Don Manoel Gonzales
London in 1731
Queen Elizabeth enlarged the trade of the Company of Adventurers, and empowered them to treat with the princes and states of Germany for a place which might be the staple or mart for the woollen manufactures they exported, which was at length fixed at Hamburg, from whence they obtained the name of the Hamburg Company. They had another mart or staple also assigned them for the sale of their woollen cloths in the Low Countries, viz., Dort, in Holland.
This company consists of a governor, deputy-governor, and fellowship, or court of assistants, elected annually in June, who have a power of making bye-laws for the regulation of their trade; but this trade in a manner lies open, every merchant trading thither on his own bottom, on paying an inconsiderable sum to the company; so that though the trade to Germany may be of consequence, yet the Hamburg Company, as a company, have very little advantage by their being incorporated.
The Hamburg or German Merchants export from England broad-cloth, druggets, long-ells, serges, and several sorts of stuffs, tobacco, sugar, ginger, East India goods, tin, lead, and several other commodities, the consumption of which is in Lower Germany.
England takes from them prodigious quantities of linen, linen-yarn, kid-skins, tin-plates, and a great many other commodities.
The next company established was that of the Russia Merchants, incorporated 1st and 2nd of Philip and Mary, who were empowered to trade to all lands, ports, and places in the dominions of the Emperor of Russia, and to all other lands not then discovered or frequented, lying on the north, north-east, or north-west.
The Russia Company, as a company, are not a very considerable body at present; the trade thither being carried on by private merchants, who are admitted into this trade on payment of five pounds for that privilege.
It consists of a governor, four consuls, and twenty-four assistants, annually chosen on the 1st of March.
The Russia Merchants export from England some coarse cloth, long-ells, worsted stuffs, tin, lead, tobacco, and a few other commodities.
England takes from Russia hemp, flax, linen cloth, linen yarn, Russia leather, tallow, furs, iron, potashes, &c., to an immense value.
The next company is the Eastland Company, formerly called Merchants of Elbing, a town in Polish Prussia, to the eastward of Dantzic, being the port they principally resorted to in the infancy of their trade. They were incorporated 21 Elizabeth, and empowered to trade to all countries within the Sound, Norway, Sweden, Poland, Liefland, Prussia, and Pomerania, from the river Oder eastward, viz., with Riga, Revel, Königsberg, Elbing, Dantzic, Copenhagen, Elsinore, Finland, Gothland, Eastland, and Bornholm (except Narva, which was then the only Russian port in the Baltic). And by the said patent the Eastland Company and Hamburg Company were each of them authorised to trade separately to Mecklenburg, Gothland, Silesia, Moravia, Lubeck, Wismar, Restock, and the whole river Oder.
This company consists of a governor, deputy-governor, and twenty-four assistants, elected annually in October; but either they have no power to exclude others from trading within their limits, or the fine for permission is so inconsiderable, that it can never hinder any merchants trading thither who is inclined to it; and, in fact, this trade, like the former, is carried on by private merchants, and the trade to Norway and Sweden is laid open by Act of Parliament.
To Norway and Denmark merchants send guineas, crown-pieces, bullion, a little tobacco, and a few coarse woollens.
They import from Norway, &c., vast quantities of deal boards, timber, spars, and iron.
Sweden takes from England gold and silver, and but a small quantity of the manufactures and production of England.
England imports from Sweden near two-thirds of the iron wrought up or consumed in the kingdom, copper, boards, plank, &c.
The Turkey or Levant Company was first incorporated in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and their privileges were confirmed and enlarged in the reign of King James I., being empowered to trade to the Levant, or eastern part of the Mediterranean, particularly to Smyrna, Aleppo, Constantinople, Cyprus, Grand Cairo, Alexandria, &c. It consists of a governor, deputy-governor, and eighteen assistants or directors, chosen annually, &c. This trade is open also to every merchant paying a small consideration, and carried on accordingly by private men.
These merchants export to Turkey chiefly broadcloth, long-ells, tins, lead, and some iron; and the English merchants frequently buy up French and Lisbon sugars and transport thither, as well as bullion from Cadiz.
The commodities received from thence are chiefly raw silk, grogram yarn, dyeing stuffs of sundry kinds, drugs, soap; leather, cotton, and some fruit, oil, &c.
The East India Company were incorporated about the 42nd of Elizabeth, anno 1600, and empowered to trade to all countries to the eastward of the Cape of Good Hope, exclusive of all others.
