Foreign Trade and Domestic Politics at the Restoration

Abstract

The Restoration in 1660 brought to the throne a king who was at once the best and worst of the Stuarts. Charles II was intelligent, cultivated, and amiable. He was free of the pedantry of James I and the frigid obstinacy of Charles I. He was capable, when he chose, of good sense, discretion, and judgment. For a little time after his arrival back in England his best qualities were in evidence. Clarendon recollected that he showed a great desire to improve traffic and trade, regularly conferring with ‘the most active merchants’ and offering ‘all he could contribute to the advancement thereof. This was the period when the Navigation Act was renewed and reinforced and the Committees of Trade and Plantations were created. Ambitious plans were set on foot for the encouragement of home manufactures, shipping, and fishing, and the regulation of foreign trade. Members of the Court were encouraged to take an exemplary interest in the growing crop of new trading companies. There is no reason to doubt Charles’s concern with the material prosperity of the nation to which he had been restored.