Table Of ContentECB-FM.QXD 5/21/01 1:28 PM Page i
Eighteenth-Century Britain, 1688–1783
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Palgrave History of Britain
Now available:
Eighteenth-Century Britain 1688–1783 Jeremy Black
In preparation, volumes covering:
Britain in the Early Middle Ages
Britain in the Later Middle Ages
Sixteenth-Century Britain
Seventeenth-Century Britain
Nineteenth-Century Britain
Britain, 1865–1939
Britain since 1931
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Eighteenth-Century Britain
1688–1783
JEREMY BLACK
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© Jeremy Black 2001
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of
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Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2001 by
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Library of Congress-in-Publication Data
Black, Jeremy.
Eighteenth-century Britain : 1688–1783 / Jeremy Black.
p. cm – (Palgrave history of Britain)
Includes bibliographical references (p.) and index.
ISBN 0–333–53830–7 – ISBN 0–333–53831–5 (pbk.)
1. Great Britain–History – 18th century. I. Title: 18th century Britain.
II. Title. III. Series.
DA480 .B555 2001
941.07–dc21 2001019439
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01
Printed in Hong Kong
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Contents
Preface vi
Abbreviations viii
1 Introduction 1
2 Life and death 13
3 Agriculture 29
4 Industry 45
5 Transport and trade 59
6 Society 83
7 Towns 115
8 Faith and the churches 125
9 Enlightenment and science 145
10 Culture and the arts 161
11 Authority, the state and administration
183
12 Political worlds 207
13 Politics 231
14 Continental comparisons and links 257
15 The rise of a world power 271
16 Conclusions 291
Selected further reading 299
Chronology 305
Index 308
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Preface
‘Like a well-steered big boat’. That was how Britain was described by a Dutch
commentator in 1708.1 The nautical comparison was appropriate. The British
Isles in this period can be discussed primarily in terms of landed interests and
attitudes, but on the global scale Britain was important as a maritime state and the
British as trading and colonising people. It was these features that were most
important to other parts of the world, and this maritime and colonial trajectory
that was to be most important for the following century.
It is necessary to balance or reconcile different priorities when writing British
history in this period. To concentrate on the average would entail an emphasis on
the poor, who were the majority of the population, and also, alongside any dis
cussion of transformation, a stress on elements of life that did not change. There
would necessarily be much on rural Britain for that was where the majority of the
population lived. These aspects are considered in this book, but it is also written
from a perspective that asks what about Britain was important and distinctive in
this period; and thus seeks to explain why its history should be studied. This stance
recreates the approach of contemporary foreign commentators and confronts the
risk that it may mislead in its emphasis as they frequently did in their analysis.
Yet, although English is now the closest the world has to a universal language,
it is misleading to assume that the history of Britain will be of interest, especially
to foreigners, unless its broader significance is grasped. This then is not a history
that centres on the details of political manoeuvre. Politics is deliberately confined
to part of the book, and the emphasis there is on the wider resonance of political
developments. There is an attempt to understand the history of Britain and its role
in the world in a period when the state grew to become the strongest maritime
power in the world. Such a study is not embarked on in any triumphalist or tele
ological sense, but it is important that Britain became the major European power
in North America and South Asia and on the oceans of the world, and that the
unity of the English-speaking world was shattered by the creation of an indepen
dent United States of America.
There is a wealth of good literature of this period and more appears each year.
There are also serious historiographical debates about how best to understand the
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Preface vii
period. In the allocated span of words, it is only possible to glance at some of
these debates and to refer to certain interpretations. Readers therefore are referred
to the Selected Further Reading. They are also encouraged to read some of the
wealth of original material that survives in print from this period, much of which
is available in modern editions.
Nomenclature is a problem. For ease, the British Isles are referred to as Britain
because they were a unit as far as international relations and war were concerned
for most of this period. England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales are employed when
specific reference is made to those areas, although, as a description of the area
represented in the Westminster Parliament prior to 1707, England is sometimes
taken to refer to England and Wales.
