* Pepys’s Memoirs, p. 4.
** Memoirs of English Affairs, chiefly naval.
*** Lives of the Admirals, vol. ii. p. 476.
The recovery or conquest of New York and the Jerseys was a considerable accession to the strength and security of the English colonies; and, together with the settlement of Pennsylvania and Carolina which was effected during that reign, extended the English empire in America. The persecutions of the dissenters, or, more properly speaking, the restraints imposed upon them contributed to augment and people these colonies. Dr. Davenant affirms,[*] that the shipping of England more than doubled during these twenty-eight years. Several new manufactures were established; in iron brass, silk, hats, glass, paper, etc. One Brewer, leaving the Low Countries when they were threatened with a French conquest, brought the art of dying woollen cloth into England, and by that improvement saved the nation great sums of money. The increase of coinage during these two reigns was ten millions two hundred and sixty-one thousand pounds. A board of trade was erected in 1670; and the earl of Sandwich was made president. Charles revived and supported the charter of the East India Company; a measure whose utility is by some thought doubtful: he granted a charter to the Hudson’s Bay Company; a measure probably hurtful.
We learn from Sir Josiah Child,[**] that in 1688 there were on the Change more men worth ten thousand pounds than there were in 1650 worth a thousand; that five hundred pounds with a daughter was, in the latter period, deemed a larger portion than two thousand in the former; that gentlewomen, in those earlier times, thought themselves well clothed in a serge gown, which a chambermaid would, in 1688, be ashamed to be seen in; and that, besides the great increase of rich clothes, plate, jewels, and household furniture, coaches were in that time augmented a hundred fold.
* Discourse on the Public Revenues, part ii. p. 29, 33, 36.
** Brief Observations, etc.
The duke of Buckingham introduced from Venice the manufacture of glass and crystal into England. Prince Rupert was also an encourager of useful arts and manufactures: he himself was the inventor of etching.
The first law for erecting turnpikes was passed in 1662: the places of the turnpikes were Wadesmill, Caxton, and Stilton: but the general and great improvement of highways took not place till the reign of George II.
In 1663 was passed the first law for allowing the exportation of foreign coin and bullion.
In 1667 was concluded the first American treaty between England and Spain: this treaty was made more general and complete in 1670. The two states then renounced all right of trading with each other’s colonies; and the title of England was acknowledged to all the territories in America of which she was then possessed.
The French king, about the beginning of Charles’s reign, laid some impositions on English commodities: and the English, partly displeased with this innovation, partly moved by their animosity against France, retaliated, by laying such restraints on the commerce with that kingdom as amounted almost to a prohibition. They formed calculations, by which they persuaded themselves that they were losers a million and a half or near two millions a year by the French trade. But no good effects were found to result from these restraints, and in King James’s reign they were taken off by parliament.
Lord Clarendon tells us, that, in 1665, when money, in consequence of a treaty, was to be remitted to the bishop of Munster, it was found, that the whole trade of England could not supply above a thousand pounds a month to Frankfort and Cologne, nor above twenty thousand pounds a month to Hamburgh: these sums appear surprisingly small.[*]