PART II. 



CHAPTER I. 



The Encouragement Offered to Importers in the Form 

 OF Bounties and Exemption from Duties. 



Two circumstances rendered the supply of naval stores a 

 problem of vital importance just at the opening of the eight- 

 eenth century. The first was the outbreak of the war of the 

 Spanish Succession and the Grand Alliance of the naval powers 

 against France, which required that the English fleet should 

 be at its best in point of size and equipment. The second was 

 the formation of the Stockholm Tar Company for the monop- 

 oly of trade in pitch and tar. 



Great Britain bought practically her entire supply of those 

 products from Sweden. The Swedish merchants, fully aware 

 that their tar was the best in the world, perceived their oppor- 

 tunity to form an exceedingly profitable monopoly. They 

 therefore proceeded to make regulations that no maker should 

 sell to any other merchants, and that no ships, foreign or Swed- 

 ish, should load any tar except for their account and by their 

 order. By this means the company intended not only to set 

 what prices they pleased, but, by ousting foreign shippers, to 

 force English merchants to buy in English, instead of Swedish, 

 ports, and pay freight. From the mercantilist point of view, 

 this was a national as well as a commercial misfortune ; for, as a 

 writer of the day expressed it, "losing that trade was putting a 

 number of ships out of employment, and, consequently, paying 

 our neighbors for work, whilst our people were unemployed."^ 

 It was on this ground that complaint was first heard, but when 

 the declaration of war with France led to the overhauling of 

 the navy for the equipment of the fleet, and it was found that 



1" Letter to a Member of Parliament concerning the Naval Stores 

 Bill," 1720. 



