Abstract
This chapter sets up the main narrative of the book as a history of the relation between the practice of the conclusion of commercial treaties and theoretical reflection on the political-economic ordering potential of commercial treaties in the light of the problem of ‘jealousy of trade’. The argument explains the main tensions, distinctions and conceptual oppositions involved in the dynamic of the rise, fall and re-rise of commercial treaties as the chosen instruments by politicians and writers for preserving a general European peace along with a system of trade development adhered to by all European states. The ‘arch’ thus set up connects the ideas of a great number of political writers from the time of the Peace of Westphalia to the Napoleonic Wars. The chapter identifies the constant conceptual reference points and shifting outlooks onto how commercial treaties might regulate European trade competition. The gradual replacement of ‘privilege’ with the principle of ‘equality’ explains the succession of three stages in the life-cycle of commercial treaties as instruments shaping the balance of power through the balance of trade. All of the commercial treaties that were concluded in the long eighteenth century were both connected to the main political events, conflicts and schemes of the time and to the political writings of a range of authors from Saint-Pierre and Bolingbroke to Adam Smith and beyond. Seen in this light, the subject of commercial treaties provides an opportunity for the creation of new paradigm for thinking about the political economy of the international order in the eighteenth century.
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Notes
- 1.
Alexander Crowcher Schomberg, Historical and Political Remarks upon the Tariff of the Commercial Treaty: With Preliminary Observations (London, 1787), 10–11, with reference to Postlethwayt’s Commercial Interest of Great Britain of 1757, ii: 423. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Preface to Narcisse, in: Oeuvres complètes, ed. Bernard Gagnebin and Marcel Raymond (Paris, 1964–1969), ii: 968, emphasized by Nannerl O. Keohane, ‘“The Masterpiece of Policy in Our Century”: Rousseau on the Morality of the Enlightenment’, Political Theory 6 (1978): 457–484.
- 2.
Ferdinando Galiani, ‘Dalle Considerazioni sul trattato di commercio tra il re el il re cristianissimo’, in: Scritti di politica economica, ed. F. Cesarano (Lanciano: Rocco Carabba, 1999), 99–100. See Koen Stapelbroek, ‘The Progress of Humankind in Galiani’s Dei Doveri dei Principi Neutrali: Natural Law, Neapolitan Trade and Catherine the Great’, in: Trade and War: The Neutrality of Commerce in the Inter-State System. COLLeGIUM: Studies Across Disciplines in the Arts and Humanities 10, ed. Koen Stapelbroek (Helsinki: Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, 2011), 161–183.
- 3.
Ferdinando Galiani, ‘Notes au pacte de Famille’, in: Illuministi italiani. VI. Opere di Ferdinando Galiani, ed. Furio Diaz and Luciano Guerci (Milan and Naples: Ricciardi, 1975), 704–709.
- 4.
Mémoire en forme de traité de droit public, contenant les extraits de tous les differents traitez de paix, treves, alliances, commerce ou navigation, conclus depuis 1648 jusques à ce jour [1736] entre la France et les puissances de l’Europe, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Département des Manuscrits [BNF], FF 10653, 45.
- 5.
Edward Keene, ‘The Treaty-Making Revolution of the Nineteenth Century’, International History Review 34 (2012), 475–500: 478. Other studies of commercial treaties equally tend to focus on the nineteenth century. See Robert Pahre, Politics and Trade Cooperation in the Nineteenth Century: The ‘Agreeable Customs’ of 1815–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008) and Rainer Klump and Miloš Vec, eds., Völkerrecht und Weltwirtschaft im 19. Jahrhundert (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2012).
- 6.
Keene, ‘Treaty-Making Revolution’, 487.
- 7.
Keene, ‘Treaty-Making Revolution’, 491.
- 8.
Keene, ‘Treaty-Making Revolution’, 492, where non-European powers are called ‘treaty-takers’ rather than ‘treaty-makers’.
- 9.
Keene, ‘Treaty-Making Revolution’, 495. Keene identified three ‘spikes’ in the period: the 1810s (post-Napoleon), 1830s–1870s (scramble for Africa) and the 1900s (entrance of new states into the treaty-making arena), after which multilateral agreements slowly took off.
- 10.
Mario Toscano, The History of Treaties and International Politics (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1966).
- 11.
Keene, ‘Treaty-Making Revolution’, 496.
- 12.
Keene, ‘Treaty-Making Revolution’, 482.
- 13.
Keene, ‘Treaty-Making Revolution’, 478–479.
- 14.
Keene, ‘Treaty-Making Revolution’, 479.
- 15.
Giovanni Buccianti, Accordi commerciali e di Asiento dalla Pace di Westphalia alla pace di Utrecht (Milan: Giuffré, 1967).
- 16.
Stephen C. Neff, ‘Peace and Prosperity: Commercial Aspects of Peacemaking’, in: Peace Treaties and International Law in European History: From the Late Middle Ages to World War One, ed. Randall Lesaffer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 365–381.
