The Social Basis of EnglishCommercial Expansion,1550-1650

. . . foreach periodinto which our economichistory may be divided,there is a distinctand separateclass of capitalists.In otherwords, the group of capitalistsof a given epoch does not springfrom the capitalistgroup of the precedingepoch. At every change in economicorganization we find a breachof continuity.It is as if the capitalistswho have up to that time been active,recognize that they are incapableof adapting.... Theywithdraw fromthe struggleand become an aristocracy,which if it again plays a part in the courseof affairsdoes so in a passivemanner only, assuming the role of silentpartners. In theirplace arisenew men.... - Henri Pirenne'

PIRENNE'S generalization,though full of insight,will nothold up because it restson oversimplifiedassumptions about both the behaviorof "capitalists"and the natureof economicdevelop- ment.For example,as we shallshow, the commercial breakthroughs whichhighlighted the expansion of English trade between 1550 and 1650 werenot all the workof "newmen" and did not alwaysre- quirean entrepreneurialoutlook. Nevertheless, Pirenne did tryto understandeconomic change in termsof the men who actually carriedit out.In thisrespect, his approachcan providea necessary correctiveto the economicdeterminism which has characterized manymore recent explanations of economicdevelopment. Englishcommercial expansion between 1550 and 1650 is often understoodsimply by referenceto the changingstructure of economiccosts and opportunitiesfacing English merchants. Mer- cantileactivity is thusexplained as a moreor less automaticre- sponse to marketconditions-crisis in overseas demand, the disruptionof outlets,and therise and fallof foreigneconomic and politicalcompetitors. Factors such as thesemust obviously be con- sideredin anydiscussion of late Tudor-earlyStuart commercial de-

I wish to expressmy thanksto Dr. David Fischer of the Universityof South Carolinafor allowing me to make use of resultsfrom his Ph.D. dissertationon the Levant trade. TIle section of this paper on the easternexpansion owes much to his work,as I have triedto indicate.I wish also to thankProfessors Lutz Berkner and GeoffreySymcox of U.C.L.A. forreading this paper and offeringtheir critiques. 1 "The Stages in the Social Historyof Capitalism,"American Historical Review, XIX (191L), 494-495. 361 362 Brerner velopment.Nevertheless, they cannot explain that process for the samereasons that no challengecan be said to determineor explain a followingresponse. The reactionto commercialopportunity (or cost),if indeed there is one,will tend to varywith the social, politi- cal, and economiccharacter of the mercantilegroup. What is a promisingenterprise to one groupof businessmen mightbe un- attractiveor irrelevantto othersbecause they occupy different positionsor have had differentexperiences and, therefore,possess differentinterests, preferences, or capabilities.At the same time, an opportunitycan notbe treatedas simply"given" in thesituation. Its verycharacter and profitpotential must be seen as partially alterabledepending on the entrepreneurand his resources;in this sense it maybe definedand createdin the veryprocess of being exploited.In short,while differentkinds of commercialprojects tendto attract(or repel) differenttypes of entreprenurialgroups, differententrepreneurs are able to shape theirprojects in different ways. It is thusthe objectof thispaper to showthe value of treating commercialactivities as social and political,as well as economic, processes,by focusingon the differentgroups of merchantswho undertookthe Elizabethan and earlyStuart commercial expansion. In particular,we shall comparethe new eastwarddrive of the Elizabethanera, which was accomplishedby elitemerchants under controlledconditions designed to minimizethe need forrisk and innovation,with the more typically"entrepreneurial" thrust by "new men"which characterized the emergentcolonial commerce underthe early Stuarts. The analysisof thesecontrasting develop- mentswill point up theinadequacies of Pirenne's schema. It should also allow us to reassessthe causal significanceof the oft-cited economic"determinants" of sixteenth-century commercial develop- mentby establishingtheir real effecton the particularmerchant groupswho actually carried out commercial change. This discussion couldopen the way for a moreprecise account of thechanging dy- namic of commercialexpansion over the periodand thus for a sharperdelineation of its stages.

It hasbecome an historical commonplace that the Elizabethan com- mercialexpansion was a responseto the clothexport crisis of the 1550'sand theconsequent need fornew clothmarkets.2 This argu- 2 See, especially,F. J. Fisher, "CommercialTrends and Policy in Sixteenth EnglishCommercial Expansion 363 mentcontains some validity. Nevertheless, it has tendedto impart a misleadingimpression of the motiveforce of Elizabethancom- mercialchange and of its relationshipto previouscommercial trends.The tradesthat emerged from the expansionary thrust which extendedfrom Russia to the Levantto the East Indiesduring the second half of the sixteenthcentury did not begin to solve the problemsof the clothexport trade, nor were theyby and large intendedfor this purpose. They were not set in motionprimarily by the Companyof MerchantAdventurers, the chief cloth ex- portersof the period.They were organized,instead, by import merchantsaiming to obtainat theirsource eastern products which had formerlybeen securedthrough middlemen in the Low Coun- triesand .Thus, the new tradesdeveloped in close con- nectionwith one another,but separatelyfrom the Merchant Adventurers'cloth export business which had previouslydominated Englishcommerce. And this is understandableonly in lightof theirconstant focus on orientalimport commodities and their relativeinability to provideexport markets for cloth. Elizabethan commercialentrepreneurship was, in organizationand personnel, largelydiscontinuous with that of the MerchantAdventurers be- cause it had verydifferent goals. It is in thissense that the Eliza- bethanexpansion should be seen to markan importantbreak and a new stagein the developmentof Englishtrade. The searchfor the spicesand gold of the East was the primary motivationfor the founding of the (1553-1555), thefirst major step in theprocess of expansion.3 It is true,neverthe- less,that Merchant Adventurers composed a significantproportion of the originalinvestors in the Muscovyjoint stock, possibly one- third.And theywere probably attracted to thisventure, at leastto someextent, by the hope of discoveringnew areas of demandfor theircloth exports.4 Even then,it is worthnoting that most of these Adventurersdid nottake an activepart in theCompany's decision- making,remaining passive investors in its jointstock. In theevent,

CenturyEngland," Economic History Review, X (1940), 106-107,as well as C. D. Ramsay, English Overseas Trade During the Centuriesof Emergence (London: Macmillan,1957), pp. 20-30; Peter Ramsey,Tudor Economic Problems(London: VictorGollancz, 1963), pp. 68ff.See also Ralph Davis, " and the Mediter- ranean"in Essays in the Economicand Social Historyof Tudorand StuartEngland, ed. F. J. Fisher (Cambridge: The UniversityPress, 1961), pp. 117ff. 3 T. S. Willan,The EarlyHistory of the RussiaCompany, 1553-1603 (Manchester: The UniversityPress, 1956), pp. 2-3. 4 T. S. Willan, The MuscovyMerchants of 1555 (Manchester:The University Press,1953), p. 24. 364 Brenner Russia provedto be incapableof absorbinglarge quantitiesof Englishcloth. Englishcloth exportsto Russia over the period before1620 did not exceed 2500 clothsper annum,less than 3 percentof England'stotal cloth exports." And in thisrespect, the othereastern markets were only a littlemore profitable. Once the eastwardexpansion reached the Levantin 1581,it be- camefirmly focused on imports, and the Merchant Adventurers seem forthe most part to havewithdrawn from active participation. The centralaim of the Levant commerce was to bringback spices,silks, and currants;cloths appear to havefunctioned in thistrade largely as a mediumof exchange.In the late 1590's,cloth exports to the Levantaveraged around 7000-8000 cloths per annum,or perhaps ?50,000-&60,000in value.6In comparison,already by the later 1580'sit was not unheardof forEnglish merchants to bringin ?70,000 of Levant commoditiesin a singleshipment,7 while an- nual Levant imports,by value, more than doubled its exports throughoutthe period.8By the 1620's and early 1630's,Levant importsseem to have grownimpressively, reaching ?352,263 in 1630 and ?212,186 in 1634, accordingto the officialvaluations (probablyunderstated)." Meanwhile, cloth exports stagnated, re- mainingsteady at late sixteenth-centurylevels. In 1621, Lionel Cranfieldsingled out the Levant commerceas particularlyto blame forthe nation'sunfavorable balance of trade."Upon the customsbooks we shall see," he said, "thatthe TurkeyCompany hurtsit morethan the .They now give two partsin moneyand thethird in commodities."10Of course, the East

