Las Canarias enel mercado mundial inglés del s. XVIII

              THE CANARIES IN THE BRITISH TRADING WORLD
OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
WALTER MINCHINTON
m
Running south along the rim of Africa is a string of islands E
-the Azores, Madeira, the Canaries, the Cape Verdes, St. Helena, O
Ascension and Tristan da Cunha- most of them of volcanic origin. -
Their peaks provided welcome landmarks for ocean-bound mariners m
O
E but, by their nature, they lacked good anchorages and did not pro- £
2 vide very adequate harbours of refuge. Yet any landfall was better E
than nothing. As ports of call, they provided fresh water and food
and, if weather conditions were good, shelter where crippled ships 3
might be repaired or sick sailors put ashore. Once oceanic explora- - -
0
tion and trading from Europe began at the end of the fifteenth cen- m
E
tury, these Atlantic islands were drawn into world commerce and O
affected by diplomacy. Settled by Europeans, they found a
new role. The value of these islands varied dependieng on their loca- -
E
tion and what they had to offer in terms of supplies and a a
market. -
Among thern were the Canaries. Though most of the archipe-lago
was on the edge of things, the peak of Tenerife became a well- 3
known landmark and Gran Canaria, from Christopher Columbus O
onwards, was also visited by Europeans on their westward voyages.
The Canaries occupied an awkward position. With favourable
winds, they provided a convenient landfall for vessels sailing from
Europe to the Americas and the West Indies but they were seldom
visited on the return voyages, the winds carrying vessels to the Azo-res
instead. Vessels intending to return directly from the Canaries to
Europe had to battle against unfavourable northeasterlies on their
retum voyages .
When English trade with the Canaries began in the sixteenth
century, sugar was the main commodity which visiting vessels took
676 Walter Minchinton
on board. But as this commodity could be obtained more cheaply
from Brazil and the West Indies, it was replaced by wine which from
the late sixteenth century found a growing market in England. Pro-duced
from the malvasia grape brought via southern Spain from
Cyprus, the Canaries and chiefly Tenerife produced severa1 types of
wine. There was a greenish dry wine, a purplish sweet liquor made
from over-ripe grapes, a sweet white malvasia -which becarne the
most important commercial type in the seventeenth century- and a
parcel of vidueño (Verona or Vidonia) wines, common table wines,
which because of competition and taste found little sale in Europe but
uJere marketed in Spanish America and the English colonies in the
West Indies, notably Barbados, and jn New England.' The malvasia ,, -
marketed in Europe was a luxury wine which fetched a good price E
but was intended for consumption within a year of harvest. -O -- m
Just as from the mid-eighteenth century, in order to expand the O
market for madeira wine, it was fortified with brandy as the result of SE
the initiative of an English merchant, so in emulation a «false E
madeiran was produced in the Canaries to increase sales of wine. A
Harnburg merchant reported in 1762 that the wines «you cal1 3
Canary, where of there is no such made here these last seven or eight -
0
m
years, because the Vidonia sort came so much in vogue, as passed E
for Madeira abroad, that these inhabitants has inclined entirely to O
make this ~ o r t ) )T.h~is afalse madei ra~fo und a market not only in
England but also in America and the Far East. E
a
The late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries saw the apogee of
the Canaries as a supplier of quality wines for England, of which
there is abundant literary evidence. In The merry wives of Windsor,
Shakespeare had the Host of the Garter Inn say, ((1 will to my
honest knight Falstaff, and drink canary with him» while in Twelfth
night, Sir Toby Belch comments of Sir Andrew Aguecheek, «O
h i@, &a !a& S: 2 wp =f cm~ry- !W h e ~di d 1 e e t hee so put
down?)). Ben Jonson, who was known as a danary-bird», wrote of
((canary, the very elixir and spirit of wine» and «a pure cup of rich
Canary wine» while in 161 9 Pasquil spoke of (idelicate canarp.
Such references continued through the seventeenth century . In Love
for love, William Congreve wrote in 1695, «Body o» me, 1 don't
iuiow any universai grievance büi a iiew iaa, oi the los of the
Canary fleeb3,
The Canaries in the british trading world of the eighteenth century 677
1. The Canaries as a supplier
The main English trade was eith the largest f the islands,
Tenerife, on which was concentrated abot half the population of the
archipelago, about 100.000 ,in 1700. With Gran Canaria and
Palma, the only other exporting islands, there was only a trifling
trade. Even with Tenerife there were two practica1 difficulties. The
island had no good anchorages so that when there was bad weather,
vessels had to stand off shore to ride out the storms. Then the wine,
pressed in September, became available in November and Decem-ber
so that vessels had to beat their way back to England against the
prevailing north-easterlies in the dark and dirty weather of the
wintry seas.
