Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-4hhp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-05T09:58:14.783Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Free Trade and Empire in the Anglo-Irish Commercial Propositions of 1785

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 February 2013

James Livesey
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

William Pitt's 1785 proposal for a free trade area between Britain and Ireland attempted to use free trade as a mechanism of imperial integration. It was a response to the agitation for political reform in Ireland and followed the attainment of legislative independence in 1782. The proposal aimed at coordinating economic and fiscal policy between the kingdoms without imposing explicit political controls. This article establishes that the measure failed because of the lack of consensus around the idea of free trade. Three contrasting ideas of free trade became apparent in the debates around the propositions of 1785: imperial or neomercantilist free trade, Smithean free trade, and national or neo-Machiavellian free trade. Imperial free trade was critical of monopolies but sought to organize trade to the benefit of the imperial metropole; Smithean free trade saw open markets as a discipline that assured efficiency but required imperial institutional frameworks, legally secured, to function. Neo-Machiavellian free trade asserted the right of every political community to organize its trade according to its interests. The article establishes the genealogy of these three positions in pamphlet debates and political correspondence in Britain and Ireland from 1689 to 1785. It argues that majority political opinion in Ireland, with exceptions, understood free trade in a neo-Machiavellian sense, while Pitt was committed to a Smithean ideal. The propositions collapsed because these internal tensions became more evident under the pressure of criticism. Liberal political economy did not of itself offer a route to a British exceptionality that finessed the tensions inherent in empire.

Keywords

BritainDrennan, WilliamEmpireFree TradeIrelandLibertyPitt, WilliamPolitical EconomySmith, AdamTucker, Josiah
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of British Studies , Volume 52 , Issue 1 , January 2013 , pp. 103 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © The North American Conference on British Studies 2013

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Arguably, the demand preceded the Glorious Revolution. See Barnard, T. C., “Planters and Politics in Cromwellian Ireland,” Past and Present 61 (November 1973), 60–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Kelly, James, Prelude to Union: Anglo-Irish Politics in the 1780s (Cork, 1992)Google Scholar; Schweitzer, David R., “The Failure of William Pitt's Irish Trade Propositions, 1785,” Parliamentary History 3, no. 1 (1984): 129–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kelly, Paul, “British and Irish Politics in 1785,” English Historical Review 90, no. 356 (July 1975): 536–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McDowell, R. B., Ireland in the Age of Imperialism and Revolution, 1760–1801 (Oxford, 1979), 311–38Google Scholar; Lammey, David, “The Free Trade Crisis: A Reappraisal,” in Parliament, Politics and People: Essays in Eighteenth-Century Irish History, O'Brien, Gerard, ed. (Dublin, 1989)Google Scholar; Malcolmson, A. P. W., John Foster: The Politics of the Anglo-Irish Ascendency (Oxford, 1978), 51–52Google Scholar.

3 Breen, T. H., The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence (New York, 2004)Google Scholar; Cheney, Paul, Revolutionary Commerce: Globalization and the French Monarchy (Cambridge, MA, 2010)Google Scholar; Clark, Henry C., Compass of Society: Commerce and Absolutism in Old-Regime France (Lanham, MD, 2007)Google Scholar; Hirschman, Albert O., The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for Capitalism before Its Triumph (Princeton, 1997)Google Scholar; Hont, Istvan, Jealousy of Trade: International Competition and the Nation-State in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, MA, 2005)Google Scholar.

4 de Secondat, Charles, de Montesquieu, Baron, The Spirit of the Laws, ed. and trans. Mcholer, Anne (Cambridge, 1989), 329Google Scholar.

5 Reinert, Sophus, Translating Empire: Emulation and the Origins of Political Economy (Cambridge, MA, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 Higgins, Padhraig, A Nation of Politicians: Gender, Patriotism and Political Culture in Late Eighteenth-Century Ireland (Madison, WI, 2010), 82–105Google Scholar.

