A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



regiment of regulars was, after the peace of Amiens, en- 

 listed in the town at the expense of Mr. John Bolton,"* 

 a wealthy merchant ; and the Duke of Gloucester ^" 

 took up his quarters at San Domingo House, Everton, 

 to command all these forces. 



The first part of the war unquestionably told 

 heavily in favour of Liverpool trade, in spite of the 

 commercial insecurity caused by the ever-present risk 

 of capture. In the second period Napoleon's conti- 

 nental system inflicted grave hardship, especially severely 

 felt by the poor of the town ; "* and its result, the 

 American War of 1812, which produced a swarm of 

 dangerous American privateers,*" was disastrous in its 

 effects : the number of ships entering the port declin- 

 ing from 6,729 in 1810 to 4,599 in 1812."' Yet 

 even this struggle ultimately tended to the increase of 

 Liverpool's trade, by driving finally all rival shipping 

 from the seas ; at the end of the period of war in 

 1815, Liverpool found herself practically absolute 

 mistress of the trade between America and Europe. 



While the wars were securing to Liverpool the 

 dominance of the Atlantic trade, the other main 

 source of her wealth, the industries of Lancashire, 

 were being transformed. The amazing story of the 

 great inventions and the great development of roads 

 and canals of this period concern Lancashire at large 

 and the whole of England. But it should be noted 

 that no town more directly profited by these develop- 

 ments than Liverpool, for almost the whole of the 

 districts most affected by the new inventions lay with- 

 in a hundred miles of her harbour ; while the canals 

 and roads made communication with them easy, and 

 for the first time overcame that geographical isolation 

 which had been the main obstacle to her progress. 

 For this reason the merchants at Liverpool took an 

 immense part in devising and carrying through these 

 enterprises, and much of the capital for the new canals 

 was supplied by the wealth earned in the slave trade 

 or the trade with America. 



Concurrently with these movements, the same 

 period saw a remarkable development of foreign mar- 

 kets. The great expansion of the United States into 

 the Middle West *" began in the last years of the 1 8th 

 century, and was much stimulated by the Louisiana 

 purchase ; emigration on a large scale, caused by the 

 distress which accompanied the Industrial Revolution, 

 helped to fill up these lands ; they provided new 

 sources of raw materials, and it was in this period, in 

 particular, that the supply of raw cotton began to be 

 derived mainly from the Southern States ; as late as 

 1784. it was so exclusively drawn from the West 

 Indies that a custom-house officer is said to have seized 

 a small consignment brought in an American vessel 

 on the ground that its importation was an infringe- 

 ment of the Navigation Acts.''^" At the end of the 

 period (in 181 3) the trade with the East Indies, 

 hitherto confined to the East India Company, was 

 thrown open, and in 1 8 14 the first Liverpool ships 

 rounded the Cape of Good Hope.**' In a few years 



India had become one of the principal markets for the 

 goods exported from Liverpool. The period of the 

 Revolutionary wars also saw Spanish America thrown 

 open to trade. When Napoleon took possession of 

 Spain the Spanish colonies declined to accept his rule, 

 threw off the close restrictions which the mother- 

 country had imposed upon their trade ; and, on the 

 restoration of peace, declined to return to their allegi- 

 ance, mainly because they were unwilling to sacrifice 

 their newly-acquired commercial freedom. From the 

 first Liverpool controlled the bulk of this rapidly ex- 

 panding South American trade,**' which she has held 

 ever since ; and it is more than a coincidence that 

 Canning, the minister responsible for the British 

 recognition of the Spanish-American colonies in 1825, 

 had himself been member for Liverpool for ten years 

 (l8i2-2z). Thus during the years when the com- 

 merce of rival nations was being driven from the 

 Atlantic mainly to the advantage of Liverpool, the un- 

 exampled development of the industrial and mineral 

 advantages of Lancashire and the northern midlands 

 was supplying the Liverpool merchants with an inex- 

 haustible supply of goods for export, and the expan- 

 sion of America and the opening of trade to India and 

 South America were providing enormous new markets. 

 It is not surprising that the trade of the port advanced 

 with a rapidity hitherto unknown in English history, 

 and that the population of the port grew concurrently. 



The growth of trade during this period is indicated 

 by the fact that the gross tonnage owned in the port, 

 19,175 in 1 75 1, had risen to 72,730 in 1787, to 

 129,470 in 1801. Other figures tell the same tale. 

 During the period 1756-1815 four new docks and 

 two tidal basins were opened. The dock area of the 

 port, less than 30 acres in 1756, had risen to over 

 50 acres in 181 5. Still more rapid was the expansion 

 of the next period, as the table on p. 42 will show. 

 During the same period several local industries rose to 

 their highest prosperity, and then decayed and 

 vanished — destroyed mainly by that localization of 

 industrial functions and that growing ease of com- 

 munication which were the principal causes of Liver- 

 pool's commercial ascendancy. Thus shipbuilding was 

 at its height in the last quarter of the 1 8th century ; *" 

 it decayed thereafter. The Greenland fishery,*" 

 which began for Liverpool in 1764, and in 1788 

 employed 21 ships, had almost vanished by 1815, as 

 had the oil-refining industry to which it gave birth. 

 The curing-houses for herring,'" which carried on a 

 large export trade with the Mediterranean, were at 

 their height about 1770, but had almost vanished by 

 1 81 5. Two or three iron foundries existed in the 

 town in the same period ; *'* they were driven out of 

 work by the competition of the coalfield towns. The 

 pottery industry also came to an end during these 

 years.*'' 



The destruction of productive industries is indeed 

 a feature of this period. It did not interfere with the 

 growth of the town's wealth or population, but it left 



6" Picton, Mem. i, 301 ; Liv, Adver- 

 tisir, 30 May, 1803. 



615 Picton, Li-v. Munic. Rec. ii, 289-90. 



618 Ibid, ii, 3 1 1 i Liv. Courier, i Feb. 

 1809; Liv. Advertiser, 25 Nov. 1811 

 et passim. 



6" Williams, op. cit. 4+2-9. 



SI" Ibid. 407. For the general effects 

 ou prices and trade in Liverpool see 

 Ewart, Rutson's trade circular, quoted in 



Baines' Liverpool, 738-4.1. For insu- 

 rance rates, Mfrcarj;, 13 May 1 81 3. 



B19 For a fuller summary of these causes 

 of development, see Muir, Hist, of Liv. 

 chap. xiv. 



^'^ Smithers, Liverpool, 124. 



**^ Ibid. 160. Within seven years 

 the port possessed one-seventh of the 

 total British trade with India. Ibid. 

 i6x. 



32 



*2a Ibid. 163. 



*^ Smithers, Commerce of Liv, 190 f 

 [Wallace], General Descr. i8off. 



"■• Brooke, op. cit. 241 ; Smithers, 

 Commerce of Liv. 97-8. 



*"' Smifiiers, Commerce of Liv. 95 j 

 [Wallace], General Descr. (1795), 26. 



™ [Wallace] and Smithers, loc. cit. 



*"' Brooke, op. cit 248 ; J. Mayer, 

 Liv. Pottery, 



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