Exploiting the Urban System? The Frictions of Military Finance and Diplomacy in the Dutch Republic, 1688–1714

Aaron Graham,Jeannette Kamp

doi:10.1163/15700658-bja10042

Abstract

Abstract This article examines how international military finance operated in the Dutch Republic between 1688–1714. The region’s unique urban geography in which the political and financial infrastructures crucial for military financing were geographically dispersed created stresses and strains. These inconveniences were overcome due to the Republic’s excellent intra-urban infrastructure – creating fast and reliable communication between the different urban centers – and their reliance on (semi-)private agents, the solliciteurs-militair. As a result, the urban system created a level of flexibility: credit for military purposes could be found both in The Hague and Amsterdam, rather than having to rely on a single city as was the case in London. This focus on the urban has broader historiographical importance because recent scholarship on early modern war and state formation is increasingly questioning whether the focus on political and financial centralization is necessarily the best way to understand these processes.

Highlights

In November 1709, the Scottish merchant John Drummond had to apologize to his correspondent in London for mixing up a financial transaction that had caused a certain amount of inconvenience in Britain’s ongoing war effort against France
The incident speaks to important aspects of warfare, finance, and state formation in the early modern Dutch Republic which have so far gone largely overlooked, namely the “frictions” created by the region’s unique urban geography and how they were overcome
This article seeks to advance the existing literature on warfare and finance in the early modern Dutch Republic in particular, and European state formation in general, by using the specific spatial challenges facing the United Provinces to assert the importance of space and place as a factor in the process of statebuilding

Summary

Introduction

In November 1709, the Scottish merchant John Drummond had to apologize to his correspondent in London for mixing up a financial transaction that had caused a certain amount of inconvenience in Britain’s ongoing war effort against France. Two thirds of its population were so poor as to be exempted from taxes, and the remainder were drawn mainly from the ranks of officials and officeholders in the States General and the Generality Still, this political elite and large numbers of rentiers residing in the city, were always looking for stable and secure investments, and paper securities – mainly provincial and central government bonds – formed the largest proportion of their assets.[40] Though obviously integrated to a considerable degree with the Amsterdam financial markets, those in The Hague remained separate, not just enabling but requiring military officials such as the solliciteurs-militair looking to raise funds to tap into pools of capital and credit left untouched by Amsterdam financiers, or looking for a different type of investment. He participated in the sale and purchase of Dutch bonds for Willem Schnell, representative of Denmark, before and after his return home in 1714, as did other solliciteurs.[50]

46 On networks of receivers and investors

Findings

Conclusion