The Politics of Trade: The Overseas Merchant in State and Society, 1660-1720 (review)

Gauci has woven into a single narrative mercantile, social, and political change at a critical moment in the evolution of the modern state. The Politics of Trade ties political accommodation to commercial success in six chapters organized into two broad groups. The first group comprises three carefully constructed contextual chapters: "The Mercantile City" traces the formation of urban communities of overseas traders; "Business and Public Life" looks at mercantile and civic responsibility in the life-cycle of merchants within these communities; and "Mercantile Association and Commercial Politics" examines the intricate linkages and networks that transformed disparate elements into a whole. Gauci's final three chapters look at the public impact of "overseas traders in the wider environment of region and realm" (13-14). Chapter 4 is a close study of the interplay between an emerging politically conscious trading community and the new mercantile press. The fifth chapter analyzes the multidimensional relationship between Parliament and the overseas trading community. The book ends with a discussion of the French Commerce Bill of 1713, an episode that puts Gauci's thesis to the test. Although London is the reference point for much of the argument, the author extends his discussion to York and Liverpool (one a declining and the other a rising port) in order to underscore the dangers of forming generalizations about commerce and politics in the Augustan age.

In his reconstruction of the world of the overseas merchant of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, Gauci employed methodologies familiar to historians, economists, sociologists, and political scientists. These range from a close reading of a rich body of contemporary evidence to the application of disciplined sampling and profiling techniques. Acknowledging "the 'political' character of the everyday working and social lives of overseas traders," he underscores the error of seeing the period's urban overseas merchant communities, particularly London's, in strictly economic terms (5). He set out, as he makes clear, to bridge gaps separating mercantile, political, and sociological studies. The Politics of Trade is intentionally prosopographical, seeking to portray its central figure, the overseas trader of the 1660 to 1720 period, as fully as possible within the multiple contexts that defined his world. It is for this reason that the author emphasizes "the ways in which economic function, rather than the more nebulous concepts of class or wealth, affected contemporary perceptions of commercial leaders" (7).

The strength of The Politics of Trade lies in its rich portrayal of complex forms of association that drew merchants into shared identities, as well as its delineation of linkages (parliamentary politics and the press are notable examples) binding overseas traders to the emerging apparatus of the modern state. Gauci rightly cautions that his base sample of 850 London merchants is a work in progress. For one thing, it understates the presence—and, thus, the significance—of "foreign" elements within the City. For example, the sample included just two Irish merchants when, in fact, a small but vigorous Irish trading community (including various Blakes, Lynches, Kirwans, Frenches, and Skerrettes) had been established in London by the 1680s to manage the commission trade of Galway, Cork, and Dublin in West Indian commerce. With the later addition of houses specializing in Irish linen, this small but thriving nest of firms rooted in Ireland had become a conspicuous component of the City's trading community by the middle years of the eighteenth century. To raise this point is not to question Gauci's contribution. The Politics of Trade has moved the shadow world of overseas trading communities of the Augustan Age closer to their rightful place near center stage.