About the middle of King William’s reign it was generally said their patent was illegal, and that the Crown could not restrain the English merchants from trading to any country they were disposed to deal with; and application being made to Parliament for leave to lay the trade open, the ministry took the hint, and procured an Act of Parliament (9 and 10 William III., cap. 44) empowering every subject of England to trade to India who should raise a sum of money for the supply of the Government in proportion to the sum he should advance, and each subscriber was to have an annuity after the rate of 8 per cent. per annum, to commence from Michaelmas, 1698. And his Majesty was empowered to incorporate the subscribers, as he afterwards did, and they were usually called the New East India Company, the old company being allowed a certain time to withdraw their effects. But the old company being masters of all the towns and forts belonging to the English on the coast of India, and their members having subscribed such considerable sums towards the two millions intended to be raised, that they could not be excluded from the trade, the new company found it necessary to unite with the old company, and to trade with one joint stock, and have ever since been styled “The United Company of Merchants trading to the East Indies.”
The company have a governor, deputy-governor, and twenty-four assistants or directors, elected annually in April.
The East India Company export great quantities of bullion, lead, English cloth, and some other goods, the product or manufacture of that kingdom, and import from China and India tea, china ware, cabinets, raw and wrought silks, coffee, muslins, calicoes, and other goods.
Bengal raw silk is bought at very low prices there, and is very useful in carrying on the manufactures of this kingdom.
China silk is of excellent staple, and comes at little above one-third of the price of Italian Piedmont silk.
The China silk is purchased at Canton, but their fine silk is made in the provinces of Nankin and Chekiam, where their fine manufactures are carried on, and where prodigious quantities of raw silk are made, and the best in all China.
The Royal African Company was incorporated 14 Charles II., and empowered to trade from Sallee, in South Barbary, to the Cape of Good Hope, being all the western coast of Africa. It carries no money out, and not only supplies the English plantations with servants, but brings in a great deal of bullion for those that are sold to the Spanish West Indies, besides gold dust and other commodities, as red wood, elephants’ teeth, Guinea grain, &c., some of which are re-exported. The supplying the plantations with negroes is of that extraordinary advantage, that the planting sugar and tobacco and carrying on trade there could not be supported without them; which plantations are the great causes of the increase of the riches of the kingdom.
The Canary Company was incorporated in the reign of King Charles II., anno 1664, being empowered to trade to the Seven Islands, anciently called the Fortunate, and now the Canary Islands.
They have a governor, deputy-governor, and thirteen assistants or directors, chosen annually in March. This company exports baize, kerseys, serges, Norwich stuffs, and other woollen manufactures; stockings, hats, fustians, haberdashery wares, tin, and hardware; as also herrings, pilchards, salted flesh, and grain; linens, pipe-staves, hoops, &c. Importing in return Canary wines, logwood, hides, indigo, cochineal, and other commodities, the produce of America and the West Indies.
There is another company I had almost overlooked, called the Hudson’s Bay Company; and though these merchants make but little noise, I find it is a very advantageous trade. They by charter trade, exclusively of all other his Britannic Majesty’s subjects, to the north-west; which was granted, as I have been told, on account that they should attempt a passage by those seas to China, &c., though nothing appears now to be less their regard; nay; if all be true, they are the very people that discourage and impede all attempts made by others for the opening that passage to the South Seas. They export some woollen goods and haberdashery wares, knives, hatchets, arms, and other hardware; and in return bring back chiefly beaver-skins, and other skins and furs.
The last, and once the most considerable of all the trading companies, is that of the South Sea, established by Act of Parliament in the ninth year of the late Queen Anne; but, what by reason of the mismanagement of its directors in 1720, the miscarriage of their whale-fishery, and the intrigues of the Spaniards, their credit is sunk, and their trade has much decreased.
I proceed, in the next place, to inquire what countries the merchants of London trade to separately, not being incorporated or subject to the control of any company.
Among which is the trade to Italy, whither are exported broad-cloth, long-ells, baize, druggets, callimancoes, camlets, and divers other stuffs; leather, tin, lead, great quantities of fish, as pilchards, herrings, salmon, Newfoundland cod, &c., pepper, and other East India goods.
The commodities England takes from them are raw, thrown, and wrought silk, wine, oil, soap, olives, some dyer’s wares, anchovies, &c.
