Middlemen in English Business 371 



the dominant importance of capital and credit. Quite the opposite 

 fact characterized the medieval market system. A momentous transi- 

 tion in the nature of commercial and manufacturing activity was 

 in progress in the two centuries preceding the Industrial Re\'olution 

 in which event the capitalistic regime was established. 



One of the familiar comments of political, financial and economic 

 writers of the period 1660 to 1760 concerned itself with the obvious 

 increase in the volume of material wealth in England. Davenant 

 estimated that about 1688 the average annual increase in the wealth 

 or general stock of England was at least £2,000,000.' The same 

 year King put the yearly increase in general at £2,401,200.- This 

 increase in stock appeared ''in the extensi\'eness of our trafific 

 abroad, richness of our apparel and household furniture, \'ariet\' of 

 new manufactures, and in the increase of our cattle, buildings, ship- 

 ping, plate, jewels,, bullion and ready money, and in the vast stores 

 . . . . of our own native goods, and of foreign commodities."^ 

 The total stock in 1660 was estimated at £56,000,000 and in 1688 at 

 £88,000,000.^ This accession of thirty millions in as many years was 

 made in the face of contrary circumstances; the plague and fire of 

 1665 and 1666, and the Dutch War reduced the increase by twenty 

 millions. It was agreed that the Revolution, the War with France, 

 and the expense of the recoinage cost the nation forty milUons of stock 

 and profits, and a couple of decades were required to recuperate the 

 same volume of stock as was held in 1688.'' The losses during this 

 war fell chiefly on the trading classes, especially the merchants and 

 insurers.'' However, the Hanoverian establishment created a firm 

 confidence in public faith." Business was sound at bottom though 

 troubled on the surface, and recovered quickly on the conclusion of 

 the war. By 1738 the plenitude of money for investment raised the 

 3-per cent government funds to a premium. 



Geographically this wealth was much concentrated in the counties 

 about London, and the northern counties were relativeh' poorest, in 

 the seventeenth century. The counties about London also increased 



1 Davenant, Works. I, 9,3-4, 374. 

 2Ibid., II, 184. 

 ^ Davenent, Works, I, 377. 

 < Ibid., I, 375. 

 •Ubid., II, 277. 

 ** Defoe, Projects, 32. 



■ A good test was the subscription of £2.000,(XK) to the capital of the "General 

 Society," 1698. See .\nderson, II, 637-8. 

 ' Chalmers, F.stimale, 114. 