- 17.
Neff, ‘Peace and Prosperity’, 367–368; Christopher Storrs, ed., The Fiscal Military State in Eighteenth-Century Europe: Essays in honour of P. G. M. Dickinson (London: Ashgate, 2009); Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990–1990 (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1990), 72, notes that eighteenth-century European states were at war 78 per cent of the time compared to 40 per cent in the nineteenth.
- 18.
Neff, ‘Peace and Prosperity’, 367–368.
- 19.
Malachy Postlethwayt, Great Britain’s Commercial Interests Explained (London, 1757), i: 347.
- 20.
Stephen C. Neff, The Rights and Duties of Neutrals: A General History (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), 27–43. See the chapter by Stapelbroek in this volume.
- 21.
Likewise Spain’s seventeenth-century treaties with England and France created an ‘informal imperialism’; Stanley J. Stein and Barbara H. Stein, Silver, Trade, and War: Spain and America in the Making of Early Modern Europe (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 66.
- 22.
See the chapter by Schnakenbourg in this volume.
- 23.
Harm Klueting, Die Lehre von der Macht der Staaten. Das aussenpolitische Machtproblem in der ‘politischen Wissenschaft’ und in der praktischen Politik des 18. Jahrhunderts (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1986).
- 24.
David K. Smith, ‘Le discours économique du Bureau du commerce, 1700–1750’, in: Le cercle de Vincent de Gournay. Savoirs économiques et pratiques administratives en France au milieu du XVIII e siècle, ed. Loïc Charles, Frédéric Lefebvre, and Christine Théré (Paris: INED, 2001), 31–61; Thomas J. Schaeper, The French Council of Commerce, 1700–1715: A Study of Mercantilism after Colbert (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1983).
- 25.
Mémoire sur la Balance du Commerce, Archives Nationales, Paris [AN] F/12/1834 A, in Ruggero Romano, ‘Documenti e prime considerazioni intorno alla balance du commerce della Francia dal 1716 al 1780’ in: Studi in onore di Armando Sapori (Milan: Istituto Editoriale Cisalpino, 1960), 1267–1299: 1295; also Loïc Charles and Guillaume Daudin, ‘La collecte du chiffre au XVIIIe siècle: le Bureau de la balance du commerce et la production des données sur le commerce extérieur de la France’, Revue d’Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine 58 (2011): 128–155.
- 26.
See the chapter by Lebeau in this volume.
- 27.
John V. C. Nye, review on EH.Net (July 2002) of Fiona McGillivray, Iain McLean, Robert Pahre and Cheryl Schonhardt-Bailey, eds., International Trade and Political Institutions: Instituting Trade in the Long Nineteenth Century (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2002), in which Robert Pahre, ‘Agreeable Duties: The Tariff Treaty Regime in the Nineteenth Century’, 29–79, reconsiders Great Britain’s role in trade liberalization, underlining the political support for different business interests.
- 28.
John Vincent Nye, ‘The Myth of Free Trade Britain and Fortress France: Tariffs and Trade in the Nineteenth Century’, Journal of Economic History 51 (1991), 23–46; ‘Changing French Trade Conditions, Naval Welfare, and the 1860 Anglo-French Treaty of Commerce’, Explorations in Economic History 28 (1991), 460–477; ‘Guerre, commerce, guerre commerciale: l’économie politique des échanges franco-anglais réexaminée’, Annales. Économies, Sociétés, Civilisations 47 (1992), 613–632; War, Wine, and Taxes: The Political Economy of Anglo-French Trade 1689–1900 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 44–59.
- 29.
Jean–Pierre Jessenne, Renaud Morieux and Pascal Dupuy, eds., Le négoce de la paix. Les nations et les traités franco–britanniques, 1713–1802 (Paris: Société des études robespierristes, 2011), especially the chapters by Pascal Dupuy, Matthieu De Oliveira and Jeff Horn.
- 30.
Jeff Horn, The Path Not Taken. French Industrialization in the Age of Revolution, 1750–1830 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006), 51–88: 86; on the French impact Jean-Pierre Poussou, ‘How, and How Not, to Use the Concept of Crisis in the Reign of Louis XVI’, in: The Crisis of the Absolute Monarchy: France from Old Regime to Revolution, ed. Julian Swann and Joel Félix (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), which questions the negative appraisal of Guy Lemarchand, L’economie de la France de 1770 à 1830. De la crise de l’Ancien Régime à la révolution industrielle (Paris: Armand Colin, 2008), 112–114. Likewise, based on a regionally diversified approach—also shared by Horn—David Todd, Free Trade and Its Enemies in France, 1814–1851 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), analysed Franco-British trade in later times.
- 31.
Donald Cuthbert Coleman, ‘Politics and Economics in the Age of Anne: The Case of the Anglo-French Trade Treaty of 1713’, in: Trade, Government and Economy in Pre-Industrial England, ed. Donald Cuthbert and Arthur Henry John (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1976), 187–213.
