MERCANTILISM Was British mercantile policy a causal factor in the American Revolution?
Viewpoint: Yes. British mercantilism, as exemplified in the various Naviga- tion Acts, enriched the English merchant class while deliberately choking off crucial areas of American economic growth. Viewpoint: No. Far from causing economic harm, the Navigation Acts brought enormous benefits to Americans, who did not object to mercantilist policies.
During the first decades of English settlement in America, the Crown and Parliament did little to promote or regulate transatlantic enterprises. However, as the provinces grew in wealth and population, and as the Dutch increas- ingly monopolized the lucrative American trade, government officials sought to administer the colonies more effectively to ensure that England, and not its European rivals, obtained the benefits from its own colonies. Beginning in 1645 Parliament enacted a series of laws, commonly referred to as the Navi- gation Acts, regulating commerce between the British Isles and its overseas provinces. Specifically, this commercial policy, often referred to as mercantil- ism, was intended to make the home country as self-sufficient as possible by obtaining those raw materials that it could not produce from its colonies rather than from foreign economic competitors; to increase the mother country's stock of bullion (the measure of a country's power) by exporting more than it imported; and to strengthen the English merchant navy, while weakening those of its European rivals, by maintaining a trade and manufacturing monopoly with its colonies. To that end, the trade laws forbade foreign ships from trading in the English colonies, enumerated specific items (tobacco, sugar, rice, molasses, dyewoods, silk, hemp, naval stores, furs, and indigo) that the colonies could sell only to England, provided bounties to Americans producing many of the aforementioned goods, prohibited Americans from manufacturing certain products (clothing and iron) for overseas trade, and required that all goods imported by the colonies first pass through England (to pay a duty). To enforce these acts, Parliament in 1696 established a system of Admiralty Courts in America to try smugglers and created the Board of Trade in London to monitor colonial governors and customs officials. Historians have waged a protracted debate on the influence of Britain's mercantile policy in the coming of the American Revolution (1775-1783). Some scholars, particularly Marxist historians writing during the Great Depression of the 1930s, saw the Revolution not as a struggle over complex constitutional questions but as an economic clash between British and Amer- ican capitalists. To them, the Navigation Acts, by forcing the colonies into economic subservience to England and by curbing American economic growth, were the crux of the Anglo-American dispute. The trade laws, for instance, hurt Southern planters by preventing them from selling their enu- merated products (rice excepted) on the open market. Other provisions retarded the development of American manufacturing and raised the price of goods Americans purchased from abroad. Northern merchants found the 196 trade restriction so harmful to their profits that it encouraged rampant smug- gling among them. The Navigation Acts also indirectly injured the lower classes, whose material well-being was tied to the successful enterprising of the upper classes. When Parliament tightened the economic screws on the Americans with stricter enforcement of the Navigation Acts in the 1760s, this action led to a bitter clash of interests between American and British capitalists. Thus, the American Revolution can only be understood in terms of the necessity for American entrepre- neurs to escape from the "contracting prison walls" of the English mercantilist system. Economic historians who have analyzed this issue from an accountant's perspective, however, assert that on balance the Navigation Acts did not hinder American economic growth; that overall, the colonists benefited from residing under British tutelage. Americans generally accepted the idea that the mother country possessed the right to regulate imperial trade, and they made no efforts after 1700 to repeal or relax the Navigation Acts. Why should they? The shipping clauses, after all, con- tributed to an enormous expansion in the American shipbuilding industry and other allied services such as ropemaking and the manufacture of chains and bolts. Nor did Americans complain about the lucrative bounties provided by England on indigo, lumber, cooperage materials, naval stores, and other products, all of which helped to diversify the colonial economy. Likewise, the enumeration of rice, tobacco, and indigo caused little grumbling among Southern planters, who made the largest fortunes in North America from the cultivation of these commodities. The prohibitions on colonial manufacturing of textiles and iron, additionally, only applied to production for water export and did not hamper household or neighborhood production. Often ignored in this American-British balance sheet are the indirect benefits the colonies enjoyed from English control of the seas, which served American commercial interests during war and peace, and the military defense provided by British redcoats, which saved the colonists enormous amounts of money. According to economic historians, the financial cost for Americans living under British tutelage rather than on their own amounted to 260 per person per year from 1763 to 1772. Thus, arguing that Americans, who enjoyed high wages, extensive landownership, dramatic population expansion, and an increasing number of educational and cultural institutions, were oppressed and exploited by imperial policies is difficult. In the final analysis this issue goes to the heart of the question of whether the basis of the Anglo-American dispute was constitutional or economic in nature. Were American protests against imperial measures in the 1760s a noble appeal for their rights as Englishmen or a self-serving issue of the pocketbook?