To Spain the merchants export broad-cloth, druggets, callimancoes, baize, stuff of divers kinds, leather, fish, tin, lead, corn, &c.
The commodities England takes from them are wine, oil, fruit of divers kinds, wool, indigo, cochineal, and dyeing stuffs.
To Portugal also are exported broad-cloth, druggets, baize, long-ells, callimancoes, and all other sorts of stuffs; as well as tin, lead, leather, fish, corn, and other English commodities.
England takes from them great quantities of wine, oil, salt, and fruit, and gold, both in bullion and specie; though it is forfeited, if seized in the ports of Portugal.
The French take very little from England in a fair way, dealing chiefly with owlers, or those that clandestinely export wool and fuller’s-earth, &c. They indeed buy some of our tobacco, sugar, tin, lead, coals, a few stuffs, serges, flannels, and a small matter of broad-cloth.
England takes from France wine, brandy, linen, lace, fine cambrics, and cambric lawns, to a prodigious value; brocades, velvets, and many other rich silk manufactures, which are either run, or come by way of Holland; the humour of some of the nobility and gentry being such, that although they have those manufactures made as good at home, if not better than abroad, yet they are forced to be called by the name of French to make them sell. Their linens are run in very great quantities, as are their wine and brandy, from the Land’s End even to the Downs.
To Flanders are exported serges, a few flannels, a very few stuffs, sugar, tobacco, tin, and lead.
England takes from them fine lace, fine cambrics, and cambric-lawns, Flanders whited linens, threads, tapes, incles, and divers other commodities, to a very great value.
To Holland the merchants export broad-cloth, druggets, long-ells, stuffs of a great many sorts, leather, corn, coals, and something of almost every kind that this kingdom produces; besides all sorts of India and Turkey re-exported goods, sugars, tobacco, rice, ginger, pitch and tar, and sundry other commodities of the produce of our American plantations.
England takes from Holland great quantities of fine Holland linen, threads, tapes, and incles; whale fins, brass battery, madder, argol, with a large number of other commodities and toys; clapboard, wainscot, &c.
To Ireland are exported fine broad-cloth, rich silks, ribbons, gold and silver lace, manufactured iron and cutlery wares, pewter, great quantities of hops, coals, dyeing wares, tobacco, sugar, East India goods, raw silk, hollands, and almost everything they use, but linens, coarse woollens, and eatables.
England takes from Ireland woollen yarn, linen yarn, great quantities of wool in the fleece, and some tallow.
They have an extraordinary trade for their hides, tallow; beef, butter, &c., to Holland, Flanders, France, Portugal, and Spain, which enables them to make large remittances.
To the sugar plantations are exported all sorts of clothing, both linen, silks, and woollen; wrought iron, brass, copper, all sorts of household furniture, and a great part of their food.
They return sugar, ginger, and several commodities, and all the bullion and gold they can meet with, but rarely carry out any.
To the tobacco plantations are exported clothing, household goods, iron manufactures of all sorts, saddles, bridles, brass and copper wares; and notwithstanding they dwell among the woods, they take their very turnery wares, and almost everything else that may be called the manufacture of England.
England takes from them not only what tobacco is consumed at home, but very great quantities for re-exportation.
To Carolina are exported the same commodities as to the tobacco plantations. This country lying between the 32nd and 36th degrees of northern latitude, the soil is generally fertile. The rice it produces is said to be the best in the world; and no country affords better silk than has been brought from thence, though for want of sufficient encouragement the quantity imported is very small. It is said both bohea and green tea have been raised there, extraordinary good of the kind. The olive-tree grows wild, and thrives very well, and might soon be improved so far as to supply us with large quantities of oil. It is said the fly from whence the cochineal is made is found very common, and if care was taken very great quantities might be made. The indigo plant grows exceedingly well. The country has plenty of iron mines in it, and would produce excellent hemp and flax, if encouragement was given for raising it.
To Pennsylvania are exported broad-cloth, kerseys, druggets, serges, and manufactures of all kinds.
To New England are exported all sorts of woollen manufactures, linen, sail-cloth and cordage for rigging their ships, haberdashery, &c. They carry lumber and provisions to the sugar plantations; and exchange provisions for logwood with the logwood-cutters at Campeachy. They send pipe and barrel-staves and fish to Spain, Portugal, and the Straits. They send pitch, tar, and turpentine to England, with some skins.
Having considered the trading companies, and other branches of foreign trade, I shall now inquire into the establishment of the Bank of England.