- 32.
Stapelbroek, ed., Trade and War.
- 33.
Additionally, Sweden, Denmark, the Hanseatic League, the Ottoman Empire, the North African states and colonial rulers were included in the webs woven through bilateral diplomacy. See Antonella Alimento, ‘Commercial Treaties and the Harmonization of National Interests’, in: War, Trade and Neutrality. Europe and the Mediterranean in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, ed. Antonella Alimento (Milan: Franco Angeli, 2011), 107–128; Spain’s importance in Anglo-French relations was stressed by Hamish M. Scott, ‘The Second Hundred Years War, 1689–1815’, Historical Journal 35 (1992), 443–469: 446.
- 34.
Istvan Hont, Jealousy of Trade. International Competition and the Nation-State in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005).
- 35.
David Ricardo, Speech on the Subject of Commercial Treaties, in the House of Commons (London: Ridgway, 1843); On the Principles of Political Economy and Trade (London: Murray, 1817), Chapter 25, ‘On Colonial Trade’. For an ideological misrepresentation distorting an otherwise valid argument, Olivier Accominotti and Marc Flandreau, ‘Bilateral Treaties and the Most-Favored-Nation Clause: The Myth of Trade Liberalization in the Nineteenth Century’, World Politics 60 (2008), 147–188.
- 36.
Book IV, Chapter VI, ‘Of Treaties of Commerce’ of the Wealth of Nations argued that treaties distorted international markets and created artificial mercantile profits, while some agreements—like the Methuen treaty—were surrounded by misconceptions about the significance of precious metals and the balance of trade.
- 37.
Ricardo, Speech on Commercial Treaties.
- 38.
The chapters by Volosyuk, Lebeau, Shovlin, Alimento, Stapelbroek, Storrs and Sanz-Guasti in this volume demonstrate the trends revealed by Keene as attributable to a mutual awareness by contracting parties of the use of commercial treaties as instruments for regulating peace and trade.
- 39.
Paul W. Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994); Peter Krüger and Paul W. Schroeder, eds., The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848. Episode or Model in Modern History? (Münster: LIT Verlag, 2002). Also American Historical Review, 97 (1992), which includes articles by Paul W. Schroeder, ‘Did the Vienna Settlement Rest on a Balance of Power?’; Enno E. Kraehe, ‘A Bipolar Balance of Power’; Robert Jervis, ‘A Political Science Perspective on the Balance of Power and the Concert’; Wolf D. Gruner, ‘Was There a Reformed Balance of Power System or Cooperative Great Power Hegemony?’; and Paul W. Schroeder, ‘A Mild Rejoinder’. See also Hamish M. Scott, The Birth of a Great Power System, 1740–1815 (Harlow: Pearson, 2006).
- 40.
T. C. W. Blanning, ‘Section II: Introduction’, in: Transformation of European Politics, ed. Krüger and Schroeder, 85–90: 86. This perspective resembles the idea of a ‘Second Hundred Years War’ between 1688 and 1815: Jean Meyer and John Bromley, ‘La seconde guerre de Cent Ans (1689–1815)’, in: Dix siècles d’histoire franco-britannique. De Guillaume le Conquérant au marché commun, ed. Douglas Johnson, François Bédarida and François Crouzet (Paris: Albin Michel, 1979), 153–190; François Crouzet, ‘The Second Hundred Years War: Some Reflections’, French History 10 (1996), 432–450; Robert and Isabelle Tombs, That Sweet Enemy: The British and the French from the Sun King to the Present (London: Heinemann, 2006).
- 41.
Heinz Duchhardt, ‘Section I: Introduction’, in: Transformation of European Politics, ed. Krüger and Schroeder, 25–28: 27, argued that during the period 1650–1750 and particularly 1713–1763 the system absolutely cannot be described as ‘a balance of conquests’.
- 42.
Duchhardt, ‘Section I: Introduction’, 28. The latter point fits with the trend registered by Keene of agreements with states in North African and the Levant.
- 43.
See Frederik Dhondt, Balance of Power and Norm Hierarchy: Franco-British Diplomacy after the Peace of Utrecht (Leiden: Brill, 2015).
- 44.
J. G. A. Pocock, Barbarism and Religion. Vol. I: The Enlightenments of Edward Gibbon, 1737–1764 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 110, mentioned the Peace of Utrecht ‘as having given rise to “the Europe of Enlightenment”’.
- 45.
Andreas Osiander, ‘Sovereignty, International Relations, and the Westphalian Myth’, International Organization 55 (2001), 251–287.
- 46.
Marc Belissa, Repenser l’ordre européen (1795–1802). De la société des rois aux droits des nations (Paris: Kimé, 2006).
- 47.