7 Birkett, Mary, The African Slave Trade: Adressed to Members of her own Sex (Dublin, 1792)Google Scholar; Rodgers, Nini, “Two Quakers and a Utilitarian: The Reaction of Three Irish Women Writers to the Problem of Slavery, 1789–1807,” Royal Irish Academy Proceedings 100, no. 4 (2000) 137–57Google Scholar.

8 Hely-Hutchinson, John, A Letter from the Secretary of State to the Mayor of Cork, on the Subject of the Bill presented by Mr. Orde (Dublin, 1785), 17Google Scholar.

9 William Pitt to Charles, Duke of Rutland, 6 January 1785, Bolton Papers, MS 16355.39, National Library of Ireland (NLI).

10 Letter from Richard Wellesley, 3rd Earl of Mornington, to Henry Grattan, 20 June 1785, Add MS 38103 v10, British Library (BL).

11 Thomas Orde to William Pitt, 3 March 1785, Bolton Papers, MS 16355.61, NLI.

12 Rodgers, Nini, “Ireland and the Black Atlantic in the Eighteenth Century,” Irish Historical Studies 32, no. 126 (November 2000): 174–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 The “empire of free trade” has been extensively debated. See Gallagher, John and Robinson, Ronald, “The Imperialism of Free Trade,” Economic History Review 6, no. 1 (1953): 1–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McDonagh, Oliver, “The Anti-imperialism of Free Trade,” Economic History Review 14, no. 3 (1962): 489–501CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Semmel, Bernard, The Rise of Free Trade Imperialism: Classical Political Economy, the Empire of Free Trade and Imperialism, 1750–1850 (Cambridge, 1974)Google Scholar; Sen, Sudipta, Empire of Free Trade: The East India Company and the Making of the Colonial Marketplace (Philadelphia, 1998)Google Scholar.

14 Pitt to Rutland, Downing St, 6th January 1785, Bolton Papers, MS 16355.39, NLI.

15 Semmel, The Rise of Free Trade Imperialism, 33–37, argues this was a tactical position created by their alliance with Fox in opposition to Pitt. See Crowley, John E., “Neomercantalism and the Wealth of Nations: British Commercial Policy after the American Revolution,” Historical Journal 33, no. 2 (1990): 339–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for an alternative reading.

16 Richard Wellesley, 3rd Earl of Mornington, to Charles Townshend, 22 January 1783, Add MS 38103 f5, BL.

17 Whatmore, Richard, “Etienne Dumont, the British Constitution and the French Revolution,” Historical Journal 50 no. 1 (2002): 34–35Google Scholar.

18 Neomercantilist is Semmel's formulation and neo-Machiavellian political economy derives from Istvan Hont's work. Semmel, Free Trade Imperialism, 9; Hont, Istvan, “Free Trade and the Economic Limits to National Politics: Neo-Machiavellian Political Economy Reconsidered,” in Jealousy of Trade: International Competition and the Nation-State in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, MA, 2005), 185–266Google Scholar. The political relevance of Smith's ideas was questioned even by Smith himself, but for the program, see Winch, Donald, Adam Smith's Politics: An Essay in Historiographic Revision (Cambridge, 1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Riches and Poverty: An Intellectual History of Political Economy in Britain, 1750–1834 (Cambridge, 1996)Google Scholar.

19 Bayly, C. A., Imperial Meridian: The British Empire and the World, 1780–1830 (London, 1989), 115–16Google Scholar; Marshall, P. J., The Making and Unmaking of Empires: Britain, India and America, c.1750–1783 (Oxford, 2005), 352–72Google Scholar; Semmel, Bernard, “The Hume-Tucker Debate and Pitt's Trade Proposals,” Economic Journal 75, no. 300 (December 1965), 762–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 See the essays in Bevir, Mark and Trentmann, Frank, eds., Markets in Historical Contexts: Ideas and Politics in the Modern World (Cambridge, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For an extended study of free trade as a structuring intuition in a particular political vision, see Trentmann, Frank, Free Trade Nation: Commerce, Consumption and Civil Society in Modern Britain (Oxford, 2008)Google Scholar.