5 B. E. Supple,Commercial Crisis and Change 1600-1642 (Cambridge: The Uni- versityPress, 1959), p. 258. 6 Davis, "England and the Mediterranean,"p. 120; Supple, CommercialCrisis, p. 258; AstridFriis, Alderman Cockayne's Project and the Cloth Trade (London: OxfordUniversity Press, 1927), pp. 70-1, n.2. 7 T. S. Willan,"Some Aspectsof the EnglishTrade with the Levant in the Six- teenthCentury," English Historical Review, LXX (1955), 407. 8 David Fischer,"The Developmentand Organizationof English Trade to Asia, 1553-1605,"(University of London Ph.D. Thesis, 1970), pp. 200-10, 355-9. For a similarfinding, see Willan, 'Trade with the Levant," pp. 407-10. Willan concludes "thatthe Levantwas not a verygood marketfor English goods." Ibid., p. 410. 9 A. M. Millard,"The ImportTrade of London,1600-1640" (Universityof Lon- don Ph.D. Thesis,1956), Appendix2, Table C. Mrs. Millard'sfigures were compiled fromthe London Port Books forimports. 10 CommonsDebates 1621, ed. Wallace Notestein,Francis Relf, and Hartley Simpson(New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, 1935), VI, 300. Prof.Davis' contention thatthe Levant tradewas balanced throughoutthis period is hard to reconcilewith: (1) Mrs. Millard'sfigures on imports;(2) the admittedstagnation of Levant cloth exportsover the earlydecades of the seventeenthcentury and the apparentimpres- EnglishCommercial Expansion 365 India Companynever really attempted substantial exports of cloth. Theirswas purelyan importtrade.'1 As it becameclear that the eastwardtrades could not offerim- portantnew marketsfor English cloth, the MerchantAdventurers appearto have lostwhatever interest they had had in commercial expansion.After the dislocationsof mid-century,the Adventurers' ownvery safe and protectedshort-route trade to NorthernEurope had been stabilizedat a fairlyhigh level.'2 The MerchantAdven- turersmonopolized by far the richesttrade in London and they naturallycomposed a predominantsection of the City'smerchant elite.'3The easterncommerce offered great opportunities. Yet, with steadyprofits to be made in theirown privileged commercial line, the Adventurershad littlereason to run the risksor sufferthe inconveniencesrequired to build a new trade.There may have been threeor fourMerchant Adventurers among the twelve Turkey chartermerchants of 1581, but not all ofthese traders appear to have been heavilyor primarilyinvolved in thecloth export commerce.14 Only fiveof the forty-oneleading Merchant Adventurers of the years 1606-1614(that is, exportersof 1000 or more clothsper annum)were among the 118 LevantCompany charter members of 1605.'6In the1630's, the two trades were being operated by largely

sive growthof Levant importsat the same time (especiallyin lightof the conclu- sions of Fischerand Willan that the trade was extremelyunbalanced before 1600). See Davis, "England and the Mediterranean,"pp. 124-25. 11 K. Chaudhuri,The EnglishEast India Company(New York: Reprintsof Eco- nomicClassics, 1965), p. 13. 12 Supple, CommercialCrisis, pp. 23-4; Fisher,"Commercial Trends," p. 96. The MerchantAdventurers normally exported around 65,000 cloths per annum over the last 30 yearsof the 16thcentury. In comparison,all the trade to the East com- bined did not exportmore than 10,000 clothsper annum. 13 See R. G. Lang, "The GreaterMerchants of London, 1600-1625" (Oxford UniversityD. Phil. Thesis, 1963), pp. 149-51; Ramsey,Tudor EconomicProblems, pp. 63-65. 14 Fischer,"Trade to Asia," p. 169, also appendix.This resultmust be tentative, because relevantsources are so scarce. Very few London Port Books survivefor thisperiod. One can say withcertainty, however, that Edward Osborneand Richard Stapers,the two leadingorganizers of the project(as well as JohnSpencer, another patentee),were definitelynot MerchantAdventurers, since theycan be foundon a list of merchantsdescribed as "not freeof the MerchantAdventurers" who shipped clothsor kerseysout of London in 1577-1578.B. M. Harleian Mss. 167, fos. 75ff. and 91ff. 15 Comparelist of MerchantAdventurers in Friis, Cockayne'sProject, pp. 95-7, with Levant Companycharter members in M. Epstein, The Early Historyof the (London: George Routledgeand Sons, 1968), pp. 158-60. Note also thatof 219 men activein the MerchantAdventurers' trade in 1606, only7 also exportedcloth to the Levantin thatyear. Friis, Cockayne's Project, p. 100. R. G. Lang has also adduced a good deal of evidencefor the MerchantAdventurers' heavy con- 366 Brenner discretesets of merchants. Among the several hundred cloth traders to theMerchant Adventurers' privileges in 1632and 1640,the only yearsin thatdecade forwhich relevant records survive, there were onlythirteen different Levant Companymembers.'0

II Whilethe tradeto the Levantthus grew up largelyapart from the MerchantAdventurers, its own developmentwas closelyinter- twinedthrough the century after 1550 with that of theother trades to theEast, to Russiaand the East Indies.Although each had impor- tantspecialties of its own,all aimedto open up thebest approach to the orientalmarkets in spices,silks, and othercommodities. Unitedby this common goal, significantly overlapping groups of mer- chantswere behindall of thesetrades, and theiroperations may be seen to representsuccessive connected phases in a unified processof development.By theend of thecentury, these traders to theEast had begunto emergeas a coherentcommercial group, dis- tinctfrom the Merchant Adventurers, and soonto rivalthem in im- portance. In the expansionof Elizabethancommerce, the disruptionof the Antwerpentrepot in the 1560'sand 1570'sprobably marked a turningpoint. It encouragedEnglish merchants to lessentheir de- pendenceon Europeanmiddlemen and to go themselvesfurther east, directlyto the sourcesof supply.17Even beforethis time, however,the tradersof the Russia Companywere attemptingto penetratethe oriental markets. The Companywas originallyfounded withthe aim of tappingthe richesof the orientby a routefree fromPortuguese interference. To thisend, duringthe 1560's and 1570's,it sentout six majorvoyages to Persiaby way of the land routethrough Moscow. Some of these ventures may have succeeded, but theywere fraught with danger and cameabruptly to an end in 1581,the year the TurkeyCompany was founded.18

