Amid this numerous body of complainers, some of whose grievances were real, some insignificant, and others imaginary, there were happily men who had more enlarged views, and who were able to urge on the government[263] to take effectual steps to extend the foreign trade, and to devote more attention than heretofore to the colonial and especially to the West India business, in which large commercial fortunes were soon afterwards realised. The trade of the Mediterranean was proposed by them to be cultivated and re-established, as a course of business likely to give vast employment to her shipping, and to secure for England a predominating power and influence over other nations. With this view the establishment of well-qualified agents, versed in commercial affairs, in various ports of that sea was strongly advocated.
and to encourage emigration to Canada.
Value of the Canadian trade.
But perhaps the most important point of policy pressed upon the attention of the government in connection with shipping was the expediency of encouraging emigration to Canada, with a view to the cultivation of hemp, timber, and other naval stores, so as thus to render England independent of Russia and of the other Northern powers. Far-seeing politicians, and especially Mr. Pitt, had already perceived that the ultimate objects of Russia were to unite the Baltic and the Mediterranean, to secure the trade of the south by the naval stores of the north, and eventually to dispossess England of the trade of the Levant; and this judgment was confirmed by the fact that at this juncture Russia held back and allowed Napoleon to prosecute his schemes of conquest unchecked. It was, therefore, deemed sound policy on the part of England to take every means in her power to enlarge her shipping business with her own colonies. The timber trade alone sufficed to tempt many enterprising Englishmen to strain every effort to open out the vast regions comprised under the names of Upper and Lower Canada. They soon discovered that in those colonies there were nine or ten different indigenous species of oak; that among these the live oak, a very superior description of timber, was of most use for ship-building; that firs and pines abounded in great variety; that the uncultivated parts of the country contained the most extensive forests in the world; and that the white Canadian pine was better adapted than any wood to be found in the Baltic for masts of the largest and best description.
They were also aware that when Canada was under the dominion of the French a sixty-gun ship had been constructed of the red pine of that country, which was found very suitable for the purpose. Besides various descriptions of timber well adapted for ship-building purposes, Canada produced the pitch-pine tree, which yields abundance of pitch, tar, resin, and turpentine, so that English shipowners had resources within their own colonies which would render them in a great measure independent of Russia if they were only developed. The great importance of these and other articles of naval stores, and their prodigious abundance in Canada, caused much more attention to be directed to the trade of that country than had hitherto been the case; but it was only after the perseverance of many years in these judicious efforts to develop the agricultural riches of her North American colonies, that English shipowners reaped the benefits of the extensive trade now carried on between them and the mother-country.
FOOTNOTES:
[238] Abundant evidence on the elasticity of the commerce of England in spite of all the odds against her may be seen in Macpherson, vol. iv. passim; in Lord Sheffield’s ‘Observations on the Treaty with America;’ and Chalmers’ ‘Comparative Estimate of the Strength of Great Britain,’ 1794.
[239] The sufferings of the French, especially in Paris, in March, 1795, from famine and the severity of the weather, was even greater than any experienced in England (Alison, ii. p. 604).
[240] ‘Parliamentary History,’ Dec. 11, 1795.
[241] Vide ‘Annual Register,’ 1780, p. 348, where the declarations of Great Britain and the other Powers will be found. Denmark and Sweden replied in July 1780, assenting to Catherine’s doctrines.