Middleth'en in English Business 161 



to England. In years of dearth large quantities were imported. In the 

 State Papers numerous references are made to these Dutch importers^ 

 during the reigns of the first two Stuarts. They came to a somewhat 

 sudden end about 1660. When London ceased to need foreign corn 

 their business was gone; they could not become exporters of English 

 corn because of the discriminations laid against aliens in the Na\dga- 

 tion Acts, in the bounty system, and in the customs duties. Conse- 

 quently the way was open for the rise of denizen corn-export merchants. 



The Restoration era was one of important transactions. Denizen 

 export merchants supplanted the Dutch import merchants. England 

 and Poland became the granaries of Europe. Commerce became 

 freer; the state really repealed the laws against regrating and ingross- 

 ing, ceased its system of municipal provision of corn, and left the 

 export trade unhampered or fostered it by export bounties. The 

 English merchants seized upon their opportunities and developed a 

 big export trade. The period between 1660 and 1780 covers the time 

 of England's greatest exportation of corn. During this century and a 

 score of years her agriculture was revolutionized and extended, and 

 an extensive corn surplus resulted. Meanwhile war and pestilence 

 were ruining agriculture in parts of the continent. England and the 

 Baltic countries became the source from which Europe drew its corn. 

 The increase in exports was sudden and prodigious. For the two 

 years 1662 and 1663 the exports of corn were valued at £4315, and for 

 1668 and 1669 a smaller amount, £2011. But the yearly average for 

 the period 1699 to 1710 was £274,141, or nearly 150 times as much as 

 in an average year three decades before.- During the period of Wal- 

 pole's peace the exportation continued to increase, until for the five 

 years 1744-48 the average yearly exportation was estimated by Ander- 

 son at above £1,600,000.^ It was during the decade 1780-90 that 

 England changed from a grain-exporting to a grain-importing state, 

 the chief cause being the rapid rise of the manufacturing population 

 under the Industrial Revolution.^ 



The accompanying table^ gives the average exportations of wheat, 

 barley and malt for the two years 1734-36, years of peace and even 

 trade. During these years London exported more wheat than the 

 eight next largest ports combined, and Portsmouth, her strongest 



I Cal. St. P. Dom. Jas., I. Vol. X, 607; Chas. I, \ol. Ill, .S94; I\', 20S; XVI. 4, 

 240; Rep. LVII, pt. II, 123 b. 



- Davenant, Rep. Public Accounts. Part II, Works, \', 424. 



^ .\nderson, Origin, IV, 158. 



^ Busching, Entwickelung, 118-119, contains statistical statements. 



*Table of Exports of Com (Data based on Gent. ^lag., 17,i6: 559; 174,i: ,>5): 



