Continuing with excerpts from the Representation to the King by the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations in London, the trade with all of the plantations (colonies) was examined. Besides the colonies on the North American continent, England was also active in Antigua, Barbadoes, Jamaica, Montserrat, Nevis, and St. Christopher. That these were important is shown by the amounts imported to England. There was more imported from Barbadoes and Jamaica each than from Virginia and Maryland combined.
Of the North American plantations, Virginia and Maryland dominated the imports to England. Together they exported to England about four times as much as New England did. Most of this from Virginia was tobacco. From Virginia and Maryland, the annual value of their exports was about 250,000 pounds Sterling. New England ran a trade deficit with England; as a consequence, the merchants of New England developed a lively trade with other locations.
In the three years from Christmas of 1714 to Christmas of 1717, 340 ships cleared English ports for Virginia. This is almost exactly a ship every three days. From the total tonnage in this three years, one can compute that the average size of a Virginia bound ship was 138 tons. This is not very large; it compares in volume to a 2000 square foot house.
Altogether, England imported a little less than 400,000 pounds Sterling from North American colonies, and over one-half of this was tobacco. Other items in order of their value were pitch and tar, logwood, other, rice, skins and furs, turpentine, brown sugar, train oil, and whale fins.
British goods exported to the colonies included woolen goods (147,000), worked iron products (35,000), silk (18,000), wrought leather (15,000), linens (11,000), cordage (11,000), and other (44,000), to the value given in the parenthesis in pound Sterling. These were goods of British origins.
Foreign goods sent to North America from non-British sources include linens (86,000), callicoes (10,000), and other (22,000).
The report noted that exports to the Continent of America exceeded the imports from there by about $200,000 per annum. The Lord Commissioners noted this imbalance was an advantage to Great Britain. Also the trade increased His Majesty's revenue from the Customs very considerably. Also it was noted that many of the imports to England from America were exported to other nations which helped the balance of trade very considerably. For example, about 8,000,000 pounds (weight) of tobacco were consumed annually in England while 17,000,000 pounds were re-exported to other nations. (From this we deduce that a hogshead of tobacco weighed over 800 pounds, a very cumbersome quantity.) Nearly all of trade was carried in British ships.
When a European war developed, the impact on Virginia was severe because the demand for tobacco was reduced.
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.