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Ireland, Mercantilism, and the Navigation Acts, 1660–1686

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Taxation, Politics, and Protest in Ireland, 1662–2016

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Abstract

This chapter explores the making of Ireland’s second-class position in the ‘mercantile system’ created by the Restoration-era Navigation Acts and the Irish Customs and Excise Acts of 1662. The role of legislator and Treasury reformer Sir George Downing is highlighted, together with the centralising administration of the 1671 English Customs Commissioners and the 1682 Irish Revenue Commissioners. By the mid-1680s, merchant compliance with the discriminatory English Navigation Code was essentially achieved with the end of revenue farming in Ireland and improved central government enforcement from London. The events are best understood as an episode in seventeenth-century state formation.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Francis G. James, ‘Irish Colonial Trade in the Eighteenth Century’, William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., 20, no. 4 (1963): 574–84.

  2. 2.

    R. C. Nash, ‘Irish Atlantic Trade in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’, William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd ser., 42, no. 3 (1985): 329–56; Thomas M. Truxes, Irish-American Trade, 1660–1783 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).

  3. 3.

    L. M. Cullen, ‘Merchant Communities Overseas, the Navigation Acts and Irish and Scottish Responses’, in Comparative Aspects of Scottish and Irish Economic and Social History, 1600–1900, ed. L. M. Cullen and T. C. Smout (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1977), 165–76; Denis O’Hearn, The Atlantic Economy: Britain, Ireland and the US (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001).

  4. 4.

    Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 2 vols. (1776; repr., Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1981), bk. iv. The literature on mercantilism is vast, and will not be entered into here to any significant extent. Still the best short introduction to mercantilism as policy in early modern England and Europe is Charles Wilson, Mercantilism (London: Historical Association, 1958).

  5. 5.

    Gustav Schmoller, The Mercantile System and its Historical Significance (New York: Macmillan, 1897); Eli. F. Heckscher, Mercantilism, trans. Mendel Shapiro, 2 vols. (New York: Allen and Unwin, 1935).

  6. 6.

    Thomas Bartlett, ‘“This Famous Island Set in a Virginian Sea”: Ireland in the British Empire’, in The Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. 2: The Eighteenth Century, ed. P. J. Marshall (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 255; O’ Hearn, Atlantic Economy, 46.

  7. 7.

    7 & 8 Wm. III, c. 22.

  8. 8.

    12 Car. II, c. 18.

  9. 9.

    Opinion of Solicitor General Sir William Jones on Irish shipping, c. 1672, British Library (hereafter, BL) Add. MS 30218, ff. 36–37.

  10. 10.

    Irish Lords Justices to Edward Nicholas, 16 Aug. 1661, The National Archives (hereafter, TNA): SP 63/307/185; Earl of Orrery to the Earl of Clarendon, 6 Sept. 1661, Bodleian Library (hereafter, Bodl. Lib.), Clarendon MS 75, ff. 172–73; Speaker of the Irish Commons [Audley Mervyn] to the Duke of Ormond, 4 June 1662, Bodl. Lib., Carte MS 31, f. 526.

  11. 11.

    T. J. Kiernan, History of the Financial Administration of Ireland to 1817 (London: P. S. King and Son, 1930), 82–88, 259–61; Sean Réamonn, History of the Revenue Commissioners (Dublin: Institute of Public Administration, 1981), 12–17; Neil Johnston, ‘State Formation in Seventeenth-Century Ireland: The Restoration Financial Settlement, 1660–62’, Parliaments, Estates and Representation 36, no. 2 (2016): 115–36.

  12. 12.

    Based on a comparison of the 1662 rates with those given in the previous Irish Books of Rates of 1631 and the 1642 English Customs Book used in Ireland during the 1650s. The 1662 Custom and Excise Acts are 13 & 14 Car. II, c. 9 (Irish) and 14 & 15 Car. II, c. 7 (Irish). The 1631 rate schedules are published in The Booke of Rates … [of] His Highnesse Kingdome of Ireland (London: Robert Barker, 1631). A copy of the 1642 English book was published as The Rates of Merchandizes (London: Laurence Blaiklock, 1642).

  13. 13.

    Order concerning the Book of Rates for Ireland, 14 Jan. 1662, TNA: PC 2/55, f. 516.

  14. 14.

