Henry VII ‘secretly procured a great many Foreigners, who were perfectly skill’d in the Manufacture, to come over and instruct his own People here in their Beginnings’ (A Plan, p. 96).
G. Ramsay (1982), The English Woollen Industry, 1500–1750 (Macmillan, London and Basingstoke), p. 61.
Henry VII realized ‘that the Flemings were old in the business, long experience’d, and turn’d their Hands this Way and that Way, to new Sorts and Kinds of Goods, which the English could not presently know, and when known, had not Skill presently to imitate: And that therefore he must proceed gradually’. So he ‘knew … that it was an Attempt of such a Magnitude, as well deserv’d the utmost Prudence and Caution, that it was not to be attempted rashly; so it was not to be push’d with too much Warmth’ (A Plan, p. 96, italics original).
Henry VII ‘did not immediately prohibit the exporting the Wool to the Flemings, neither did he, till some Years after, load the Exportation of it with any more Duties than he had before’ (The Plan, p. 96). As for the ban on raw wool exports, Defoe says Henry VII was ‘so far … from being able to compleat his Design, that he could never come to a total Prohibition of exporting the Wool in this Reign’ (The Plan, p. 96). Thus, although Henry VII ‘did once pretend to stop the Exportation of the Wool, he conniv’d at the Breach of his Order, and afterwards took off the Prohibition entirely’ (A Plan, p. 97).
Cloth exports (mostly woollen) accounted for around 70% of English exports in 1700 and was still over 50% of total exports until the 1770s. A. Musson (1978), The Growth of British Industry (B.T. Batsford Ltd., London), p. 85.
In substance, however, Walpole deserves the title because no previous government head enjoyed such wide-ranging political power as his.Walpole was also the first to take up residence (in 1735) at 10 Downing Street, the famous official residence of the British prime minster.
Walpole also attracted vehement criticism, mainly for his corruption, from other important literary personages of his time, such as Dr Samuel Johnson (A Dictionary of the English Language), Henry Fielding (Tom Jones) and John Gay (The Beggar’s Opera). It seems as if you did not count in the Georgian literary world unless you had something to say against Walpole. His literary connection does not stop there. His fourth son, Horace Walpole, sometime politician, was a novelist, considered to be a founder of the Gothic novel genre. Horace Walpole is also credited with coining the term ‘serendipity’, after the Persian story of the mysterious island of Serendip (believed to be Sri Lanka).
As cited in F. List (1841), The National System of Political Economy, translated from the original German edition published in 1841 by Sampson Lloyd in 1885 (Longmans, Green, and Company, London), p. 40.
For details, see: N. Brisco (1907), The Economic Policy of Robert Walpole (The Columbia University Press, New York), pp. 131–3, pp. 148–55, pp. 169–71; R. Davis (1966), ‘The Rise of Protection in England, 1689–1786’, Economic History Review, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 313–4; J., McCusker (1996), ‘British Mercantilist Policies and the American Colonies’ in S. Engerman & R, Gallman (eds.), The Cambridge Economic History of the United States, Vol. 1: The Colonial Era (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge), p. 358; C. Wilson (1984), England’s Apprenticeship, 1603– 1763, 2nd ed. (Longman, London and New York), p. 267.
Export subsidies (then called ‘bounties’) were extended to new export items, like silk products (1722) and gunpowder (1731), while the existing export subsidies to sailcloth and refined sugar were increased in 1731 and 1733 respectively.
In Brisco’s words, ‘Walpole understood that, in order successfully to sell in a strongly competitive market, a high standard of goods was necessary. The manufacturer, being too eager to undersell his rival, would lower the quality of his wares which, in the end, would reflect on other English-made goods. There was only one way to secure goods of a high standard, and that was to regulate their manufacture by governmental supervision’ (Brisco, 1907, p. 185).
Brisco (1907) points out that the first duty drawback was granted under William and Mary to the exportation of beer, ale, mum, cider and perry (p. 153).
The figures for Germany, Switzerland and the Low Countries (Belgium and the Netherlands were united during 1815–30) are from P. Bairoch (1993), Economics and World History – Myths and Paradoxes (Wheatheaf, Brighton), p. 40, table 3.3. Bairoch did not provide the French figure, because of the difficulties involved in the calculation, but John Nye’s estimate of the French overall (not just manufacturing) tariff rate based on customs receipts puts the figure at 20.3% for the 1821–5 period. Given that the corresponding British figure was 53.1%, which is in line with Bairoch’s 45–55%, it may not be unreasonable to say that the average French manufacturing tariff rate was around 20%. See J. Nye (1991), ‘The Myth of Free-Trade Britain and Fortress France: Tariffs and Trade in the Nineteenth Century’, Journal of
