THE SINEWS of POWER War, Money and the English State, 1688–1783 John Brewer
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THE SINEWS OF POWER War, money and the English state, 1688–1783 John Brewer UNWIN HYMAN LONDON BOSTON SYDNEY WELLINGTON © John Brewer 1989 This book is copyright under the Berne Convention. No reproduction without permission. All rights reserved. Published by the Academic Division of Unwin Hyman Ltd 15/17 Broadwick Street, London W1V 1FP, UK Unwin Hyman Inc., 8 Winchester Place, Winchester, Mass. 01890, USA Allen & Unwin (Australia) Ltd, 8 Napier Street, North Sydney, NSW 2060, Australia Allen & Unwin (New Zealand) Ltd in association with the Port Nicholson Press Ltd, Compusales Building, 75 Ghuznee Street, Wellington 1, New Zealand First published in 1989 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge's collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Brewer, John, 1947 The sinews of power: war and the English state, 1688–1783. I. Great Britain, 1714–1837 I. Title 941.07 ISBN 0-203-19316-4 Master e-book ISBN ISBN 0-203-33355-1 Adobe e-Reader Format) ISBN 0 04 44529 6 hb 0 04 445294 2 pb ‘The sinews of War are infinite money.’ Cicero, Orationes Philippicae. ‘By our constitution the crown [is]…the steward of all the Publick Money.’ The Present State of the National Debt (1740), p. 20. ‘All taxes of what nature soever, are paid in every kingdom with a bad grace.’ Thomas Mortimer, The Elements of Politics, Commerce and Finances (1772). ‘The Security of our Liberties are [sic] not in the Laws but by the Purse being in the Hands of the People.’ Carteret, BL Add. Mss 35875 f. 169. Contents Preface viii Introduction x PART ONE Before the revolution: the English state in the medieval and early modern era 1 1 Contexts 2 PART TWO The contours of the fiscal-military state 21 2 The armed forces: patterns of military effort 23 3 Civil administration: the central offices of government 52 4 Money, money, money: the growth in debts and taxes 73 PART THREE Political crisis: the emergence of the fiscal-military state 109 5 The paradoxes of state power 110 PART FOUR The state, war and economy 132 6 The parameters of war: policy and economy 135 7 War and taxes: society, economy and opinion 156 PART FIVE The state and civil society: the clash over information and interest 180 8 Public knowledge and private interest: the state, lobbies and the politics of information 181 Conclusion 205 Notes 206 Index 233 List of tables 2.1 The logistics of war, 1689–1784 23 2.2 Military spending as a percentage of total government expenditure, 1688–1783 32 2.3 Military expenditure as a percentage of national income, 1710–80 32 2.4 Percentage of military men in the commons, 1715–90 36 3.1 Employees in administrative departments, 1692–1755 53 3.2 Full-time employees in the fiscal bureaucracy, 1690–1782/3 54 3.3 Growth in fiscal bureaucracy, 1690–1782/3 55 3.4 Excise employees as a percentage of revenue administration, 1690– 1782/3 55 4.1 Excise establishment, 1690–1783 – 85 86 4.2 Turnover, mobility and discipline in the Excise, 1710–80 90 List of figures 2.1 Total government expenditures, 1691–1785 31 4.1 Total net tax income, 1690–1791 74 4.2 Sources of net tax revenues, 1692–1788 79 4.3 Percentage contribution to government revenue of three principal taxes 80 4.4 Excise structure, 1770 84 4.5 Supervisor Cowperthwaite’s excise round 87 4.6 Growth of the national debt, 1691–1785 94 4.7 Total debt charges as a percentage of tax revenues 95 4.8 Unfunded portion of the British debt 95 4.9 Fraction of the British debt unfunded 98 8.1 Petitions against the leather tax, 1697–9 192 Preface ‘Nothing is certain in this life, except death and taxes.’ Benjamin Franklin. This book is about the growing powers of central government in a period more famous for its praise of liberty. It is a study of the most important changes in British government between the reforms of the Tudors and the major administrative reconstruction of the first half of the nineteenth century. But, unlike those administrative innovations, the changes of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were concerned not with domestic regulation but with enhancing the government’s ability to wage war. My subject is not, however, war as such. I am first and foremost interested in investigating the effects—on government, politics and society—of Britain’s transformation into a major international power. Much of this book is therefore concerned with such technical matters as military and civilian administration, taxation and public finances. These are topics with which readers are often unfamiliar and which, despite some outstanding detailed studies, are rarely incorporated into histories of the Stuarts and Hanoverians. My aim is to remedy this omission: to put