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5Th IMEHA INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS of MARITIME HISTORY Monday, 23 to Friday, 27 June 2008 - Greenwich

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5Th IMEHA INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS of MARITIME HISTORY Monday, 23 to Friday, 27 June 2008 - Greenwich Taxes and maritime activity in eighteenth-century French ports - S. Llinares 1 5th IMEHA INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF MARITIME HISTORY Monday, 23 to Friday, 27 June 2008 - Greenwich Taxes and maritime activity in eighteenth-century French ports Introduction The royal state had control of maritime activity in the ports and coastal regions by means of Admiralties which were judicial and administrative institutions. The admiralties divided the French coast from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, including Corsica, into 51 jurisdictions in 1789.1 In the ports, the officers of the Admiralties were paid the rights of the French Admiral and the fees of official documents which made up their income. From 1781 to 1785, the royal commissioner, Daniel Chardon, inspected a part of the French coast each year and drew up a report in every Admiralty which constituted eight folio volumes totalling 2,200 pages. One of the goals of the inspection was to verify the taxes and abuses that crippled commerce, fishing and navigation. There were different types of maritime taxes called pass, anchoring place, ballasting and unballasting, and lighthouse and sea-marks which were collected for the king, the Admiral of France, Admiralty officers, boroughs and past seaside lords. The reports of the Chardon inspection have remained completely intact and make up one of the most important sources of the history of maritime life in France at the end of the Ancien Regime.2 The research perspectives that this inquiry offers are interesting for three reasons. First of all, there has been no research work done on both the administrative and fiscal regime of French ports during modern times; there are port monographs that make up a collection of individuals. Secondly, a policy to standardize and simplify maritime taxes was put in place during the 18th century; this inquiry shows the persistence of taxes collected by individuals despite their having been taken over by the royal state from the 1730s. Finally, the general reform movement and the debate on economic liberalism of the second half of the 18th century affected the different areas of maritime activity (trade, war, and fishing), thus, the inquiry has helped to re-evaluate the maritime policy of Louis XVI which was coherent through its global approach (war and trade), without however influencing the results. 1 - The Admiralty and maritime activity: control of the Naval Minister During the 18th century, the Admiralty, the intervention of which in maritime activity was essential, underwent increasing pressure, both politically and economic from the Secretary of State of the Navy who was involved in political and economic activities, including trade. During the late 18th century, the Admiral lost the control and even the actual direction of the Admiralty; the institution went into the hands of the Secretary of State of the Navy.3 This outcome was the result of the king taking back the reins of maritime activity during the time of Colbert. The position of Admiral of France was restored in 1669, but with no 1 One should also add the colonial territories, without the Mascarene Islands in the Indian Ocean. 2 CHAN Paris, Marine C4 174 (Flanders, Picardy, Normandy), 175 (Brittany, Poitou, Aunis, Saintonge, Guyenne), 176 (Provence, Languedoc, Corsica). 3 The Admiral of France (Amiral de France) was a high officer of the Crown, it was a permanent position, but was not subject to succession. Taxes and maritime activity in eighteenth-century French ports - S. Llinares 2 military remits whatsoever.4 Then, the Grande Ordonnance de Marine of 1681 established the seats of the Admiralty to which were attached the jurisdiction of maritime activities. The seats were under the control of the Secretary of State of the Navy who re-established the king’s authority on commercial maritime activities, and not just on military ones. The admiralties had in their remits two major policing areas, that of navigation and that of ports and coasts. Navigation policing When leaving a harbour of the kingdom or of one of the colonies, a captain had to have the documents issued by the Admiral, the most well-known of which was that of pass. A pass was the authorisation to put out to sea under certain conditions: the sea had to be “open”5, the ship ready to sail, the crew conform to regulations, the cargo void of prohibited merchandise, and all duties settled. Most often though, there was no actual verification of these conditions, a pass was first and foremost a source of income for the Admiral. Anchoring fees were paid to the Admiral for all ships which came into the ports and harbours