alism. Even more offensive to the colonists than having their habits of consumption directed by Viewpoint: Britain was Parliament's offering the financially bankrupt East India Company a monopoly on Yes. British mercantilism, as the distribution of tea that completely cut Amer- exemplified in the various ican merchants out of the trade. While attempt- Navigation Acts, enriched the ing to save the British company through English merchant class while discriminatory governmental action, Parliament deliberately choking off sacrificed the enterprise of Americans. Finally, crucial areas of American since the East India Company also shipped many economic growth. other products from Asia to the transatlantic One of the most famous events in American world—such as silks, spices, and chinaware—the history is the Boston Tea Party (16 December colonists feared that the monopoly on tea was 1773), which many people believe was a patriotic only the first of many incursions into their response against high taxes set by Parliament on domain. Such had been the colonial experience colonial imports. Often this historically signifi- for more than one hundred years under British cant event is misunderstood. It supposedly mercantilism. The colonists' resistance to mer- shows that the colonists would not pay high cantilist proscriptions on their economic behav- taxes without any representation in the British ior precipitated the War for Independence Parliament. This view, however, is incorrect; Bos- (1775-1783) against Britain. tonians, as well as other colonists, were not During the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eigh- offended by the price of tea but by the monop- teenth centuries European states, such as oly given to the East India Company. The Tea England, devised and developed an imperial eco- Act (1773) lowered the tax so that British tea nomic system called mercantilism. Under mer- imported to North America became even less cantilism the government closely directed the expensive than smuggled Dutch tea. This provi- economy in order to promote the interests of the sion of the act was designed to entice Americans state. Often individual interests were made sub- back into the British system of economic imperi- ordinate to state power. European governments
HISTORY IN DISPUTE, VOLUME 12: THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 197 instituted mercantilist policies during an era of the enumerated lists included such items as cot- overseas expansion when states sought to build ton, indigo, copper ore, iron, lumber, hides, and overseas empires. The age of European expan- naval stores. All of these items were vital for Brit- sion to other continents coincided with the stage ain's industrial development. In regard to com- of capitalism dominated by merchants. European mercial exchange, the Thirteen Colonies states sought to develop a carrying trade that assumed the role of primary producer for Brit- would generate wealth in coin, not paper money, ain's industrial revolution. While the enumer- which would be acquired by the mother country. ated lists compelled the production of certain People believed that the accumulation of hard raw materials, other Parliamentary legislation cash promoted the wealth and, hence, the power discouraged the development of manufactures in of that country. In the case of England, mer- North America. For instance, the Board of Trade chant capitalists, often with landowning inter- required that all governors veto colonial legisla- ests, dominated the government through their tion that put import duties on British manufac- prominent presence in the lower house of Parlia- tures transported in British ships to the colonies. ment, the House of Commons. Beginning in the So, while British products were to enter the colo- mid seventeenth century, Parliament erected a nies under the basis of free trade, colonial manu- mercantilist structure for the economy of factures could not be sent to Britain. For England and its burgeoning empire, including instance, the Wool Act (1699) barred American- the recently founded North American colonies. produced woolen manufactures from intercolo- nial and international commerce. Later the Hat Beginning in 1645 a series of Parliamentary Act (1732) prohibited the shipment of hats out laws, called Navigation Acts, attempted to pro- of any North American colony. During the late mote English trade by eliminating competition 1760s Parliament completely forbade the foreign from European rivals and subordinating the importation of silk stockings, gloves, and mittens North American colonies to England's eco- into Britain. These years marked the industrial nomic interests. At the time when the English rise of Britain and economic depression in were establishing a foothold in North America, North America. Finally, the Board of Trade dis- the Dutch had wrested the Indian Ocean carry- couraged colonial industry. Consequently, a sail- ing trade from the Portuguese and had made cloth industry in New York was denied (1706), inroads into Spain's domains in the Caribbean. and a linen industry in Massachusetts was disal- While the Dutch asserted their commercial dom- lowed (1756). The Board of Trade explained that inance, the English attempted to develop a carry- economic development in the colonies should ing trade