finance, administration and war at the centre stage of the drama—where they rightly belong—without elbowing other performers into the wings. I have tried to write about these complex and sometimes arcane matters in as accessible a manner as possible, and I trust the account is not obscure, for this book is primarily intended not for those administrative, military and financial historians who will already be familiar with many of the particularities of the argument which follows—though I hope they will find matter of interest to them—but for readers who, while I am sure they can certainly tell a whig from a tory may not have studied the distinction between a customs duty and a excise. I have had to rely heavily on the work of a large number of scholars whose researches into the fields of finance, military affairs and administration have delved much deeper than my own. I would especially like to thank Peter Dickson and Daniel Baugh, not merely for their brilliant and inspiring published work, but for their kindness in reading part of this manuscript. Their criticism and painstaking help on matters of finance and the navy have proved invaluable. Many other friends and colleagues—Bernard Bailyn, John Beattie, Bob Brenner, Linda Colley, Robert Culpin (the only bureaucrat to read the manuscript), Vivien Dietz, John Dinwiddy, Tom Ertman, John A. Hall, Peter Hall, Joanna Innes, Margaret Levi, Wallace MacCaffrey, Roy Porter, Nick Rogers, Simon Schama, Lawrence Stone, John Styles, Kathleen Wilson—read and commented on earlier drafts of some or all of the chapters. I have also benefited from the guidance and comments of David Bien, Mike Collinge, Geoff Eley, Geoffrey Holmes, Eckhart Hellmuth, Clyve Jones, Charles Maier, Patrick O’Brien, David Sacks, Theda Skocpol and Charles Tilly. The staff at the History of Parliament Trust, notably Eveline Cruickshanks and David Hayton have, as always, been extremely kind—offering not only their exceptional expertise on eighteenth-century politics, but access to their files and transcripts. Graham Smith, at the Customs and Excise Library at King’s Beam House, provided aid and advice as well as excise lore. Tim Wales acted as research assistant on some of the more difficult excise material. Nancy Koehn played a vital role in the completion of this work, acting as researcher, editor and exceptional organizer of someone whose absence of system and good order she bore with unflagging good cheer. Jan Albers, Lee Davison, Marcia Wagner Levinson and Paul Monod all provided me with useful references. Claire L’Enfant proved that editors can be friends even when an author’s tardiness requires the patience of Job. The contribution of Stella Tillyard is beyond even my hyperbolic powers of description. One of the pleasures of scholarship is cooperation with colleagues, and one of its necessities is funding. I have been fortunate to have received support for this project from the National Endowment of the Humanities, who funded a year’s research in England in 1983–4, from Harvard University, the American Philosophical Society and from the University of California in Los Angeles. This book is dedicated to three historians and friends. Simon Schama, who, more than anyone else, made my years at Harvard a pleasure I shall never forget; and Joanna Innes and John Styles, whose kindness, support and example have brought me back to England year after year. Introduction ‘The hand that signed the paper felled a city; Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath, Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country; These five kings did a King to death.’ Dylan Thomas, Collected Poems, 1934–1952 From its modest beginnings as a peripheral power—a minor, infrequent almost inconsequential participant in the great wars that ravaged sixteenth and seventeenth- century Europe—Britain emerged in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries as the military Wunderkind of the age. Dutch admirals learnt to fear and then admire its navies, French generals reluctantly conferred respect on its officers and men, and Spanish governors trembled for the safety of their colonies and the sanctity of their trade. European armies, most notably those of Austria, Prussia and the minor German states, marched if not to the beat of British drums then to the colour of English money. Under the early Stuarts England had cut a puny military figure; by the reign of George III Britain had become one of the heaviest weights in the balance of power in Europe. She had also acquired an empire of ample proportions and prodigious wealth. New England merchants, Southern planters, Caribbean slaves and Indian sepoys were subject to her authority. No sea was safe from British traders; even the Pacific and the Orient were beginning to feel the British presence.