In writing this book, I have benefited from my earlier work on the period, but
have also rethought problems and looked at much new material. I feel that work
on archival sources helps an author appreciate the complexity of the subject, and
I hope I have communicated this. In addition to my own research, I have been for
tunate, as editor since 1989 of Archives, the journal of the British Records
Association, and as general editor of the Macmillan (now Palgrave) series British
History in Perspective and British Studies Series, to have kept in touch with first-
rate work in many fields.
Endnotes have been kept to a minimum. Aside from the value of the individ
ual sources cited, the endnotes are also intended to show the range and variety of
material available. The citation of published work focuses on books appearing in
recent years, as earlier works can be followed up both in their endnotes and in
those of earlier general works.
There are already a number of first-rate treatments of this period. This study
does not seek to supplant them, but rather to engage in a debate about a most fas
cinating period. In doing so, I am most grateful to Grayson Ditchfield, Bill
Gibson, Murray Pittock and three anonymous readers for commenting on earlier
drafts of sections of this work. In developing ideas, I have benefited from invita
tions to speak to the Société d’Études Anglo-Américaines des XVIIe et XVIIIe
siècles, the Horace Walpole bicentennial series at St Mary’s University College,
and Friends of Devon Archives, and at the Huntington Library, the Jefferson on
the Lawn Symposium at the University of Virginia, the External Studies depart
ments of the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Virginia, Stillman College,
and the Manorial Society conference on the history of crime in Britain.
It is a great pleasure to dedicate the book to an old friend and valued fellow-
historian.
JEREMY BLACK
For Robert Peberdy
NOT E
1. Henri Abraham Châtelain, Atlas Historique, III (Amsterdam, 1708), preface.
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Abbreviations
AE Paris, Ministère des Affaires Etrangères
Add. Additional Manuscripts
BL London, British Library
Cobbett W. Cobbett, A Parliamentary History of England (36 vols, 1806–20)
CP Correspondance Politique
CRO County Record Office
HL San Marino, California, Huntington Library
LO Loudoun papers
MO Montagu papers
ns new style
PRO London, Public Record Office
SP State Papers
NeC Nottingham, University Library, Clumber papers
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Introduction
Periodisation is always a problem in history, a subject that struggles with the
complex identities and relationships of change and continuity. To choose dates is
to define a period and to confer an apparent identity and thus unity on it. To peri
odise the past is to suggest frontiers in time that necessarily complicate issues of
change and continuity by implying an apparent basis for them.
The period of this book is no exception. Why 1688 to 1783, and what might
these dates suggest as opposed to other possible limits? The book, like others of
the type, is designed to serve within a series. That has implications both in terms
of the need to divide the whole of British history and also because this volume has
to sit well next to others. The choice of 1688 to 1783 also reflects the importance
of political divisions. The first is the date of the ‘Glorious Revolution’, the over
throw of the last Catholic ruler of the country, James II, by William of Orange,
William III. This is seen to have led to major constitutional and political changes,
and to particularly important shifts in the history of Scotland and Ireland.
In some respects, the period 1688 to 1783 can be seen as one of the workings
out of the ‘Glorious Revolution’. This was particularly true in the fields of state
formation, parliamentary government, political ideology, public finance, foreign
and imperial policy, dynastic conflict, and religious politics, and in Scotland and
Ireland. Furthermore, links have been made between the radical ideas that were
encouraged by the ‘Revolution’ and those that inspired, or at least were associated
with, opposition to George III in North America in the 1760s and 1770s. In 1783,
Britain acknowledged the independence of the Thirteen Colonies that had rebelled
in 1775 and declared independence in 1776. This end to the War of American
Independence, or American Revolution, marked a major transformation in the
history of the British empire.
Yet, in other respects, both 1688 and 1783 can be queried as delimiting dates.
Other dates that were important in political history, for example 1660 and 1800,
the restoration of Charles II after the Republican Interregnum, and the Act of
Union with Ireland – might seem more appropriate. As far as focusing on the fall
of James II in 1688 is concerned possibly the creation of the Bank of England in
1694 was more important, as it was central to what has been seen correctly as a
