Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 2.djvu/121

Rh "that so great had been the losses of a seven-years' war, if a great stock be absolutely necessary to carry on a great trade, we may reasonably conclude the stock of this nation is so diminished it will fall short, and that, without prudence and industry, we shall rather consume what is left than recover what we have lost." Dr. Davenant, in replying to this writer, although he does not take so desponding a view of the state to which the war had reduced us, yet admits not only that it put a stop to a course of constantly augmenting prosperity that had gone on without interruption from the Restoration, but that it had consumed much of the wealth accumulated in that previous long period of peace, as well as inflicted the most serious injury upon various branches of our trade. "Besides the ordinary expences of the war," he observes, "our dead losses at sea, in nine years' time, have amounted to a greater sum than is fit here to mention." In regard to our foreign commerce, he thinks it will be a great matter for the present if we can recover the ground we had lost during a contest which had left us, there and all over, sore with wounds. "By the unlucky conduct of our naval affairs," he proceeds, descending to particulars, "the trade to and from this kingdom was chiefly done by princes and states in neutrality, such as Denmark and Sweden to the northward, Portugal and the state of Genoa, who have hereby not only increased in their shipping but in the knowledge of our trade; and, unless care be taken to regain to England, in the very beginning of this peace, the ground we have thus lost, in all likelihood it will never be recovered." He goes on to complain of encroachments that had been made upon the Navigation Act through "the slack administration which war occasions;" and then he adds the following account of the state to which some of the most important branches of our trade bad actually been reduced:—"The Norway and the