The Industrial Revolution

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1027928145

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-159926

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Cunningham, William http://d-nb.info/gnd/128907487

Title:: The Industrial Revolution

Place of publication:: Cambridge

Publisher:: The University Press

Year of publication:: 1922

Scope:: xxii S., S. 404-886

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

£16 PARLIAMENTARY COLBERTISM break through the monopoly of the East India Company; they had secured the Parliamentary authorisation for which the English Company were pleading in vain; they opened an office and received subscriptions in London. They were preparing to compete in those trades which Englishmen prized most highly; while the Scottish project also aroused the Spaniards, and strained their relations with Englishmen, both with regard to the West Indian and the African trade. The schemes for trading with Archangel, which the pro- moters of the Darien Company cherished, and of carrying on the whale fishery, were opposed to the interests of the Russian and Greenland Companies. On every side the leading English trades were threatened; and the embroglios with the Spaniards which followed rendered it impossible for King William to support his northern subjects in their great undertaking. The seeds of failure were thus sown in the expedition from the first; and the Scottish indignation, which was roused by the narrative of the survivors who returned from Darien, was embittered by the sense of a pecuniary loss which the country could ill afford. The which English merchants were anxious to prevent the recurrence yp oo of similar attempts at competition. They had learned that eo ee ®& complete legislative Union of the two countries must be Union. procured at any cost’. The Dual Monarchy had not been a satisfactory arrange- ment from any point of view. There was ‘a trend, both of men and money, from the northern kingdom to the seat of government, which was not welcome in England, and which was bitterly denounced in Scotland. Their brief experience A.D. 1689 —1776. awakened hostility and sus- picion 1 For an excellent account of the Darien Company see J. H. Burton, History of Scotland from the Revolution, 1. c. viii. The Darien Company suffered from the want of experience of its directors, and from almost every one of the difficulties which were felt in the more powerful English companies. As a trading concern, the management was entirely ignorant of the right commodities for export; as a colony, there was no proper government which could restrain the disorderly and buccaneering elements ; and the eapital was quite insufficient for the projects they had in view. It had been raised with some difficulty in Scotland, and though the shares were all taken up, it was not a bona fide subscription, as some of the share- holders received promises from the Company guaranteeing them against actual loss (ib. 1. 297). The general impression which was abroad, that the tropics were fertile and wealthy, prevented the directors from sending out the supplies which mioht have saved the colonists from utter ruin.

Access restriction

Copyright

fullscreen: The Industrial Revolution

Monograph

Table of contents

Download

Monograph

This page

Image fragment

Citation links

Citation recommendation