Sect. XI.: Particular decays in our Exportations, and the beneficial parts of our Trade; Instances in the decay of our F

I Shall begin with our Exportations, and as I shall pass from one particular to another, in this and the next Section, shall desire the indifferent Reader to put such an estimation on our losses in Trade, as he shall think reasonable; and shall first instance in our Woollen Manufactures, as being our principal Commodity, and certainly of the most general and necessary use, (and therefore in its nature the best) in the World.

Before Edward the thirds time the Flemings Manufactured our Wooll, and had the Merchandize of it, which gave the original Foundation to the former Wealth and Popularity of the Netherlands.

Edw. 3. observing the great advantages the Flemings made of our Wooll, brought over some Flemish Manufacturers, who by degrees taught the Manufacture of Cloaths of all sorts, Worsted and divers others, particularly mentioned in our Statutes of former times: and as the English more applied themselves to it, and increased ours (as soon as they did) so did that of the Flemings decay.

For first, the English had the materials cheaper than the Flemings, not only by the odds in the carriage out of England, but because the raw Woolls afterwards exported were charged with great Customs and Duties to the King, as appears by the Acts and Writings of those times.

Secondly, Because the Manufacture was continually incouraged, and taken care of by Laws for that purpose, as also appears by our Statute-Book.

Thirdly, At that time we had none of the present Clogs on our Manufactures, which have either become so by the better Methods of Trade first contrived by the Dutch States, or have been grafted upon us by private or mistaken interests long since Edw. 3ds time. I do not find that there was any absolute Prohibition of exporting Wooll till the Statute of the 12th of His now Majesty, chap. 32. yet the example of our cunning Neighbours now tell us, that Prohibitions, accompanied with a due Improvement of Trade at home, are not to be condemned.

The Flemish Cloath-trade was long since so far reduced, that we had the sole Merchandize of it, yet it cannot be denyed but the Flemings kept up a Manufacture of a sort of Stuffs and Sayes, (but of no great bulk) the make whereof the English had not been taught, till the Duke of Alva about 100 years since by his Tyranny and Persecution for Conscience, drove away their Manufacturers, whom Queen Elixabeth like her wise Predecessor Edward the third entertained, seating them in Norwich, Colchester, and Canterbury, whereby these Manufactures became incorporated into the English, to the great advantage of those parts, and of the Nation in general: they also taught us the art of making Tapestry.

Before this the English exported great quantities of our Manufacture into Flanders, but doubtless more afterwards, for which we kept a rich Staple at Antwerp, the Dutch long after they became States were ignorant of this Manufacture, whom we therefore wholly supplied, exporting vast quantities of our Cloaths thither, most Whites, which were there dyed and dressed, and from these parts transmitted into the Southern and South-east Countries of Germany, and many other Nations: we had also the sole trade up the Elbe, and thereby to the North parts of Germany, Jutland and Holsteyne.

We had the sole Trade into Denmark, Norway, Swedeland and Liefland, and to the great Territory of Poland (through Dantzick) by our Eastland Company, formerly very flourishing, and called the Royal Company.

We had also the sole Trade to the vast Empire of Muscovy.

All which Trades are sunk to a small matter, the Dutch having set up mighty Woollen Manufactures of all sorts, and the Flemings renewed or enlarged theirs, our exports to those parts are very much reduced.

Our Hamburgh Company, by whom the North parts of Germany, Jutland and Holsteyne were supplied, do not vend near half what they did, the Dutch and other Manufactures having prevailed upon us in those parts, both for the Finest and Coarsest Cloaths: what we now export to Hamburgh are a sort of Cloaths of between 3, and 7s. a Yard, and of those not near the former quantity.

Then for our Eastland Trade it is sunk more, I have heard several Estimates, all near concurring with what I find in Mr. Coke’s third Treatise of Trade,Pag. 33, 34. dedicated to Prince Rupert, viz. That this Company only heretofore usually exported above 20000 Broad Cloaths, 60000 Kerseys, and 40000 Doubles yearly; but of late years not above 4000 Broad Cloths, 5000 Kerseys, and 2000 Doubles. To give this worthy Gentleman his due, he hath written more materially on the present subject than any man in this Age, in which he hath not only demonstrated his deep Judgment,Pag. 112. but his great sedulity and sincerity in the discovery of the truth, professing himself ready to make out whatsoever he hath reported, before any Judicature. There is too much reason and fact to warrant the great decay of this Eastland Trade, when the Dutch Manufacture is arrived to such a degree, besides which the Silesian and Polonian Manufactures of Coarse Woolls are mightily increased, so that at Dantzick, our late great staple, we now sell so little that ’tis not worth the naming; we now trade thither with Treasure, whence we used to Import much; the like may be said of other Ports this Company formerly traded to.

