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The Conditions of Trade in Wartime: Treaties of Commerce and Maritime Law in the Eighteenth Century

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Book cover The Politics of Commercial Treaties in the Eighteenth Century

Abstract

The eighteenth century was a prime period for theoretical reflection on international relations and the legal formalization of the international order. Treaties of commerce consistently included provisions protecting commercial exchange from the effects of war, the accumulation of which became part of the law of nations. More particularly, such treaties can be seen as having been a means to define rules that would protect non-belligerents from the consequences of conflicts in which they were not involved. This chapter investigates commercial treaties by looking beyond their bilateral commitments to commercial exchange, instead seeing them as contributing to the accumulation of international jurisprudence on trade in wartime. It was from this perspective that in 1777 Mathieu-Antoine Bouchaud developed his Théorie des traités de commerce entre les nations to capture the attempts by legal theorists to find adequate instruments to manage the unruly practices of political negotiation and commercial exchange.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    François-Louis Ganshof, Le Moyen Âge. Histoire des relations internationales du Moyen Âge à 1789, part 1 (Paris: Hachette, 1994), 52, 114–117.

  2. 2.

    Stephen Neff, ‘Peace and Prosperity: Commercial Aspects of Peacemaking’, in: Peace Treaties and International Law in European History, ed. Randall Lesaffer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 367.

  3. 3.

    Mohamed Ouerfelli, ‘Les enjeux commerciaux dans les traités de paix et de commerce entre Pise et les Etats du Maghreb au Moyen Age (XIIe–XIVe siecle)’, in: Les territoires de la Méditerranée XI e –XVI e siècle, ed. Annliese Nef (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2013), 205–215.

  4. 4.

    This count is based on Pierre Louis d’Auterive and Ferdinand de Cornot de Cussy, Recueil des traités de commerce et de la navigation de la France, 3 vols. (Paris: P. J. Rey, 1844).

  5. 5.

    Colbert clearly underlined the connection between commercial wars and military struggles at the very heart of the mercantilist doctrine: ‘Commerce is the source of finance, and finance is the sinews of war’, quoted by Céline Spector, ‘Le concept de mercantilisme’, Revue de métaphysique et de morale 39 (2003), 294. See also Edmund Silberner, La guerre dans la pensée économique du XVI e au XVIII e siècle (Paris: Sirey, 1939), 33–38.

  6. 6.

    Istvan Hont, Jealousy of Trade. International Competition and the Nation-State in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005), 5–24. ‘Commerce had become one of the main objects which disturb and divide them [the nations and the sovereigns]’, wrote Accarias de Sérionne, Intérêts des nations de l’Europe dévelopés relativement au commerce (Leyden: Elie Luzac, 1766), vol. 2, 299. All translations of French sources are by the author. See also John Sholvin, ‘War and Peace: Trade, International Competition, and Political Economy’ in: Mercantilism Reimagined. Political Economy in Early Modern Britain and Its Empire, ed. Philip J. Stern and Carl Wennerlind (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 305–327.

  7. 7.

    Marc Belissa, Fraternité universelle et intérêt national (1713–1795): les cosmopolitiques du droit des gens (Paris: Kimé, 1998).

  8. 8.

    Article ‘Europe’, in: Dictionnaire universel des sciences, morale, économique, politique et diplomatique (London: Libraires associés, 1781), vol. 18, 578.

  9. 9.

    Michel Bottin, ‘Commerce’, in: Dictionnaire européen des Lumières, ed. Michel Delon (Paris: PUF, 2007), 279–282.

  10. 10.

    Gabriel Bonnot de Mably, Le droit public de l’Europe fondé sur les traités (La Haye: Jean van Duren, 1746), vol. 2, 230.

  11. 11.

    ‘Peace is the natural effect of trade. Two nations who traffic with each other become reciprocally dependent; for if one has an interest in buying, the other has an interest in selling; and thus their union is founded on their mutual necessities’, Montesquieu, De l’esprit des Lois [1748] (Paris: Garnier Flammarion, 1979), vol. 2, 10; Céline Spector, Montesquieu et l’émergence de l’économie politique (Paris: Honoré Champion, 2006), 181–183.

  12. 12.

    Simone Meyssonnier, La balance et l’horloge. La genèse de la pensée libérale en France au XVIII e siècle (Montreuil: Éditions de la passion, 1989), 137–157.

  13. 13.

    Bonnot de Mably, Le droit public de l’Europe fondé sur les traités, vol. 2, 270.

  14. 14.