that sailed on the Atlantic and India not compete with British industries but support Oceans. To make inroads into the Dutch com- them through the colonial export of raw materi- mercial empire, the English fought a series of als such as hemp and cotton. wars with Holland, and Parliament passed the Being limited to serving as producers of raw Navigation Acts. A key part of the English mer- materials for Britain's industrial development cantilist system, these acts required the shipment put the colonies in a financially disadvantageous of goods to and from the colonies to go through commercial relationship with the mother coun- England and to be shipped in English ships try. Since manufactured products had a greater manned by English crews. These acts eliminated commercial value than raw materials, the colo- the Dutch, as well as other Europeans, as com- nies always had to balance their trade with hard petitors within the English empire. Although specie, which exactly suited Britain's mercantilist Dutch shipping costs during the seventeenth agenda of enhancing state power through accru- century were lower than the English costs, the ing gold and silver bullion. Trade laws ensured colonies were compelled to transport with that manufactured exports to North America English ships. This policy was only one way that would have a greater value than colonial primary the Navigation Acts served British interests at products imported into Britain. Many products the expense of the colonists. shipped to Britain from the colonies were then The Navigation Acts, as well as other mer- reexported to Europe. On such goods as tobacco cantilist legislation passed by Parliament, put the there was not only the added cost of import colonies in a state of economic dependence upon duties but also handling charges incurred during Britain. Aside from assuring commerce for Brit- transshipment to one of the continental coun- ish shippers, the Navigation Acts promoted Brit- tries. To keep the market price low in Europe, ish industry at the expense of colonial economic colonists had to lower their sale price to Britain, development through the use of enumerated resulting in little or no profit margin for the pri- lists, which designated items that were to be mary producers. Hence, many Southern plant- shipped only to Britain for use in that country or ers, such as George Washington in Virginia, were for eventual transshipment. During the eigh- in debt to English merchants. Simply by the sale teenth century, as lower Scotland and the Mid- of their goods on the international market, lands in England underwent industrialization, which through the eighteenth century came
198 HISTORY IN DISPUTE, VOLUME 12: THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION NAVIGATION ACT OF M60
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increasingly under British control, the Southern Indian War (1754-1763). Like Britain's war planter could not make enough money to pay his against the Dutch in the late seventeenth cen- bills and run his plantation. tury, this conflict was another mercantilist war. Land speculation, then, became the way for In North America the French and the British, Southern planters to earn additional money that each supported by their colonial allies, fought to some extent compensated for losses under for control of the trans-Appalachian region. British mercantilism. By the middle of the eigh- Less than twenty years later the British teenth century, colonial expansion was surging fought another mercantilist war, but this time it into the trans-Appalachian region; not only was against their own colonists, who would by those without property, such as former inden- 1778 have the French as allies. In part, the War tured servants, were moving westward. Men of for American Independence was triggered by property also moved into the territory west of controversies over control of the trans-Appalachian the Appalachian Mountains as land speculators. region. Britain took control of the Western terri- While Southern planters needed additional land tory (including all of Canada) and promptly because the cultivation of tobacco quickly issued the Proclamation of 1763, which estab- exhausted the soil, they also sought more land as lished a temporary line along the Allegheny a means to pay the interest on their debts to Brit- Mountains, beyond which the colonists could ish lenders. The surge of Virginians, led by Wash- not move. Land west of the mountains was kept ington as a surveyor for Lieutenant Governor as a preserve for the Native Americans. The Indi- Robert Dinwiddie, precipitated the French and ans were to act as partners of British merchants