21 Morgan uses this model of free trade to argue, by contrast, for a dominant mercantalism until the mid-nineteenth century. Morgan, Kenneth, “Mercantalism and the British Empire,” in The Political Economy of British Historical Experience, 1688–1914, ed. Winch, Donald and O'Brien, Patrick K. (Oxford, 2002), 165–91Google Scholar.

22 Reinert, Sophus, Translating Empire: Emulation and the Origins of Political Economy (Cambridge, MA, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 Raynal, Guillaume-Thomas, Histoire philosophique et politique des établissments et du commerce des Européns dans les deux Indes (Amsterdam, 1770)Google Scholar; Anoush Terjanian, “Doux Commerce and Its Discontents: Slavery, Piracy and Monopoly in Eighteenth-Century France” (Ph.D diss., Johns Hopkins University, 2006); Cheney, Paul, Revolutionary Commerce: Globalization and the French Monarchy (Cambridge, MA, 2010)Google Scholar.

24 Bayly, C. A., “Ireland, India and the Empire, 1780–1914,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 10 (2000): 377–97CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Clark, Geoffrey, “Commerce, Culture and the Rise of English Power,” Historical Journal 49, no. 4 (2006): 1239–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rothschild, Emma, “The English Kopf,” in Winch and O'Brien, The Political Economy, 32.Google Scholar

25 Findlay, Ronald and O'Rourke, Kevin, Power and Plenty: Trade, War and the World Economy in the Second Millennium (Princeton, NJ, 2007), 239Google Scholar.

26 Andrien, Kenneth J., “The Spanish Atlantic System,” in Atlantic History: A Critical Reappraisal, ed. Greene, Jack P. and Morgan, Philip D. (Oxford, 2009), 68Google Scholar.

27 Dickson, David, Old World Colony: Cork and South Munster, 1630–1830 (Cork, 2005), 368Google Scholar.

28 Crawford, W. H, The Impact of the Domestic Linen Industry in Ulster (Belfast, 2005)Google Scholar.

29 Cullen, Louis M., An Economic History of Ireland since 1660 (London, 1972), 37–39Google Scholar.

30 Cary, John, An Essay on the State of England in Relation to its Trade, its Poor, and its Taxes, for carrying on the present War against France (Bristol, 1695)Google Scholar; Cary, John, A Vindication of the Parliament of England, in Answer to a Book written by William Molyneux of Dublin, Esq. (London, 1698)Google Scholar.

31 For contrasting views, see Cullen, L. M., “Irish History without the Potato,” Past and Present 40, no. 1 (1968): 72–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mokyr, Joel, “Irish History with the Potato,” Irish Economic and Social History 8 (1981): 8–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32 Butel, Paul, Les Négociants bordelaise, l'Europe et les Iles au XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1974), 78–79Google Scholar.

33 Cary, John, A Discourse concerning the Trade of Ireland and Scotland as they stand in competition with the Trade of England, being taken out of An Essay on Trade (London, 1696), 2Google Scholar.

34 Ibid., 3.

35 John Locke to William Molyneux, 10 January 1698, in Some familiar letters between Mr Locke and several of his friends (London, 1708), 259Google Scholar; Kearney, H. F., “The Political Background to English Mercantalism, 1695–1700,” Economic History Review 11, no. 3 (1959): 481CrossRefGoogle Scholar. But see Kelly, Patrick, “The Irish Woollen Export Prohibition Act of 1699: Kearney Revisited,” Irish Economic and Social History 7 (1980): 22–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 Polloxfen, John, Of Trade (London, 1700), 89Google Scholar.

37 Child, Josiah, A New Discourse of Trade (London, 1693), 156Google Scholar.

38 Davenant, Charles, An Essay upon the probable means of making a People gainers in the balance of trade (London, 1699), 116Google Scholar.

39 Livesey, James, Civil Society and Empire: Ireland and Scotland in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World (New Haven, 2009), 62–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 Wilson, Kathleen, “Empire of Virtue: The Imperial Project and Hanoverian Culture, c.1720–1785,” in An Imperial State at War: Britain from 1689–1815 (London, 1994), 132Google Scholar.