    Emer de Vattel, Le droit des gens ou principes de la loi naturelle, appliqués à la conduite & aux affaires des Nations & des souverains (London: 1758), vol. 1, 274–278. Vattel’s opinion on the natural and compulsory character of commerce between nations may also be found in the work of authors such as Charles de La Maillardiére, Précis du droit des gens, de la guerre, de la paix et des ambassades (Paris: Quillau, 1775), 78, 82–83, 114–115.

  15. 15.

    Vattel, Le droit des gens, vol. 1, 86–87 and 271–273.

  16. 16.

    Bonnot de Mably, Le droit public de l’Europe fondé sur les traités, vol. 2, 270.

  17. 17.

    Eobald Toze, La liberté de la navigation et du commerce des nations neutres, pendant la guerre considéré selon le droit des gens universel, de celui de l’Europe et les traités. Essai historique et juridique pour servir d’éclaircissement aux différends entre les puissances belligérantes et les États neutres au sujet du commerce maritime (London and Amsterdam: 1780), 29; George Frédéric de Martens, Précis du droit des gens moderne de l’Europe (Gottingen: de Dietrich, 1789), vol. 1, 171.

  18. 18.

    Jacob Friedrich von Bielfeld, Les institutions politiques (La Haye: Pierre Gosse, 1760), vol. 1, 307.

  19. 19.

    Bielfeld, Les institutions politiques, vol. 1, 307; Vattel, Le droit des gens, vol. 1, 278.

  20. 20.

    Bonnot de Mably, Le droit public de l’Europe fondé sur les traités, vol. 2, 563.

  21. 21.

    Henri Vast, Les grands traités du règne de Louis XIV (Paris: Alphonse Picard, 1893), vol. 1, 97–107.

  22. 22.

    However, the ratio changed according to the identity of the signatories. Whereas only 13–15 per cent of the articles of the Franco-Dutch and Franco-British treaties of commerce of 1713 dealt with the conditions of wartime commerce, the proportion reached two-thirds in the Franco-Hanseatic Treaty of 1716; Éric Schnakenbourg, ‘La guerre de Succession d’Espagne et la réflexion française sur la navigation neutre’, presented at the workshop La paix d’Utrecht (1713): enjeux économiques, maritimes et commerciaux, organized by Guillaume Hanotin and Géraud Poumarède, Bordeaux, December 2013.

  23. 23.

    Leos Müller, ‘Nordic Neutrals and Anglo-French Wars, 1689–1815’, presented at The Northern Mediterranean, XIVth International Economic History Congress, Helsinki, 2006, www.helsinki.fi/iehc2006/papers1/Muller36.pdf, 4; Steve Murdoch, Andrew Little and A. D. M. Forte, ‘Scottish Privateering, Swedish Neutrality and Prize Law in the Third Anglo-Dutch War, 1672–1674’, Forum navale 59 (2003), 37–65.

  24. 24.

    George Clark, ‘War Trade and Trade War, 1701–1713’, Economic History Review 2 (1928), 267.

  25. 25.

    Martens, Précis du droit des gens moderne de l’Europe, vol. 1, 179.

  26. 26.

    Stanley S. Jados, Consulate of the Sea and Related Documents (Tuscaloosa: Alabama University Press, 1975), chapter 276: ‘A Merchantman Intercepted by an Armed Vessel’, 191–194.

  27. 27.

    Duco Hellema, Neutraliteit & Vrijhandel. De geschiedenis van den Nederlandse buitenlandse betrekkingen (Utrecht: Het Spectrum, 2001), 19.

  28. 28.

    Jean Dumont, Corps universel diplomatique du droit des gens (Amsterdam, 1728), vol. 6, part 1, 342 and 571.

  29. 29.

    George Chalmers, A collection of treaties between Great Britain and other powers, 2 vols. (London: J. Stockdale, 1790), vol. 1, 177 for the Anglo-Dutch treaty and vol. 2, 280 for the Anglo-Portuguese one. For the Franco-English treaty see P.-L. d’Hauterive and F. de Cussy, Recueil des traités de commerce et de la navigation de la France (Paris: P. J. Rey, 1844), vol. 2, 28–29.

  30. 30.

    Chalmers, A collection of treaties, vol. 1, 53 and 86–87.

  31. 31.

    Chalmers, A collection of treaties, 7; Charles Jenkinson, A collection of treaties of peace, commerce and alliance between Great Britain and other powers from the year 1619 to 1734 (London: J. Debrett, 1781), vol. 1, 77.

  32. 32.

    Éric Schnakenbourg, Entre la guerre et la paix. Neutralité et relations internationales, XVII–XVIIIe siècles (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2013), 96–99.

  33. 33.