The governor and company of the Bank of England, &c., are enjoined not to trade, or suffer any person in trust for them to trade, with any of the stock, moneys or effects, in the buying or selling of any merchandise or goods whatsoever, on pain of forfeiting the treble value. Yet they may deal in bills of exchange, and in buying and selling of bullion, gold or silver, or in selling goods mortgaged to them, and not redeemed at the time agreed on, or within three months after, or such goods as should be the produce of lands purchased by the corporation. All bills obligatory and of credit under the seal of the corporation made to any person, may by endorsement be assigned, and such assignment shall transfer the property to the moneys due upon the same, and the assignee may sue in his own name.
Give me leave to observe here, that most of the foreign trade of this town is transacted by brokers, of which there are three sorts, viz., 1st, Exchange-brokers, 2ndly, brokers for goods and merchandise, and 3rdly, ship-brokers.
The exchange-brokers, who are versed in the course of exchange, furnish the merchant with money or bills, as he has occasion for either.
The broker of goods lets the merchant know where he may furnish himself with them, and the settled price; or if he wants to sell, where he may meet with a chapman for his effects.
The ship-broker finds ships for the merchant, when he wants to send his goods abroad; or goods for captains and masters of vessels to freight their ships with.
If it be demanded what share of foreign trade London hath with respect to the rest of the kingdom; it seems to have a fourth part of the whole, at least if we may judge by the produce of the customs, which are as three to twelve, or thereabouts.
As to the manufactures carried on in the City of London; here mechanics have acquired a great deal of reputation in the world, and in many things not without reason; for they excel in clock and cabinet-work, in making saddles, and all sorts of tools, and other things. The door and gun locks, and fire-arms, are nowhere to be paralleled; the silk manufacture is equal to that of France, or any other country, and is prodigiously enlarged of late years. Dyers also are very numerous in and about London, and are not exceeded by any foreigners in the beauty or durableness of their colours: and those that print and stain cottons and linens have brought that art to great perfection. Printers of books, also, may equal those abroad; but the best paper is imported from other countries.
The manufacture of glass here is equal to that of Venice, or any other country in Europe, whether we regard the coach or looking-glasses, perspective, drinking-glasses, or any other kind of glass, whatever. The making of pins and needles is another great manufacture in this town, as is that of wire-drawings of silver, gold, and other metals. The goldsmiths and silversmiths excel in their way. The pewterers and brasiers furnish all manner of vessels and implements for the kitchen, which are as neatly and substantially made and furnished here as in any country in Europe. The trades of hat-making and shoe-making employ multitudes of mechanics; and the tailors are equally numerous. The cabinet, screen, and chair-makers contribute also considerably to the adorning and furnishing the dwelling-house. The common smiths, bricklayers, and carpenters are no inconsiderable branch of mechanics; as may well be imagined in a town of this magnitude, where so many churches, palaces, and private buildings are continually repairing, and so many more daily erecting upon new foundations. And this brings me to mention the shipwrights, who are employed in the east part of the town, on both sides the river Thames, in building ships, lighters, boats, and other vessels; and the coopers, who make all the casks for domestic and foreign service. The anchorsmiths, ropemakers, and others employed in the rigging and fitting out ships, are very numerous; and brewing and distilling may be introduced among the manufactures of this town, where so many thousand quarters of malt are annually converted into beer and spirits: and as the various kinds of beer brewed here are not to be paralleled in the world, either for quantity or quality, so the distilling of spirits is brought to such perfection that the best of them are not easily to be distinguished from French brandy.
Having already mentioned ship-building among the mechanic trades, give me leave to observe farther, that in this England excels all other nations; the men-of-war are the most beautiful as well as formidable machines that ever floated on the ocean.
As to the number of foreigners in and about this great city, there cannot be given any certain account, only this you may depend upon, that there are more of the French nation than of any other: such numbers of them coming over about the time of the Revolution and since to avoid the persecution of Louis XIV., and so many more to get their bread, either in the way of trade, or in the service of persons of quality; and I find they have upwards of twenty churches in this town, to each of which, if we allow 1,000 souls, then their number must be at least 20,000. Next to the French nation I account most of the Dutch and Germans; for there are but few Spaniards or Portuguese, and the latter are generally Jews; and except the raree-show men, we see scarce any of the natives of Italy here; though the Venetian and some other Italian princes have their public chapels here for the exercise of the Romish religion.