418 Tradesman and Merchant — Commercial Population 



Eighty per cent of the exports passed through London.^ They 

 consisted of manufactures and minerals carried to London by internal 

 and coastwise traffic, and of colonial and foreign goods re-exported: 

 the concentration was of both foreign and domestic trade. Only 

 about half as large a per cent of the imports came to London, but still 

 it was 45 per cent of all the imports.- It was Maitland's opinion 

 1732 that London did one-fourth of the foreign commerce, since she 

 paid that proportion of the customs duties.^ 



As to shipping, in 1702 London had 560 ships averaging 151 tons 

 each, a total of 84,560 tons; while the total for all England was 3281 

 ships averaging 80 tons, or 262,480 tons. London had 18 per cent of 

 the ships and 40 per cent of the tonnage."* The status in the middle 

 of the century is shown b}' the following Table :^ 



Of the total tonnage entered 75 per cent came to London, and of the 

 total tonnage cleared 44 per cent went from London. Of the entries 

 into London 69 per cent were from the outports, and of the clearances 

 58 per cent were Lo the outports. 



It, therefore, appears that London was predominant in population, 

 trade, and shipping, and that no other ports approached it in these 

 respects. Commerce focussed upon the capital and metropolis. Dur- 

 ing the seventeenth century the continental influence waned and 



1 Statisticians have calculated that from the midst of the reign of Henry VIII 

 till the second quarter of the eighteenth century London port paid yearly between 

 70 and 90 per cent of the customs duties of England. 



- The character of the goods exported and imported via London is shown in a 

 statistical chart for 1730 in Anderson, Origin, III, 162-3; the statistics of re-exported 

 American goods are given, III, 176. 



3 Anderson, Origin, III, 300; compare with Davenant's opinion, 1711, ibid., 

 Ill, 41. 



^ Based on statistics given in jNIacpherson, II, 719 note. 



* Based on statistics given in Rep. from Com. H. C, XIV, 353, 441, 501. A 

 slight discrepancy enters from the fact that the statistics for the coastwise traffic 

 of London for 1751 are not at hand, and those for 1750 are used. 