    Koen Stapelbroek, ‘Universal Society, Commerce and the Rights of Neutral Trade: Martin Hübner, Emer de Vattel and Ferdinando Galiani’, in: Universalism in International Law and Political Philosophy, ed. Petter Korkman and Virpi Mäkinen (Helsinki: Collegium for Advanced Studies, vol. 4, February 2008), 63–89, available online.

  34. 34.

    Article 2 of the Franco-Hanseatic treaty of 1655 included riggings and canvas in the contraband category, but the treaty of 1716 between the same powers permitted the transport of naval supplies. Article 26 of the Franco-Danish treaty of 1742 added hemp and tar to contraband goods; Hauterive and Cussy, Recueil des traités de commerce et de la navigation de la France, vol. 3, 404–405 and vol. 1, 318.

  35. 35.

    Dumont, Corps universel diplomatique, vol. 5, part 2, 480; Chalmers, A collection of treaties, vol. 1, 179.

  36. 36.

    ‘[…] and other items equipment necessary for war’, Laurs Laursen, ed., Danmark-Norges Traktater 1523–1750 (Copenhagen: Carlsbergfondet, 1923), vol. 6, 319.

  37. 37.

    Carl Kulsrud, Maritime Neutrality to 1780. A History of Main Principles Governing Neutrality and Belligerency to 1780 (Boston, MA: Little, Brown and Company, 1936), 284. The Turks also regarded naval stores as contraband goods, ‘Mémoire sur le commerce de la mer Noire par le comte de Vergennes’, Constantinople, 29 January 1767, AAE [Archives des Affaires Étrangères, La Courneuve], MD [Mémoires et Documents], Russia, vol. 7, fol. 198.

  38. 38.

    Schnakenbourg, Entre la guerre et la paix, 103–111.

  39. 39.

    The first major publication was the Codex Juris gentium diplomaticus by Leibniz in 1693, and the most famous is the Corps universel diplomatique du droit des gens by Jean Dumont published in eight volumes between 1726 and 1731.

  40. 40.

    Bonnot de Mably, Le droit public de l’Europe fondé sur les traités, vol. 2, VI, 270 and 272–275. However, Mably judged as lawful the seizure of neutrals’ goods under an enemy flag, which theoretically meant that the non-belligerent flag was a guarantee of the safeguarding of the cargo.

  41. 41.

    Cornelius van Bynkershoek, A Treatise of the law of war (translation of ‘De rebus bellicis’ book I of Quaestiones Juris Publici, 1737) (Philadelphia, 1810), 76–77; Felix Joseph de Abreu y Bertodano, Traité juridico-politique sur les prises maritimes et sur les moyens qui doivent concourir pour rendre ces prises légitimes (1st Spanish edition 1746; French translation, Paris, 1758), 140.

  42. 42.

    Andrié to Frédéric II, 29 May and 9 June 1744; Charles de Martens, Causes célèbres du droit des gens (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1858), vol. 2, 98–100.

  43. 43.

    The list of arrested ships can be found in ‘Exposition des motifs fondés sur le droit des gens universellement reçu…’ (Berlin, 1752), 37, 59.

  44. 44.

    Frederic Pratt, The law of contraband of war (London: Benning, 1856), 109–115; Reginald Marsden, ed., Law and Custom of the Sea (London: Publications of the Naval Record Society, 1916), vol. 2, 336–337 and 429.

  45. 45.

    Friedrich Ehrenreich Behmer, ‘Exposition des motifs fondés sur le droit des gens universellement reçu…’, 18–19 and 24–25. Behmer came back to this affair in a later publication, Observation du droit de la nature et des gens, touchant la capture et la détention des vaisseaux et effets neutres en temps de guerre, jusqu’à quel point elle doit être censée licite (Hamburg, 1771), 4–10.

  46. 46.

    Ernest Satow, The Silesian Loan and Frederick the Great (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1915), 22.

  47. 47.

    ‘Mémoire concernant les prises sur mer’, 20 April 1753, by Saint Contest, AAE, MD, France, vol. 2021, fos. 183–184.

  48. 48.

    Riksarkivet [Stockholm], Diplomatica, Gallica, vol. 403, report to the ambassador of Naples, of Sardinia, of Venice and to the Duke of Choiseul, 10 December 1759.

  49. 49.

    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.

  50. 50.

    Schnakenbourg, Entre la guerre et la paix, 219–222.

  51. 51.

    Journal de Commerce, May 1759, 41–60.

  52. 52.