Severa1 factors combined to reduce the market for canary sine
in England in the eighteenth century. First, in general the consump-tion
of wine there fe11 in the eighteenth century. Then politi-cal
events hampered the sale of canary wine. When the Methuen
Treaty with Portugal was concluded in 1704 it struck a blow at the
market for French and Spanish wines in Engiand. The treaty provi-ded
that the duty on Portuguese wine should be lower than that on
other imported wines - no more thiin two-thirds of the duty on
other imported wines. And the duty on Spanish wine was raised by
the peace treaty in 1714.4 Accordingly, the market for port in
England, which had already been growing in the 1690s, expanded
and carne to dominate drinking habits in England. It is tme that
canary continued to be drunk in some quarters. In London the city
companies, like the Barbers' Company, the Haberdashers and the
Ironmongers' Company, who were conservative bodies, were faith-ful
to canary and still gave it pride of place at their dinners in the first
half of the eighteenth century and there were noblemen, like John
Hervey, the first Earl of Bristol, who continued to buy canary for
their c e l l a r~.B~u t many switched to Portuguese wines and so the
cmsumpti~n ~f c-in-iry fe!!, IS T&!e ! S ~ O W S .
The most serious check to the trade in canary wine carne in the
1700s when England lost access to the Canaries as well as to metro-politan
Spain and Spanish possessions in the Mediterranean.
English merchants were thrown out of the Canaries, leaving behind
wine in their cellars worth £8.000. Such heavy losses they were
llever &le tu recuver."Alib without hope "f rec"mpeñce añd Uie
expectation that the future of trade with the Canaries was poor,
Walter Minchinton
TABLE 1
English imports of Canary wine and total wine imports
1702-1804 ('000 gallons: annual averages)
Percentage
Year Canary wine canary wine Total wine
NB: The imperial gallon introduced in 1826 had a content one-sixth greater than the old
gallon
Source: Ralph Davis, «The English wine trade in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries)), Ana-les
Cisalpines d'Histoire Sociale, 111 (1972) 105.
these merchants tiever returned. As only a few remained, the with-drawal
brought a virtual end to the English mercantile community in
the Canaries. Of those who did stay, John Crosse junior became the
leader. During the war he served as Danish consul but he resumed
his post as British consul when peace returned. His position was not
easy and he operated under dificulties. When hostilities between
Spain and England were resumed in 17 18, Canarian officials seized
7'he Canaries in the british trading world of the eighteenth centuw 679
Crosse's goods, claimed al1 debts owed him and sold his library, fur-niture
and horse. They would have seized his bedding and clothes,
Crosse said, except for the intervention of the bishop of the Cana-ries.'
Despite this treatment, Crosse continued to work for a reviva1
of the trade between the Canaries and England. In this he had the
support of the Marques de Montelon, the Spanish ambassador in
London. But their arguments had little effect on the British
authorities.
Crosse complained that only three Protestants had returned to
Tenerife after the war and that the British factory there had become
dominated by Irish Catholics, some of whom had arrived in the pre-vious
century. With the connivance of the Spanish authorities, he
reported, they enjoyed special privileges in the islands. The Irish-men,
Crosse said, ignored his consular edicts, refused to pay consu-lar
fees and insinuated Spanish oEcials into disputes within the
British fact~ry.~Amonthge Irish merchants who established them-selves
in Tenerife, some of whom married Spanish women, were
Brook & Walsh (later Valois), Cologan Murphy, Fitzgerald (Geral-dín),
Forstall, Mahan, Mead, Commyns, Power, Creagh, White
(Blanco), Lynch, Roch, O'Ryan and O'Shea while in Gran Canaria
there were the O'Shanahans and Russells and in La Palma the
Machgees and O'Dalys? In the 1760s Glas reported that the grea-test
part of the trade of the Canaries was «in the hands of the Irish
Roman Catholic merchants sttled in Tenerife, Canaria and Palma'
and no Protetant merchants remained ((excepting the English and
Dutch consuls and two merchants, who al1 reside at Te-nerife))
.lo
Canary wine was overhelmingly the most important product of
the Canaries marketed in England but there were others of lesser sig-nificance.
((The triumphs of British textiles during the Industrial
Revolution would have been unthinkable without improvements in
finishingn, it has been said,I1 and so dyestuffs played a key role. One
of these was cochineal. the scarlet dyestuff which consisted of the
dried bodies of the cocchus insect. Portugal was the main supplier
but one of the sources of this dye was Tenerife.I2 Details of the
volume of imports for seven years in the early eighteenth century are
set out in Table 2. This trade was to be of greater importance in the
nineteenth century .
-A -n- -o -t -h- -e -r - d_y&uffin &mlfid w l l ~r~hi!!22, pcp!e ci,ye ~ k t ~ i n e d
from lichens found in the Canaries, particulary in Lanzarote and
Walter Minchinton
TABLE 2
English imports of cochineal 1709-1 715
(lbs)
Year 1709 1710 1711 1712 1713 1714 1715
From the Canaries 1,117 1,529 1,234 614 7,941 24 -
Total imports 62,712 50,357 64,716 80,599 121,348 18,864 3,257
Source: Journal of (he House of Commons, XVlIl (17 14-18) 158. m
Fuerteventura. It came to be known as ((Canary weed)). Gathered
wild, it was said that the labour required for its collection competed
with the cultivation of corn in the Canaries, as for example in
1764.j3 Such was the demand for it in England during the Seven
Years' War that Miles Nightingale, an English drysalter, sent his
own captain to the Canaries to barter for orchilla under the noses of
the Spanish authorities.14 An indication of its scarcity was that sup-plies
of orchilla wer sometimes adulterated with sand.I5
Other imports from the Canaries included sugar, gum, pome- n
granates and citrus fruits (oranges and lemons). -E
Throughout the century trade was affected by war and the a
A
threat of war. Imports of canary wine recovered when the war ended n
in 171 3 but were reduced again by the War of the Quadruple n
Alliance and were harmed again by the Spanish depredations of the O3
1730s. The outbreak of war in 1741 when Spain joined the War of
Austrian Succession rendered trade more difficult, while the Seven
Years' War between 1755 and 1763 provided a more severe check.
