Middlemen in English Business 121 



population.^ Commerce, foreign and domestic, quickly revived 

 after the long period of civil commotion, and entered a new era. 



Equally as important events in the political and economic world 

 characterized 1760. England had just attained her greatest su- 

 premacy in colonial enterprise; India and America had been won. 

 Holland was negligible, Portugal an economic dependency, and 

 France conquered. At home she was just entering one of the great- 

 est industrial revolutions in the annals of history. In the next few 

 decades the introduction of machinery, steam-power, and the factory 

 system transformed the whole system of production and distribu- 

 tion and multiplied the volume of commerce. 



Neglecting the fluctuations caused by depressions during foreign 

 wars, the century from the Restoration of Charles II to the acces- 

 sion of George III, was marked by a steady, continuous increase in 

 the volume of foreign commerce. The statistics of commerce for 

 this period are quite defective. The "Custom House Ledger" was 

 not introduced until 1696, and the "Register General of Shipping" 

 until 1701 and 1706. Consequently the figures of commerce in the 

 seventeenth century are but approximate estimates of men con- 

 temporary or later. The custom house figures were also very defec- 

 tive in the eighteenth century; they gave only valuations based on 

 prices existing in 1694. When no export duties were charged ex- 

 porters, out of vanity or business purpose, exaggerated their ship- 

 ments.- The tonnage was underestimated to evade tonnage 

 taxes; ships were counted at each voyage; and prior to 1786 the 

 tonnage was reported only at two-thirds the actual amount.^ Be- 

 sides, smuggling was carried on to a considerable degree, with or 

 without the connivance of the customs officials. Making much 

 allowance for all these defects,'* a rough approximation may yet be 

 had for the progress of commerce in the century. The following 

 tables indicate a steady growth. The index number, based on the 

 average annual total of exports and imports for 1700-04, points to a 



^ Contemporary notice was taken of it in Child, Discourse; Petty, Pol. Arith.; 

 and Davenant, Works; Chalmers, Estimate, 46-7. Cunningham, Growth, II, 

 193-4; Anderson, Origin, II, 506, 536, 579, et seq.; Capper, 103-4; and Macaulay, 

 IV, 119-120, conclude the same. 



2 Dowell, Taxation, IV, 432-3, gives an instance after the repeal of export duties 

 on cottons and woolens, 11-12 Wm. Ill, Cap. 20. 



3 Chalmers, Estimate, CXXXV. 



^ Further defects are cited by Macpherson, III, 341-342. 



