Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-hgkh8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-27T07:50:19.618Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
This chapter is part of a book that is no longer available to purchase from Cambridge Core

Chapter 11 - The Southern European and Mediterranean Trades

Get access

Summary

England had an old-established trade with Spain and Portugal; there were settlements of English merchants at Lisbon and San Lúcar (near Cádiz) before the end of the fifteenth century, and despite the political conflicts which repeatedly shook the trade for over a century after the Reformation, economic relations were always renewed and tightened; this political struggle did not, like the later Anglo-French rivalry, cause a prolonged severance of economic ties. The main lines of English import trade with Spain changed little during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Wine was the chief import, already in 1604 coming principally from Málaga rather than from Seville or Cádiz; the quantity increasing during the seventeenth century but eventually stabilized and even declining in the face of competition from French smuggling and the favoured Portuguese product. Olive oil, a vital raw material of the woollen industry, came in great tonnage from southern Spain, but the import began to be supplemented, before the middle of the seventeenth century, by an Italian supply. Fruit (chiefly raisins from Málaga and Alicante, but also including oranges and lemons from Seville) was a large import, growing constantly until after 1713. The products of Spanish America - especially cochineal, indigo and logwood - came in from Cádiz; valuable though these cargoes were, their total tonnage was too small to be of importance to shipping. From the Biscay coast, chiefly from Bilbao, quantities of iron were brought to the western ports, and growing cargoes of wool to Bristol and Exeter.

Portugal had more difficulty in finding cargoes of goods saleable in England. In the early years of the seventeenth century none of its native products was specially wanted; sugar from Brazil was the trading staple and supplied the English market until, after mid-century, English West Indian sugar began to replace it. There was always a small import of Portuguese fruit - figs, oranges and lemons - and this grew steadily; and a large tonnage of salt went to Bristol and the south-western ports. Port wine import was expanding in the years after 1689, and the customs preference established by the Methuen Treaty of 1704 greatly strengthened its competitive position in the English market. Becoming the chief supplier of legally imported wine, Portugal had at last acquired a firm basis for its trade with England.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Print publication year: 2012

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.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×