372 Ch. 10 • Eighteenth-Century Economic And Social Change
Great Britain was by far the wealthiest nation in the world. Its colonies
provided raw materials for manufacturing and markets for goods produced
by the mother country. English merchants supplied slaves snatched from
the west coast of Africa for the plantations of the West Indies in exchange
for cotton. The amount of raw cotton imported from India increased by
twenty times between 1750 and 1800. Beginning in the 1790s the United
States provided Lancashire manufacturers with cotton picked by southern
slaves.
England’s stable banking and credit arrangements facilitated the rein
vestment of agricultural and commercial profits in manufacturing. Lon
don’s banks, particularly the giant Bank of England, were profitable and
respected. Merchants and manufacturers accepted paper money and bills
of exchange with confidence. Gentry invested in overseas trade expeditions
and in manufacturing without the reticence of continental landowners.
London’s financial market could provide information twice a week on what
investments were worth in Amsterdam and Paris. Joint-stock companies,
which had begun in the late seventeenth century, offered limited personal
liability, which meant that in the case of a company’s financial disaster,
individual investors would be liable only to the extent of their investments.
Expanded demand for manufactured goods led to a dramatic improvement
in Britain’s roads. A new process of road surfacing—macadamization—
improved travel on the main routes. Turnpikes were extended and improved;
investors formed “turnpike trusts,” repairing the highways and turning a
profit by charging a toll. In 1700, it took fifty hours to travel from Norwich
to London by coach; by 1800, the journey could be achieved in nineteen
hours. The daunting trek to the Scottish city of Edinburgh from London
had been reduced to a mere sixty hours of travel.
England’s water transportation was also unmatched in Europe, a gift of
nature. Rich coal and iron ore deposits lay near water transportation. By
1800, Britain was extracting about 90 percent of the world’s coal. No part
of England stands more than seventy miles from the sea. Navigable rivers
facilitated the transportation of raw materials and manufactured goods; so
did canals built in the middle decades of the century, including a ninety
mile-long canal linking Manchester to the Mersey River and the Irish Sea.
The British government offered businessmen more assistance than any
continental rivals could anticipate from their own governments. The Royal
Navy protected the merchant fleet, which tripled in size during the first
three-quarters of the century. Navigation Acts forced foreign merchants to
ship export goods to Britain in British ships. Bowing to pressure from
woolens producers, the British government in 1700 had imposed protective
tariffs on imported silk and calico, undercutting imports from India. Agree
ments with the Dutch Republic and France in the late 1780s reduced trade
tariffs with those states, which helped British exports. Political influence
kept taxes low on business. Other British strategies were even more imagi
native: a law dating from the late seventeenth century required that all