Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 2.djvu/165

Rh from the persecution of countries less tolerant and free." The national industry and enterprise, indeed, could not fail to receive new animation and vigour, in all their departments, from the increased security or' person and property which the Revolution brought with it to every inhabitant of the kingdom, and from the very spirit of freedom that might now be said to vivify and enrich the air of England.

A still larger proportionate as well as actual part of the reign of Anne than of that of William was spent in war, and, both from the greater extent to which military operations were carried on, and from the accumulation of the debt, the public burthens were now considerably increased; but, notwithstanding the cry which was as usual kept up by faction about the continued decay of the national resources, well established facts sufficiently prove that, even during the course of this second war with France, the country, as soon as it had rallied from the first effects of the shock that again broke up and threw into confusion the relations to which it had begun to accommodate itself during the short previous interval of peace, rather made way than fell off in commercial and general prosperity, and that after the war was over its unfettered energies carried it forward at a rate such as it had perhaps never before experienced. It appears that the estimated value of our exports had been reduced by the year 1705 to 5,308,966l.; but from this point of greatest depression our foreign trade gradually so rar recovered, that in 1709 the value of our exports to all countries had risen to 5,913,357l.; in 1711 to 5,962,988l.; and in 1712, when indeed hostilities had nearly ceased except in name, to 6,868,840l. In 1713, 1714, and 1715, the three years that immediately followed the war, their average amount was 7,696,573l.—which was nearly a million sterling beyond their amount during the preceding peace. In another respect our foreign trade had now become moi'e advantageous than it then had been: the total tonnage of the ships annually cleared outwards on the average of the years 1699, 1700, and 1701 had been