Exports to England recovered in the late 1760s but were again redu-cecj
when Spaiñ eñiered the Ameiicciii Rwolütionzq !+'ar i:: ! 779.
When peace returned, the market for Spanish wine in England
increased in the late 1780s and 1790s. But these fluctuations in the
eighteenth century in English imports of canary wine were about a
low trend. It must be emphasised that the volume of canary wine
marketed in England was dwarfed throughout the eighteenth century
by Portuguese imports. During the whoie century ai ieasi iialf of ihe
The Canaries in the british trading world of the eighteenth centurv 681
foreing wines consumed in England (with the sole exception of
1 7 1 2- 14) came from Portugal.
But war did not always bring trade completely to an end. On
occasion merchants, both in England and the Canaries, endeavoured
to secure the continuance of the trade. After the neutrality edicts of
1705 the English import of wine was resumed. In 1741 and 1743
Spain allowed the import of English provisions and other necessa-ries
provided they were carried in neutral shipping on the account of
neutral merchants and in 1747 the repeal of the law prohibiting trade
with Spain passed in 1739 was attempted.16 Later in the century
George Glas noted that «the inhabitants of the Canary islands are
extremely averse to war. .. In the case of the last war with England
[the Seven Years' War] they endeavoured to procure a neutrality for
their islands)) . And he continued, «A master of a ship of any nation
which may happen to be at war with Spain may, if he manages pm-dently,
trade at Porto Orotava without the least danger of the natives
being able to seize his vessel: but she must have guns, and be
well manned .» l 7
11. The Canaries as a market for British goods
The imports here Great Britain consist chiefly of woollen
goods of various kinds, hats, hard-ware, pilchards, red-herrings,
wheat when it is scarce in the islands with a number of other
articles which would be too tedious to specifi.
George Glas, Histoty of rhe Canaries ( 1 764) p. 327
It is not easy to quantify either the volume or the value of indivi-dual
exports because of the patchy nature of the statistics available.
For a twenty-year period in the later eighteenth century details of the
muu"fñ wi"" iien añd w"rsie=J goo& by "a]ue are a"aiia'o]e ísee
Table 3) which reveal most notably the effect of the American Revo-lution
on this trade, with exports reduced to nothing in the three
years 1780-2. Of textiles, the most important of British exports to
the Canaries, Glas commented that while for everyday use the inha-bitants
of the Canaries usually wore local cloth, <<onfe stivals, wed-dings
&c the iabouring people usually wear English coarse cloth».18
Some linen was also exported and flax. In 1725 flax worth £144, in
682 Walter Minchinton
TABLE 3
Value of woollen and worsted goods exported from England
to the Canaries 1767-1 786
Source: British Library Additional Manuscript 38.376 f. 1 1 . n
1750 flax to a value of 2526 and in 1775 flax worth f 1.942 was sent 5
O
from London to the Canaries.lY
Hats were another textile product of some importante which
found a market in the Canaries. In 1725 484 dozen beaver and cas-i-..
i--*- 1 1 rn J c-1, riiiiii T a- A- n__- iur rws anu i JY uuLen ieii nais were serii irorri ~uriuurii o iiie Laira-ries;
in 1736 the figures were 645 dozen beaver and castor hats and
236 dozen felt hats; and in 1752 they were 792 dozen beaver and
castor hats and 130 dozen feIt hats. Because of the war there were
no hats exported in 1762 but in 1775 928 dozen felt hats and 226
dozen beaver and castor hats were exported then~e.~T'h us in nor-mai
times, the Canaries offered a iimited but steady market íor
English-made hats.
The Canaries in the british trading world of the eighteenth century 683
Amongst other manufactures exported from London, metal goods
of various sorts were of some consequence. Thus in 1725 over 3 18
cwt of wrought iron worth E874 and 104 cwt of pewter worth E367
was exported to the Canaries. In 1750 596 cwt of wrought iron
valued at E1.640, 107 cwt of pewter worth £375, 81 cwt of brass
valued at £367 and 50 cwt of copper worth £265 was sent to the
islands. And in 1775 1.267 cwt of wrought iron valued at E3.485,
239 cwt of pewter worth £836, 110 cwt of wrought brass valued at
E495 and 55 cwt of wrought copper worth E291 was exported
then~e.~'
Among foodstuffs, fish was of some importance. A larger
supply came from the New England colonies but some came from
British waters, notably pilchards from the south-west of England and
herrings from Ireland. A return specifying the fish by type reveals
the position for the years 1709-1 4 (Table 4). The fish from British
waters and from the New England colonies supplemented the fish
which the Canarians were able to obtain from their own fisheries
along the Barbary ~ o a s t O. ~f ~th e fish from New England, the
Governor of New York, the Earl of Bellomont, reported that uthe
median or midling fish they send to the Canaries, the Madeiras and
Fial and also to J a m a i c a ~I.n~ ~ad dition to fish, other foodstuffs
exported to the Canaries from Ireland were beef, pork and
butter.
