712 



BRITAIN. 



American colonies, establishments which liave 



founded an empire of Knglishmen in the new world, 

 and which, perluips, more than any other cause, have 

 augmented the trade of Britain. 



In 101H, The exports of England (mounted to 2,487,435 

 The import*, . . . 2 141,131 



In 1622, The export* were . . . 2,320,436 



The import*, . . . 2,610,315 



The number of seamen engaged in the commerce 

 of England, during this reign, is said to have been 

 10,000. In 1641, the customs of England were said 

 to amount to 500,000. 



The disorders which preceded the melancholy end 

 of Charles L rather promoted than retarded the vigour 

 of commerce. They were the means of carrying 

 abroad, with a fresh ardour, the energy and activity 

 of industrious citizens : and a lucrative acquisition of 

 external commerce became the most fertile sources of 

 both public and individual wealth. Notwithstanding 

 the civil wars and commotions from 1640 to 1659, 

 there appears to have been raised for the public ser- 

 vice no less than 83,331,198, being, on an average, 

 4,385,850 per annum. During the period which 

 elapsed from the death of Charles I. to the abdication 

 of James II. improvements in manufactures and trade 

 advanced with an unprecedented rapidity. The naval 

 war carried on against the Dutch had curtailed the 

 maritime power of that commercial people, and, in 

 the same proportion, had added to that of England ; 

 so tliat the Revolution found this country a great com- 

 mercial nation. The shipping was more than double 

 what it had been left by James I. ; many new 

 branches of manufacture had l)een introduced ; seve- 

 ral new colonies had been established in America, 

 and some were recovered from the power of the 

 Dutch. In Jamaica an island which had been taken 

 from the Spaniards during the protectorship of Crom- 

 wellthe foundations were laid of our West Indian 

 commerce ; and the destruction of much of the Dutch 

 influence in the East, gave new encouragement to the 

 exertions of the East India company, and, in 1670, a 

 board of trade was instituted, for the purpose of con- 

 sulting on, and protecting the interests of commerce. 



All these conspiring circumstances were greatly 

 favoured by the Revolution, an event which defined 

 the rights of the prince and of the people, which in- 

 sured a degree of political and religious liberty, which, 

 m practice at least, has never been surpassed, and 

 which secured to the subjects their property as well 

 as their personal rights. The progress of arts and 

 commerce, and the accumulation of wealth, have, 

 since that period, proceeded with an unremitted acce- 

 leration. Some parliamentary documents of the year 

 1739 assert, that the total value of cloths manufac- 

 tured in that year may have been 1 ,600,000, a sum 

 exactly double of their value in 1699. During the 

 18th century, these manufactures had increased in the 

 proportion of six to one ; and the time which has 

 elapsed since its conclusion has evinced a similar ten- 

 dency. 



" It was under the administration of Lord Chat- 

 ham, in the very midst of a seven years' war," says 

 M. Dupin, " that we behold the comnu-ncement of 

 all those great interior works useful to commerce, 

 which are now the admiration of every foreigner. 

 Up to 1756, England had not a single line of ar- 

 tificial navigation ; and she possessed, for commu- 

 nication by land, only a small number of roads in- 

 judiciously cut and ill kept up. Of a sudden, an in- 

 dividual conceives the idea to profit by the general 

 impulse, which industry has received, by cutting a 

 canal, to carry to Manchester the produce of his mines. 

 Shortly afterwards, a town which thrives, and of which 



the exuberant wealth seeks every where productive 

 outlets Liverpool aspires to still higher designs. 

 She is the first to form mid realize the project of open- 

 ing a navigable channel betwixt the Irish sea and the 

 German ocean. Other cluumels even more extended, 

 are established by degrees in both ends of the island : 

 and thus, within the short space of half a century, a 

 line of canals is formed, both for great and for small 

 navigation, for the purpose of uniting opposite seas, 

 basins separated by numberless chains of hills, opu- 

 lent ports, industrious towns, fertile plains, and 

 inexhaustible mines." The total length of canals in 

 Great Britain, excluding those under, five miles in 

 length, was, in 1828, 2,589 miles. The system of turn- 

 pike roads embraced an extent of 24,531 miles in 

 the same year, of which the annual revenue was 

 1,214,716. Moles, piers, light-houses, have been 

 newly established, and the security of access and shel- 

 ter of every anchorage upon the whole line of coast 

 greatly increased. Bach lias been the progress of 

 British commerce, a progress which the disastrous 

 war with our American colonies slackened but could 

 not interrupt, a progress which received new life by 

 the loss of these very colonies, a progress which ad- 

 vanced with gigantic strides during the tremendous 

 struggle maintained so long with the republic, the 

 consulate, and the empire of France ! 



In carrying on the commerce of the British empire, 

 the number of vessels entered inward and cleared out- 

 wards at the several ports of the united kingdom, du- 

 ring the three years ending 5th January, 1829, was as 

 follows : 



Nearly two-thirds of this immense traffic is carried 

 on in the port of London, and about one-sixth of the 

 whole shipping of the empire belongs to that port. 

 The following statement shows the amount of ship- 

 ping belonging to the British empire on the 31st 

 December, 1826 and 1827, respectively, with the 

 amount of their tonnage, and the number of indivi- 

 duals employed to navigate them : 



The number of merchant-ships built in Great Bri- 

 tain, in successive years from 1814 to 1828, were as 

 follows : 



Teart. 

 1814 

 1816 

 1822 

 1S23 



Vessels. 

 864 



789 

 847 



Tears. 



1824 

 1826 

 1827 

 182?. 



Vessels. 

 117!t 

 171f 

 1440 

 118A 



Population. M. Dupin, takingthe population of Eng- 

 land and Scotland, in round numbers, at 15,000,000, 

 and supposing that one-third only are employed in 

 agriculture, and the other two-thirds in commerc^and 

 manufactures, has formed an interesting comparative 

 estimate of the amount of animate and inanimate force 

 applied to agriculture and the arts in France and Great 

 Britain. It is a position generally admitted in France, 

 that two-thirds of the population are -employed in 

 agriculture ; and that a third only is occupied in manu 



