American Naval Stores Chapter 1 Summary

This chapter deals with the condition of Britain’s import of naval stores in the 1710s and William Wood’s mercantile view. In particular, this chapter illustrates that the development of the naval stores policy had a crucial influence on mercantilist’s view about the naval stores policy and the Northern Colonies by analysing the increase in the amount of imported American naval stores. After the War of the Spanish Succession, the amount of Britain’s import of American tar increased sharply from 333 lasts in 1711 to 2,097 lasts in 1715 and 3,773 lasts in 1716. There were some reasons for this rapid increase. Firstly, the effect of the Naval Stores Act was showing up in the condition of the American naval stores trade. Owing to the bounty system in this act, merchants could receive sufficient bounty through the American naval stores trade. Therefore, they regard this trade as profitable and began to deal with American naval stores. Secondly, the end of the War of the Spanish Succession activated the transatlantic commerce drastically. The end of the war caused the decline in the risk of the navigation in the Atlantic, which led the decrease in the

As Britain depended heavily on Russia and the East Country to procure hemp in the early eighteenth century, the government desired that the colonies in America would be new sources of hemp through the naval stores policy. Hemp was regarded as one of the important naval stores in the naval stores policy, and the government discussed American hemp production repeatedly in the 1710 in order to decrease the dependence on Russian hemp. In particular, the Navy desired the success of the production of American hemp. However, unlike in the case of American pitch and tar, hemp industry did not progress utterly in