Commerce, Financeand Statecraft

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, historians of nance and statecraft Commerce, England pioneered a series of new approaches to the history of economic policy. Commerce, nance and statecraft charts the development of these forms of writing and explores the role Commerce, they played in the period’s economic, political and historical thought. In doing so, it makes a signi cant intervention in the study of historiography, and provides an original account of early modern and Enlightenment historical writing. nance and A broad selection of historical literature is discussed. This ranges from the work of Francis Bacon and William Camden in the Jacobean era, through a series of accounts shaped by the English Civil War and the party-political conicts that statecraft followed it, to the eighteenth-century’s major account of British history: David Hume’s History of England. Particular attention is paid to the historiographical context in which Histories of England, historians worked and the various ways they copied, adapted and contested one another’s narratives. The study demon- – strates that historical writing was the site of a wide-ranging, politically charged debate concerning the relationship which existed – and should have existed – between government and commerce at various moments in England’s past. The book will be essential reading for historians and literary critics working on the history of historical writing, and historians, economists, political scientists and philosophers inter- ested in historiographical theory. Ben Dew is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Social, Historical and Literary Studies at the University of Portsmouth DEW Carington Bowles, A General View of the City of London, Next the River Thames, 1756–58. © Museum of London ISBN 978-1-7849-9296-5 9 7 8 1 7 8 4 9 9 2 9 6 5 > BEN DEW Ben Dew - 9781526151605 www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 10/09/2021 06:50:04AM via free access 9781784992965_CVR_proof.indd 1 20/03/2018 13:28 Commerce, finance and statecraft Ben Dew - 9781526151605 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 10/09/2021 06:50:04AM via free access Ben Dew - 9781526151605 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 10/09/2021 06:50:04AM via free access Commerce, finance and statecraft Histories of England, 1600–1780 BEN DEW Manchester University Press Ben Dew - 9781526151605 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 10/09/2021 06:50:04AM via free access Copyright © Ben Dew 2018 The right of Ben Dew to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This electronic version has been made freely available under a Creative Commons (CC- BY-NC-ND) licence, which permits non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction provided the author(s) and Manchester University Press are fully cited and no modifications or adaptations are made. Details of the licence can be viewed at https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Published by Manchester University Press Altrincham Street, Manchester M1 7JA www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 1 7849 9296 5 hardback First published 2018 The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Typeset by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire Ben Dew - 9781526151605 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 10/09/2021 06:50:04AM via free access For Claire J.U.S.N Ben Dew - 9781526151605 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 10/09/2021 06:50:04AM via free access Ben Dew - 9781526151605 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 10/09/2021 06:50:04AM via free access Contents Acknowledgements ix Introduction 1 Part I 1 Tacitean history: Francis Bacon’s History of the Reign of King Henry VII 17 2 Exemplary history: William Camden’s Annales 43 3 Chronology and commerce: Edmund Howes’s Annales 63 Part II 4 The English Civil War and the politics of economic statecraft 83 5 Whig history: Paul de Rapin de Thoyras’s Histoire 102 6 Tory history: Thomas Salmon’s Modern History 117 7 Jacobite history: Thomas Carte’s General History 134 Part III 8 Economic statecraft and economic progress: William Guthrie’s General History 155 Ben Dew - 9781526151605 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 10/09/2021 06:50:04AM via free access viii COMMERCE, FINANCE AND STATECRAFT 9 The end of economic statecraft: David Hume’sHistory of England 169 Conclusion 200 Notes 206 Bibliography 261 Index 272 Ben Dew - 9781526151605 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 10/09/2021 06:50:04AM via free access Acknowledgements I have received a good deal of help and support while completing this study. Jessica Dyson and Bronwen Price kindly and selflessly covered my teaching duties in the spring of 2016, thereby giving me a much- needed unofficial sabbatical. Richard Coulton and Matthew Mauger read through the bulk of the manuscript and provided