Neighbour country, Holland: an ideal model to follow, or just an enemy? Seiichiro Ito (Ohtsuki City College, Japan) Abstract In the seventeenth century, particularly in its first half, the English pamphleteers often argued that the English should learn the manner of herring fishing from the Dutch and it is essential for the success of the English trade. While they tended to focus on the technical aspects of fishing business, around mid-century some pamphleteers showed their interest in the Dutch society as a whole. They shared the list of their merits to learn from the Dutch model, such as the management of trade, low customs, low interest rates, and banking. Over the Navigation Act of 1651, some were supportive and some were against, but both sides shared the same images of Holland. From around 1670 the styles of the discourses of the pamphleteers who discuss trade also changed. They got more analytical and systematic. Roger Coke was an example. Introduction In 1651 where England was stepping into the way to the war with the Dutch, Thomas Hobbes was also one of those who had a complex feeling against them. Hobbes expresses it as follows: ‘I doubt not, but many men, have been contented to see the late troubles in England, out of an imitation of the Low Countries; supposing there needed no more to grow rich, than to change, as they had done, the forme of their Government.’ (Hobbes, Leviathan, 1991, p. 225.) Hobbes here shows one of reasons why the Common-wealth would lead to its dissolution. The example of the government of a neighbour country ‘disposeth men to alteration of the forme already setled’, just as false doctrines do. The human nature of desiring ‘novelty’ is undeniable and the 1 people ‘love the first beginnings’ of disorder (Hobbes, Leviathan, 1991, p. 225.). In Behemoth, Hobbes more directly connects his concern about the imitation of the Low Countries to the historical context. He takes the admiration of the prosperity of the Low Countries as the cause of the disorder between 1640 to 1660 in England. Hobbes infers that the success of the revolt in the Low Countries against the king of Spain drove the English to think that ‘the like change of government here, would to them produce the like prosperity.’ (Hobbes, ‘Behemoth’ inWorks, 1840, p. 168) This description of the political atmosphere of England in the mid-seventeenth century could be exactly applied for the situation of the English trade which had to survive in the economic and political balance of power in Europe. In the first half of the century quite a few pamphleteers who mostly are merchants and fishermen wrote that the Dutch trade was thriving because of herring-fishing business and it was superior to those of other European countries. Since in 1601 John Keymer, a vintner, addressed a manuscript to Elizabeth I, a lot of pamphlets on fishing-business had been written and published. They all shared the arguments that the Dutch catch fish on the British seas; that they are industrious; that therefore, if the English become industrious, they can beat out the Dutch trade1. However, while in the first half of the century pamphleteers stuck on the technical matters of this business, after the Interregnum a larger picture of the Dutch economy and society began to attract their attentions. In the following I try to describe what sort of pictures of the Dutch society the English illustrated. 1. When Sir Roger L’Estrange published A discourse of the fishery in 1674, the direct sources of his knowledge about fishing business were Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir John Borough2, which, though the author himself does not 1 See S. Ito, ‘What should the English learn from the Dutch?’, The 18h Annual Conference of the European Society for the History of Economic Thought, Université de Lausanne, Centre Walras-Pareto, Lausanne, Switzerland, 29th May, 2014. 2 L’Estrange says, ‘Let it not be Imagin’d that I speak all this without book, for I have my Calculation of the profit of it, and other advantages, from Sir 2 mention the title of the book, obviously are Raleigh’s Observations, touching trade & commerce with the Hollander, and other nations published in 1653, which is originally John Keymer’s manuscript written in 1620, and Borough’s The soveraignty of the British seas published in 1651, though Borough claims that he wrote it in 1633. Both Keymer and Borough highly estimated the Dutch fishing trade and insisted that the English need to emulate it. However, when The soveraignty of the British seas was published in 16513, the political and economic situation was totally changed from that of Keymer. It was not a coincidence that this pamphlet was published in this year, the year waiting a war. Borough starts the discourse with a Hobbesian argument concerning the sovereignty of the sea: ‘That Princes may have an exclusive property in the Soveraigntie of the severall parts of the Sea, and in the passage, fishing & shores therof’, he insists, ‘is so evidently true by way of fact, as no man that is not desperately impudent can deny it.’ (Borough, The sovereignty, 1651, p. 1.) According to Borough, the necessity of commerce and its safety made people learn from their maritime practices and ‘by the light of humane reason’ that laws are requisite for the ‘preservation’ of seamen and that to make such laws and to execute them must ‘require a supreame authority’ (Borough, The sovereignty, 1651, pp. 2-3.). In the first half of his long tract Borough repeats his argument that the British Seas had exclusively belonged to the English kings, tracing the cases of each reign. Borough concludes that the common law made the king the ‘proprietory Lord’ of the British Seas and even the ‘things floating on the superficies of the water’ belong to the king (Borough, The sovereignty, 1651, p. 105.). Borough says, the coasts of Great Britain yield a ‘Sea-harvest’ through a year and produce employments for people concerning fishing’ (Borough, The sovereignty, 1651, pp. 108-9.) Fishing of herring, cod and ling is done Walter Rawleigh, Sr John Burrowes, and many other learned, and Experienced Athors’ . L’Estrange, 1674, p. 9. 3 Borough, John, Sir, The soveraignty of the British seas : proved by records, history, and the municipall lawes of this kingdome written in the yeare 1633 by ... Sr John Boroughs. London, 1651. The title says that this was ‘[p]rinted for Humphrey Moseley, and are to be sold at his shop, 1651.’ 3 somewhere of the British coasts through a year (Borough, The sovereignty, 1651, p. 109.). However, those who gain from this ‘wonderfull affluence, and abundance of fish swarming’ in the British seas are not the English, but Hollanders. Then Borough felt it necessary to show the picture of the truth (Borough, The sovereignty, 1651, p. 115.). Thanks to the richness of the British Seas the Hollanders improved shipping, mariners, trade, towns and fortifications, power at abroad, public revenue, private wealth, provisions and necessary things (Borough, The sovereignty, 1651, pp. 116-7.). Borough presents the details of those profits, which are logically connected each other. First, the Dutch use various types of ships not only to fish but also to ‘fetch salt’ and to ‘carry their fish into other countries’. Furthermore those ships create the employment of fishers, tradesmen, women, and children (Borough, The sovereignty, 1651, pp. 117-8.). Borough reveals that, beside 300 ships fishing on their own shores, the Dutch have at least 4800 ships ‘onely maintained by seas of Great Brittaine’, by which means Holland, ‘being so bigge as one of our shires of England’, increased the number of their shipping to at least 10,000, ‘being more then are in England’ and other European counties (Borough, The sovereignty, 1651, pp. 121-2.). Borough adds the cases of Lubeck, Hamburg, and Emden whose ships are employed and maintained by fishing upon the British coast (Borough, The sovereignty, 1651, pp. 122-3.). Secondly, Borough calculates that, as there are 8400 ships for fishing and each ship needs 20 people, the total number of mariners and fishers amounts to 16800, who are skilled and well instructed in navigation (Borough, The sovereignty, 1651, pp. 124-5.). Thirdly, this multitude of ships and mariners extended the Dutch trade to the world, exporting their herring and other fish and bringing back foreign commodities. However, Borough regarded as the English ‘shame’ this situation that the Dutch sell the fish ‘taken upon our [British] coast’ to the English (Borough, The sovereignty, 1651, pp. 125-9.)4. Fourthly, greatly extended Dutch trade makes them the ‘citizens of the 4 An anonymous pamphlet published in 1662 also mentions the same sort of ‘Shame’. Anonymous, Ἰχθυοθηρα, or, the Royal Trade of Fishing. London, 1662. , p. 9. 4 whole world’ and enlarge towns and their fortifications (Borough, The sovereignty, 1651, pp. 129-31.). Summarising the above-mentioned causal relationship of fishing trade, the number of ships and mariners, and the internal strengthening to protect themselves from foreign invasions as from Spain, Borough next assures that the Dutch ‘have stretched their power into the East, and West Indies’ (Borough, The sovereignty, 1651, p. 132.) and now they become ‘the most redoubted Nation at Sea’ (Borough, The sovereignty, 1651, p. 133.). Sixthly, fishing makes the increase of public revenue by customs. In addition, Borough mentions that the fish taken by the Dutch are sold abroad in exchange of ‘the finest’ gold and silver with which they produce coins ‘of a baser ally under their owne stampe’ (Borough, The sovereignty, 1651, pp. 134-6.).