TABLE 4
Exports of fish from England to the Canaries 1710-1 71 4
Year Cod Red herrings White herrings Pilchards
1709 - - 307 barrels 346 hogsheads
1710 - 123 barrels* 9 barrels 353 hogsheads
1712 - - 12 1 barrels -
17 13 - 60 barrels 6 1 barrels 947 hogsheads
1714 - - 10 barrels 495 hogsheads
* 80 barrels in foreign vessels.
Source: Public Record Ofice, London (PRO) CO 39015f. 14.
684 Walter Minchinton
Grain exports to the Canaries varied markedly from year to
year with the state of the harvest. Thus in 1725 460 quarters of
wheat and 100 quarters of rye were exported to the Canaries and in
1750,9 19 quarters of wheat and 41 9 quarters of rye were exported
t h e n ~ eI.n~ 1~7 75, according to the Customs records, no grain was
carried from England to the Canarie~.*C~e reals were also brought
by Engiish vessels to the Canaries from the Mediterranean. Even so,
because of the small demand in the Canaries for English products,
some vessels went out from England in ballast.
111. The Canaries, British North America and the West Indies
To the British colonies in America a great quantity of wine and
nothing else.
George Glas, History of the Canaries, p. 329
After England, the second market for canary wine within the
British trading empire in the eighteenth century was British posses-sions
in North America and the West Indies. This trade developed
despite a considerable debate about the legality of the direct export
of canary wine to the American colonies. Under English law, while
Portuguese wine might be sent directly to English colonies, the
direct export of the wines of other European producers was forbidden.
Merchants argued that direct export from the Canaries should be allowed
because the Canaries formed part of Afiica and not of Europe and provi-ded
a market for Engiish goods .26 Customs officials and colonial gover-nors
found it difficult to accept these argurnents though the merchants
were supported by the legal authorities. Sir Robert Sawyer, Attor-ney
General in 1686, and Sir Edward Northey in 1706 as well as
the standing counsel of the Board of Trade, Francis Fane, in 1737
argued that the Canaries should be regarded as part of Africa and
not of Europe. This problem lingered on. In 1782 the contractors
- - - 1 - * - - A - wno nao LA- Tnnnt;fn tn C+ 1 lipia aOrPPd LGHUG~GU cv D U P ~ ! ~w k t ? UULU biiviiir bv ".. .. ---
to do so provided they were given exemption from seizure under the
navigation acts .27
Despite the legal arguments, canary wines were imported
openly into colonies such as New York, Massachusetts and South
Carolina and probably elsewhere. Though there were a number of
hearings on tne matter by vice-acimiraiiy courts -fur ex&ipk iíi
m e Canaries in the british trading world of the eighteenth century 685
Rhode Island and South Carolina- there is only one case recorded
of a seizure of wines for a breach of the navigation acts. Charles
Andrews suggests that «it may be that the conflicting opinions of the
authorities and the "conceived notion that Canaries are confiscable"
deterred many British merchants from undertaking the trade» .28 But
whether this was in fact the case is open to question.
While there is a shortage of statistics relating to the Canaries
trade with the British North American colonies, we have a number
of collections of merchants)) papers which illuminate that trade. In
1752 Gerard Beekman, a New York merchant, attempted to enter
the Canary trade, sending a cargo of provisions, but because he fai-led
to develop a trade in spermacetti candles, he did not persist with
this venture. However he continued to import small quantities of
Vidonia wines in the 1750s and earley 1760s, noting in 1761 that
Tenerife wine was «a dull article at this market in New
York» .29
From the 1750s also Henry Laurens, a merchant of Charleston,
South Carolina, engaged in the wine trade with the Canaries. He
imported Vidonia wine through his agent George Commyns in Tene-rife
from at least 1757. Between 1759 and 1763 he advertised that
he had imported excellent Vidonia wine but complained in July
1763 that because of the amount of wine available in Charleston, the
price of canary wine had fallen sharply. Wine «has lately been
sold», he reported, «for the bare cost at Tenerife exclusive of freight,
insurance, &c~.30 «YOU could scarcely have fallen upon a more
unlucky article for the Carolina Market than Winen, he wrote in
October 1763 to a London c~rrespondent.~In' 1768 he recommen-ded
his Bristol correspondent, William Cowles, to get a «proper
Cargo» for his ship at Hamburg and sail directly for the Canaries
and «take in about 200 Pipes of what is called Vidonia Madeira
Wine not high Coloured nor sweetned so much as usual» .32 In early
1770 the proposed sale of 600 pipes of wine brought from Tenerife
was deemed a breach of the non-importation agreement and the
merchant Alexander Gillon was ordered to store or reship the
~ i n e .In~ J~un e that year Henry Laurens reported that he
was forbidden to se11 canary wine in his hands until the non-importation
agreement was ~a n c e l l e dT.~he~ import of canary wine
9 2 s rrsuxyLrd& og!y &~-wu& wsc hrniiaht te g stZqdSti!! " "' ---Ue+-C
again early in 1775 with the new non-importation agreement.