    Journal de Trévoux ou Anonyme. Mémoires pour l’histoire des sciences et des beaux-arts, February 1760, 393 and Journal de Commerce, March 1760, 89–126; April 1760, 46–70; May 1760, 53–76. Éric Schnakenbourg, ‘From a Right of War to a Right of Peace: Martin Hübner’s Contribution to the Reflection on Neutrality in the Eighteenth Century’, in: War, Trade and Neutrality. Europe and the Mediterranean in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, ed. Antonella Alimento (Milan: Franco Angeli, 2011), 203–216.

  53. 53.

    Bonnot de Mably, Le droit public de l’Europe fondé sur les traités, 422–428, 467–472.

  54. 54.

    Gabriel Bonnot de Mably, Des principes des négociations, pour servir d’introduction au Droit public de l’Europe fondé sur les traités (1757), ed. Marc Bélissa (Paris: Kimé, 2001), 147–148.

  55. 55.

    Bonnot de Mably, Le droit public de l’Europe fondé sur les traités, 458, 561–563.

  56. 56.

    Bonnot de Mably, Le droit public de l’Europe fondé sur les traités, v.

  57. 57.

    Mathieu-Antoine Bouchaud, Théorie des traités de commerce entre les nations (Paris: Veuve Duchesne, 1777). It is sometimes possible to find 1773 as the date of publication, but there was no edition in that year. It seems that 1777 was the actual year of the original edition.

  58. 58.

    The articles were ‘Concile’, ‘Décret’, ‘Décrétales’ and ‘Décrétales (fausses)’.

  59. 59.

    The biographical information on Mathieu-Antoine Bouchaud can be found in Frank A. Kafker, The Encyclopedists as Individuals: A Biographical Dictionary of the Authors of the Encyclopédie (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 1988), 45–47; Biographie universelle ancienne et moderne (Paris: Michaud frères, 1812), vol. 5, 263–266; ‘Notice historique sur la vie et les ouvrages de M. Bouchaud’, Magasin encyclopédique, ou Journal des sciences, des lettres et des arts (April 1805), 318–332.

  60. 60.

    Bouchaud, Théorie des traités de commerce entre les nations, vii–viii. In his ‘avertissement’ Bouchaud told his readers that he wrote his book to fulfil his duties as a professor law of nature and nations, but he did not highlight the importance of his topic.

  61. 61.

    De Foederibus Commerciorum, 1735, republished in 1751, only fifty pages long.

  62. 62.

    Bouchaud, Théorie des traités de commerce entre les nations, 103, 133, 411.

  63. 63.

    ‘The reciprocal need of good offices, must not inspire a blind confidence in the good faith of nations’, Bouchaud, Théorie des traités de commerce entre les nations, 31.

  64. 64.

    Bouchaud, Théorie des traités de commerce entre les nations, 246–247.

  65. 65.

    ‘Yet, who can deny, that foodstuff, money, and ships and all useful material for their fitting, does not less contribute to the increasing of enemy forces than a supply of weapon. Consequently, nothing is more lawful than the possibility of intercepting these merchandise’, Bouchaud, Théorie des traités de commerce entre les nations, 277–278. The only exception admitted by the author is the explicit renunciation on which two countries agree.

  66. 66.

    Vattel, Le droit des gens, vol. 2, 88.

  67. 67.

    Article 26 of the Franco-American treaty of friendship and commerce, 6 February 1778, clearly excluded foodstuff and naval stores from contraband; Hauterive and Cussy, Recueil des traités de commerce et de la navigation de la France, vol. 1, 471–473.

  68. 68.

    Bouchaud, Théorie des traités de commerce entre les nations, 365–367.

  69. 69.

    Article 25 of the Franco-American treaty of 1778 acknowledged the safeguard of enemy properties under a neutral flag; Hauterive and Cussy, Recueil des traités de commerce et de la navigation de la France, vol. 1, 470–471. For Vattel see Le droit des gens, vol. 2, 60.

  70. 70.

    Bouchaud, Théorie des traités de commerce entre les nations, 273.

  71. 71.

    Accarias de Sérionne, Intérêts des nations de l’Europe dévelopés relativement au commerce, 51.

  72. 72.

    Toze, La liberté de la navigation et du commerce des nations neutres, 74.

  73. 73.

    Toze, La liberté de la navigation et du commerce des nations neutres, 109–110.

  74. 74.

    Toze, La liberté de la navigation et du commerce des nations neutres, 193–197.

  75. 75.

    Toze, La liberté de la navigation et du commerce des nations neutres, 111–123.

  76. 76.

    Toze, La liberté de la navigation et du commerce des nations neutres, 108.

  77. 77.

    ‘Mémoire sur la navigation des neutres’, AN [Archives Nationales, Paris], Marine, B7/515, fos. 38–39, 27 November 1778 and AAE, B1/63, fol. 31, Sartine à Leseurre, 16 January 1780.

