The Royal African Company was incorporated 14 Charles II., and empowered to trade from Sallee, in South Barbary, to the Cape of Good Hope, being all the western coast of Africa.It carries no money out, and not only supplies the English plantations with servants, but brings in a great deal of bullion for those that are sold to the Spanish West Indies, besides gold dust and other commodities, as red wood, elephants' teeth, Guinea grain, &c., some of which are re-exported.The supplying the plantations with negroes is of that extraordinary advantage, that the planting sugar and tobacco and carrying on trade there could not be supported without them; which plantations are the great causes of the increase of the riches of the kingdom.
The Canary Company was incorporated in the reign of King Charles II., anno 1664, being empowered to trade to the Seven Islands, anciently called the Fortunate, and now the Canary Islands.
They have a governor, deputy-governor, and thirteen assistants or directors, chosen annually in March.This company exports baize, kerseys, serges, Norwich stuffs, and other woollen manufactures;stockings, hats, fustians, haberdashery wares, tin, and hardware; as also herrings, pilchards, salted flesh, and grain; linens, pipe-staves, hoops, &c.Importing in return Canary wines, logwood, hides, indigo, cochineal, and other commodities, the produce of America and the West Indies.
There is another company I had almost overlooked, called the Hudson's Bay Company; and though these merchants make but little noise, I find it is a very advantageous trade.They by charter trade, exclusively of all other his Britannic Majesty's subjects, to the north-west; which was granted, as I have been told, on account that they should attempt a passage by those seas to China, &c., though nothing appears now to be less their regard; nay; if all be true, they are the very people that discourage and impede all attempts made by others for the opening that passage to the South Seas.They export some woollen goods and haberdashery wares, knives, hatchets, arms, and other hardware; and in return bring back chiefly beaver-skins, and other skins and furs.
The last, and once the most considerable of all the trading companies, is that of the South Sea, established by Act of Parliament in the ninth year of the late Queen Anne; but, what by reason of the mismanagement of its directors in 1720, the miscarriage of their whale-fishery, and the intrigues of the Spaniards, their credit is sunk, and their trade has much decreased.
I proceed, in the next place, to inquire what countries the merchants of London trade to separately, not being incorporated or subject to the control of any company.
Among which is the trade to Italy, whither are exported broad-cloth, long-ells, baize, druggets, callimancoes, camlets, and divers other stuffs; leather, tin, lead, great quantities of fish, as pilchards, herrings, salmon, Newfoundland cod, &c., pepper, and other East India goods.
The commodities England takes from them are raw, thrown, and wrought silk, wine, oil, soap, olives, some dyer's wares, anchovies, &c.
To Spain the merchants export broad-cloth, druggets, callimancoes, baize, stuff of divers kinds, leather, fish, tin, lead, corn, &c.
The commodities England takes from them are wine, oil, fruit of divers kinds, wool, indigo, cochineal, and dyeing stuffs.
To Portugal also are exported broad-cloth, druggets, baize, long-ells, callimancoes, and all other sorts of stuffs; as well as tin, lead, leather, fish, corn, and other English commodities.
England takes from them great quantities of wine, oil, salt, and fruit, and gold, both in bullion and specie; though it is forfeited, if seized in the ports of Portugal.
The French take very little from England in a fair way, dealing chiefly with owlers, or those that clandestinely export wool and fuller's-earth, &c.They indeed buy some of our tobacco, sugar, tin, lead, coals, a few stuffs, serges, flannels, and a small matter of broad-cloth.
England takes from France wine, brandy, linen, lace, fine cambrics, and cambric lawns, to a prodigious value; brocades, velvets, and many other rich silk manufactures, which are either run, or come by way of Holland; the humour of some of the nobility and gentry being such, that although they have those manufactures made as good at home, if not better than abroad, yet they are forced to be called by the name of French to make them sell.Their linens are run in very great quantities, as are their wine and brandy, from the Land's End even to the Downs.
To Flanders are exported serges, a few flannels, a very few stuffs, sugar, tobacco, tin, and lead.
England takes from them fine lace, fine cambrics, and cambric-lawns, Flanders whited linens, threads, tapes, incles, and divers other commodities, to a very great value.
To Holland the merchants export broad-cloth, druggets, long-ells, stuffs of a great many sorts, leather, corn, coals, and something of almost every kind that this kingdom produces; besides all sorts of India and Turkey re-exported goods, sugars, tobacco, rice, ginger, pitch and tar, and sundry other commodities of the produce of our American plantations.
England takes from Holland great quantities of fine Holland linen, threads, tapes, and incles; whale fins, brass battery, madder, argol, with a large number of other commodities and toys; clapboard, wainscot, &c.
To Ireland are exported fine broad-cloth, rich silks, ribbons, gold and silver lace, manufactured iron and cutlery wares, pewter, great quantities of hops, coals, dyeing wares, tobacco, sugar, East India goods, raw silk, hollands, and almost everything they use, but linens, coarse woollens, and eatables.
England takes from Ireland woollen yarn, linen yarn, great quantities of wool in the fleece, and some tallow.