686 Walter Minchinton
The papers of Aaron Lopez, a merchant of Newport, Rhode
Island, provide an illustration of the place of the Canaries in a round-about
pattern of trade. In the late 1760s and early 1770s, Lopez'
vessels carried fish, grain and lumber to Spain, Portugal and what
was then known as the Streights (Gibraltar and the western end of
the Mediterranean) where the goods that they carried were sold.
With the proceeds, lemons, salt, wine and luxuries such as Barce-lona
handerkerchiefs were bought. The vessels would then sail to the
Isle of May for more salt or to Madeira and the Canaries for wine or
to al1 three destinations. The wine would be carried to the West
Indies, where it was sold. On the voyage home to Newport, Rhode
Island the vessels would carry molasses.35 But there were also other
patterns of trade. In July 1769 Captain Zebediah Story, master of
the sloop Charlotte, one of Lopez'vessels, sailed from Newport to
Tenerife where he landed his cargo which was disposed of by
Lopez' Tenerife factor, Townshend. He then went on a trading
voyage in the eastern Atlantic and returned to the Canaries three
and a half months later with a cargo of cocoa. About 8 April 1770
he left Tenerife and arrived at St Eustatia in the West Indies on 4
May. He reported that while other vessels had been unable to se11
any wine in St Eustatia because of its bad quality, he had sold four-teen
pipes of wine and expected to purchase sugar, duck, ozenbrigs
and cordage with a further 20 to 30 pipes. He arrived back in New-port
about 11 J ~ n eI.n ~1~77 2 Captain Story was part-owner with
Aaron Lopez of the snow Venus. He left Newport on 4 January for
Madeira where the price of wine was too high for his liking. After
severa1 trading voyages in southern Europe, he reported to Lopez on
5 December that he intended to carry out another charter and then
sail to Tenerife for wine. In the event he did not do so, returning
directly from Gibraltar to the West Indies and thence back to
Ne~port.~'
While no merchants'papers are readily available to document
the export of wine from the Canaries to the West Indies, the naval
rhippifig. !ists pr~vi& evi&nc- for a small trade in canary
wine carried to the West Indies both in British vessels and in vessels
owned in New Englax~dI.n~ ~th e middle of the eighteenth century a
subsidiary export developed from the Canaries to the West Indies.
«We are establishing)), J Magree, the English consul, reported, «a
trade of supplying camels and mules to the West India
T,l,,A",, 39
IJl(U1UDfI
The Canaries in the british trading world of the eighteenth century 687
Particularly in time of war, British warships bound for the West
Indies or stations in the North American colonies called in at the
Canaries. So in 175 8 the British fleet which sailed from Plymouth to
Halifax, Nova Scotia called at the Canaries on its westward voyage?'
In return, from the British colonies in America, Glas reported,
«deal boards, pipe staves, baccalao or dried cod and beef, pork,
ham, beeswax, rice &c and in times of scarcity corn, when the crops
fail in the islands, maize, wheat and floum were exported to the
Canarie~.T~h' is general statement can be translated into the needs
of a particular merchant. On 4 April 1790 Francisco Sarmento of
Tenerife, writing to Christopher Champlin of Newport, Rhode
Island, set out a list of «the most proper Articles for the Teneriffe
Market: India Corn, Rye, Flour, pork, beef, rise, candles, bar iron,
cordage, hawsers, duck, and al1 kind of brown and coarse linens.
These last articles)), Sarmento commented, «are very saleable
at al1 times)) .42
IV. The Canaries and the wider British trading world
The third market for Canary products in the British trading
world of the eighteenth century was in the East Indies. The Canaries
were in the track of the vessels of the East India Company sailing
east and canary wine found a ready market there and was also
valued as a p r e ~ e n tC. ~an~a ry wine was also liked by the factors. In
the later eighteenth century ((false madeira)) found a market there
too. In 176 1 there is a report of an English East Indiarnan calling at
the Canaries en route for Madras which took on board a consign-ment
of wine. The captain and gentlemen on board assured the con-signees
that «it pleased them as much and even better than any
Madeira they have ever drunk ... they planned to write the directors
Canaries. Thus, Woodes Rogers put in to Tenerife in 1708 on his
voyage round the ~ o r l adn~d C~a ptain James Cook called at Tene-rife
in 1776 on his voyage to the Pacific. During a stay of three days,
he obtained hay and corn for the stock and found no fault with the
water nr fresh privisims bct !zmented the niyz!iQ ef the wice, cheq
as it ~ a s . ~ ~
688 Walter Minchinton
V. me Canaries and British shipping
Trade with Tenerife is almost wholly carried on in foreign bot-toms,
especially in English.
George Glas, History of the Canaries, p. 327
Then there was the involvement of shipping in trade with the
Canaries. For ten years in the early eighteenth century it is possible
to get a picture of the shipping involved in the direct English trade
with the Canaries. From Table 5, severa1 points emerge. First, it is
clear that this trade was dominated by London and that the outports
-including Bristol, Falmouth, Liverpool and Plymouth- played a
lesser part in the trade at this time. London vessels were larger than
those of the other English ports. Understandably, because of the
neeá to carry guns for áefence, vesseis were usuaiiy iarger -ami
fewer- in wartime than in peace. No comparable information exists
for the rest of the eighteenth century though from LloydS List it
appears that with the decline in the wine trade, the number of vessels
participating in the Canaries trade was reduced.