Heinhard Steiger, ‘Was haben die Untertanen vom Frieden?’ in: Utrecht–Rastatt–Baden 1712–1714. Ein europaeisches Friedenswerk am Ende des Zeitalters Ludwig XIV, ed. Heinz Duchhardt and Martin Espenhorst (Goettingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 2013).
- 48.
Scott, Birth of a Great Power System, 138–142. Also Paolo Alatri, Le relazioni internazionali in Europa nella prima metà del XVIII secolo (Naples: IISF, 1990); Maurizio Bazzoli, ‘L’equilibrio di potenza nell’età moderna. Dal Cinquecento al Congresso di Vienna’, in: Stagioni e teorie della società internazionale (Milan: Led, 2005).
- 49.
Frederik Dhondt, ‘From Contract to Treaty: The Legal Transformation of the Spanish Succession 1659–1713’, Journal of the History of International Law 13 (2011), 347–376.
- 50.
Andreas Osiander, The States System of Europe, 1640–1990: Peacemaking and the Conditions of International Stability (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 370.
- 51.
Frederik Dhondt, Nec pluribus impar? De campagnes en onderhandelingen van Lodewijk XIV in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden, 1707–1708 (Gent: Universiteit Gent, 2008), 319–320.
- 52.
‘Voyage en Espagne’, December 1708, Archives du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, La Courneuve [AAE], Correspondance Politique [CP], Espagne 183, fol. 85.
- 53.
AAE, CP Hollande 214, fol. 19.
- 54.
Correspondance de Louis XIV avec M. Amelot, son ambassadeur en Espagne, 1705–1709 (Paris: Aubry, 1864), ii: 120–121.
- 55.
Memoire touchant le commerce de l’Amerique espagnolle et sur les moyens de l’assurer esgallement a tuttes les nations de l’Europe, 12 January 1708, AAE, CP Hollande 214, fos. 31–32v: 31v. The originality of Mesnager’s projects was first discussed by Lucien Bély, Espions et ambassadeurs au temps de Louis XIV (Paris: Fayard, 1990). On his missions to Spain and the Dutch Republic: Louis André and Emile Bourgeois, eds., Recueil des instructions données aux ambassadeurs et ministres de France depuis les traités de Westphalie jusqu’à la Révolution française, XXI–XXII, Hollande (Paris: Boccard, 1922), 159–177; Erik W. Dahlgren, Les relations commerciales et maritimes entre la France et les côtes de l’Océan Pacifique, I, Le Commerce de la mer du Sud jusqu’à la paix d’Utrecht (Paris: Honoré Champion, 1909), 566–572; Claude-Frédéric Lévy, Capitalistes et pouvoir au siècle des Lumières, I, Les fondateurs dès origines à 1715 (The Hague: Mouton, 1969), 267, 322; also the chapter by Stapelbroek in this volume. On Mesnager’s reform of the French India company, AN, Colonies/C/2/13, fos. 104–105 and André Lespagnol, ‘Négociants et commerce indien au début du XVIIIe siècle: l’épisode des Compagnies malouines 1709–1719’, Annales de Bretagne et des Pays de l’Ouest 86 (1979), 427–457: 452. On the contraband issue, AAE, CP Hollande 214, fos. 28–28v.
- 56.
Cited in Carl Wennerlind, Casualties of Credit: The English Financial Revolution, 1620–1720 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011), 214; although other Britons recognized free trade in the Spanish West Indies as potentially beneficial for Spain, 322n.82.
- 57.
Stein and Stein, Silver, Trade, and War, 66.
- 58.
Lespagnol, ‘Négociants et commerce indien’, 439; Charles Frostin, Les Pontchartrain ministres de Louis XIV. Alliances et réseau d’influence sous l’Ancien Régime (Rennes: PUR, 2006).
- 59.
AAE, CP Hollande 214, fol. 33.
- 60.
Although published in Dutch gazettes, the Ordenanzas nuevas que se han de publicar y observar para el comercio y trafico de las lndias of July 1708, AAE, CP Espagne 185, fos. 172–190, were never implemented. See Louis XIV to Amelot, 13 August 1708, Correspondance Louis XIV avec Amelot, ii: 71; Amelot to Louis XIV, 17 August 1708, AAE, CP Espagne 181, fol. 298. Also Dahlgren, Les relations commerciales et marittimes, I, 509–521; Lucien Bély, ‘Les larmes de Monsieur de Torcy, essai sur les perspectives de l’histoire diplomatique’, in: L’art de la paix en Europe: naissance de la diplomatie moderne, XVI e –XVIII e siècles, ed. Lucien Bély (Paris: PUF, 2007), 431–464.
- 61.
Archivio Histórico National, Madrid [AHN], Estado, leg. 3457, 2460. Nationaal Archief, The Hague [NA], 3.01.19, inv. 2242; correspondence between Helvétius-Nieuwpoort (1706) and van der Dussen-Bergeyck (1708) in Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague [KB]: 71 H18 and 70 C24. The former comprises memoirs, letters (to Torcy and Chamillart) and manuscripts documenting Helvétius’ trip in 1706, similar to AAE CP Espagne 147–149, 217 and BNF NAF 2041. Unfortunately Duivenvoorde’s correspondence of 1708 (NA 3.20.87, inv. 167) went missing.