HISTORY IN DISPUTE, VOLUME 12: THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 199 in the fur trade. By 1774, as the crisis between they did on New England merchants and South- the colonists and Britain exploded, Parliament ern planters. Britain was favored at the expense passed the Quebec Act, which extended the bor- of North America; within the colonies, mer- ders of that Canadian province into the Allegheny chants and planters were often favored at the region, thus blocking any possible expansion expense of the lower social classes, who were westward from New York, Pennsylvania, and Vir- often disfranchised and therefore did not have ginia. This act also made it possible for Montreal their economic interests represented in the colo- to become the fur center of all of North Amer- nial legislatures. Not surprisingly, then, the War ica, thus favoring the British Hudson Bay Com- of Independence from British imperialism also pany over companies that used the American became a revolution to overthrow government- ports at Philadelphia and New York. From the backed privilege of one group over another colonial perspective the Quebec Act was similar within the colonies. to the Tea Act that had favored the British East -GEORGE SOCHAN, India Company. BOWIE STATE UNIVERSITY During the 1760s Parliamentary regulations slighted colonial economic interests, particularly in New England. For decades imperial legisla- tion successfully discouraged manufacturing in Massachusetts and other northern colonies, as well as suppressed certain agricultural enter- prises. Landowners in Britain had a strong lobby Viewpoint: in Parliament, and they sought successfully No. Far from causing economic through the eighteenth century to keep foreign harm, the Navigation Acts brought grain products out of the country through the enormous benefits to Americans, Corn Laws. Hence, during the colonial period who did not object to the export of American grain to Britain was mercantilist policies. strongly discouraged, and, in many instances, The Acts of Trade and Navigation, more com- prohibited. New England merchants and busi- monly known as the Navigation Acts, were a series nessmen, like Southern planters, had an unfavor- of regulatory initiatives enacted by the British Par- able balance of trade with Britain, so they also liament starting in 1645. One of the last of these sought to find other sources of income by devel- regulations, the Sugar Act (1764), is often associ- oping an intercolonial trade, which included the ated with the genesis of the American Revolution slave trade with Africa and the molasses trade (1775-1783). The chronological link between the with Britain's sugar colonies in the Caribbean. passage of the Sugar Act and the beginning of the This traffic was New England's legal trade. American Revolution has encouraged some histori- Because of mercantilist restrictions that limited ans to establish a direct causal connection between the commerce only to Britain's more expensive imperial commercial regulations and the War of West Indies sugar, New England merchants Independence. Scholars writing during the Pro- began to smuggle less-expensive sugar produced gressive period argued that the Navigation Acts in the French West Indies. While West Indian were "economically restrictive, oppressive, injuri- planters held seats in Parliament, the New ous, and negative." Yet, much evidence exists to Englanders did not have this political advantage. prove this argument false. British commercial regu- Without direct access to influence economic leg- lations imposed a paltry economic burden on islation, the New Englanders smuggled in order Americans, who enjoyed rapid economic growth to gain needed hard currency. Beginning in the and a standard of living higher than their European late 1760s, Britain sought to suppress colonial counterparts. smuggling by using a patrol fleet and increasing Historians who attempt to establish a causal the number of customs agents, Vice-Admiralty connection between the Navigation Acts and the Courts, and informers in the colonies. These American Revolution ignore the fact that Parlia- measures, coupled with the British intent to pay ment passed these measures to prevent its Euro- for an occupying army in North America pean rivals (particularly the Dutch) from trading through various forms of taxation in the colo- with England's North American possessions, not nies, helped to spark the Anglo-American crisis. to frustrate the economic development of its colo- By the mid 1770s British mercantilist nies. To that end, Parliament in 1651 passed an act polices had fostered an independence movement that stipulated that all goods from Asia, Africa, or in the Thirteen Colonies that quickly became America be sent to England or any of its territo- revolutionary. The burdens of British economic ries in vessels owned and manned by Englishmen policies for the Empire, including the effort to and that all goods from Europe destined for the tax colonists to finance imperialism, fell even colonies had to be carried in English vessels or more heavily upon the lower middle classes than vessels belonging to their country of origin. The
200 HISTORY IN DISPUTE, VOLUME 12: THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION only commodity of continental America affected shipped elsewhere: tobacco, sugar, cotton, ginger, was tobacco. Chesapeake tobacco planters indigo, and dyewoods. This enumerated list was denounced the measure as an infringement on later extended to include molasses, rice, naval their tradition of free trade. As a compromise, Par- stores, copper, beaver skins, whale fins, raw silk, liament agreed to ban the production of tobacco and potash. Between 1699 and 1764 Parliament in England that threatened to undercut the price passed additional statutes that prohibited the col- of tobacco grown in the Chesapeake Bay area. onies from exporting certain goods such as hats, However, the 1651 act did not prevent Americans wool, and iron. from shipping goods to Holland or other foreign Far from representing an onerous burden ports in foreign vessels. Parliament closed this on the colonists in America, the Navigation Acts loophole with a second Navigation Act in 1660. facilitated commercial consolidation that This act also enumerated a list of colonial goods enriched the colonists who engaged in the trans- that had to be exported to England before being atlantic commerce. Those individuals most