    14 & 15 Car. II, c. 9 (Irish), clause xlix. On the constitutional debates during the Convention, see Patrick Kelly, ed., ‘Sir William Domville, “A Disquisition Touching that Great Question Whether an Act of Parliament Made in England Shall Bind the Kingdom and People of Ireland”’, Analecta Hibernica 40 (2007): 17–70; Aidan Clarke, ‘Colonial Constitutional Attitudes in Ireland, 1640–60’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, section c, 90 (1990): 363, 373–74.

  15. 15.

    Ormond to Clarendon, 10 Sept. 1662, Bodl. Lib., Carte MS 143, f. 11; Ormond to Sir Henry Bennet, 29 Nov. 1662, TNA: SP 63/310/135. See also [Earl of Anglesey], State of the Irish Debt, and Credit, 9 Aug. 1662, Bodl. Lib., Carte MS 52, f. 340.

  16. 16.

    Journals of the Irish House of Commons, 21 vols. (Dublin: House of Commons, 1796–1801), ii, 128–30.

  17. 17.

    Ormond to Clarendon, 29 Sept. 1662, Bodl. Lib., Clarendon MS 78, f. 15.

  18. 18.

    Proclamation by Lord Lieutenant and Council, 28 Jan. 1663, TNA: SP 63/314/134; Proclamation by Lord Lieutenant and Council, 27 Feb. 1664, TNA: SP 63/309, ff. 71–72; Proclamation by Lord Deputy and Council, 16 Aug. 1665, TNA: SP 63/309, ff. 86–87; By the Lord Lieutenant and Council (Dublin: Samuel Dancer, 23 Jan. 1667).

  19. 19.

    On the negative effects of the Dutch War and Cattle Acts, see Anglesey to the Earl of Arlington, 25 Sept. 1665, TNA: SP 63/319/163; Memorial of Anglesey, the Earl of Cork and Burlington, and Viscount Conway to the King, 17 Mar. 1667, Southwell Papers, BL Add. MS 21135, f. 37. For the revival of overseas trade, see George Warburton to Sir Joseph Williamson, 23 Apr.1667, TNA: SP 63/322/111; for the increase in customs and import excise receipts after 1668, see TNA: SP 63/323/152; Abstract of Anglesey’s Accounts of the Revenue, 20 Mar. 1659 to 20 Mar. 1669, [1670s], BL Add. MS 18022, f. 48.

  20. 20.

    Instructions to Lord Robartes [late 1668] (misdated June 1660), TNA: SP 63/303/82; Instructions to Lord Berkeley of Stratton, Feb. 1670, TNA: SP 63/327/36.

  21. 21.

    15 Car. II, c. 7.

  22. 22.

    Lord Lieutenant and Council to the King, 7 Feb. 1667, TNA: SP 63/322/45; Ormond to Anglesey, 11 Feb. 1667, Bodl. Lib., Carte MS 51, f. 28.

  23. 23.

    Orrery to Clarendon, 19 Mar. 1667, Orrery Correspondence, BL Add. MS 37207, f. 212.

  24. 24.

    ‘Report of a Committee of the House of Commons concerning Lawes to prevent Incroachments in Trade by Jewes, ffrench and other fforreigners’, 8 Apr. 1663, Downing Papers, BL Add. MS 22920, ff. 11–12; Sir George Downing to Secretary Morrice, 18/28 Sept. 1663, Bodl. Lib., Clarendon MS 80, ff. 209–10; Downing to Clarendon, 22 Apr./2 May 1664, Clarendon MS 107, ff. 210–11. The progress of the legislation can be followed in Leo Francis Stock, ed., Proceedings and Debates of British Parliaments respecting North America, 1616–1753, 4 vols. (Washington, DC: Carnegie Institution, 1924–1942) 1:294–98, 301–4, 306–8, 318–19.

  25. 25.

    Treasury Minutes, 24 June 1670, 27 June 1670, TNA: T 29/3, pp. 361, 363; Downing to Attorney and Solicitor General and Irish Customs Farmers, 20 June 1670, TNA: T 27/2, p. 318.

  26. 26.

    Downing to John Shaw, 31 Oct. 1670, Downing to James Hayes, 5 Dec. 1670, TNA: T 27/2, pp. 375, 398; Starkey’s Newsletter for 1 Nov. 1670, Aston Papers, BL Add. MS 36916, f. 194. The progress of the legislation can once again be followed in Stock, ed., Proceedings and Debates, 1:370, 374–75, 376–77, 380, 391, 396–97.

  27. 27.

    22 & 23 Car. II, c. 26.

  28. 28.

    Treasury to Plantation Governors, 11 Nov. 1667, TNA: T 11/1, p. 49; Henry Roseveare, The Treasury, 1660–1870: The Foundations of Control (London: Allen and Unwin, 1973), 17, 40–41.

