Unplanned Emigration 1688–1756

Abstract

Did the political changes of 1688–1692 in Britain and Ireland mark a significant change in British emigration history? They certainly marked a significant change in the status of British overseas trade, which had grown to such a substantial extent during the seventeenth century, and there was a change in British emigration; ‘whereas seventeenth century settlement [in the western hemisphere] had been mainly English, eighteenth century emigration was emphatically British.’1 With the advent of a more limited monarchy, parliamentary power was more open to the influence of trading interests, and the concern for security of this new monarchy led to political intervention in Ireland and Scotland which brought them into closer contact with the commercialism developing in England, and through that brought Ireland and Scotland increasingly into the emigration networks spawned by overseas trade. The alliance led by William of Orange against the expanding power of France in northern Europe in turn led to imperial conflict between Britain and France overseas, as William extended his influence in Britain and Ireland. After his death, conflict was renewed with the War of the Spanish succession in 1702 and lasted until 1713. The effect of this differed in Ireland and the West Indies in contrast to mainland British North America.