HISTORY IN DISPUTE, VOLUME 12: THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION 201 directly affected by these regulations lived in the tion, then they should have thrived after South. Tobacco, rice, and indigo planters con- American independence. Yet, American tobacco ducted their business through extended kinship and rice exports declined precipitously in the networks. Members of the same family lived on decades following the Revolution, while indigo both sides of the Atlantic Ocean and frequently production all but died. formed partnerships (often through marriage) Nor did the Acts of Trade retard the devel- with other prominent families with similar mer- opment of American manufacturing of wool, cantile interests. On the English side of the equa- hats, and iron, as some economic historians tion, these family enterprises would either buy or maintain. These measures only prohibited the pay for the construction of vessels, which under water export of these items; they did not ban the Navigation Acts qualified them as "English their manufacture in America. Therefore, colo- ships," and loaded them with a variety of nial production of these goods for domestic use English-made goods. Upon reaching port in and sale went unhampered. In any event, Ameri- America, the cargo was unloaded and stored in a cans did not try to compete with the mother warehouse; the ships would then be reloaded country in the production of wool. After all, with tobacco before returning to England, all in they could import English wool more cheaply full compliance with the Navigation Acts. Some than they could make it themselves. The Hat Act scholars argue that such arrangements placed a (1732) did not injure the development and burden on small planters who could not afford growth of the American hat industry. The same their own ships. In reality, larger planters encour- statement is true for the Iron Act (1750). aged small planters to bring in their cash crops Indeed, by the Revolution, America had more and trade them for goods in the warehouse. iron furnaces than England and Wales com- Small planters would get products they needed bined. Most of the pots, pans, and other hollow- (and avoid the hassle and cost of marketing their ware used in the colonies were made at local crops), while larger planters acquired more pro- iron-works, not in Britain. Finally, the prohibi- duce to fill their ships. tive duties on foreign sugar, molasses, and rum The Navigation Acts also helped to inte- imposed by the Molasses Act (1733) were usually grate trade within the Empire by enriching the evaded by American merchants through wide- colonies and those individuals most actively spread smuggling, bribery, and fraud. involved in the transatlantic commerce. Contrary The Navigation Acts even encouraged the to the conclusions of modern critics, the Naviga- development of American manufacturing, partic- tion Acts were not an onerous infringement on ularly shipbuilding and its ancillary services such free trade. Once American produce such as as making rope, anchor chains, bolts, lumber, tobacco or rice arrived at an English port, mer- staves, and other items. The commercial acts also chants could then sell it throughout Europe. stimulated the American shipping industry by Indeed, France was the single largest buyer of removing the competition of foreign shipping. Chesapeake tobacco. The Crown actually encour- Additionally, the mighty Royal Navy protected aged the formation of a limited number of car- American trading vessels, particularly in times of tels that would control the bulk of tobacco war. One must also not forget the bounties paid brought into English ports and sold to France. by the mother country upon certain colonial The Navigation Acts, consequently, fostered a products—such as naval stores, indigo, lumber, trade arrangement that allowed English and silk, and hemp—which proved greatly beneficial American merchants and producers to retain a to these industries. Their benefit is graphically significant amount of control over the distribu- revealed in the fact that after the Revolution sev- tion and price of their product. eral of these industries all but disappeared One of the greatest complaints against the because they could not survive without eco- Navigation Acts was the alleged harmful restric- nomic assistance. Thus, English mercantilism tions it placed on the American producers of had a greater tendency to promote than to tobacco, rice, indigo, and other enumerated hinder colonial industry. products by requiring them to ship their goods In order to present a more balanced view to England first. However, Parliament did not concerning the economic relationship between require Americans to grow any of these products. Britain and America, one must examine the bene- Colonists did so because they could make larger fits and cost to the colonists of all British impe- profits by growing these commodities than any- rial policy, including those administrative and thing else. Indeed, Southern planters who culti- military services provided by the mother coun- vated rice, tobacco, and indigo amassed some of try. Economic historians, using counterfactual the largest fortunes in North America. Produc- arguments, modern statistical methods, and tion of these commodities increased dramatically computers allowing them to analyze mountains in the decade preceding independence; if South- of data, have calculated the burdens and benefits ern planters were truly oppressed by enumera- of British imperial policy relative to how the col-