Then for Swedeland, the Natives have lately set up a Manufacture there of their Coarse Woolls, as well as Denmark, Liefland and Norway, are very much supplied by the Dutch, imposing greater Prices and Customs upon us for what they vend, and insisting to have Treasure of us, where before they bartered for Commodity.

To which I may add, That our late great Muscovy Trade is in a manner lost; the same Mr. Coke takes notice that the Dutch send 1500 Sail of Ships into the Sound in a year, and 40 to Muscovy, we do not send above seven into the Sound in a year, of which two are laden with woollen Manufactures, the other five with Ballast, (and are therefore to buy their foreign lading) and to Muscovy we hardly send two in three years; during the late War we have sent somewhat more.

This value of our exported Cloathing to France is avouched by our Antient Traders thither and so asserted in the Printed Book in (77) in defence of our East India Company.But what is yet more grievous, we import much Fine Cloath from the Dutch yearly, and till of late great quantities of Stuffs and Druggets from the French, which French Importation (only) amounted to the value of 150000l. per Annum, as Mr. Fortrey in his Book of Trade reports; how much of these, or other French Goods may be imported for the future, may be guessed from what I shall say in the last Section concerning the late Prohibition of French Goods; in the mean time it may be observed, how far our late Monopoly of the Woollen Manufacture is vanished.

We had also the sole Trade into Italy, in which the French and Dutch are also sharers, besides the Venetians, who Manufacture and vend much Cloath in those parts.Stat. 18, & 20 Car. 2.

Having given this Accompt of our direct and Consequential Losses by the Irish Acts, I expect to be Answered by some, That howsoever these Acts may have prejudiced us for the time past, they are now expired, and that by Consequence we shall now be let into all the advantages we had before the Acts made. This I shall examine before I go further, and with that Impartiality as I think becomes an Englishman, without being byassed by the Situation of my Lands: which if any man does, this Consequence must appear mistaken.

For first, The Manufacturers set up in Ireland, will still Continue to the same prejudice of ours; and ’tis highly probable (if not certain) that they will Improve, by the cheapness of their Provision and Wages.

Secondly, Having now long used to fatt their Cattle (with which they do not only continually Victual all sorts of Ships, but Forreign Towns, Armies and Nations, particularly the French, and those of the United Provinces, besides the Return they make by the Vent of their Hides and Tallowes) it is not to be Imagined that they will be so mad as to give up this far more profitable Trade.

Thirdly, They will breed, manufacture, and Export as much Wooll, Butter, Cheese, &c. as before.

Fourthly, These Exportations obliging them to Commerce with the French and Dutch, as before, it must be expected that they will generally still buy such Commodities as they want of the Dutch and French; and much the rather, because the Dutch and French, for Reasons before mentioned, can and will afford them much cheaper than the English.

What Advantages shall we then have by the expiring of the Irish Acts? ’tis confessed, that their Territory being large, most Fruitful, and now plentifully stored with Cattle, they may carry on their other Trades, and yet furnish us with abundant Stores of Cattle for our Money; which they already do, sending many of their Cattle near or altogether fatt: supposing them lean, yet will not this Nation get 3d. a year by it, but will be a yearly loser.

Perhaps more instances might be given of decayes in our Exportations of late Years, though it may be considered that we never had many Exportable Manufactures of very great bulk and value, nor in truth any but that of our Wooll; so that if we so much fail of our former gain in this Commodity, it must strike deep on our former Ballance; But much more if we also fail in so many other Exportations and Beneficial Trades.

And after these losses in our Exporting Trade, a further Estimate ought to be made of the decay in our Trade from Port to Port; for though the English never were, nor since the Dutch began to trade could be, considerably Masters of this kind of Trade; Yet may it be presumed, that whilst we kept the Monopoly of Cloth, our Merchants by the Barter and Vent of this Commodity had then more advantagious Opportunities of Buying and Selling Forreign Goods in Forreign Ports; and the rather, because it not only gave the English an extraordinary Reputation, but a real preference in those Parts they then principally Traded to; besides, the former Privileges the English long enjoyed in Muscovy, enabled them to so much of this kind of Trade as related to that Empire, which advantage we have lost by the resumption of those Priviledges, whereof I shall say more.