detailed, per- ceptive and exceptionally helpful feedback. The two readers engaged by Manchester University Press offered both enthusiasm and excellent advice. The bulk of the research was completed at Senate House Library, the Bodleian Library and the British Library; I would like to thank the staff at all of these institutions. I am also very grateful for the intellectual guidance and encourage- ment I have received over the years. At the University of East Anglia, I was inspired by Marina Mackay and Judy Hayden. At Queen Mary, University of London, I benefited greatly from working with Richard Bourke, Markman Ellis, Andrew Lincoln and Christopher Reid. I am also appreciative of the support I have received from Gregory Claeys, Emma Clery, Noelle Gallagher, Mark Salber Phillips and Nicholas Phillipson. For their good cheer and enormous generosity I would like to thank Siân and Paul Brock, Vera and Francis Connolly, and Ann Brock. I am also very appreciative of the assistance I received from Patricia and Ivor Dew, and Marie Brodie. My parents Kathy and Chris have provided invaluable help, warm hospitality and excellent company. My greatest debt is to Claire Brock who has been a willing and able discussant on all aspects of the project, a super editor, and an even better companion. Her love and friendship have made everything worthwhile. Ben Dew - 9781526151605 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 10/09/2021 06:50:04AM via free access Ben Dew - 9781526151605 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 10/09/2021 06:50:04AM via free access Introduction 1. Economic statecraft This book explores the accounts of commerce and finance developed by seventeenth- and eighteenth-century historians of England. Writers of the period, I argue, were engaged in a series of long- running and politically charged debates concerning a range of economic issues: the impact of popular and arbitrary forms of government on trade; the political and economic consequences of taxation; the development and value of England’s trading companies and commercial empire; the relationship between war and commerce; and, more generally, the meaning of national prosperity and its significance for England’s security, greatness and happiness. In discussing such questions, historians sought to present kings and queens as managers of the nation’s monetary and trading interests, and economic issues themselves as aspects of statecraft. As a consequence, commerce and finance came to be considered alongside political and military affairs as matters in which monarchs could demonstrate their skill, virtue and even heroism. This historiographical approach, which I label ‘the economic statecraft tradition’, shaped the ways in which seventeenth- and eighteenth-century society conceived of politics, wealth and the meaning and function of the past, and helped to generate an impor- tant, but largely unexplored, variety of economic history. Three characteristics of this mode of writing should be empha- sised. First, its conceptions of commerce and finance were, in a sense, political. Writers did not view the economy as an autonomous or semi-autonomous system shaped by the forces of supply and demand. Instead, commercial and financial material was presented as a series of actions performed by government – primarily the instigation of Ben Dew - 9781526151605 Downloaded from manchesterhive.com at 10/09/2021 06:50:04AM via free access 2 COMMERCE, FINANCE AND STATECRAFT laws, commercial regulations and taxes – which either helped or hindered England’s interests. Economic statecraft’s key concern, therefore, was with what can best be described as the history of economic policy. Second, and largely as a consequence of this, none of the writers who discussed economic statecraft conceived of it as an independent field of study. Rather, the achievements of particular statesmen in commerce and finance were shown to be connected to their political, religious and military roles. This meant that economic statecraft formed part of a wider study of statesmanship, and under- standing it involves tracing its shifting relationship with other aspects of this subject. Third, the accounts developed by historians were premised on the idea that the past provided a series of good and bad examples of economic management. England’s greatest monarchs, it was argued, through their skills in this area, had brought wealth, power and happiness to the nation. Its less successful rulers had allowed nationally beneficial forms of trade to decline and introduced morally and financially corrosive types of luxury. Consequently, their actions had weakened England in relation to its international rivals and had inaugurated periods of poverty and misery. Studying these examples was valuable as they could provide practical lessons for modern statesmen. Economic statecraft was, as a consequence, a self-consciously didactic form of writing.

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