202 HISTORY IN DISPUTE, VOLUME 12: THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION onies would have fared outside the Empire but Louis M. Hacker, "The American Revolution: still within a mercantilist world. After analyzing Economic Aspects," Marxist Quarterly, 1 the effects the Navigation Acts had on the Amer- (1937): 46-68. ican colonies from 1763 to 1772 (including the military and administrative services), economic Hacker, The Triumph of American Capitalism: historian Robert P. Thomas estimated that it The Development of Forces in American His- tory to the End of the Nineteenth Century cost Americans about 0.5 percent of their (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1940). national annual income (or 26$ per person) to live within the British Empire. Given these fig- Lawrence Harper, "Mercantilism and the Ameri- ures, one has difficulty making the case that Brit- can Revolution," Canadian Historical ain's imperial policies exploited Americans and Review, 23 (March 1942): 1-15, 24-34. hindered their economic development. Merrill Jensen, The Articles of Confederation: An Those scholars who argue that English mer- Interpretation of the Social-Constitutional His- cantilism was a cause for the American Revolu- tory of the American Revolution, 1774-1781 tion automatically equate trade regulation with (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, exploitation, but Americans did not complain 1940). that the mother country exploited them. The colonists recognized that the routing of a con- Peter McClelland, "The Cost to America of Brit- siderable part of their trade through England ish Imperial Policy," American Economic carried a hidden tax, but they conceded that this Review Proceedings, 59 (1969): 370-381. burden was their fair share of the costs of the imperial government. Indeed, Americans never John C. Miller, Origins of the American Revolu- attacked the Navigation Acts, even during the tion (Boston: Little, Brown, 1943). imperial crisis of the 1760s and 1770s. Why Gerald D. Nash, ed., Issues in American Economic should they rail against a system under which History: Selected Readings (Boston: Heath, they thrived? After all, white Americans enjoyed 1964). the highest standard of living and the greatest population growth in the Western world. The Jacob M. Price, France and the Chesapeake: A His- prosperity and propagation are reflected in their tory of the French Tobacco Monopoly, 1674- multiplying of schools, churches, civic clubs, 1791, and Its Relationship to the British and theaters, philanthropic organizations, news- American Tobacco Trades, 2 volumes (Ann papers, and magazines. Americans also imported Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1973). large amounts of British goods as well as many Harry N. Scheiber, ed., United States Economic expensive African slaves. The thousands of Euro- History: Selected Readings (New York: peans who immigrated to America every year Knopf, 1964). reflected the prevailing view of America as a land of unprecedented wealth and opportunity. James F. Shepard and Gary M. Walton, Shipping, In the end, factors other than economic ones Maritime Trade, and the Economic Develop- must explain the American call for indepen- ment of Colonial America (Cambridge: Cam- dence in 1776. bridge University Press, 1972). -J. KENT MCGAUGHY, HOUSTON J. M. Sosin, English America and the Restoration COMMUNITY COLLEGE (NORTHWEST) Monarchy of Charles II: Transatlantic Politics, Commerce, and Kinship (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1980).
George R. Taylor, "Economic Growth before References 1840: An Exploratory Essay," Journal of Eco- nomic History, 24 (1964): 427-444. Robert Brenner, "The Social Basis of English Commercial Expansion, 1550-1650," Jour- Robert P. Thomas, "A Quantitative Approach to nal of Economic History, 32 (March 1972): the Study of the Effects of British Imperial 361-384. Policy upon Colonial Welfare: Some Prelim- inary Findings," Journal of Economic History, Oliver M. Dickerson, The Navigation Acts and the 25 (December 1965): 615-638. American Revolution (Philadelphia: Univer- sity of Pennsylvania Press, 1951). William B. Willcox and Walter L. Arnstein, The Age of Aristocracy, 1688-1830, seventh edi- J. E. Farnell, "The Navigation Act of 1651, the tion (Lexington, Mass.: Heath, 1996). First Dutch War, and the London Merchant Community," Economic History Review, 16 Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalism of the American (April 1964): 439-454. Revolution (New York: Knopf, 1992).
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