TABLE 5
English vessels sailing to the Canaries 1 710-1 71 7
London Outports
Average Average
Number Tons tonnage Number Tons tonnage
The Canaries in the british trading world of the eighteenth century 689
kmdon Average Out~ortsA verage
Number Tons tonnage Number Tons tonnage
1716 14 1.108 79 10 355 35
Source: PRO CO 388118 (1710-14), CO 39018 (1715-17), CO 39015 (1718-19).
But, of course, Table 5 understates English involvement in the
trade with the Canaries, though it is not easy to put a figure to it. A
number of vessels cleared first for European ports, such as Hamburg,
Amsterdarn, Dunkirk or Cadiz, and then sailed ofr the Canaries with
products of those countries as well as English goocis for the Canaries.
In 1764, to give two exarnples, Miles Nightingale's vessel, the
Prince William, sailed from London to Cadiz and then to Lanzarote
and in the following year his ship, the Adventure, called at Dunkirk
before sailing to the Canarie~.~T'h is pattern of ship employment
explains why in some years fewer vessels cleared for the Canaries
than retumed from thence (see Tables 5 and 6). Even so, in the eigh-teenth
century only a small proportion of the British trading fleet was
engaged directly or in a roundabout way in trade between England
and the Canaries. But British vessels did not enjoy a complete mono-poly:
a few foreign vessels, notably from Hamburg, Amsterdam and
Cadiz, also took part in these branches of commerce, as Table
6 s h o ~ s . ~ ~
Some of the ships which sailed to the Canaries were regular tra-ding
vessels, usually consigned to particular merchant houses there;
some of them were chartered for the trade. Of these, S I ~ Pw r e sent
out speculatively to get what cargoes they could. In the later seven-teenth
century, because of the great importance of the wine trade,
most of the ships retumed from the Canaries in December or
J a n ~ a r ybu~t ~by the middle of the eighteenth century, ships arriving
from the Canaries at British ports were less concentrated in the two
~interm ~nt_k,sT.i~tt!~e inf~m.ati~:i?s 8~üi!üb!e &m: fieig% rates
but there were shipments in 1729 and 1736 at £3 per ton from Tene-
690 Walter Minchinton
TABLE 6
Vessels entering London from the Canaries 171 7-1 719
English Foreign
Average Average
Number Tons tonnage Number Tons tonnage
1719 2 1 1.425 68 6 382 64 m
E
Source: PRO CO 390/5.
U
n
=m
O
E rife.5' This rate reflects both the hazardous nature of the roadsteads E
2
in the Canaries and the delay which might result when a ship was E
driven to sea by bad weather. Though a pruden shipowner might
obtain a Mediterranean pass, vessels could still be at risk from the 3
depredations of the Sallee pirates Thus in 174011 the Elizabeth for e-
Dunkirk was taken by a Salleeman near O r o t a ~ a . ~ ~ m
E
Some British vessels carried goods from the Canaries to ports in U
the West Indies and also to the British North American colonies. 6
But the greater number of vessels in this trade belonged to shipow- n
E
ners in the colonies who either dispatched cargoes directly to the a
Canaries and brought back wine or engaged in more roundabout pat- n
tenis of commerce, as already described. There appear to have been
no foreign vessels in this branch of trade. 3
The dispatch of wine to the Far East was a subsidiary trade vir-o
tually monopolised by the vessels of te East India Company and
there were no foreign vessels involved.
VI. The balance of trade
In the late seventeenth century when the import of canary wines
into England was at its height, English writers were critica1 of the
trade. «The trade in Canary wine)), Josiah Child wrote, ((1 take to be
the most pemic~oust rade to Engianci, because hose isla~idsw imiie
The Canaries in the british trading world of the eighteenth century 691
very little of our manufactures-, fish or other English commodities:
neither do they fumish us with any commodities to be further manu-factured
here or exported, the wines we bring from thence being for
the most part purchased with ready money so that to my apprehen-sion,
somethings is necessary to be done to compel those Islanders to
se11 their wines cheaper (which every year they advance in price) or
else to lessen the consumption of them in England».53 Between 1697
and 1701 English imports from the Canaries (almost entirely of
wine) averaged 286,000 while exports to the Canaries averaged
247,000. Such a situation caused problems in the settlement of
accounts, to which John Crosse, a merchant until then resident in
Tenerife, called attention in 1704. Because of the poverty of the
place, the small circulation of money, the lack of a settled course of
exchange and the absence of any export commodity except wine,
Endish merchants, he stated, had tn make advances to Canary vint-ners
in order to secure supplies of good wines and were forced to
make complicated arrangements to obtain cash to settle the
a c c o u n t ~ .T~h~e adverse balance continued, if Sir Charles Whit-worth's
figures are to be a c~ept ed?w~it h the exception of an odd
year or two, until 1726. Then it was not a reduction in price but a
sharp fa11 in consumption which changed the position. Only excep-tionally
after 1726 was there an excess of imports over exports on
the English trading account until almost the end of the century. In
his volume published in 1776, Whitworth noted that «the imports of
these last twenty years but in fact, as his figures show, for rather
longer have very considerably decreased as well as exports. The
excess of imports and exports have frequently varied but from the
year 1763 the exports have greatly exceeded the imports, the
amount of the former being about 540,000 per annum, the latter
about 2 10,000.56 Never again was the balance of trade with the
Canaries to be a cause of concern.