- 62.
See the chapter by Isenmann in this volume.
- 63.
Mémoire présenté a Mgr Chamillart et a Mgr de Torcy au mois de juillet 1705, BNF, NAF 2041, 35–91: 59v.
- 64.
On the continuity between the two administrative, Jacob Soll, The Information Master. Jean-Baptiste Colbert’s Secret-State Intelligence System (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009), 155–156.
- 65.
Jean-Baptiste Dubos, Les Intérêts de l’Angleterre mal entendus dans la guerre présente (Amsterdam [Paris]: Gallet, 1703). See Joseph Klaits, Printed Propaganda under Louis XIV. Absolute Monarchy and Public Opinion (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 174–183. Dubos’ work was carefully studied by members of the Gournay group; see Antonella Alimento, ‘Beyond the Treaty of Utrecht: Véron de Forbonnais’s French Translation of the British Merchant (1753)’, History of European Ideas 40 (2014), 1044–1066.
- 66.
Dubos, Les Intérêts de l’Angleterre mal entendus, 162–165.
- 67.
Jean-François Melon, Essai politique sur le commerce (1734). See the chapter by Alimento in this volume and a forthcoming collection of essays by Alimento, Shovlin, and Stapelbroek on ‘Commerce vs. Conquest’. On Melon as a neo-Colbertist, Istvan Hont, ‘The Early Enlightenment Debate on Commerce and Luxury’, in: The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Political Thought, ed. Mark Goldie and Robert Wokler (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 379–418.
- 68.
Notably, the commercial treaties between France–Britain, France–United Provinces, Spain–Britain, Spain–Britain, Spain–United Provinces (see Table 1) seemed instruments of reciprocal normalization. An attentive reconstruction of the pre-history of the Utrecht settlement and the political economy of peace is the subject of a forthcoming article by the editors of this volume.
- 69.
Doohwan Ahn, ‘The Anglo-French Treaty of Commerce of 1713: Tory Trade Politics and the Question of Dutch Decline’, History of European Ideas, special issue, Dutch Decline in Eighteenth-Century Europe 36 (2010), 167–180. Also the chapter by Ahn in this volume.
- 70.
Coleman, ‘Politics and Economics in the Age of Anne’.
- 71.
Mémoire contenant les articles dont l’Angleterre demandoit une decision avant que d’entrer en negociation, AAE, Mémoires et Documents [MD] Angleterre 17, fos. 51–115: 57.
- 72.
As exemplified by Torcy writing to Mesnager, AAE, MD Angleterre 17, fos. 51–115: 81–81v.
- 73.
Quoted in Léon Vignols, ‘L’asiento français (1701–1713) et anglais (1713–1750) et le commerce franco-espagnol vers 1700 à 1730’, Revue d’histoire économique et sociale 17 (1929), 403–436: 412.
- 74.
AAE, CP Angleterre 407, fos. 180–189: 187.
- 75.
See the chapter by Sanz and Guasti in this volume. Also A. Weindl, ‘The Asiento de Negros and International Law’, Journal of the History of International Law 10 (2008): 229–258.
- 76.
Guillaume de Lamberty, Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire du XVIII e siècle, contenant les négociations, traitez, résolutions et autres documents authentiques concernant les affaires d’État liez par une narration historique des principaux événemens dont ils ont été précédez ou suivis (Amsterdam: Mortier, 1735–1740), iv: 192–197.
- 77.
See the chapter by Dupuy in this volume for the Eden treaty and bibliographical indications. Also below in this introductory chapter.
- 78.
Allan J. Kuethe and Kenneth J. Andrien, The Spanish Atlantic World in the Eighteenth Century. War and the Bourbon Reforms, 1713–1796 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 37–40.
- 79.
AAE, MD Angleterre 17, fos. 51–115: 57; Antonella Alimento, ‘Entre liberté et protection: les enjeux économiques du traité de commerce franco-anglais d’Utrecht et la mission d’Anisson et Fénelon en Angleterre’, in: La paix d’Utrecht (1713). Enjeux économiques, maritimes et commerciaux, ed. Lucien Bély, Géraud Poumarède and Guillaume Hanotin (Paris: Pedone, 2017).
- 80.
Alan D. Francis, The Methuens and Portugal 1691–1708 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), 205–211 for Dutch protestations. See also the chapter by Cardoso in this volume.
- 81.
David Hume, ‘Of the Balance of Power’, in: Essays Moral, Political, and Literary, ed. Eugene Miller (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1985), 332–341: 337.
- 82.
Hume, ‘Of the Balance of Power’, 339–340.
- 83.
