Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/223



The Treaty of Peace of Ryswick, concluded in 1697, brought with it great prosperity, the clearances outwards of British ships averaging in the following three years 393,703 tons annually, while the gross value of produce exported on the average in each of the same years reached 6,709,881, or three times more than it had been in 1696.

At this period the government paid for the hire of transports from the merchant service 716,220l. per annum, on an average of ten years.

From the period of the Revolution in 1688 to the death of Queen Anne, the trade of the plantations had steadily and rapidly increased, employing five hundred sail of vessels, a large proportion of them being engaged in the transport of negroes from the coast of Africa. Though originally a monopoly in the hands of the African Company, private speculation had

only thirty-nine vessels, they measured 11,170 tons, giving an average of two hundred and seventy-one tons to each. In reply to the circular from the Commissioners of Customs calling for this return, Hull accounted for her small number of seamen by stating that as it was winter (most of her vessels, no doubt, being employed in the Baltic and north of Europe trade, or in whaling) eighty vessels were laid up, and had consequently no crews on board. It is curious to note that no farther back than the commencement of the last century, such places as Yarmouth and Exeter owned more ships than Liverpool, which now owns a larger amount of tonnage than London; while there are now numerous ports in the kingdom of infinitely greater maritime importance than either Scarborough or Whitby, of which no mention whatever is made (Chambers's Estimates, p. 68; ibid, pp. 89, 90).]*
 * [Footnote: made, one hundred vessels; but though Newcastle-on-Tyne owned then