Conclusions
The apogee of the English import of wine from the Canaries
was reached in the late seventeenth century. After that the trade fe11
iniv deciine. 'Yv'iih ihe War of Spanish Succession -which invoivea
the eviction of English merchants from Tenerife- the English
accord with Portugal, the declining consumption of wine and a
692 Walter Minchinton
change in English taste for wine, the English consumption of canary
wine was reduced to a trickle, even drying up in some years of war in
the eighteenth century. And only a small market was provided in the
British colonies in North America and the West Indies and an even
smaller one by the calling trade of East India ships and men-of-war.
Dyestuffs -cochineal and orchilla- provided a small but signifi-cant
Canarian export for the growing English textile industry. In
England the specialist Canary merchant disappeared and so did the
once substantial English merchant community in Tenerife. The
Canary trade at its peak only involved a small part of the English
merchant fleet and in the eighteenth century a smaller number of
vessels was involved. Finally, the decline of the wine trade brought m
D
the English trading account with the Canaries from debit to credit. E
As the previous pages have demonstrated, in the eighteenth century O
the Canaries played only a minor role in the British trading n---
world. O
E
E
2
The Canaries in the british trading world of the eighteenth century 693
1. Malachy Postlethwayt wrote of Verdona or green wine that it 4 s stron-bodied,
harsher, and sharper than the Cariary. It is not so much esteemed in Europe,
but is exported to the West-Indies, and will keep best in hot countries. This sort of
wine is made chiefly on the east side of the island, and shipped off at Vera Cruz» (The
universal dictionary of trade and commerce [2nd ed. 2 vols. 17571 1, 444). See also
George F Steckley, «The wine economy of Tenerife in the seventeenth century:
Anglo-Spanish partnership in a luxury trade»,Economic History Review, 2nd series,
XXXIII (1980) 335-50.
2. Cited in Agustin Guimerá Ravina, Burguesúl extranjera y comercio Atlán-tico:
la empresa comercial irlandesa en Canarias (1 703-1 771) (Santa Cnu de Tene-rife:
Consejeria de Cultura y Deportes del Gobierno de Canarias, 1985) p. 325.
3. See André L. Simon, The history of the wine trade in England, vol. 111. í'ñe
wine trade in England during the seventeenth century (London: Wyman, 1909) pp.
323-37.
4. Jean O. McLachlan, Trade andpeace with old Spain 1667-1 750: a study
of the injluence of commerce on Anglo-Spanish diplomacy in thejirst haIfof the
eighteenth century (Cambridge University Press, 1940) pp. 55-6, 183 note 34.
5. André L. Simon, Bottlescrew days: wine drinking in England during the
eighteenth century (London: Duckworth, 1926) pp. 71-4. As late as 1820 John Keats
wrote «Have ye tippled drink more fine 1 Than mine host's Canary wine?)) («Lines on
the Mermaid Tavernn).
6. Steckley, «Wine economy)), p. 348. See also British Library (BL) Additio-nal
Manuscript (Add Ms) 70162 [previously Loan 2912871 (unfoliated): «The hum-
Die peuuon of Waiier Stewart and James Zampbeii, merciiants)), « I i e humbie petition
of Peter Minshull and Alice Minshull)) and «The case of the Canary merchants)); also
Public Record Office, London (PRO) CO 388110lF40-3, F46-7, F50-2, F56, G2,
G97 and T 1/91/100, cited in Dwyryd W Jones, War and economy in the age of
William 111 and Marlborough (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988), p. 144 note 28. On 14
April 1704 the British government agreed that the Greenwich, a British warship,
should be sent to the Canaries together with two transports for the English mer-ciiariisii
eEecis (~vfüi iüs~r iopfiih~e~ h Tvuse of¿orcis, new sen'es, VI, i 764-i 766 jfiis-torical
Manuscripts Commission, 17, 19 121 pp. 122, 130).
694 Walter Minchinton
7. PRO CO 388/22/Q91.
8. PRO CO 3881221442, CO 388/21,28 December 17 18 and 29 June 17 19;
Steckley, «Wine economy)), p. 349.
9. Guimera Ravina, Burguesia entranjero y comercio Atlantico, pp. 46-53.
For the Fitzgeralds, see Jacob M Price, Frunce and the Chesaopeake: a history of the
French tobacco monopoly, 1674-1 791, and of its relationship to the British and
American tobacco trades (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2 vols.
1973) 1, 559.
10. George Glas, The history of the discoveiy and conquest of the Canaries
(London, 1764) p. 327. This book is a translation of a work written by Juan de Abreu
de Galindo, a Franciscan friar who lived in Palma.
11. Sisam Faomoe. ((Duestiffs om tje eogjteemtj cemtiryv, Economic Histoiy
Review, 2nd series, XVII (1975) 488-9.
