Introduction

English shipping in the middle of the sixteenth century was at a low ebb, “a meagre coastal traffic, a fishery of moderate scale, a trickle of carrying trade with the Low Countries, Spain, Portugal, France and the Baltic,” as Ralph Davis described it. The three decades from 1570, however, were marked by considerable expansion, driven by the rapid growth of the east coast coal trade, the revival of trade to the Mediterranean and the development of oceanic fishing off Iceland and the Newfoundland Banks. After 1600, voyages to the Indian Ocean became a regular feature of maritime life, while colonization in North America and the West Indies triggered a huge expansion in Atlantic trade.

The growth of these trades doubled tonnage between the 1580s and the 1640s, but as yet posed little threat to the Dutch, who remained the common carriers of Europe. English ships were notable for their strength and fighting abilities, not for their cheapness. Such powerful ships, bristling with men and guns, were suitable for the dangerous waters south and west of Cape Finisterre. But in the bulk carrying trades of the North Sea and the Baltic these expensive ships found it very difficult to compete with the lightly-manned Dutch flyboats.

In the four decades after 1650 tonnage doubled again, with rapid growth in many long-distance trades, above all to America and the West Indies, where the rise of the plantation also encouraged rapid expansion in the slave trade from West Africa. Such growth was counterbalanced to some extent by stability or decline in oceanic fishing and whaling. Nearer home, slower growth in the coal trade was compensated by rapid expansion in the carriage of timber and marine stores from Norway and the Baltic, suggesting that the English were at last becoming competitive in the carriage of bulky low-value cargoes. The other major development after 1650 was the impact of the Navigation Acts, which provided English and colonial shipping with a virtual monopoly of the colonial carrying trade, driving out the once dominant Dutch. In peacetime at least, the manning requirements of the legislation were also observed so that at least three-quarters and probably far more of the sailors on English ships were natives of England or its colonies.