centrationon theirown marketsin the early 17th century.See "GreaterMerchants of London,"pp. 149-68. 1a This result was obtained by comparingcomplete lists of Levant Company memberscompiled from the CompanyCourt Books, P.R.O. S.P.105/147-149,with lists of tradersto the MerchantAdventurers' privileges in 1632 and 1640 compiled fromthe London Port Books for cloth exportsfor those years,P.R.O. E.190/36/5, E.190/43/4. I wish to thankProfessor F. J. Fisher for generouslyallowing me to consulthis noteson the London Port Book forcloth exports for 1640. 17 See Chaudhuri,East India Company,pp. 6-7. 18 Willan,Russia Company,pp. 2, 57-61,90-91, 145-55. English CommercialExpansion 367 The TurkeyCompany was established,in large part,to carry out the objectivesof the Russia Company'sPersian Voyages by a moresecure and profitablemeans.19 It representedalso, it seems, the intentionof merchantstrading to Spain and Portugalto get beyondtheir Iberian suppliers and enterdirectly the importmar- ketsof theeastern Mediterranean. The originaltwelve-man Turkey jointstock included nine Russia Company members, among them threetraders who becamegovernors of thatCompany during the 1580's.The TurkeyCompany also receiveda majordirect invest- mentfrom the RussiaCompany itself. Similarly, ten Spanishmer- chantswere among those initial Turkey Company investors.20 In much the same way as the TurkeyCompany assumed the objectivesof the eastward-lookingcommerce of the Russianand Spanishmerchants, the East India Companywas establishedto take overan importantcommercial role hitherto carried out by the Turkey merchants.During the later sixteenth century, English Turkey Com- panytraders became accustomed to procuringtheir spices in Syria frommiddlemen who broughtthese goods overland from the Far East. Nevertheless,as the Dutch were able to demonstrate,the directsea routearound the Cape was thecheapest approach to the commercein spices; and the Englishwere forcedto followthe Dutch exampleto keep up withtheir competition.21 As K. N. Chaudhurihas explained,we should"look at therise of the EnglishEast India Company,not as an independentcom- mercialventure, but as an attemptto separatethe spice trade from themain body of the Levant trade and to driveit by a newroute."22 Not surprisingly,Levant Company merchants dominated this cor- porationfrom its foundation in 1599-1600.The East IndiaCompany's firstgovernor, Sir ThomasSmyth, was also governorof the Levant Company.23Seven of the Company'stwenty-four original directors were Levant Companyofficers.24 And Levant Companymembers

19 Ibid., 153-54. 20 Fischer,"'Trade to Asia," pp. 121, 161-62, 166-68. 21 Chaudhuri,East India Company,p. 11. 22 Ibid., p. 12. 23 A. C. Wood, A Historyof the Levant Company(London: FrankCass, 1964), p. 31. 24 Compare list of originalEast India Companyassistants in Calendar of State Papers,Colonial Series,East Indies,1513-1616, ed. W. N. Sainsbury(Vaduz, Kraus Reprint,1964), p. 117, with lists of Levant assistantsin 1601 charter,printed in Select Chartersof the Trading Companies,1530-1707, ed. C. T. Carr (London: Selden Society,1913), p. 32. 368 Brenner providedbetween one fourthand one thirdof the totalfund in- vestedin the first,third and fourthjoint stocks.25 During its early yearsthe East India Companywas exclusivelydevoted to thespice tradefor which it had been organizedoriginally. But even as the Companydeveloped, gained full autonomy,and producedinitia- tivesof its own,Levant merchants continued to providethe bulk of its leadingmen. By the 1630's,their control over this important tradehad, in fact,been strengthened. The emergenceof a distinctset of easterntraders marked an importantnew stage of English commercial activity; for, as we have seen, the eastwardexpansion did not flowprimarily from the hithertopredominant north European cloth trade.Nevertheless, thisfundamental commercial disjuncture was paralleledby no real breakin social development.It leftthe social fabricof the City's merchantcommunity largely intact. Although the Levant-East India merchantsoriginated outside the circleof MerchantAdventurers, theywere in no way the"new men" which Pirenne's theory would lead us to expect.In social backgroundand positionthey did not differsubstantially from other leading City merchants. As Dr. David Fischerhas shown,the small group of TurkeyCompany patentees wereamong the City's wealthiest and most influential businessmen,27 and the same can be said forthe East India Companypromoters twentyyears later. Indeed, it was theprevious commercial success of thesemerchants which to a crucialextent prepared the way fortheir entrepreneurial initiatives. The tradesto theEast werethus the special project of a particular groupof merchantswith a specificset of assumptionsabout the properframework for their entrepreneurship. The interestof English commercein eastwardexpansion was no doubtheightened by the disruptionof the old Europeanentrepots of the 1560'sand 1570's. Nevertheless,the concrete processes by whichthe new tradeswere

25 These resultswere obtainedby comparingfull lists of Levant Companymem- bers withlists of East India Companyinvestors and the amountof theirinvestments, which survivefor the first,third, and fourthjoint stocks.These East India investor listshave been printedin The Registerof LettersEtc. of the Governorand Com- pany of the Merchantsof London TradingInto the East Indies 1600-1619,ed. Sir George Birdwood (London: BernardQuaritch, 1965 repr.) pp. 275-81, 294-95; The Dawn of the BritishTrade to the East Indies,printed by HenryStevens (Lon- don: HenryStevens and Son, 1886), pp. 1-5. 26 See below, p. 372. 27 Fischer,"Trade to Asia," pp. 166-68. English CommercialExpansion 369 establishedcan hardly be explained,as hassometimes been implied,28 as a simpleresponse to commercialdifficulties. The exceptional wealthand influenceof the originalTurkey Company patentees gavethem access to thehighest circles of nationaldecision-making. This allowedthem, in turn,crucial political controls over the con- ditionsunder which their new tradewould be organized.Unless theirability to set theterms of theirentrepreneurial activity is em- phasized,their innovating role cannot be properlyunderstood. Ratherthan responding to crisisimperatives, they were exploiting specialopportunities which they themselves had created. By theTurkey Company patent of 1581,the whole of the lucra- tive middleeast marketwas reservedto just twelvemerchants. Withina fewyears this restricted body of traders was makingsome of the richestshipments in Englishcommercial history, while in- citingthe envyand resentmentof less well-placedtraders.29 One opponentof the new Companyno doubt exaggeratedwhen he statedthat, "It is well knownthat the partsof Italy and Turkey will bear a greatertrade than all partsof Christendomin amity withher majesty."30 Still, his main point was undeniable:the Levant tradewould have supported with profit many more merchants were it notfor the Turkey Company's monopoly. So protectedan environmentfor trade development could not have been procuredby just any merchants.The originalTurkey Companywas a veryspecial group.Of the twelvepatentees of 1581,six were London aldermen by the 1580's;three were M. P.'s. Theiraverage subsidy payment was ?216 in 1589;in thisyear there wereonly forty-nine other citizens in theentire City who paid ?200 or more.Perhaps most important of all, theirnumber included two of the mostimportant mediators between the crownand the City commercialcommunity in thisperiod: "Customer" Thomas Smythe, who was collectoror farmerof the London customsthroughout muchof thelater sixteenth century; and RichardMartin, Master of the Mint.It was perhapsMartin's intervention which finalized the merchants'?5000 loan to theQueen (latermade a gift)that seems to have assuredthe Turkeypatent's issue.3' 28 See, e.g., Davis, "England and the Mediterranean,"p. 117; Chaudhuri,East India Company,pp. 6-7. 29 Willan, "EnglishTrade with the Levant,"p. 407. 30 Quoted in Epstein,Levant Company,33, n.14 31 Fischer, "Trade to Asia," 166-168, 195-200; "The Subsidy Roll for 1589," 370 Brenner Throughouttheir early history, the tradersto the Levantwere able to controlto an importantextent the conditionsunder which theybuilt up theirtrade. At theexpiration of theirpatent in 1588, the TurkeyCompany merchants carried out a mergerwith the recentlychartered Venice patentees. The newly-joinedcompanies then petitionedfor a new chartercovering the entireeastern Mediterraneanarea and listedforty-one traders to whomthey de- mandedthis trade be limited.Since almostall of the mennamed were connectedalready with either the Turkeyor Venice Com- panies,it was hardlysurprising that this proposedmembership restrictionprovoked substantial opposition from merchant outsiders anxiousto get in on a valuabletrade. To counteracttheir objec- tions,nineteen of theleading Turkey and Venicepatentees defined for the governmentthe preconditionsof theirentrepreneurship. Assuredlyno bettersuccess is to be expectedin thistrade if moreshould be admitted,for in verytruth, the one half of us alreadytraders are too many and in numbersufficient to maintainthat trade . . . . Most humblybeseeching your honour (the premissesconsidered) to be a means that we may have use of thattrade without receiving in of any others. . . otherwiseit will not onlydiscourage us and othersin like respecthereafter to attemptand go on withlike chargesand discoveries,but be utterlydiscouraged to enterinto any new charge. . . and so ratherto withdrawourselves, giving over the trade 33