12. Archibald Clow and Nan Clow,The chemical revo1ution:a contribution to m
social technology (London: Batchworth Press, 1952) pp. 199, 201, 222. D
13. Fairlie, ((Dyestuffsn, pp. 500-1. E
14. Letters from Wardoper, 1763-5, PRO C 10919 and C 109114 cited in Fair- O
lie, <<Dyestuffs»p, . 504. -n
=
15. Fairlie, ((Dyestuffsn, p. 504. O0 ,
16. Richard Pares, Ware and trade in the West Indies 1739-1 763 (Oxford Uni- E
E
versity Press, 1936; London: Cass, 1963) p. 125 and note 4. 2
17. Glas, Canaries, p. 352. E
=
18. Glas, Canaries, p. 342.
19. PRO Customs 3/27 (1725), 3/50 (1750), 3/75 (1775). 3
20. PRO Customs 3/27, 75; Acts of the Privy Council, Colonial, IV, 1745- - - 0
1766, p. 651. m
E
21. PRO Customs 3/27, 50, 75.
22. Glas, Canaries, p. 326. O
23. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, America and West Zndies, 1700, n
p. 676. -E
24. PRO C U S ~ O3/~50S. a
25. PRO Customs 3/75. A
26. Charles M Andrews, The colonial period of American history, IV. n
0
EnglandS commercial and colonial policy (New Haven: Yale University Press,
1938) PP. 110-13. 3
27. Kenneth G Davies, Documents of the American Revolution, vol. XIX, O
1781-1783 (Dublin: Irish Universities Press, 1978) p. 273, 22 March 1782.
28. Andrews,England S commertial and colonialpolicy, pp. 1 12-13 citing let-ter
from John Crosse to the Lords Cornmissioners for Trade and Plantations, 8
January 171 9, in Repon on the manuscripts of Lord Polwarth at Mertoun House,
Ee,-flicks,';ire, vol. ,í' (Histuricd Mmuscripts Commlrion, 67, 1 91 6) p 14
29. Philip L. White, The Beekman mercantilepapers 1746-1 799 (3 vols. New
York Historical Society, 1956) 1, 375.
30. PhilipM. Hamer and George C. Rogers, ed. Thepapers of Henry Laurens
(Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1968) 111, 506, 21 July 1763.
3 1. Hamer and Rogers, ed. Papers of Henry Laurens, IV, 24.
32. &mer and iiogers, e& Püpers üf Heniy Lüic~eiís, V, 577.
The Canaries in the british trading world of the eighteenth century 695
33. Hamer and Rogers, ed. Papers of Henry Laurens, VII, 226 note 5.
34. Hamer and Rogers, ed. Papers of Henry Laurens, VII, 307.
35. Virginia Bever Platt, ~Trianglesa nd tramping: Captain Zebediah Story of
Newport, 1769-1776», American Neptune, XXXIII (1973) 295-6.
36. Platt, ~Triangles and tramping)), p. 296-7.
37. Platt, ~Triangles and trampingv, pp. 297-9.
38. For Barbados, see PRO CO 33/16 (1736-7,1752-3); for Jamaica, see PRO
CO 142116-19 (1753-64).
39. BL Add Ms 24168 f. 275, Letter from Tenerife, 1 October 1774. According
to the naval office shipping lists, seven camels and twelve mules were sent to Barba-dos
in 1752 (PRO CO 33/16) and 32 camels to Jamaica in 1753 (PRO CO
142115).
40. James C. Beaglehole, The life of Captain James Cook (London: A & C
Black, 1974) p. 31.
41. Glas, Canaries, p. 328.
42. Commerce of Rhode Zsland 1726-1800 (2 vols. Boston: Massachusetts
Historical Society, 1914) 11, 413.
43. For the seventeenth century, see William Foster, The English factories in
India, 1618-1669 (13 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906-27) passim.
44. Guimerá Ravina, Burguesia extranjera y comercio Atlántico, p. 329.
45. Woodes, A cruisiny voyage round the world (London, 1712), pp. 11-18.
46. Beaglehole, Captain James Cook, p. 508.
47. PRO C 109.
48. In 1 7 10 one foreign vessel of 120 tons, in 17 1 1 two of a total tonnage of 320
tons (PRO CO 388/18), in 171 8 ten foreign vessels (710 tons) and in 1719 six
foreign vessels (151 tons) (CO 39015) left London for the Canaries.
49. Ralph Davis, The rise of the English shipping industry in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries (London: Macmillan, 1962) pp. 240-1. In 1686 out of 24
ships which entered London from the Canaries, eight arrived in January, seven in
December and none between May and October.
50. See, for example, Lloyd S List, 1750, 1771.
5 1. Davis, Shipping industry, p. 241 note 2.
52. LloydS List, 17 Febmary 1741.
53. Josiah Child, A new discourse of trade (4th ed. London, 1693) p. 189.
William Letwin (The origins of scient$c economics: English economic thought
1660-1 776 [London: Methuen, 19631 p. 233) argues that Child wrote this passage in
the late 1660s.
54. Manuscripts of the House of Lords, new series, VI, 1704-1 706 (HMC, 17,
1912) pp. 203-4. For the seventeenth-century position, see Steckley, «Wine eco-ncmp,
p. 245.
55. Charles Whitworth, State of the trade of Great Britain in its imports and
exports progressively from the year 1697 (London, 1776) Part 11, pp. 3-4. The
published volume gives figures until 1773 but in a volume in the Public Record Office
(BT 61185) the figures are continues until 1801.
56. Whitworth, State of the trade, p. xviii.