scottish shipowners and seamen have borne a great part in the predominance of the British mercantile marine. With such wisdom did the men of 1707 turn evil into good by an achievement greater than the Battle of Blenheim or the Treaty of Utrecht.

The growth of colonial population was an important factor in producing the state of sentiment towards the mother country which developed during the period. Some illustrative figures are therefore given below; but it should be realised that the statistics are imperfect and often unreliable, for no systematic census was ever taken under the old Empire. The totals are combined from estimates by various observers who differed in ability and prejudice, and the matter is one upon which further research may yield corrections.1 Taking 1660, 1688 and 1713 as convenient dates, it may be computed that the New England group of colonies contained about 33,000, 79,000 and 110,000 inhabitants in those years respectively. None of the middle colonies (New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware) was

1 The figures are drawn or in some cases inferred from Dexter, F. B., "Estimates of Population in American Colonies", in Proc. of American Antiquarian Soc. N.S. v, 22 seqq., with modifications from various other sources.

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in English hands in 1660, but New York is stated to have had about 7000 Dutch inhabitants in 1664; in 1688 and 1713 the middle group contained some 42,000 and 73,000 respectively. For the southern or Plantation colonies (Maryland southwards to South Carolina) the three totals were probably 30,000, 90,000 and 157,000, most of the growth occurring in Maryland and Virginia. The figures for the southern colonies include a certain number of negroes, but slavery had not yet attained the proportions evident in the middle of the eighteenth century. The totals for all the American colonies at the three selected dates amount to 63,000, 200,000 and 350,000; and in the eighteenth century there was a great increase by which the population doubled itself roughly every twenty years. The indications are that although immigration was appreciable, the increase was mainly due to multiplication of the pioneer stocks in an environment which offered cheap land, a healthy climate and good trading facilities. The British West Indies were not thus affected. It is probable that there were no more white men in them in 1713 than in 1660, for the immigration was barely sufficient to balance the excess of deaths over births. Negroes, however, were imported in increasing numbers, and the total population (including that of Bermuda) may be estimated at 85,000, 150,000 and 200,000 in the three chosen years. Of the lastnamed figure probably three-quarters were negroes. In general it may be said that the West Indian planters remained in a dependent position from which they had little prospect of escaping; but that the American settlers, although not yet confident of ability to stand by themselves, were on the way to the multiplication of numbers that enabled them to become an independent nation in the eighteenth century.

CHAPTER IX

THE ACTS OF TRADE

THOUGH the beginnings of a colonial policy may be discovered in England's relations with Virginia and Bermuda after 1620 and also in the legislation of the period of the Commonwealth, it was not until the capture of Jamaica in 1655 that the interests of the merchants were sufficiently enlisted to lead the Government to formulate a definite commercial and colonial programme. The new colonial territory, acquired by conquest and free from private control, opened a promising world to the capitalists of London and elsewhere, while the cessation of civil warfare and the diminution in England of religious and political animosity created a favourable milieu for the accumulation and expenditure of wealth. Merchants, traders, sea captains, and promoters were growing in influence and were ready to engage in new enterprises, so soon as England's conditions were favourable. For the moment, however, a heavy burden of debt lay upon the country, which in 1659 was "more than double the largest recorded Crown liability before 1641". In 1658 and 1659 the country was in the throes of a financial panic which rendered imminent a serious industrial crisis and demanded a change of government. To continue the Protectorate was suicidal; men wanted tranquillity and a reduction of taxation. The restoration of Charles II was due in no small measure to the incompetence of the Puritan administration on the financial side.

To meet the demands of those who, for some years, had been advocating a more efficient control of trade and foreign Plantations, the King, on 4 July 1660, appointed a committee of the Privy Council to consider Plantation questions; and later in the year, acting upon the advice of Clarendon and in accord with the plans of the merchants themselves, he created two special councils, one for trade and the other for foreign Plantations. These councils-successors of the committees of trade of 1650 and 1657 and forerunners of the councils of 1668, 1672, and 1696-though destined to have short lives of but four or five years, are of the utmost importance, in that they inaugurated a system of commercial and colonial oversight that was to continue, with some intermissions, for nearly a century and a quarter. In the instructions to these various bodies, covering the years from 1660 to 1696, may be found a definition of commercial policy and a shaping of the colonial relationship that were to remain essentially unchanged during the continuation of the old British system.

These select councils had a chequered career. The Council of 1 Scott, W. R., Joint Stock Companies, 1, 260.

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