Ultimately,of course,these merchantsdid not have occasion to carryout theirthreat to leave the trade.By thenew charterof 1592, fifty-threemen were admittedto the Levant Company (twelvemore than had been namedby the Venice-Turkeymer- chants),while twenty others were given the optionto join within two monthsupon the paymentof an admissionfee of ?130. This slightopening of thetrade could not seriously diminish the attrac- tion of a twelve-yearmonopoly of the Levant commerce,which now includedthe lucrativeVenice currantsand wine trades,as well as exclusiverights to the overlandroute to the Indies.34 Underits chartersof 1601and 1605,the Levant trade continued to operatein highlyprotected conditions. By thistime organized as a regulatedComnanv. the individual Levant merchants traded for printedin Visitationof London 1568, ed. H. StanfordLondon and Sophia W. Raw- lins (London: JohnWhitehead, 1963), 148-164. 32 Epstein,Levant Company,pp. 25-36. 83 S.-P. 12/239/44,printed in Epstein,Levant Company,pp. 260-61. 84 Ibid., pp. 36-9. EnglishCommercial Expansion 371 themselvesunder rules and policiesestablished by the corportion. These wereintended to controlCompany markets and to maintain favorableprices for Company products. The regulationsvaried from timeto time,but essentiallyinvolved the limitationof shippingto specificperiods in designatedvessels and the settingof pricesof Levant trade commodities,in particularcurrants.35 The Levant Companymembership had exclusiverights to valuable markets. In the traditionof the MerchantAdventurers, the City'slargest regulatedCompany, they wished to leave as little as possible tochance in exploiting them. The structureof commercialregulation was fortifiedby signifi- cantlimitations on entryto thetrade. Indeed, the system of admis- sionstended to place a gooddeal ofcontrol over recruitment in the handsof the leadingCompany merchants. Here the institutionof apprenticeshipplayed a crucialrole. The primarymode of entry into the Companywas throughbound service to a Companymerchant forseven years, four of themin the Company'soverseas factories. To carryon the trade,special skills were needed, and thesewere difficultto acquire withoutthe guidanceof a merchantalready engagedin the trade.Equally important,apprenticeship was per- haps thebest way to establishthose commercial connections upon whichsuccess in thisbusiness so oftendepended. Finally, service in the Levantbrought commissions and, duringthe last yearsof one's apprenticeship,the rightto carryon a privatetrade; from thesesources it was possibleto derivethe initialcapital necessary to launchone's own career.36For thesereasons-and because the Levanttrade could be so lucrative-theprice of apprenticeshipwas normallyquite substantial.During the 1630's it seems to have rangedbetween ?200 and ?300, puttingit beyondthe meansof all buta selectsection of the population.87 The systemof admissionstended to makethe Company'smem- bershipto a significantdegree self-perpetuating. In general, only

35 Epstein,Levant Trade, chs. viii, ix. For a discussionof these regulationsand their changes in the early seventeenthcentury see Robert Brenner,"Commercial Change and Political Conflict:The MerchantCommunity in Civil War London" (PrincetonUniversity Ph.D. Thesis, 1970), pp. 18-9. -86 For a good discussionof apprenticeshipand the reasons for its crucial im- portanceto the prospectiveLevant merchant,see Ralph Davis, Aleppo and Devon- shireSquare (London: Macmillan,1967), pp. 64-8. 87 The evidence on which this conclusionis based was derived fromscattered miscellaneoussources, especially wills of merchantsleaving bequests to have their childrenapprenticed. For details,see Brenner,"Commercial Change," pp. 22-3, n.44. 372 Brenner thosewith wealth or good connectionscould affordto join. It is thereforeunderstandable that a greatnumber of the Company's recruitstended to be relativesof Companymembers. Between one- thirdand one-halfof all activeLevant tradersin the 1630'shad had fathers,fathers-in-law, or brothers in theCompany at the time when they entered.Naturally, those with the best connections tendedto be mostsuccessful. In fact,by the 1630's,more than halfof the Company'strade was in the hands of fewerthan 25 individualtraders who could tracerelationships of birthor mar- riage-oftenas a thirdgeneration-to merchants who enteredthe Levanttrade in its foundingperiod between the chartersof 1581 and 1605.Indeed, by 1640,a greatnumber of the big menof the Companywere attachedto one anotherin a complexnetwork of interlockingkinship connections.38 Duringthe earlyseventeenth century, the workingout of long termcommercial trends brought the Levant-EastIndia merchant complexto a pre-eminentposition in London'smerchant community. The tradeto theLevant grew and prosperedat thesame time that the MerchantAdventurers' commerce went through serious crisis. Between1614 and 1640,the Adventurers'north European cloth marketswere cut in half.39In contrast,silk imports,which had totalledfor all areas only?9920 in 1560,reached ?125,246 from the Levant alone in 1630.40 Moreover,between 1600 and 1640, Levantcurrants imports actually quadrupled in volume(although probablynot in value).41 Meanwhile,the East India Companyalso developedquite rapidly.In the first30 yearsof its existence,the Companywas responsiblefor the expenditureof more than ?2,500,000in commercialinvestments, making it by farthe largest unifiedcommercial venture of the period.42In consequence,the East India Company'sboard of directorssoon became the most importantmercantile governing body in London. As we have noted,the East India Companywas at all timesstrongly influenced by the Levanttrade. In the 1630's,when an investmentof ?2000 was requiredfor eligibility to the East India Company'sboard of

