Suchergebnisse

By nature, wars appear hostile to commerce, bringing disruption to international relations and to everyday life. By focusing on the individuals involved in continuing commerce, however, an increasing body of scholarship has shown that merchants in a number of contexts continued to operate successfully during periods of war. This article builds on these recent methodological shifts in business history, applying them to the three Anglo-Dutch wars of the seventeenth century. Although these conflicts have been described as being harmful to commerce, there has been no focus hitherto on merchants' experiences of or responses to these wars. This article addresses this problem and, in so doing, proposes a different way of analyzing and thus characterizing the relationship between the Anglo-Dutch Wars and business. Through examining the surviving correspondence of merchants operating during these wars, I investigate the various methods used—both successfully and unsuccessfully—to navigate obstacles to business during these conflicts. The value of considering this activity in broader British and European contexts is explored, and the range of concerns exhibited by merchants during these periods of conflict is analyzed, showing that war was not paramount among their concerns, despite the political context. Throughout, I show that although all three Anglo-Dutch Wars had an impact on commerce, this was not necessarily negative, and that the most enterprising and proactive merchants benefited from commercial opportunities created by the conflicts.

This article exploresIrish migration, settlement, and commerce in theAtlantic coast ports ofFrance in the period between theGloriousRevolution of 1688–9 and theJacobite uprising of 1715. Drawing on extensive archival material and using current methodologies, this study suggests that the composition of society was vital in the development of international associations. This is particularly pertinent in a period characterized by warfare, religious fervour, and the rise ofJacobitism. Common allegiance toCatholicism and support for theStuart dynasty in bothIreland andFrance provided a framework conducive to international cooperation, but theIrish who settled inFrance held bothCatholic andReformed beliefs, and were not necessarily products of theJacobite movement. Migration and integration, and commercial practices and successes, were not determined solely by religious or political affiliation, but were influenced by the composition of society and the support and acceptance received by immigrants and traders therein. Through an analysis of theFranco‐Irish case study, it is concluded here that the social context of mercantile activity was just as responsible as the political or religious climate in governing the development of international commercial relationships in this period.

Despite significant developments in understanding the role of women in early-modern business, more is needed to fully understand women's impact on eighteenth-century trading networks. Further, much less is known about the role of wider family members, especially children, in the eighteenth-century Atlantic economy. The formal documentation that is privileged in business histories does not tell the whole story, and it frequently represents mercantile activity as a pursuit dominated by a patriarch at the center of a trading network. This article explores eighteenth-century familial commercial networks through extensive use of the personal family correspondence of three merchant families who lived and traded within different locales of the northern Atlantic: Hugh Hall, a merchant and vice judge of the admiralty in Barbados; the Black family, who were wine merchants in Bordeaux; and Joseph Symson, a mercer and shopkeeper from Kendal, England. This article will show that women appear as autonomous players with the power and ability to make informed and independent decisions that directed the business interests of their families. Moreover, it includes an assessment of the ways in which merchants cultivated the expertise of their extended families to enhance their commercial networks and advance their business pursuits. Focusing on children who supported or enhanced the prosperity of the family firm, this article emphasizes that their participation was intentional, not incidental. This article asks questions about the emotional consequences of such activity—which have rarely been considered in any detail—as well as the financial benefit of operating in this manner.