But perhaps I may be told, That all our before mentioned Defalcations in the beneficial parts of our Trade, have been made good by the Accession of the Plantation-Trade in the Reign of King James, (being within the Compass of the 76 Years mentioned in the Accompt from the Mint) and by the Increase of it since; and I the rather expect this Objection, because this Trade remaining inclosed to the Subjects of the Crown of England, who for Want of other Trade are thrust into it, it makes a great noise amongst us; I shall therefore speak more particularly to it, than yet I have, that I may leave no Holes for Starters.

It may be Alledged, and must be Confessed, That this Trade hath imployed a good number of Ships, and hath brought in great Customs; but nothing of this is to the present question, being only, Whether it hath advantaged the Nation in its Annual gain of Treasure; which I conceive this Trade hath not, if ballanced with the losses the Nation hath received by it.

All the Gain England can or ever could receive by this Trade, must be in the Return and Result of those Commodities we import from the Plantations, (viz. Sugars, Tobaccoes, Dying Stuffs, &c.) in Exchange for so much of our Butter, Cheese, Beer, Woollen Cloaths, Hats, Shoes, Iron-work, and other home-Commodities as we Export thither.

Now that the Labours of the same People in Fishing or Manufactures at home did, and would have produced a greater Profit to the Nation than these Plantation-Commodities, I think no man, considering what hath been said before, can so much as make a question. In fact our Fishing for White Herring and Cod was deserted for this Trade, and the Continual transplanting of multitudes of our Manufactures and other people, hath inevitably more and more sunk and disabled us in all Manufactures and home-Employments.

Then for the supposed advantage we have in the Vent of our home-Commodities to the Plantations, ’tis plain they are but our own People; and it must be undeniable, that had the same People stayed in England, they would have taken off a far greater Quantity; for whereas we now furnish them with some small part of their Victuals, we should then have supplyed them with All, viz. with Bread, Flesh, Fish, Roots, &c. which now we do not; and they would have taken off far more of our Butter, Cheese, Cloathing, Drink, and other home Commodities, when they had them at hand, and had been put to no other shifts.

But our infelicity is yet greater; for our Plantation-Trade (though at the best far less valuable to the Nation than the same People and their Labours at home) is yet grown much worse than it was 20 or 30 Years since, and must grow worse and worse Continually.

This must notoriously appear by what hath been said in this Section, when by means of the late Irish Acts,See before. and for other Reasons there mentioned, we are forced to Export unto, and furnish these our Plantations with so much less quantities of our own, and so much greater quantities of Forreign Goods than formerly and lately we did.

Besides which, by a further Improvidence we have lost other advantages in this Trade: Our Re-exporters being to receive back half the Customs (which in this Trade are very mighty) it hath followed, that the Dutch coming to be furnished with our Sugars and Dying Stuffs much cheaper than the English, (as being charged not with half the Customs) have been by that means able to set up and beat us out of the Forreign Trade of baked Sugars, of which they bake and vend above 20 times the quantity the English do; so do they now use far the greatest part of our Dying Stuffs, gaining near as much, if not more, by these Manufactures than the raw materials yield the English.

And though it be not so direct to the present question, I shall adde, That we have little reason to boast of our Navigation in this Trade, when it was the occasion of the loss of a more certain and beneficial Nursery of Seamen and Shipping in our Fishery, when at the same time the Strength and Business of the Nation have been so much contracted by the loss of our People, when our Planters of New England having gotten a Considerable Navigation of their own, do Trade from Port to Port in America, and have in a manner beaten us out of that kind of Imployment in those Parts; and when the Irish Shipping, together with the growing Plenties of Ireland and New England, threaten the like in the Trade of Exportation and Importation. To all which may be added, what we ought to expect in case the Dutch may retain and Cultivate Surinam as far as ’tis capable, since it will produce as good Sugars and Tobaccoes as any part of America, and as much as will serve the greatest part of the World, if not all.

Nay, these Plantations may be Considered as the true Grounds and Causes of all our present Mischiefs; for, had our Fishers been put on no other Employment, had those Millions of People which we have lost or been prevented of by the Plantations continued in England, the Government would long since have been under a necessity of Easing and regulating our Trade; the common Wants and Cryes of our People would infallibly have obliged it; but much of the Industry of the Nation being turned this way, and the Plantations affording room and hopes for Men of necessitous and uneasie Conditions, and our Lawes mentioned in the Seventh Section, posting them away, they have deserted the Nation Continually, and left us intricated and fettered in private Interests and destructive Constitutions of Trade. And thus, whilest we have been projecting the Increase of Customs, we have fed our selves with the Shadows of Trade, and suffered other Nations to run away with the Substance. I am assured, that the English at Jamaica are now near, if not fully treble what they were when Sir Thomas Muddiford was Governour there, and then they were at least 20000; whence some Conjecture may be made at the rest.