41 Burke, Edmund, “Letter to John Farr and John Harris Esqrs. (Sheriffs of the City of Bristol) on the affairs of America,” in Edmund Burke: Selected Works, ed. Bate, W. J. (New York, 1960), 212Google Scholar.

42 Marshall, P. J., “Empire and Authority in Later Eighteenth-Century Britain,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 15 (1987): 110–15CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 Koehn, Nancy F., The Power of Commerce: Economy and Governance in the First British Empire (Ithaca, NY, 1994), 53Google Scholar.

44 Mildmay, William, The Laws and Policy of England, relating to Trade, examined by the Maxims and Principles of Trade in general (London, 1765), 34Google Scholar; Robbie, Enid, The Forgotten Commissioner: Sir William Mildmay and the Anglo-French Commission of 1750–1755 (Ann Arbor, MI, 2003)Google Scholar.

45 Lawson, Philip, “The Missing Link: The Imperial Dimension in Understanding Hanoverian Britain,” Historical Journal 29 (September 1986): 747–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sen, Sudipta, “Colonial Frontiers of the Georgian State: East India Company's Rule in India,” Journal of Historical Sociology 7 (December 1994): 368–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stern, Philip J., “British Asia and British Atlantic: Comparisons and Connections,” William and Mary Quarterly 63 (October 2006): 693–712Google Scholar.

46 Price, Jacob M., “The Imperial Economy, 1700–1776,” in The Oxford History of the British Empire Volume II: The Eighteenth Century, ed. Marshall, P. J. (Oxford, 1998), 86Google Scholar.

47 Molyneux's location in Irish political tradition is contested. See Kelly, Patrick, “Recasting a Tradition: William Molyneux and the Sources of the Case of Ireland,” in Political Thought in Seventeenth-Century Ireland, ed. Ohlmeyer, Jane (Cambridge, 2000)Google Scholar; Kelly, Patrick, “William Molyneux and the Spirit of Liberty in Eighteenth-Century Ireland,” Eighteenth-Century Ireland: Irís an dá Chultúr 3 (1988): 133–48Google Scholar.

48 Molyneux, William, The Case of Ireland's Being Bound by Acts of Parliament in England Stated (Dublin, 1706), 90Google Scholar.

49 [Leyal, P.], Letters Lately Printed in the Freeman's and Hibernian Journals (Dublin, 1780), 7Google Scholar.

50 London Evening Post, 16 October 1779.

51 Fleming, D. A., Politics and Provincial People: Sligo and Limerick, 1691–1761 (Manchester, 2009), 95Google Scholar.

52 Opinion of Edmond Sexton Pery, 12 June 1779, in O'Brien, George, “The Irish Free Trade Agitation of 1779,” English Historical Review 38, no. 152 (October 1923): 571Google Scholar.

53 Hely-Hutchinson, John, The Commercial Constraints of Ireland Considered in a Series of Letters to a Noble Lord (Dublin, 1779), 220Google Scholar.

54 Tucker, Josiah, Essay on the Advantages and Disadvantages which Respectively Attend France and Great Britain with Regard to Trade 3rd ed. (Dublin, 1753), 61Google Scholar.

55 Beresford to Townshend (fragment) 1779, Townshend Papers, MS 13260, NLI.

56 Tucker, Essay on the Advantages and Disadvantages, 44.

57 Tucker, Josiah, Four Tracts on Political and Commercial Subjects (Gloucester, 1774), 28Google Scholar.

58 Tucker, Josiah, Four Letters on Important National Subjects, Addressed to the Right Honourable the Earl of Shelburne (London, 1783), 7, 9Google Scholar.

59 Ibid., 13.

60 Smyth, Jim, “No Remedy more proper: Anglo-Irish Unionism before 1707,” in British Consciousness and Identity: The Making of Britain, 1533–1707, ed. Bradshaw, Brendan and Roberts, Peter (Cambridge, 1998), 301–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

61 Tucker, Essay on the Advantages and Disadvantages, 44.

62 Prior, Thomas, A List of the Absentees of Ireland, and the yearly value of the estates and incomes spent abroad (Dublin 1729)Google Scholar.

