Citizenship, National Belonging and the Grain Regulation Question in Britain and France, 1750- 1780
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Citizenship, National Belonging and the Grain Regulation Question in Britain and France, 1750- 1780 Daisy Gibbs (UCL) PhD Thesis Daisy Gibbs 1 Declaration I, Daisy Gibbs confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. Daisy Gibbs 2 Abstract During the prelude to the industrial revolution, as Britain and France experienced the first age of globalisation, with its associated expansion of markets and regional specialisation, certain assumptions were called into question. These included the traditional mentalités of trust in local markets; belief in the economic responsibilities of political authorities; and the idea of ‘the economy’ itself in relation to the region and nation. While globalisation could offer increased income and consumer choice, this could come at the cost of restricting the life and autonomy of regional economies. Historians have explored these tensions in treatments of the friction between capitalism and adherence to a moral economy. However, even capitalistic ideas about free trade were heavily concerned with national economic competitiveness. This thesis addresses this dynamic by examining theoretical and practical approaches to the grain trade. It aims to unravel contemporary interpretations of the role of government, regions and individuals in national economic stability and growth, which in turn informed ideas about national belonging. It explores attempts by French and British writers, legislators, and people to assert their interpretation of economic identity, and design an economic destiny for their nation or region. Since this thesis is chiefly concerned with national belonging and citizenship, it draws on the work of historians who have examined the role of commodities in forming or defining national identities. These include Anderson’s treatment of vernacular print literature, which differentiated European nations,1 or Morieux’s depiction of the shared economic interests that bridged the Channel.2 It uses primary sources relating to administration (such as laws, parliamentary debates, and local court rulings) and contemporary published economic works to produce a thorough comparison of economic identity in each nation. 1 B. Anderson, Imagined Communities (London, 2006), p. 67. 2 R. Morieux, Une Mer pour deux Royaumes (Rennes, 2008), p. 345. Daisy Gibbs 3 Table of Contents Declaration ......................................................................................................... 2 Abstract ............................................................................................................... 3 List of Figures .................................................................................................... 5 Acknowledgements ......................................................................................... 6 List of Abbreviations ....................................................................................... 7 Introduction ....................................................................................................... 8 Part 1: Chapter 1: Norfolk’s People and Produce in the National Economy ............................................................................................................................. 42 Chapter 2: Experiencing the French Deregulation Experiment in Tours, 1763-1775 .......................................................................................... 80 Chapter 3: Economic Regulation and Identity in the Colonies of Britain and France ...................................................................................... 126 Part 2: Chapter 4: Subjects, Mercantilist Morality and the Case for Regulation ...................................................................................................... 172 Chapter 5: Citizens, Liberty and the Case for Free Trade ............... 219 Chapter 6: Corn Laws, Systems, and The Wealth of Nations........... 266 Conclusion ..................................................................................................... 308 Bibliography ................................................................................................. 321 Daisy Gibbs 4 List of Figures Figure 1: Map of the County of Norfolk .................................................. 44 Figure 2: Bushels of Main Grains shipped Overseas and Coastally from King’s Lynn between Christmas 1751 and Midsummer 1752 .......................................................................................................... 49 Figure 3: Bushels of Main Grains shipped Overseas and Coastally from King’s Lynn between Christmas 1759 and Midsummer 1760 .......................................................................................................... 50 Figure 4: Bushels of Main Grains shipped Overseas and Coastally from King’s Lynn between Midsummer and Christmas 1769 50 Figure 5: Monthly Exports of Principal Grains from King’s Lynn, 1766 .......................................................................................................... 68 Figure 6: Map of the Généralité of Tours ................................................ 96 Figure 7: Parisian Rainfall and Riots in Tours, 1760-1780 ........... 103 Figure 8: Agricultural Productivity in Le Mans 1758-1764 ........... 104 Figure 9: Wheat Prices and Riots in the Généralité of Tours, 1756- 1780 ........................................................................................................ 120 Figure 10: Flour imported Legally at Martinique, 1765-1773. .... 141 Daisy Gibbs 5 Acknowledgements I would like to sincerely thank my unflappable supervisor, Professor Julian Hoppit, for all his help devising the project, commenting on chapter drafts, and reading the final version of this thesis in the closing moments of the process. I am also grateful to my secondary supervisor, Dr Avi Lifschitz, for his comments on early chapter drafts and for offering guidance on European historiography. Many thanks to Dr Alejandra Irigoin for helpful suggestions and comments on a version of chapter 2. I must thank native French speaker, Julie Cordier, for hints and tips on the French language. My mother was also enlisted in tackling trickier translations and the poorer handwriting of French sources. Many thanks to her and to my Dad for their unwavering support in emergencies and normal times alike. Grant Bouch’s insights into the Spinning Jenny were also obviously invaluable. I am eternally grateful to my sister, Lydia, for listening to me while I practised papers, helping me to organise my thoughts, and for always taking care of me. I thank my other sister, Clara, for her own unique contribution to this project. Special thanks to Patrick Wingrove for casting a journalistic eye over drafts, for sharing the stress, and for the great motivational promise of my own kitten upon completion. Thank you to the rest of my friends at KDS London (North and South), at UCL and at the BL for company and support. Daisy Gibbs 6 List of Abbreviations AD I&L Archives Départementales d’Indre-et-Loire AD SM Archives Départementales de la Seine-Maritime AN Archives Nationales ANOM Archives Nationales d’Outre-Mer BL British Library BNF Bibliothèque Nationale de France BNF, JdF Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Collection Joly de Fleury EHR Economic History Review HJ Historical Journal NRO Norfolk Record Office P&P Past and Present TNA The National Archives WN An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations Daisy Gibbs 7 Introduction During the first age of globalization, the increasing capitalisation of agriculture in Britain and France confounded customary and supposedly outmoded localist consumption practices. For it meant stamping a national political economy on regions and peoples accustomed, economically at least, to autonomy and self-sufficiency. Even as it was challenged on humanitarian grounds, this process was usually peddled as congruent with the national good and hence generally beneficial to all citizens. This thesis examines issues of citizenship and national belonging by looking at these changing patterns of thought about grain and the nation, as well as the practical fallout from structural changes in society in eighteenth-century Britain and France. This introduction offers a brief survey of the historiography of the nation and nationality. It begins by introducing the notion of the nation state, and the scepticism or enthusiasm with which various historians have embraced this framework of analysis. In a second section it looks especially at the challenge which jurisdictional fragmentation poses to the idea of nation states. Often accounts of jurisdictional fragmentation have focused on traditional privileges and changing conceptions of liberty, which form an essential strand of this thesis. The third section addresses the lack of a human element which institutional accounts of the nation may suffer. It introduces the emphasis that the thesis places on popular politics and interactions between the people and authorities on a local basis. Globalisation was a great threat to the economic life of these local communities, and this is Daisy Gibbs 8 explored in the next section. This section contemplates especially the complex history of the term mercantilism. It also explores the problems of applying the term to economic writings of the past, and considers the intellectual history of economics. The final section of this introduction deals with the transnationalism