38 The evidence for this paragraphis based on a full analysisof the Levant Companymerchants, their trade and familyconnections in the pre-civilwar period. For a Lull presentationof data and documentation,see Brenner,"Commercial Change,"pp. 29-34. 39 Supple,Commercial Crisis, p. 258 and passim. 40 Millard,"The Importsof London,"appendix. 41 Davis, "Englandand the Mediterranean,"p. 136. 42 Chaudhuri,East India Company,p. 209. English CommercialExpansion 373 directors,two thirdsof the directorshipswere in the hands of LevantCompany members. The fourdifferent men who held the positionsof East India Companygovernor, deputy governor, and treasurerin thisdecade all were leadingLevant Companymer- chants.43 In view of theforegoing commercial developments, it is under- standablethat the Levant-EastIndia merchantscame to join and, to an importantextent, replace the MerchantAdventurers as Lon- don's leading commercialgrouping. In 1638, Lewes Roberts,a contemporaryauthority on commercialmatters, could declarewith reasonthat the "TurkeyCompany of London forits heightand eminencyis nowsecond to noneother in thisland."44 His contention is strikinglyborn out in the changingcomposition of the alder- manicbench, London's most powerful and prestigiousgoverning body,for which a minimumfortune of ?10,000 was requiredto be eligible.In theearly seventeenth century, the MerchantAdven- turersoverwhelmingly dominated merchant representation on this board.According to R. G. Lang,of the140 aldermenelected in the period1600-1625, about one-half were merchants, that is, overseas traders.Of these,three-quarters traded at one time or another to theMerchant Adventurers' privileged markets in Germanyand the Low Countriesand one-thirdto one-halfwere mainlyor exclusivelyoccupied there.45By contrast,in the period 1626- 1640,sixteen Levant traders were elected alderman in comparison to nineMerchant Adventurers. In 1640,almost half of thetwenty- six-manaldermanic court was controlledby Levant tradersand East India Companydirectors.46 Well beforethis time, the customs farms,the greatestgovernment financial plum of the period,had fallento a large extentinto the hands of the easterntraders.47 The easternmerchants' unusual commercial and politicalsuccess

43 This resultwas obtainedby comparingfull lists of East India Companyoffi- cers extractedfrom East India Companycourt minuteswith full lists of Levant Companymembership. See Calendarof State Papers,East Indies,1630-1634; Calen- dar of the CourtMinutes of the East India Company,1635-1639, ed. E. B. Sainsbury (Oxford: The ClarendonPress, 1907); CourtBooks of the Levant Company. 44 MerchantsMappe of Commerce(London, 1638), p. 319. 45 Lang, "GreaterMerchants of London,"pp. 149-51. 46 These resultswere obtained by comparingfull lists of aldermenin A. B. Beaven, The Aldermenof the City of London,2 vols. (London: Eden Fisher,1908-1913), withfull lists of Levant membersand East India Companyofficers and withreason- ably full lists of MerchantAdventurers from the London Port Books for cloth ex- ports.Te figurefor Merchant Adventurers can't be exact. 47 RobertAshton, The Crown and the Money Market (Oxford: The Clarendon Fmess,1960), ch. iv, esp. pp. 87-105. 374 Brenner appearsto have led themto adoptan increasinglycautious attitude towardthe ongoing English commercial expansion. This was hardly surprising,given the rangeof opportunitiesalready open to them. It was simplyrational for thesemerchants to plow back their profitsinto the growing,yet securecommerce to the Levant,or moreadventurously, into the East India jointstock. In thisrespect, theywere onlyfollowing the patternset by the MerchantAdven- turersin thelater sixteenth century. As we noted,the Adventurers choseto returntheir profits to theirown established commercial line ratherthan to takea chanceon thedeveloping long-distance com- merceto the East. In the same way,the Levant-EastIndia mer- chantsfailed to findthe new plantationtrades to the Americas anywherenear as attractiveas theirown establishedbusinesses. They allowedthese new tradesto fallto othertraders, "new men" whowould ultimately challenge their hegemony. III In itsinitial phase, the commercial thrust toward the West arose directlyfrom the Elizabethanexpansionary movement. Organized along establishedjoint-stock lines between1606 and 1614, the Virginia,Bermuda, and NewfoundlandCompanies were to an im- portantdegree controlled by the greaterCity merchants. Levant- East India tradersinvested extensively in theirjoint stocks and at firstoccupied major leadership roles. Nevertheless, the commitment of thesegreat City magnates was nevermore than tentative. As it becameevident that American development would require signifi- cantdeviations from their established commercial routines, the lead- ing Citymerchants quickly lost interest. They would not take the risksor makethe new typesof investmentin plantationproduction that colonial trade demanded.By the later 1620's,all of the originalAmerican companies had collapsedfor lack of City merchant backing.The acceleratedcolonial development which marked the followingdecades was carriedout by an entirelydifferent set of traders. The problemsinherent in all of the originalattempts to develop colonialtrade along traditional company lines are evident in thehis- toryof the , the most ambitious colonizing venture of theperiod. This company was foundedwith a gooddeal of gov- ernmentbacking and the apparentsupport of largesections of the merchantcommunity. City merchants provided perhaps half of the EnglishCommercial Expansion 375 fundsinvested in theoriginal joint stock and elitetraders connected withthe Levant-EastIndia complex,as well as otherCity compa- nies,held a numberof the key directing positions.48 Nevertheless, the expectationsof thesemerchants appear to have been disappointed early.Hopes for quick profitsthrough the furtrade or through thediscovery of precious metals failed to materializeand it became obviousthat profits would have to awaitthe developmentof plan- tationproduction.49 Unable to offerimmediate returns on invest- ment,the Companyhad to face a permanentfinancial crisis. Withintwo years of its 1609 charter,new contributionsto the Companyjoint stock had driedup.50 In a periodin whichover two millionpounds were beingraised for the East India Company's jointstock, largely by London merchants,the VirginiaCompany jointstock could not attract Z40,000.51 Its financialweakness soon obligedthe VirginiaCompany to giveup directcontrol of colonialdevelopment. Between 1614 and 1619,colonial entrepreneurship was to a large extenttaken over by privateindividuals who actedalone or in variousforms of asso- ciationsunder the Company'sauspices, but who were, in fact, entirelyfree to maketheir own economicdecisions. Thus, the com- mercialmodes upon which the colony'sdevelopment ultimately wouldbe based wereessentially established even before the official Companyshell finally collapsed.52 The corporation'sdissolution in 1624merely ratified an alreadyexisting situation. The keyareas of colonialproduction, Virginia and theWest Indies, were allowed to developlargely outside of the corporatecontrol which structured London'sleading trades.The voluntarypartnership, usually in- cludingonly a handfulof individualsand constitutedon a tem- porarybasis, came into its own as the mostimportant form of mercantileassociation.