Hume, ‘Of the Balance of Trade’, 315.
- 84.
Charles Irénée Castel de Saint-Pierre, Projet pour renderre la paix perpetuelle en Europe (Utrecht, 1713–1717), 3 vols.; translated (and abbreviated) as A Project for Settling an Everlasting Peace in Europe First Proposed by Henry IV of France (London, 1714), references both the 1714 English and 1713–1717 French editions; I: ii/i–ii. [= French 1713–1717/English 1714].
- 85.
Maria Grazia Bottaro Palumbo, ‘La Genesi dei “Mémoires pour rendre la paix perpetuelle en Europe” dell’abate di Saint-Pierre’, in: Studi politici in onore di Luigi Firpo, ed. Silvia Rota Ghibaudi and Franco Barcia (Milan: Franco Angeli, 1990), ii: 561–588: 570. On Huet and the Franco-Dutch treaty see the chapter by Stapelbroek in this volume.
- 86.
MAAE, MD France 308, cc. 260r–263r; see Bottaro Palumbo, ‘La Genesi dei “Mémoires”’, 572–574.
- 87.
Saint-Pierre, Project for settling an everlasting peace, I: ii/i–ii
- 88.
Saint-Pierre, Project for settling an everlasting peace, I: 1–22/pp. 1–9.
- 89.
Saint-Pierre, Project for settling an everlasting peace, I: 120–121/pp. 324–325.
- 90.
Saint-Pierre, Project for settling an everlasting peace, I: 359–364; II: 292–293/pp. 134–136, 151.
- 91.
Saint-Pierre, Project for settling an everlasting peace, I: 35–36/p. 14, I: xviii–xix, pp. 27–28/vii–viii, p. 11.
- 92.
Saint-Pierre, Project for settling an everlasting peace, I: xx–xxi, II: 316–319/ix, pp. 160–161: Saint-Pierre promised to explain how this Asiatic Union might function next to a European political confederacy: ‘and I may some time or other prove, in another Part, that it will be much more easily formed than the European Society’ (II: 319/161). Similar projects for neutralizing trade were put forward later in the century; see the chapters by Shovlin and Stapelbroek in this volume.
- 93.
Charles-Irénée Castel de Saint-Pierre, ‘Observations sur les dernières paix’, in: Ouvrajes de politique (Rotterdam, 1737), xi: 317–332: 321. Also ‘Comparaison entre le sistême de l’Equilibre des deux principales Puissances, & le sistême de la Diète Europaine’, in: Ouvrajes de politique (Rotterdam, 1735), x: 260–264; ‘Inconvénians du sistême de l’Equilibre & Avantages du sistême de la Diète Europaine’, in Ouvrajes de politique (Rotterdam, 1734), viii: 156–234.
- 94.
Saint-Pierre, Project for settling an everlasting peace, I: vi–vii, xii, xix/iii–iv, v, viii and passim.
- 95.
Saint-Pierre, Project for settling an everlasting peace, I: iv–v/ii–iii.
- 96.
See Alimento’s chapter in this volume; Cavarzere’s chapter on Prussia illustrates this general tendency, while Storr’s shows a parallel development—the avoidance of commercial treaties to prevent economic subordination—in Piedmont.
- 97.
Gabriel Bonnot de Mably, Des Principes des Négociations pour servir d’Introduction au Droit Public de l’Europe, fondé sur les Traités (The Hague: 1757), chapter 17, ‘Des Traités de commerce. Digression sur le luxe’, 231–241: 234.
- 98.
Bonnot de Mably, ‘Des Traités de commerce. Digression sur le luxe’, 234.
- 99.
Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu, The Spirit of Laws (London, 1750), Book XX, Chapter 7.
- 100.
Jacob-Nicolas Moreau, L’Observateur hollandois (Paris [The Hague], 1755–1756), Letter 1, 20, passim. Koen Stapelbroek, ‘Il sistema di Utrecht, il sistema di Vattel: attraverso L’Observateur hollandois di Jacob-Nicolas Moreau’, Rivista Storica Italiana (forthcoming). Also the chapter by Stapelbroek in this volume.
- 101.
Alimento, ‘Beyond the Treaty of Utrecht’.
- 102.
Joshua Gee, Considérations sur le commerce et la navigation de la Grande-Bretagne (Geneva: Philibert, 1750); see Antonella Alimento, ‘La concurrence comme politique moderne: la contribution de l’école de Gournay à la naissance d’une sphère publique dans la France des années 1750–1760’, in: L’économie politique et la sphère publique dans le débat des Lumières, ed. Jesús Astigarraga and Javier Usoz (Madrid: Casa de Velázquez, 2013), 213–227.
- 103.
Mémoire sur le cabotage in AN, AE, B/III/461.
- 104.
François de Labat, chevalier de Vivens, Observations sur divers moyens de soutenir et d’encourager l’agriculture, principalement dans la Guyenne, où l’on traite des cultures propres à cette Province, et des obstacles qui les empêchent de s’étendre (1756).