  29. 29.

    Stuart Handley, ‘Temple, Sir Richard, third baronet (1634–1697)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, ed. H. C. G. Matthew et al., http://www.oxforddnb.com.ezproxy.fau.edu/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-27118?rskey=6WqAfr&result=4 (accessed 31 Aug. 2018); Carolyn A. Edie, ‘The Irish Cattle Bills: A Study in Restoration Politics’, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, n.s., 60, 2 (1970): 1–66.

  30. 30.

    Robert M. Bliss, Revolution and Empire: English Politics and the American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993), 104.

  31. 31.

    Customs Commissioners’ Report of Trading from Ireland to the Plantations, 10 Feb. 1673, National Library of Ireland MS 7334.

  32. 32.

    Committee of Trade and Plantations Minutes, 27 Jun. 1679, TNA: CO 391/3, p. 22. See also Lord Treasurer to the Earl of Essex, 8 Aug. 1673, TNA: PRO 30/32/48, pp. 482–83; Lord Treasurer to Essex, 26 Jan. 1677, TNA: PRO 30/32/52, p. 30; State of the Irish Plantation Trade, and Observation of the Navigation Acts [late 1670s], Papers on Irish Trade, BL Add. MS 21133, ff. 3–4.

  33. 33.

    Table showing the goods imported into Ireland for year ending 25 Dec. 1665, TNA: SP 63/319/261; Table of Imports and Exports of Ireland from 24 Dec. 1682 to 24 Dec. 1686, Milles Collection, BL Add. MS 4759, ff. 8, 10; Truxes, Irish-American Trade, 21, 28.

  34. 34.

    Warrant to Essex, 4 Jul. 1673, TNA: PRO 30/32/41, pp. 344–45.

  35. 35.

    Customs Commissioners’ Report of Trading from Ireland to the Plantations, 10 Feb. 1673, National Library of Ireland MS 7334; Petition of English Merchants Trading to Europe, and also to America, to the King and Council, 19 Jan. 1676, TNA: CO 1/36/10: Tobacco Merchants’ Petition to King and Council, [May 1676], TNA: SP 29/391/94; Treasury to Irish Customs Farmers, 19 May 1680, TNA: T 27/5 pp. 509–10.

  36. 36.

    Treasury to Customs Commissioners, 23 Jan. 1672, TNA: T 54/2, p. 157.

  37. 37.

    Essex to Lord Treasurer, 22 Mar. 1673, Essex Papers, BL Stowe MS 213, f. 161; Danby’s Treasury Minutes, 24 Dec. 1675, TNA: PRO 30/32/33, pp. 88–89.

  38. 38.

    Appointment of Nicholas Bailey et al. to Prosecute for Violations of the Navigation Acts in Ireland, 10 July 1678, TNA: PRO 30/32/52, p. 220; Treasury to Customs Commissioners, 2 May 1678, 2 June 1678, 14 June 1678, TNA: T 11/5, pp. 24, 42, 47; Privy Council Register, 27 June 1678, TNA: PC 2/68, f. 149.

  39. 39.

    Michael J. Braddick, The Nerves of State: Taxation and the Financing of the English State, 1558–1714 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996), 60–65.

  40. 40.

    Sean Egan, ‘Finance and the Government of Ireland, 1660–1685’, 2 vols. (PhD diss., Trinity College Dublin, 1983), 2:150–60.

  41. 41.

    David Dickson, New Foundations: Ireland, 1660–1800 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2000), 21.

  42. 42.

    Egan, ‘Finance and Government’, 2:167–78.

  43. 43.

    Patrick A. Walsh, ‘The Fiscal State in Ireland, 1691–1769’, Historical Journal 56, no. 3 (2013): 639–42; Charles Ivar McGrath, ‘The Irish Revenue System: Government and Administration, 1689–1702’, (PhD diss., University of London, 1997), chap. 6.

  44. 44.

    Ormond to the Earl of Arran, 27 Aug. 1682, Bodl. Lib., Carte MS 50, f. 295; Warrant appointing Revenue Commissioners, 27 Aug. 1682, TNA: T 14/3, p. 20–30; Col. John Fitzpatrick to Arran, 8 Sept. 1682, Bodl. Lib., Carte MS 216, f. 161.

  45. 45.

    Walsh, ‘Fiscal State’, 641.

  46. 46.