48 TheodoreK. Rabb, Enterpriseand Empire (Cambridge,Mass.: Harvard Uni- versityPress, 1967), pp. 56-7, 66, and appendix. 49 W. F. Craven,The Dissolutionof the VirginiaCompany (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1932), pp. 32-3. 60 Charles M. Andrews,The Colonial Period of AmericanHistory, 4 vols. (New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, 1934-1938), I, pp. 106-07; R. C. Johnson,"The Lot- teries of the VirginiaCompany," Virginia Magazine of Historyand Biography, LXXIV (1966), 259ff. 51 W. R. Scott, The Constitutionand Finance of English, Scottish,and Irish JointStock Companiesto 1720, 3 vols. (Cambridge: The UniversityPress, 1912), II, pp. 254, 258, 288; Chaudhuri,East India Company,p. 209. 52 For an accountof the differentforms of independententerprise in this period, see Craven,Virginia Company, pp. 35, 56; Andrews,Colonial Period,I, pp. 124-25. 376 Brenner At no timeenthusiastic about colonization, the greater City mer- chantssevered all connectionswith the colonialtrades upon the dissolutionof the VirginiaCompany. Between 1625 and 1640, barelya handfulof Levant Company members, East IndiaCompany directors,or Cityaldermen can be foundamong the hundredsof tradersactive in the colonialfield.53 Their failure to retaincontrol ofthis expanding commercial area must be explainedin termsof the characteristicfeatures of the colonialtrades which distinguished themfrom regular London commercialoperations. The regulated companies,typified by the MerchantAdventurers and the Levant Company,involved simply the carrying of commodities. They were operatedunder restricted,corporately controlled conditions de- signed to mitigatetheir individualistic and competitiveaspects and therebyto minimizerisk and to insureprofits. Even the East India Company,which did involvesome risk, carefully avoided the insecuritiesof long-termcapital investments in "development."Its directorsminimized the Company'sexpenditures on fixedcapital of any kind and scrupulouslyrefused to participatein colonial projects,despite severe pressures to do so fromthe Court and merchantcompetitors in the 1630's and 1640's.54Moreover, the East Indiacharter gave the Company sole access to itsmarkets. That commercialmonopoly was, in fact,a fundamentalprecondition for the greatmerchants' participation became evidentin the 1630's. The Company'sprivileges were challengedby the firmof Sir WilliamCourteen, which also had governmentbacking. After a fewyears of Courteen'scompetition, the old Company'sjoint stock investorsceased to advancefunds, and thecorporation was brought to the edge of collapse.55In fact,the East India Companydid not fullyrecover from the discouragingeffects of competitionon its leadinginvestors until 1657, when its charterwas finallyrestored andits monopolv assured.

53 Seven such establishmentmerchants who entered the colonial trades have been identifiedso far. This resultwas obtainedby comparinglists of Levant Com- pany members,East India Companyofficers, and City aldermenwith fairlyfull list- ings of Americantraders. The latterare based on lists of tobacco tradersextracted fromthe London Port Books for importsfor 1626, 1630, 1633, 1634, 1640, and a wide varietyof governmentdocuments, petitions, judicial records,etc. For more detailed information,including names of merchants,see Brenner,"Commercial Change,"pp. 71-2. 54 W. Foster,"An EnglishSettlement in Madagascar,1645-6," English Historical Review,XVII (1912), 239-40; Calendarof the CourtMinutes of the East India Com- pany 1635-9,pp. 248-49,328, 330, 338, 339, 341. 55 Ibid., 274ff,302. For an account of the Courteenproject, see Sir William Foster's"Introduction," Ibid, English CommercialExpansion 377 In markedcontrast to the establishedLondon trades,colonial operationsrequired investment in commodityproduction, not merely in commodityexchange. The growthof Americancommerce de- pendedin the firstinstance upon plantationdevelopment, and it was difficultto participatein the formerwithout financial involve- mentin thelatter. The nascentplantation economy needed constant injectionsof outsidecapital to get it startedand to keep it going. Thus,at leastin the early years of development, merchants interested in tradingon a largescale normallycould not avoid takingsome part in the productiveprocess. Merchants might purchase and directlyoperate their own plantations.Otherwise, they could enter intopartnership with colonial planters, supplying them with land, tools,and servantsand marketingthe finalproduct.56 These busi- nesses,of coursehad to be carriedout underfree trade conditions. Since therewas no companycontrol of colonialcommerce, many tradersunable to gain admissionto the establishedroutes found thisnew fieldparticularly attractive. And as the numberof partici- pantsgrew, competition became increasingly fierce. The failureof the Levant-East India tradersto submitthemselves to therigors of colonialcommercial operations is understandablein lightof theirgenerally cautious approach to business.As we have seen,the group of eastern traders was able to dictatethe conditions oftheir commerce from the very start of its establishment. With no crisesto spurthem on, with comparatively easy profits to be madein the Levanttrade, and withthe developmentof East India com- mercea highpriority, itis understandablethat these merchants were willingto leavethe uncertain world of colonial commerce to others. The Levant-EastIndia merchants'stance toward the new Ameri- can tradeswas thusentirely consistent with their previous practice. It is significantthat the one area of Virginiacommercial activity in whichthey did showan interestwas totallyrestricted and required no investmentin colonialproduction. In 1616,when the develop- mentof tobacco planting offered, for the first time, the possibility of profitablecolonial exports, a semi-autonomoussubsidiary company, withfull monopoly import and exportprivileges was organizedby the VirginiaCompany to carryout the colony'sprovisioning and marketing.57This "Magazine,"as it was called,was closelyidenti-

56 R. Pares, "Merchantsand Planters,"Economic History Review, Supplement IV (1960), 5, 52ff.See also, Brenner,"Commercial Change," pp. 73-75. 57 Andrews,Colonial Period, I, pp. 126-27; Craven,Virginia Company, pp. 33-34; Scott,Joint Stock Companies, I, pp. 256-77. 378 Brenner fiedwith the Company's"merchant interest," and its directorship seemsto have includedsome of London'sleading merchant mag- nates:58Sir Thomas Smythe, probably the greatest London merchant ofthe period, who was at one timeor anothergovernor of theEast India, Muscovy,French, and SomersIsland Companies,as well as Lord Mayorof London; RobertJohnson, Smythe's son-in-law, an officerof the Levant Company, an East India Companydirector, and London alderman;Sir JohnWolstenholme, one of London's leadingfinanciers, a customs farmer, and lateran East India Com- panydirector; William Essington, a MerchantAdventurer who was theson-in-law of SirThomas Hayes, a Lord Mayorof Londonand a leading MerchantAdventurer; and WilliamCanning, deputy governorof the BermudaCompany and severaltimes Master of the Ironmongers.59At a timewhen the Company'sgeneral joint stockhad reachedits lowestebb, with the treasuryclose to ?8000 in thered00 and unableto financeCompany activities of any type, theseCity merchant leaders were able to raise?7000 fortheir own privatesyndicate and to extracta substantialrate of profit from the colonists.6'Unfortunately for these merchants, the Magazinewas dissolvedin 1619with the takeover of theCompany by the"gentry party'under Sir EdwinSandys. And the big Citymerchants were neverable to regaintheir lost position. When they failed to have a new Companyestablished under their own directionin 1624-1625 afterthe old one had beendissolved, they withdrew entirely from all phasesof the Americancommerce.62 The entrepreneursbehind the vital expansionarythrust which put the Americantrades on a firmfoundation over the period 1618-1648were "new men" in severalsenses. As we have seen, hardlyany were from the City merchant establishment. More surpris-