- 105.
Antonella Alimento, ‘Competition, True Patriotism and Colonial Interest: Forbonnais’ Vision of Neutrality and Trade’, in Trade and War, ed. Stapelbroek, 61–94; Thierry Demals and Alexandra Hyard, ‘Forbonnais, the Two Balances and the Economistes’, European Journal History of Economic Thought 22 (2015), 445–472.
- 106.
See the chapter by Storrs in this volume for the argument that the Mediterranean remained an important part of the balance of trade.
- 107.
Victor Riquetti de Mirabeau, L’Ami des hommes (Avignon, 1756–1760), part 3, Chapter 5, 107, 126–128, 137, 159, 208 suggests ‘l’industrie et le travail’ of all commercial nations should be united to oppose British aggression; see Henry C. Clark, Compass of Society. Commerce and Absolutism in Old Regime France (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2007), 161–166; Michael Sonenscher, Before the Deluge. Public Debt, Inequality, and the Intellectual Origins of the French Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007). Finally, Isaac Nakhimovsky, ‘The ‘Ignominious Fall of the European Commonwealth: Gentz, Hauterive, and the Armed Neutrality of 1800’, in: Trade and War, ed. Stapelbroek, 212–228 for the revival of Mirabeau’s project by Hauterive.
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François Quesnay, ‘Du commerce. Premier dialogue entre Mr. H et Mr. N.’, in: Œuvres économiques complètes et autres textes, ed. Christine Théré, Loïc Charles and Jean Claude Perrot (Paris: INED, 2005), ii: 903–944: 929, 940; Quesnay, ‘Remarques sur l’opinion de l’auteur de l’Esprit des Loix concernant les colonies’,ii, 869–879: 878.
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Pierre-Paul Mercier de la Rivière, L’Ordre naturel et essentiel des sociétés politiques (London: Nourse, 1767), i: 236–237.
- 110.
For a clear statement, see the review by abbé Baudeau of Isaac de Pinto’s Letter on the Jealousy of Commerce in the Éphémérides du Citoyen 10 (1771), 67, 98.
- 111.
Recueil des instructions données aux ambassadeurs et ministres de France depuis les traités de Westphalie jusqu’à la Révolution française, vol. 12bis, Espagne (Paris: Félix Alcan, 1899), iii: 348–353.
- 112.
Allan Christelow, ‘French Interest in the Spanish Empire During the Ministry of the Duc de Choiseul’, Hispanic American Historical Review 21 (1941), 515–537: 521.
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See the chapter by Sanz and Guasti in this volume.
- 114.
Recueil des pieces et mémoires […] au sujet de la rupture de l’Espagne avec la cour de Londres et […] le bien du commerce et des interets de la France et de l’Espagne, BNF, FF 10770, fos. 153–207: 183; Mémoire pour l’Espagne, BNF, FF 10766, fos. 141–168.
- 115.
Mémoire sur les avantages que le Pacte de Famille peut donner à la France et à l’Espagne pour le rétablissement de la marine et du commerce maritime, BNF, FF 10767, fos. 231–256.
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Hamish M. Scott, ‘Choiseul et le Troisième Pacte de Famille’, in: La présence des Bourbons en Europe (XIV–XIXe siècles), ed. Lucien Bély (Paris: PUF, 2003), 207–220: 217.
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On Guyana, Christopher Hodson, ‘“A Bondage So Harsh”: Acadian Labor in the French Caribbean, 1763–1766’, Early American Studies 5 (2007), 95–131 and The Acadian Diaspora: An Eighteenth-Century History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
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Louis Blart, Les Rapports de la France et de l’Espagne après le pacte de famille jusqu’à la fin du ministère du duc de Choiseul (Paris: Félix Alcan, 1915), 88.
- 119.
The dedication may have implied the suggestion that Russia, which had been approached by Choiseul in 1761 as a prospective neutral carrier of French goods, should join the plan rather than become a British ally in the balance of power.
- 120.
Jacques Accarias de Sérionne, Les intérêts des nations de l’Europe, développés relativement au commerce (Leiden: Luzac, 1766).
- 121.
Antonella Alimento, ‘Accarias de Sérionne, Raynal et le Pacte de Famille’, in: Autour de l’Abbé Raynal. Genèse et enjeux politiques de l’Histoire de deux Indes, ed. Antonella Alimento and Gianluigi Goggi (Ferney-Voltaire: Centre international d’étude du XVIIIe siècle, 2017).
- 122.
Pierre-Samuel Dupont de Nemours, Le pacte de famille et les Conventions subséquentes entre la France & l’Espagne, avec des Observations sur chaque article (Paris, 1790).
