History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce, Volume 2 (of 4)

by W. S. Lindsay

Peace of Ryswick, 1697.

The Treaty of Peace of Ryswick, concluded in 1697, brought with it great prosperity, the clearances outwards of British ships averaging in the following three years 393,703 tons annually, while the gross value of produce exported on the average in each of the same years reached 6,709,881, or three times more than it had been in 1696.

At this period the government paid for the hire of transports from the merchant service 716,220l. per annum, on an average of ten years.[198]

Trade of the colonies.

African trade.

From the period of the Revolution in 1688 to the death of Queen Anne, the trade of the plantations had steadily and rapidly increased, employing five hundred sail of vessels, a large proportion of them being engaged in the transport of negroes from the coast of Africa. Though originally a monopoly in the hands of the African Company,[199] private speculation had entered so largely into it that, in 1698, an Act of Parliament gave permission to all the King’s subjects, whether of England or of America, to trade to Africa on payment of a certain per centage to the Company on all goods exported or imported, negro slaves being nevertheless exempted from this contribution. The advocates of free trade considered the exemption a great boon to the colonies, as the competition of the private merchant vessels had greatly reduced the prices of slaves, whereby the British negro colonies had been enabled to undersell their rivals in the general market of the world. This process seems, however, to have had a twofold effect, or to have cut both ways. The keenest partisans for the unbounded liberty of commerce felt no scruple of conscience in depriving the poor Africans, who were only guilty of having black skins and woolly hair, of their liberty, in whatever part of the world they could be found; and on the east coast of Africa, where negroes were cheaper than elsewhere, the competition of the traders of various nations raised the price of human flesh.[200] Although the most hideous cruelties were practised to procure these slaves, the traffic continued to increase and, half a century afterwards, one hundred and fifty vessels were fitted out in one year for the east coast of Africa from the ports of France alone, transporting in the course of that year twenty thousand slaves to the island of St. Domingo.

Newfoundland.

Usages at the fishery.

The French, indeed, during the reign of Louis XIV. had encroached at all points on the English trade, especially on her fisheries at Newfoundland; hence William III. in his declaration of war against that country in 1689, intimated “that whereas not long since the French had been accustomed to take licences from the British governor of Newfoundland for fishing in the seas upon that coast, and to pay tribute for such licences as an acknowledgment of the sole right of the Crown of England to that island, yet of late their encroachments upon his subjects’ trade and fishery there had been more like the invasions of an enemy than of becoming friends who enjoyed the advantages of the said trade only by permission.” But the capture of Nova Scotia at the commencement of this war restored English supremacy in that quarter. The preamble of an Act passed in 1698 for the encouragement of the trade with Newfoundland, declared it to be a beneficial trade to Great Britain, not only in so far as it employed great numbers of ships and seamen in those fisheries, but also in that it procured returns of valuable commodities direct from other countries in exchange for the produce of those fisheries. The prevailing customs at the fisheries were sanctioned expressly in this Act, one of the most important being that the master of any vessel from England who happened first to enter any harbour or creek in the island after the 25th of March should be admiral of the said harbour or creek during the ensuing fishing season, and should see the rules and orders laid down in the Act duly put into execution within the limits of the jurisdiction thus assigned to him. It was also expressly enacted that no subject of any foreign power “shall at any time hereafter take any bait, or use any sort of trade or fishing in Newfoundland, or in any of the adjacent islands;” though this complete exclusion of other rivals was not persevered in.

Greenland fishery.