58 The Records of the VirginiaCompany of London, ed. Susan M. Kingsbury, 4 vols. (Washington:Library of Congress,1906-1935), III, p. 598. 59 C. E. Cockayne,Some Accountof the Lord Mayorsanc Sheriffsof the City of London ... 1601-1625 (London, 1897), pp. 4-5, 80; Beaven,Aldermen, II, p. 54; R. H. Tawney,Business and Politics Under JamesI (Cambridge: The University Press, 1958), p. 87; Port Book for cloth exports,1640 (P.R.O. E.190/43/4); The Visitationof London 1633, 1634, and 1635, ed. J. J. Howard and J. L. Chester, 2 vols. (London: Harleian Society,1880-3), I, p. 259; Friis, Cockayne'sProject, p. 96; AlexanderBrown, The Genesisof the UnitedStates, 2 vols. (Boston and New York: Houghton,Mifflin & Co., 1890), II, p. 842. 60 Craven,Virginia Company, p. 35. 61 Scott,Joint Stock Companies, II, p. 256. In an agreementwith the Company of 1618, the Magazine'srate of profitwas limitedto 25%. Craven,Virginia Com- pany,p. 51. 62 Craven,Virginia Company, ch. vii; Andrews,Colonial Period, ch. vii. EnglishCommercial Expansion 379 ing,comparatively few had been overseasmerchants of anykind at the timewhen theyentered this field. They were not,moreover, drawnfrom the upper ranks of either City or Countysociety. Origin- allymen of the"middling sort," they were almost always born out- side Londonand by and largethe younger sons of smaller gentry or prosperousyeomen. Some came fromborough commercial families. It was perhapstheir very lack of assuredplace, career, or income whichopened these men to the farfrom obvious commercial pro- miseof colonial development.63 The new merchants'initial involvement in colonial enterprise tendedto occurin two differentways. Sometimes, they moved di- rectlyinto colonialactivity by emigratingto the colonies.Their plantationbusinesses would then provide the base to propelthem intothe wider world of overseascommerce, the capitaland experi- ence to set themselvesup as Citymerchants. Those who did notgo to live in the coloniesoften entered the Americanfield by way of Londonand theirCity occupations. Thus, their involvement in co- lonialactivity tended to growout of their previous business concerns as shopkeepers,sea captains,and domestictraders of all types. The colonialtrades offered to men such as thesea newand growing marketfor supplies and provisions,as well as the chanceto save thesubstantial middleman's cost on tobacco.04As a contemporary describedthe colonial trading group: They are no merchantsbred, nor versed in foreignports, or any trade,but to theseplantations, and thatfrom either planters there or wholesaletobacconists and shopkeepersretailing tobacco here in England.05 It is essentialto notein thisrespect that the corporate commercial companies,such as theLevant Company and theMerchant Adven- turers,were limited by charter to "meremerchants," that is, to those occupied solely with overseascommerce. Any shopkeeperwho wishedto be admitted,therefore, had firstto divesthimself of his old businessinterests. This restriction seriously reduced the feasibil- ityof evenfinancially successful domestic traders entering the ranks ofthe overseas companies.' At thesame time, it naturallymade the

63 The precedingparagraph is based on a detailed biographicaland statistical account of the colonial merchanttrading group, presented in Brenner,"Commer- cial Change,"ch. iii. 64 Ibid. 65 "The Humble Remonstranceof JohnBland of London,Merchant .. ." Virginia Magazine of Historyand Biography,I (1894), 144. 66 For cases in which the Levant Companytook action to make sure that a 380 Brenner Americantrades, which were totally free and open,that much more attractiveto these men.

IV Some of thereasons why English commercial expansion can not be viewedin purelyeconomic terms should now be evident.It is clear that the processesby whichAmerican commerce was first developedhave no simpleeconomic explanation. The new trades did offerreal opportunities.London's annual tobacco imports in- creasedspectacularly from 61,500 lbs. in 1620to over2,000,000 lbs. in 1638;67and therewas moneyto be made in otherareas as well -fur trading,provisioning, etc. Alreadyby 1640,important indi- vidualfortunes had beenaccrued in thisvital, if chaotic new field.68 Still,it remainsentirely understandable that London's established merchantcommunity would have littleto do with it. Why,for example,should Levant Companytraders have enduredthe diffi- cultiesof the tobacco trade (in which therewere 175 traders activein 1634and 330 in 1640), whenthey could make big profits in theirlucrative currants commerce (which was confinedto thirty- sevenand fifty-onetraders respectively in the same twoyears) ?69 Clearly,London's establishedmerchants had littleincentive to enterthe colonial commerce. Indeed, this field might have proved farless attractiveto the "newmen" had thecompany trades been moreaccessible. Nevertheless,it should not be concludedthat those who entered the colonialtrades did so morereadily than did the established elite merelybecause theyhad feweralternatives. The new men were also farbetter prepared than the old elite to properlyde- velop the existingpossibilities. As we have argued,the value or qualityof an economicopportunity cannot be viewed statically. Opportunitiesare createdin the veryprocess of being exploited. Theirworth is not objectivelygiven, but to a large extentdeter- minedby the mannerin whichthey are developed,and this,in prospectivemember had actually relinquishedhis formertrade and become a "meremerchant," see Levant CompanyCourt Books,P.R.O. S.P.105/149/250,253; S.P.105/150/265;S.P.105/151/120. 67 G. L. Beer, The Originsof the BritishColonial System,1578-1660 (New York: MacmillanCo., 1908), p. 110, n.3; J. A. Williamson,The Caribbee Islands Under the ProprietaryPatents (London: OxfordUniversity Press, 1926), pp. 137-39. 68 See Brenner,"Commercial Change," pp. 142-43. t9 These figureswere compiledfrom the Port Books forimports for 1634, P.R.O. E.190/38/5,and 1640, P.R.O. E.190/43/5. English CommercialExpansion 381 turn,often depends on who developsthem. The case ofthe eastern expansionhas alreadyillustrated this point. Thus, the openingof the Levanttrade offered to the greatCity traders an opportunity unavailableto most other London businessmen.Paradoxically, thisfield was so promisingbecause the men who developed it were ableto minimize the need for risk, initiative, "entrepreneurship." On the otherhand, it was just because the Levant-EastIndia merchantsso scrupulouslyavoided innovationin their normal courseof business that they were unable to see and exploitthe in- creasinglyimpressive opportunities which the new tradescame to offer.It is truethat the new merchants'"'entrepreneurship" was at firstin a senseforced upon them.A certainamount of experimen- tation was simply unavoidable. What is significant,however, is the way in which the new merchants'participation in the early phases of Americancolonization opened their eyes to far more spectacular commercialenterprise. From the later 1630's leading groupsof merchantsfrom the Americancolonial trades launched a large-scalecommercial offensive that involved them in tradingac- tivitiesfrom New England, to the West Indies, to West and East ,to the East Indies.70 This drive arose, to a certainextent, fromthe needs and problemsof the originalcolonial economies.It could neverhave occurred,however, had not the previous experi- ence ofthe new merchantsprepared them to seize upon and develop systematicallya whole seriesof potentialopportunities. The changes which these traders carried out mark a revolutionarybreak in English commercialactivity, but they cannot be seen as isolated, speculative ventures.They flowed from an increasinglycoherent programfor commercial transformation on a world-widescale. During the later 1630's the Americaneconomy had sufferedin- creasinglyfrom over productionand fallingprices in tobacco. The land-scarceWest Indies were particularlyhard-hit. Thus, when a groupof Dutch merchantsfrom Brazil set up sugar plantationson Barbados, the innovationwas immediatelywidely copied. Within the space of two decades the tobacco economyof small men and small plots was forcedto give way to the greatplantation system of slaves and sugarmills.7' English merchants,along with the Dutch, played an integralrole in this transformation.And it was the very same leading groups of new merchantswho had immersedthem-