63 Tucker, Essay on the Advantages and Disadvantages, 59.

64 Hont, Istvan, “Adam Smith and the Political Economy of the ‘Unnatural and Retrograde’ Order,” in Jealousy of Trade: International Competition and Nation-State in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, MA, 2005), 354–88Google Scholar; Hont, Istvan, “The ‘Rich Country–Poor Country' Debate in Scottish Classical Political Economy,” in Wealth and Virtue: The Shaping of Political Economy in the Scottish Enlightenment, ed. Hont, Istvan and Ignatieff, Michael (Cambridge, 1983), 271–316CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

65 Morning Post and Daily Advertiser, 22 September 1777.

66 London Chronicle, 7 May 1778.

67 London Evening Post, 30 March 1779.

68 Newenham would later attract suspicions that he was plotting revolution “conformable to his notions, by means of the French and the Irish Catholics.” Orde to Pitt, Dublin, 4 September 1784, Bolton Papers MS 16335.18, NLI.

69 General Evening Post, 19 October 1799.

70 Gilbert, John T., The History of the City of Dublin, 3 vols. (London, 1859), 3:46–47Google Scholar. Gilbert's account coincides with contemporary reports. See General Evening Post, 11 November 1799.

71 Public Advertiser, 16 November 1779.

72 Higgins, Padhraig, “Consumption, Gender, and the Politics of ‘Free Trade’ in Eighteenth-Century Ireland,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 41, no. 1 (2007): 87–105CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Breen, T. H., The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence (New York, 2004)Google Scholar.

73 Lammey, David, “The Free Trade Crisis: A Reappraisal,” in Parliament, Politics and People: Essays in Eighteenth-Century Irish History (Dublin, 1989), 83Google Scholar.

74 Bartlett, Thomas, “Viscount Townshend and the Irish Revenue Board, 1767–73,” Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 79 (1979): 153–75Google Scholar.

75 Dobbs, Francis, A Letter to the Right Hon. Lord North on his propositions in favour of Ireland (Dublin, 1780), 19Google Scholar.

76 Higgins, A Nation of Politicians, 70–73, 87–88.

77 See Browning, Oscar, “Adam Smith and Free Trade for Ireland,” English Historical Review 1, no. 2 (April 1886), 308–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for the basic documents.

78 Smith, Adam, The Correspondence of Adam Smith, ed. Mossner, Ernest Campbell and Ross, Ian Simpson (Indianapolis, 1987), 240, 242Google Scholar.

79 Eden, William, Four Letters to the Earl of Carlisle (London, 1780), 165Google Scholar.

80 Ibid., 140–41.

81 Ibid., 157.

82 Eden, William, Considerations submitted to the People of Ireland on their present conditions with regard to Trade and the Constitution (Dublin, 1781), 44Google Scholar.

83 Ibid., 21.

84 Lammey, David, “The Irish-Portuguese Trade Dispute, 1770–90,” Irish Historical Studies 25, no. 97 (May 1986), 29–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kelly, James, “The Irish Trade Dispute with Portugal, 1780–87,” Studia Hibernica no. 25 (1990): 7–48Google Scholar.

85 House of Commons Ireland, 1 November 1781, London Courant and Daily Advertiser, 9 November 1781.

86 Ibid.

87 Drennan, William, Letters of Orellana, an Irish Helot (Dublin, 1785), 9Google Scholar.

88 Ibid., 13.

89 de Lolme, Jean, The Constitution of England, or, an Account of the English Government (London, 1775)Google Scholar.

90 Drennan, Orellana, 18, 19.

91 Ibid., 22.

92 Ibid., 39–40.

93 Ehrman, John, The Younger Pitt: The Years of Acclaim (London, 1969), 194–221Google Scholar.

94 Hilton, Boyd, A Mad, Bad and Dangerous People? England 1783–1846 (Oxford, 2006), 46Google Scholar.

95 William Pitt to Thomas Orde, 20 August 1784, Bolton Papers MS 16355.11, NLI.

96 Orde to Pitt, 7 September 1784, Bolton Papers MS 16355.20, NLI.

97 The Commercial Regulations with Ireland explained and considered in the Speech of the Right Hon. Mr Orde (London, 1785), 9Google Scholar.