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Orville T. Murphy, Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes. French Diplomacy in the Age of Revolution (Albany: SUNY Press, 1983); Thomas E. Kaiser, ‘The Austrian Alliance, the Seven Years’ War and the Emergence of a French “National” Foreign Policy, 1756–1790’, in: The Crisis of the Absolute Monarchy. France from Old Regime to Revolution, ed. Julian Swann and Joël Félix (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 167–179.
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Pierre-Samuel Dupont de Nemours, Lettre à la chambre du commerce de Normandie, sur le Mémoire qu’elle a publié relativement au traité de commerce avec l’Angleterre (Rouen: Moutard, 1788).
- 125.
Encyclopédie méthodique, Commerce (Paris, 1783), i: 166–179.
- 126.
Encyclopédie méthodique, Économie politique et diplomatique (Paris, 1788), iv: 353–549.
- 127.
J. Holland Rose, ‘The Franco-British Commercial Treaty of 1786’, English Historical Review 23 (1908), 709–724; also the chapter by Dupuy in this volume.
- 128.
John Ehrman, The British Government and Commercial Negotiations with Europe 1783–1793 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962).
- 129.
Daniel A. Baugh, ‘Maritime Strength and Atlantic Commerce: The Uses of “a Grand Marine Empire”’, in: An Imperial State at War. Britain from 1689 to 1815, ed. Lawrence Stone (London: Routledge, 1994), 185–223; cf. Steve Pincus, The Heart of the Declaration: The Founders’ Case for an Activist Government (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017). Also the chapter by John Shovlin in this volume.
- 130.
Nigel Aston and Clarissa Campbell Orr, eds., An Enlightenment Statesman in Whig Britain. Lord Shelburne in Context, 1737–1805 (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2011); Stephen Conway, ‘Bentham versus Pitt: Jeremy Bentham and British Foreign Policy 1789’, Historical Journal 30 (1987), 791–809.
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Conway, ‘Bentham versus Pitt’, 802.
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Conway, ‘Bentham versus Pitt’, 799–800.
- 133.
Richard Price, Letters To and From, 1767–1790 (Cambridge: Wilson, 1903), 98. In the same letter, 22 November 1786, he approved of the US–Prussian 1785 commercial treaty.
- 134.
Conway, ‘Bentham versus Pitt’, 794; Price, Letters, 99–100; Lord Fitzmaurice, Life of William, Earl of Shelburne (London, 1912), ii: 306–308.
- 135.
Proposition III of Jeremy Bentham, ‘A Plan for an Universal and Perpetual Peace, Essay IV, Principles of International Law’, in: The Works of Jeremy Bentham, ed. John Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1843), ii: 535–540.
- 136.
Fitzmaurice, Life of Shelburne, ii: 220.
- 137.
Price, Letters, 98–99.
- 138.
On the diplomatic emergence of the armed neutrality, Isabel de Madariaga, Britain, Russia and the Armed Neutrality of 1780. Sir James Harris’s Mission to St. Petersburg During the American Revolution (London: Hollis & Carter, 1962).
- 139.
Koen Stapelbroek, ‘The Progress of Humankind in Galiani’s Dei Doveri dei Principi Neutrali: Natural Law, Neapolitan Trade and Catherine the Great’, in: Trade and War, ed. Stapelbroek, 161–183.
- 140.
Honoré-Gabriel de Riquetti de Mirabeau, Doutes sur la Liberté de l’Escaut: reclamé par l’Empereur (London, 1784). Also the chapter by Stapelbroek in this volume.
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Étienne-Félix Hénin de Cuvillers, Mémoire concernant le système de paix et de guerre que les Puissances européennes pratiquent à l’égard des Régences barbaresques (Venice, 1787).
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Gabriel Bonnot de Mably, ‘Le Droit public de l’Europe fondé sur les Traités’, in: Collection complète des œuvres de l’abbé de Mably (Paris: Desbriere, 1794–1795), v: 61.
- 143.
See the chapter by Belissa in this volume.
- 144.
Nakhimovsky, ‘The ‘Ignominious Fall of the European Commonwealth’.
- 145.
Dictionnaire universel de la géographie commerçante (Paris: 1799–1800), iv: 36–99.
- 146.
See the chapter by Cheney in this volume. Likewise French–American trade after 1778 created no new trade patterns: Paul Cheney, ‘A False Dawn for Enlightenment Cosmopolitanism? Franco-American Trade during the American War of Independence’, William and Mary Quarterly 3/62 (2006), 463–488.
- 147.
Ambroise Marie Arnould, Systême maritime et politique des Européens: pendant le dix-huitième siècle; fondé sur leurs traités de paix, de commerce et de navigation (Paris: 1797); De la Balance du Commerce et des Relations Commerciales Extérieures de la France, dans Toutes les Parties du Globe (Paris: 1791).
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Alimento, A., Stapelbroek, K. (2017). Trade and Treaties: Balancing the Interstate System. In: Alimento, A., Stapelbroek, K. (eds) The Politics of Commercial Treaties in the Eighteenth Century. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53574-6_1
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