70 For a fullaccount of thisoffensive, see Brenner,"Commercial Change," ch. iv. 71 Williamson,Caribbee Islands,pp. 137-39, 157-58. 382 Brenner selvesin the Americantrades from the 1620'swho led theway in everyfacet of a unifiedWest Indiesdevelopment.72 Some of these tradersalready owned land in the islandsand mosthad tobacco tradingconnections there.7 They invadedthe privilegedterritory of the EnglishGuinea Company, whose monopoly was no longer adequatelyprotected by a weakenedroyal power, and becamekey suppliersof Africanslaves.74 Indeed, it was at thispoint that the Britishslave trade to Americawas establishedon a largescale, and these merchantswere its firstmajor undertakers. The same men also continuedto act as provisionersand marketersof colonialpro- duce and establishedin thisperiod the so-called "triangular trades," connectingEngland, New England,Africa, and theWest Indies in an integratedcommercial system.75 Most important of all, manyof these merchantsentered directly into the combinedindustrial- agriculturalactivities required for the productionof sugar.70The kindof organizationaland capitalcommitment required by the sugar industry's"factory in a field"far surpassedanything de- mandedby the oldertobacco economy. It shouldbe hardlysur- prisingto find,therefore, that despite the enormous profits yielded, the sugar plantations'development attracted only a handfulof investorsfrom the old Citymerchant elite.77

72 The personnelof the West Indies commercialdevelopment can be put to- getherfrom the numerouscolonial merchantpetitions of the 1640's and 1650's, which include hundredsof signatures;also fromthe standardgovernmental and judicial documents-StatePapers, High Court of AdmiraltyPapers, ChanceryPro- ceedings,etc. See especiallyJournal of the House of Lords, IX, 50, for a list of manyof the key merchantleaders. See also P.R.O. C.O.1/11/23,24; C.O.1/12/5,8, 16. For details on the West Indies merchantssee Brenner,"Commercial Change," pp. 150-59. 73 Ibid., 151-52. 74 For the tradein thisperiod, see J. W. Blake, "The Farm of the Guinea Trade in 1631," in Essays in BritishHistory, ed. H. A. Cronne,T. W. Moody,and D. B. Quinn (London: FrederickMuller, 1949), pp. 86-106. For the loss of its patent,see Ibid., p. 97; Journalof the House of Common?,II, pp. 33, 278, 970; The Journalof Sir SimondsD'Ewes, ed. W. Notestein(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1923), p. 540. For furtherdetails, see Brenner,"Commercial Change,' pp. 152-54. 75 For the developmentof the "triangletrades," see B. Bailyn,The New England Merchantsin the SeventeenthCentury (Cambridge, Mass.: HarvardUniversity Press, 1955), pp. 84-91; V. T. Harlow,Barbados 1625-1685 (Oxford:The ClarendonPress, 1926), ch. vi. 76 Journalof the House of Lords,IX, p. 50; HistoricalManuscripts Commission, Sixth Report,Appendix, pp. 202-03. See also, Brenner,"Commercial Crisis," pp. 151-52,n.13. 77 This is based on a comparisonof fulllists of Levant membersand East India Companydirectors with lists of West Indies traderscompiled from sources indicated in fn. 72. English CommercialExpansion 383 Extendingfar beyond West Africaand the Americas,the de- velopingcommercial interests of the colonial merchant grouping led themto challengethe old Citymerchant elite on its own ground. Duringthe 1640's, the new merchants were able notmerely to wrest controlof theEast India Companyfrom the Levant-EastIndia es- tablishment,but to modifythe old tradein accordancewith their ownnovel commercial conceptions. As we havenoted, in themiddle 1630's,Charles I had temporarilylicensed the greatAnglo-Dutch merchantSir William Courteen to operate an interlopingtrading ven- turewithin the East India Company'sprivileged area. By the out- breakof civilwar, Courteen had largelygiven over control of this projectto a numberof his partnerswho continuedto operateit on theirown. This new associationwas drawnlargely from the same colonialmerchant grouping that was alreadyactive in the West Indies sugardevelopment.78 These merchantswere preparednot onlyto pursuethe projectin defianceof the old East India Com- pany,but also to expandits scope to encompassthe establishment of a plantationcolony off the east coastof Africa,the openingof the port-to-porttrade in theEast, and theincorporation of the Guinea gold trade.Their plan was to integratethe East Indies withina world-widemultilateral commerce which would replace the former two-wayroute. The new systemwould be foundedon coloniesand drawtogether England, West Africa,Madagascar, and India in a complicatednetwork of exchangerelationships.79 The variousas- pectsof thisprogram had alwaysbeen opposedby the old Com- pany directoratewhich, as we have seen,had alwaysrefused to becomeinvolved in colonizationand had adheredsteadfastly to a bilateralcommerce. Yet, the old merchantmagnates had been so weakenedby the economiceffects of competition,as well as the politicalimpact of civilwar, that they were unable to hold offthe newmerchants' offensive, which was carriedon bothinside and out- side theold Company.80By 1650,the new merchants had notonly 78 The personnelof the groupwhich took over fromCourteen can be compiled fromCalendar of the Court Minutesof the East India Company1644-9, pp. 16, 305, n.1, p. 382; Journalof the House of Lords,X, pp. 617, 624; HistoricalManu- scriptsCommission, Seventh Report, Appendix, p. 66; P.R.O. H.C.A.24/108/51,265. For -a full discussionof the personnelof this group, see Brenner,"Commercial Change,"pp. 173-75. 79 For the new merchants'program and its implementation,see Foster,"Intro- duction,"Calendar of the CourtMinutes of the East India Company,1644-9; Foster, "Madagascar;" J. E. Farnell,"The NavigationAct of 1651, the First Dutch War, and the LondonMerchant Community," Economic History Review, XVI (1964), 444. 80 Calendarof the CourtMinutes of the East India Company,1644-9, xv, xvi,xix, 218, 227, 342, 377-378; Brenner,"Commercial Change," pp. 178-83. 384 Brenner substantiallypenetrated the Company,but had forcedthe imple- mentationof theirprogram.81 The colonialmerchants' commercial victory over the Levant-East Indiaestablishment was notsimply the result of their superior entre- preneurship.The politicalupheavals of the 1640'shad brokenthe powerof the royalist-leaningmerchant elite, while enhancing cor- respondinglythe politicalposition of the parliamentariancolonial traders.Indeed, with the Independentvictory in 1648, the new merchantsgained access to thehighest circles of government power, a positionreserved before the civilwar to the Levant-EastIndia leadership.82Not surprisingly,these traders used theirnewly-won influencein a manneranalogous to thatof the old elite,yet in accord withtheir own broader commercial conceptions. Whereas the eastern tradingcomplex had employedtheir extra-economic power to mo- nopolize trade and enhancetheir market position, the colonial merchantgrouping used theirsto tryto pryfrom their powerful Dutch rivals commercialopportunities perhaps unattainable by purelyeconomic means. As has been arguedelsewhere, the Act of 1650barring foreigners from the trade to the colonies, the Navigation Act of 1651,and thefirst Dutch War are notfully comprehensible apartfrom a considerationof the new merchants'commercial and politicalstrength.83 In an increasinglycompetitive international com- mercialenvironment, opportunities would rarely any longer simply presentthemselves. They would have to be created,if necessaryby politicalforce. ROBERT BRENNER, Universityof Californiaat Los Angeles

81 P.R.O. C.O.77/7/6, 7, 8; Calendar of the Court Minutes of the East India Company1650-4, p. 49. 82 A full account of merchantpolitics in Civil War London, on which these general statementsare based, can be found in Brenner,"Commercial Change," chs. vi-ix. 83 See JamesFarnell's important article on "The NavigationAct, the FirstDutch War, and the London MerchantCommunity." In my view, a precise evaluationof the new merchants'role and influenceon commercialpolicy requiresa more exact specificationthan Prof.Farnell has given of the new merchants'position within the overallstructure of power. As Prof. Farnell is aware, the colonial merchantswere an important,but far fromdominant element in the politicsof the Commonwealth and the Protectorate.