98 Ibid., 18.

99 Kelly, Paul, “British and Irish Politics in 1785,” English Historical Review 90, no. 356 (July 1975): 536Google Scholar.

100 James Kelly, Prelude to Union, 134–37.

101 Hely-Hutchinson, John, A Letter from the Secretary of State to the Mayor of Cork, on the Subject of the Bill presented by Mr. Orde (Dublin, 1785), 6.Google Scholar

102 For a satirical sample of opposition rhetoric, see O'Flaherty, Patrick, The Beauties of Mr Orde's Bill; being Extracts from certain private Speeches of the following Gentlemen in Opposition (Dublin, 1785)Google Scholar.

103 For an account of the high politics of the failure, see Schweitzer, David R., “The Failure of William Pitt's Irish Trade Propositions 1785,” Parliamentary History 3, no. 1 (1984): 129–45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

104 Pitt to Rutland, 7 October 1784, in Correspondence between the Rt. Hon. William Pitt and Charles Duke of Rutland (London, 1890), 42–43Google Scholar.

105 Pitt to Orde, Brightelmstone, 19 September 1784, Bolton Papers, MS 16355.25, NLI.

106 Free Thoughts upon the Present Crisis in which are stated the Fundamental Principles upon which alone Ireland can or ought to agree to any Final Settlement with Great Britain (Dublin, 1785), 13–14Google Scholar.

107 Pitt to Orde, Brightelmstone, 19 September 1784, Bolton Papers, MS 16355.25, NLI; Gibson, Edward, Ashbourne, Lord, Pitt: Some Chapters of his Life and Times (London, 1898), 85Google Scholar.

108 O'Brien, Gerard, Anglo-Irish Politics in the Age of Grattan and Pitt (Dublin, 1987), 67Google Scholar.

109 Gibson, Pitt, 86.

110 On this theme in relation to the British constitution, see a series of articles by Whatmore, Richard, “Etienne Dumont, the British Constitution, and the French Revolution,” Historical Journal 50, no. 1 (2007): 23–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “Commerce, Constitutions, and the Manners of a Nation: Etienne Clavière's Revolutionary Political Economy,” History of European Ideas 22, nos. 5–6 (1996): 351–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

111 Christophe Chamley, “Contingent Government Liabilities against Private Expectation in England, 1743–49,” 22 May 2007, the Institute for Economic Development Working Papers Series, Boston University, Department of Economics, http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bos:iedwpr:dp-166; Hoppit, Julian, “Attitudes to Credit in Britain, 1680–1790,” Historical Journal 33, no. 2 (1990): 305–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Stasavage, David, “Partisan Politics and Public Debt: The Importance of the ‘Whig Supremacy’ for Britain's Financial Revolution,” European Journal of Economic History 11 (2007): 123–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

112 Gibson, Pitt, 86. Orde to Pitt, 7 September 1784, Bolton Papers MS 16355.20, NLI.

113 Laffan, James, Political Arithmetic of the Population, Commerce and Manufactures of Ireland, with observations of the relative situation of Great Britain and Ireland (Dublin, 1785), 9, 23Google Scholar.

114 Paper Bills of Credit, American Colonies Act 1750, 24 Geo. II, c. 53.

115 Tucker, Josiah, “The true interest of Great Britain set forth in regard to the colonies,” in Four Tracts, together with two sermons, on political and commercial subjects (Gloucester, 1774), 150–51Google Scholar.

116 Greene, Jack P. and Jellison, Richard M., “The Currency Act of 1764 in Imperial-Colonial Relations, 1764–1776,” William and Mary Quarterly 18, no. 4 (1961): 486CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

117 Paper Bills of Credit Act 1763, 4 Geo. 3, c. 34.

118 The Crisis; or, a Defence of Administration against the imaginary Victory and ill-grounded Triumph of Opposition (London, 1785), 6Google Scholar.