  78. 78.

    Martens, Précis du droit des gens moderne de l’Europe, 50 and 69. In 1801, in the second edition, Martens stressed that the presumed will of states emerges from ‘the uniformity of the acts already existing till now with similar cases’, Martens, Précis du droit des gens moderne de l’Europe, 79.

  79. 79.

    Bonnot de Mably, Le droit public de l’Europe fondé sur les traités, 562.

  80. 80.

    These principles were: the liberty of neutral shipping, the safeguard of enemy goods under neutral flags (contraband excepted), the definition of contraband goods accordingly to the valid treaties, and the ban on neutral ships from entering a blockaded harbour. See James Brown Scott, Extracts from American and Foreign Works on International Law concerning the Armed Neutrality of 1780 and 1800 (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Division of International Law, 1917), 641–642.

  81. 81.

    Scott, Extracts from American and Foreign Works, 273.

  82. 82.

    Scott, Extracts from American and Foreign Works, 409.

  83. 83.

    Schnakenbourg, Entre la guerre et la paix, 264–270.

  84. 84.

    ‘Putting ambiguous and insidious terms in a treaty means preparing the seeds of war for the future, it is putting kegs of gunpowder under the houses were one lives’, Fénelon, ‘Examen de conscience sur les devoirs de la royauté’, in: Oeuvres de Fénelon (Paris: Auguste Desrez, 1837), part 3, 341. Vattel also denounced clearly the bad faith of the deliberate ambiguity of treaties, Droit des gens, part 2, 260–261. Marc Belissa, ‘Peace Treaties, Bonne Foi and European Civility in the Enlightenment’, in: Peace Treaties and International Law in European History, ed. Lesaffer, 241–253.

  85. 85.

    Robert Plumer Ward, A Treatise of the Relative rights and duties of belligerent and neutral powers in maritime affairs: in which the principles of armed neutralities and the opinions of Hubner and Schlegel are fully discussed (London: Butterworth, 1801), 152.

  86. 86.

    Edward Stanley Roscoe, ed., Reports of Prize Cases determined in the High Court of Admiralty, 1745 to 1859, vol. 1: 1745–1808 (London: Stevens and Sons, 1905), 1–3.

  87. 87.

    ‘Pour ne laisser aucun doute sur ce qui doit être entendu pour le terme de contrebande, on est convenu qu’on entend sous cette dénomination […] le bois de construction, le goudron ou la poix résinée, le cuivre en feuille, les voiles, chanvres, cordages, et généralement tout ce qui sert directement à l’armement des vaisseaux’, ‘Convention entre sa Majesté Danoise et sa Majesté Britannique à Londres, 4 July 1780 pour expliquer le traité de commerce entre ces deux puissances de 1670’, AAE, CP [Correspondance Politique], Denmark, vol. 163, fol. 127.

  88. 88.

    Victor Enthoven, ‘“The Unlimited Cupidity of the Dutch Merchants”: St. Eustatius and Anglo-Dutch Controversy over Neutral Rights, 1680–1780’, in: Neutres et neutralité dans l’espace atlantique durant le long XVIII e siècle (1700–1820). Une approche globale/Neutrals and Neutrality in the Atlantic World during the Long Eighteenth Century (1700–1820). A Global Approach, ed. Éric Schnakenbourg (Becherel: Les Perseides, 2015), 269–297; Neff, ‘Peace and Prosperity: Commercial Aspects of Peacemaking’, 368.

  89. 89.

    Martin Hübner, De la saisie des batimens neutres ou du Droit qu’ont les Nations Belligérantes d’arrêter les Navires des Peuples Amis (La Haye, 1759), vol. 2, 131–132.

  90. 90.

    Hübner, De la saisie des batimens neutres, vol. 2, 125–126.

  91. 91.

    Hübner, De la saisie des batimens neutres, vol. 2, 168–171.

  92. 92.

    Scott, Extracts from American and Foreign Works, 648, 655, 662, 666, 668, 671.

  93. 93.

    Scott, Extracts from American and Foreign Works, 661 and 665.

  94. 94.

    Jean Nicolas Démeunier, ed., Encyclopédie méthodique ou par ordre de matières (Paris: Panckoucke, 1788), part 4, 358.

  95. 95.

    I would add the question of blockades, which was quite common in the treaties of commerce. Globally, however, this issue has raised fewer controversies; Schnakenbourg, Entre la guerre et la paix, 112–114.

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Schnakenbourg, É. (2017). The Conditions of Trade in Wartime: Treaties of Commerce and Maritime Law in the Eighteenth Century. 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_8

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