THE DIVERGENCE OF ENGLAND: THE GROWTH OF THE ENGLISH ECONOMY IN THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES

Abstract

AbstractTHAT something remarkable was happening in England in the quarter millennium separating the late sixteenth century from the early nineteenth is plain. In Elizabeth I's reign the Spanish Armada was perceived as a grave threat: the English ships were scarcely a match for the Spanish, and the weather played a major part in the deliverance of the nation. By the later eighteenth century the Royal Navy was unchallenged by the naval forces of any other single country, and during the generation of war which followed the French revolution, it proved capable of controlling the seas in the face of the combined naval forces mustered by Napoleon in an attempt to break the British oceanic stranglehold. Growing naval dominance was a symbol of a far more pervasive phenomenon. In the later sixteenth century England was not a leading European power and could exercise little influence over events at a distance from its shores. The Napoleonic wars showed that, even when faced by a coalition of countries occupying the bulk of Europe west of Russia and led by one of the greatest of military commanders, Britain possessed the depth of resources to weather a very long war, enabling her to outlast her challenger and secure a victory. The combination of a large and assertive Navy and dominant financial and commercial strength meant that, in the early decades of the nineteenth century, Britain was able to impose her will over large tracts of every continent. But her dominance did not grow out of the barrel of a gun. It derived chiefly from exceptional economic success: it grew out of the corn sack, the cotton mill, and the coal mine.