of the kingdom. Upon arrival, the Admiralty seats were given the captains’ reports and preceded to ship inspection. Navigation conditions were part of the navigation policing powers of the Admiral who had to position lighthouses, tun-buoys, and sea-marks where necessary. This power did not extend to all the coasts of the kingdom, because in the majority of cases, it was exercised by the king, the lords along the coasts, communities or individuals, but legally it still was held into place. If a lord collected duties without compensation, neglecting the uptake of lighthouses or sea-marks, the Admiral had to reinforce or make up for the fault. For example, in the Somme Bay, positioning sea-marks was the responsibility of the Lord of Saint-Valéry who in turn collected the customs and provostship duties from all ship anchoring in his seigniory. During his inspection of the French coasts in 1782, commissioner Chardon noted that the lord was not fulfilling his own duty very well. He maintained only three sea-marks and it was the Admiral who had to have five others positioned at his own cost.6 In fact, the actual general policing of navigation conditions went back to the Secretary of State of the Navy during the late 18th century. The minister, Choiseul, ordered an extensive investigation in 1766 in all the ports of the kingdom on “existing lighthouses and on those that should be built, as well as the places where they should be built.”7 Policing ports and coasts The edict of 1681 gave the Admiral of France the responsibility of policing ports and coast, except for the ports of Bayonne and Bordeaux where it was done by the Jurade, and military and colonial ports where it was done by the administrators.8 To keep the ports and havens safe and to maintain order, the Admiral appointed Masters of the quay. In ports where traffic was light, the presence of one of these masters of the quay was not necessary, the Admiral could appoint people, or committees, to take care of ballasting and 4 On the evolution of the Admiralty, see the legal thesis of Christian SCHNAKENBOURG, L'amirauté de France à l'époque de la Monarchie administrative (1669-1792), Doctoral Thesis, Université de Paris II, 1975, 2 vol., 323 p. + 328 p.; and the past works of Joachim DARSEL (admiralties of Brittany and of Normandy). 5 The king could, in fact, prohibit leaving ports, in times of war, for example. 6 CHAN Paris, Marine C4 174, pp.137-138. June 14, 1782. 7 CHAN Paris, Marine C4 157. (Our translation) The investigation was carried out by the officers of the seats of the Admiralty and the class commissioners who inspected seafarers who had to go into military service on a king’s vessel. 8 Ordonnance de Marine de 1681, Titre I du Livre Premier, articles 4 et 5. (Title I of the First Book, articles 4 and 5). Taxes and maritime activity in eighteenth-century French ports - S. Llinares 3 unballasting of vessels, and of the uptake of lighthouses and sea-marks. This policing power was conscientiously exercised by the officers of the Admiralty seats, who carefully supervised the masters of the quay, as well as the ballasting and unballasting committees, and who handed out the directives of the Admiral who heard trade grievances, reformed the abuses of masters, and even banned them from exercising their functions.9 In fact, the Secretary of State of the Navy was the real head of the Admiralty; all activities related to maritime trade, fishing and the Admiralty were part of his responsibilities. The minister was in charge of the seats and their activity, he kept direct contact with the officers of the Admiralty who answered the requests of maritime and trade information and sent reports on navigation conditions and statistics. At the beginning of 1786, the Naval minister, the duke of Castries, created a Bureau of maritime trade and fishing in his department. The Bureau was in charge of everything connected to the declarations of edicts dealing with navigation and fishing since 1681, policing trade navigation, ballasting and unballasting, piloting and taxes, the Admiral, as well as the officers, navigation, as well as fishing.10 From 1777, but especially during the 1780s, the Secretary of State of the Navy implemented reform programmes for the Admiralty to answer the demands of those who used it. These reforms showed the necessity of updating French maritime taxes, both public and private; nearly a century had gone by since the publication of the ordonnance de la Marine of Louis XIV and Colbert in 1681. Its flaws and generalisations had had plenty of time to surface and started to be of consequence just after the Treaty of Paris of 1763. Moreover, the seats of the Admiralty did not always seem able to perfectly fulfil the missions set out for them by the edict. Sometimes, abusive practices found their way in which became more or less established through custom. A commission was appointed by the king during the Praslin ministry to look into the reforms necessary in 1767.
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