    Observations on the Commission to Earl of Longford, etc. [1682?], Bodl. Lib., Carte MS 54, f. 138; Longford and Lemuel Kingdon to Arran, 24 Aug. 1683, Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Marquess of Ormonde, n.s., ed. Historical Manuscripts Commission, 7 vols. (London: H.M. Stationery Office, 1902–1911), 7:114; Revenue Commissioners’ Observations, 4 Oct. 1683, Bodl. Lib., Carte MS 54, ff. 236–37.

  47. 47.

    Treasury to Customs Commissioners, 2 Dec. 1684, TNA: T 27/7, p. 456; Treasury to Revenue Commissioners, 9 Dec. 1684, 22 Jan. 1685, TNA: T 14/4, pp. 115, 129.

  48. 48.

    Egan, ‘Finance and Government’, 2:173.

  49. 49.

    Ibid., 2:14–15, 153–96.

  50. 50.

    Table of Imports and Exports of Ireland from 24 Dec. 1682 to 24 Dec. 1686, Milles Collection, BL Add. MS 4759, ff. 8, 10.

  51. 51.

    Treasury to Arran, 27 Aug. 1686, TNA: T 14/3, p. 189.

  52. 52.

    Sir John Temple to Ormond, 11 Sept. 1683, Ormonde, n.s., 7:127.

  53. 53.

    ‘The Farmers of Ireland, their Case, in answer to a Petition exhibited to the King & Councill against them by the Merchants’, [before 10 May 1676], Bodl. Lib., Carte MS 38, f. 436; Notes by Williamson of Proceedings at Privy Council, 12 May 1676, TNA: SP 29/336, f. 165.

  54. 54.

    Temple to Ormond, 27 Sept. 1683, Ormonde, n.s., 5:127.

  55. 55.

    25 Car. II, c. 7.

  56. 56.

    Revenue Commissioners to Arran, 1 Oct. 1683, Bodl. Lib., Carte MS 54, f. 279.

  57. 57.

    Ibid., f. 280.

  58. 58.

    Customs Commissioners to Treasury, 22 Apr. 1684, ibid., f. 279. The original order may be found in the Privy Council Register, 16 Feb. 1681, TNA: PC 2/69, ff. 103–4; the instructions are in the Royal Letter to Governors, Mar. 1681, TNA: T 52/8, p. 134; Treasury to Customs Commissioners, 21 Feb. 1681, TNA: T 27/6, pp. 191–94.

  59. 59.

    Nicholas Badcock to King and Council, 26 May 1681, TNA: CO 1/46/150; Badcock to Customs Commissioners, 10 Jul. 1681, TNA: CO 5/723, pp. 61–65.

  60. 60.

    Lord Baltimore to Anglesey, [late 1681], TNA: CO 5/723, p. 49; Christopher Rousby, Maryland, to the Privy Council, 14 Dec. 1681, TNA: CO 1/47/107.

  61. 61.

    Committee of Trade and Plantations, 13 Dec. 1681, TNA: CO 391/3, pp. 317–18.

  62. 62.

    Privy Council Register, 8 Feb. 1682, TNA: PC 2/69, ff. 231–32.

  63. 63.

    Treasury to Ormond, 24 Jul. 1684, Bodl. Lib., Carte MS 53, f. 752.

  64. 64.

    Treasury to Revenue Commissioners, 8 Apr. 1684, TNA: T 14/4, p. 18.

  65. 65.

    Customs Commissioners to Treasury, 22 Apr. 1684, Bodl. Lib., Carte MS 54, f. 279.

  66. 66.

    Ibid., f. 280.

  67. 67.

    Treasury to Mr. Kennedy [an informer], 7 Apr. 1684, TNA: T 27/7, p. 316; Treasury to Revenue Commissioners, 14 May 1684, 7 Aug. 1684, TNA: T 14/4, pp. 34, 78; Privy Council Register, 11 July 1684, TNA: PC 2/70, f. 202.

  68. 68.

    Opinion of R. Sawyer, Attorney General, 30 Aug. 1683, Bodl. Lib., Carte MS 54, f. 281.

  69. 69.

    Revenue Commissioners to Treasury, 6 Jun. 1684, Ormonde, n.s., 7:242; Revenue Commissioners to Treasury, 7 Jul. 1684, Bodl. Lib., Carte MS 54, f. 271.

  70. 70.

    Reply of Revenue Commissioners, June 1684, Bodl. Lib., Carte MS 54, f. 280.

  71. 71.

    Privy Council Register, 27 Jun. 1684, TNA: PC 2/70, f. 196; Ormond to Arran, 3 Jul. 1684, Ormonde, n.s., 7:253–54.

