Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 2.djvu/204

202 1741, the three first years of the war, it fell to 8,870,499l.; but in 1744 it was 9,190,621l.; in 1747, 9,775,340l.; and in 1748, which was rather the first year of peace than the last of the war, it mounted at once to 1 1 ,141 ,202l. Nor was this a mere temporary elevation: in the next three years, 1749, 1750, and 1751, the total value of our exports was on an average 12,599,112l. The amount slightly declined, indeed, in 1755, 1756, and 1757, on the average of which three years it was only 11,708.515l.—the depression being probably occasioned by the uncertain and threatening aspect of things that preceded the breaking out of hostilities; but the war when it came, unlike all former wars in which we had ever been engaged, rather assisted than injured our foreign trade; and our exports from this date continued to increase every year to the end of the reign, their estimated value being, in 1758, 12,618,335l.; in 1759, 13,947,788l.; and in 1760, 14,693,270l. Thus, in the course of the reign of George II. the amount of our exports was very little less than doubled. The increase in the quantity of the shipping employed in our foreign trade, however, was not nearly so great. The total tonnage of the ships cleared outwards, which on the average of the three years ending with 1728 had been 456,483 tons, was 503,568 (including 26,627 foreign) on that of the three ending with 1738; 471,451 (including 87,260 foreign) on that of the three years ending with 1741; 446,666 (including 72,849 foreign) in 1744; 496,242 (including 101,671 foreign) in 1747; 554,713 (including 75,477 foreign) in 1748; 661,184 (including 51,386 foreign)on the average of the three years ending with 1751; 524,711 (including 73,456 foreign) on that of the three ending with 1757; 505,844 (including 116,002 foreign) in 1758; 527,351 (including 121,016 foreign) in 1759; and 573,978 (including 112,737 foreign) in 1760. Thus the amount of native shipping employed in our foreign trade, which was 432,832 tons at the beginning of the reign, was not more than 471,241 at its close. This, however, in the