119 McNally, Patrick, “Wood's Halfpence, Cartaret, and the Government of Ireland, 1723–6,” Irish Historical Studies 30, no. 119 (May 1997): 354–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

120 Pitt to Rutland, 6 January 1785, Bolton Papers MS 16355.40, NLI. The Pitt-Rutland Correspondence, 71, erroneously puts this letter in June 1785.

121 O'Brien, Patrick K., “Inseparable Connections: Trade, Economy, Fiscal State and the Expansion of Empire, 1688–1815,” in Marshall, The Oxford History of the British Empire, 2:68Google Scholar.

122 Bolton MS 15860.11, NLI.

123 “Memorandum on several points of commerce with Ireland,” Bolton MS 16356, NLI.

124 Letter from Orde to Pitt marked secret, 6 June 1785, Bolton MS 15860.13, NLI.

125 Sheffield, John Lord, Observations on the Commerce of the American States (Dublin, 1784), 1Google Scholar.

126 Schwarz, Michael, “The Great Divergence Reconsidered: Hamilton, Madison, and U.S.-British Relations, 1783–89,” Journal of the Early Republic 27, no. 3 (2007): 417CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

127 Observations on the Finances and Trade of Ireland (n.p., n.d. [1785]), 20. Classified in the 1785 volumes of the Halliday Pamphlets in the Library of the Royal Irish Academy.

128 Ibid., 21.

129 Tucker, Josiah, Reflections on the present Matters in Dispute between Great Britain and Ireland (London, 1785), 8–9Google Scholar.

130 Ibid., 23, 32.

131 Historical Manuscripts Commission, The Manuscripts of the Duke of Rutland, 4 vols. (London, 1894), 3:226–27Google Scholar.

132 Chancellor Edward Thurlow, first Baron Thurlow, “Observations respecting Ireland,” 22 November 1785, General MSS 442, f49, Beincke Library.

133 Rutland to Pitt, 14 November 1784, in Rutland Manuscripts, 3:147.

134 A candid Review of Mr Pitt's Twenty Resolutions (Dublin, 1785), 1–2Google Scholar.

135 William Drennan to Martha McTier, 25 August 1785, in The Drennan-McTier Letters, ed. Agnew, Jean (Dublin, 1998), 1:232Google Scholar.

136 Marshall, P. J., The Making and Unmaking of Empires: Britain, India and America c. 1750–1783 (Oxford, 2005), 377Google Scholar.

137 Sheridan, Charles Francis, Free Thoughts on the present Crisis (Dublin, 1785), 49Google Scholar.

138 An Answer to the Reply to the supposed Treasury Pamphlet (London, 1785), 5Google Scholar.

139 [O'Beirne, Thomas Lewis], A Letter from an Irish Gentleman in London, to his Friend in Dublin, on the proposed System of Commerce (Dublin, 1785), 6, 10Google Scholar.

140 Recent arguments asserting this kind of exceptionality include Black, Jeremy, “‘Rule Britannia!’ All Empires Are Not Created Equal,” Modern Age 49, no. 4 (2007): 520–26Google Scholar; Ferguson, Niall, Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World (London, 2004)Google Scholar.

141 Lord Camden to Robert Stewart, Camden Place, 5 August 1785, U840/c/173/91, Centre for Kentish Studies, Camden Manuscripts.

142 Pitt to Orde Putney Heath, 20 August 1785, Bolton MS 16355.79, NLI.

143 Lord Camden to Robert Stewart, 20 August 1785, U840/c/173/92, Centre for Kentish Studies, Camden Manuscripts.

144 Ibid.

145 William Eden (afterward Baron Auckland) to William Pitt, 29 November 1785, General MSS 442, f20, Beinecke Library.

146 HMC, Rutland Manuscripts, 3:155.

147 Hoppen, K. T., “An Incorporating Union? British Politicians and Ireland, 1800–1830,” English Historical Review 123, no. 501 (April 2008): 328Google Scholar.