  72. 72.

    Treasury to Revenue Commissioners, 10 Jul. 1684, TNA: T 14/4, p. 64; Revenue Commissioners to Treasury, 17 Jul. 1684, Bodl. Lib., Carte MS 54, f. 271; Extract of Report of Customs Commissioners, 19 Jul. 1684, Carte MS 54, f. 277; Treasury to Customs Commissioners, 27 Sept. 1684, 20 Nov. 1684, TNA: T 27/7, pp. 425, 448.

  73. 73.

    Treasury to Revenue Commissioners, 16 Dec. 1684, TNA: T 14/4, p. 125; Abstract of Law Cases under the ‘Act of Navigation’, [before 27 Jul. 1684], Bodl. Lib., Carte MS 54, f. 281; State of the Case of the Irish Plantation Trade, 23 Oct. 1686, TNA: CO 1/60/84.

  74. 74.

    Customs Commissioners to Lord Treasurer, [30 May 1685], TNA: SP 63/351, ff. 21–24.

  75. 75.

    Warrant to the Irish Lords Justices, 5 Jun. 1685, TNA: SO 1/11, ff. 223–25; Revenue Commissioners to Lord Treasurer, 15 Feb. 1686, TNA: CO 324/4, p. 184.

  76. 76.

    Warrant to the Irish Lords Justices, 12 May 1685, TNA: SO 1/11, ff. 208–9.

  77. 77.

    Memoranda by Sir John Percival, 14 Jul. 1685, Bodl. Lib., Carte MS 130, f. 301.

  78. 78.

    1 James II, c. 17; Stock, ed., Proceedings and Debates, 1:423, 426, 428, 431–32.

  79. 79.

    Lord Treasurer to Revenue Commissioners, 25 Jul. 1685, TNA: SP 63/351, f. 61; Lord Treasurer to Customs Commissioners, 7 Aug. 1685, TNA: T 27/9, p. 121.

  80. 80.

    State of the Case of the Irish Plantation Trade, 23 Oct. 1686, TNA: CO 1/60/84.

  81. 81.

    Revenue Commissioners to Treasury, 15 Feb. 1686, TNA: CO 324/4, pp. 185–86.

  82. 82.

    Ibid., pp. 189, 190.

  83. 83.

    Clarendon to Rochester, 16 Mar. 1686, ibid., p. 182.

  84. 84.

    Clarendon to Rochester, 3 Apr. 1686, Hyde Papers, BL Add. MS 15893, f. 195.

  85. 85.

    Clarendon to Rochester, 16 Mar. 1686, TNA: CO 324/4, pp. 182–83.

  86. 86.

    Customs Commissioners’ Report, 29 Mar. 1686, ibid., p. 208.

  87. 87.

    Ibid., p. 211.

  88. 88.

    Ibid., p. 213.

  89. 89.

    Revenue Commissioners’ Reply, 22 Apr. 1686, ibid., pp. 191–93.

  90. 90.

    Ibid.

  91. 91.

    Ibid., pp. 195–202.

  92. 92.

    Ibid., p. 206.

  93. 93.

    Clarendon to Rochester, 27 Apr. 1686, Hyde Papers, BL Add. MS 15893, f. 257.

  94. 94.

    G. L. Beer, The Old Colonial System, 1660–1754, part 1: The Establishment of the System, 1660–1688, 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1912), 1:103.

  95. 95.

    Customs Commissioners’ Reply, 12 May 1686, TNA: CO 324/4, p. 217.

  96. 96.

    Ibid., pp. 214–15.

  97. 97.

    Privy Council Register, 10 Jun. 1686, TNA: PC 2/71, f. 290.

  98. 98.

    Warrant to Lord Lieutenant, 21 Jun. 1686, TNA: SO 1/12, ff. 31–32.

  99. 99.

    See the opinion of Attorney General Sir William Jones on the application of the Plantation Act of 1671 to Ireland in Petty-Fitzmaurice Papers, BL Add. MS 30218, ff. 40–41. The Woollen Act is 10 & 11 Wm. III, c. 10. The Declaratory Act is 6 Geo. I, c. 5.

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    James Guilfoyle

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    Douglas Kanter

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    Patrick Walsh

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Guilfoyle, J. (2019). Ireland, Mercantilism, and the Navigation Acts, 1660–1686. In: Kanter, D., Walsh, P. (eds) Taxation, Politics, and Protest in Ireland, 1662–2016. Palgrave Studies in the History of Finance. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04309-4_2

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