Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 2.djvu/151

Rh, however, from Holland in these two years do not exhibit so great a difference: their total amount in 1669 was 501,674l.: and in 1703, 522,413l. The principal articles of which there appears to have been an increase of importation are linen (from 170,972l. to 213,701l.), thrown silk (from 2,878l. to 15,966l.), and threads (from 11,694l. to 51,138l.): on the other hand there was a falling off in wrought silk, spicery, Rhenish wine, and several other articles. In the seven years from 1699 to 1705 inclusive, the average value of our exports to Holland is stated to have been 1,937,934l., and that of our imports from that country, 549,832l. The latter, Davenant remarks, had "continued for several years in a manner at a stand, seldom exceeding half a million per annum." If we add the outports, which the account does not include, that sum might be increased by about a fourth. Our exports to Holland, on the other hand, had been constantly augmenting, their excess over the imports having, in some of the seven years, been not less than 1,500,000l. But, whether or no this seeming overbalance in trade with the Dutch had been all to the profit of this kingdom, Davenant, with a degree of good sense and sagacity superior to his time, is inclined to doubt. "If," he continues, "according to the vulgar notion, this large overbalance had been all clear gain to England, it would have been some kind of recompense for the interruptions so long a war has brought to other branches of our foreign traffic; but nothing can be more fallacious than, because a country takes off" more of our commodities than we do of theirs, to argue from thence that our dealings with that country are always beneficial to us...If, for the last twenty-three years, the Dutch had so far augmented their luxuries as to want for their own consumption that vast bulk of commodities they have so constantly fetched from this kingdom, and if we had been all along so reformed in our manners as to stand in little need of foreign goods, Holland must have been great losers, and we great gainers, by the