The London merchant James Battie wrote in 1648, following a decade of civil war in Britain:

Battie's claim that trade was ruined by warfare is one that has persisted into the modern academy, contributing to a generation of scholarship asserting that the seventeenth century was one of ‘general crisis’. As discussed in the Introduction to this volume and developed throughout Part I, however, not all sectors were affected in equal measure by the events of this period. As Part II will now demonstrate, despite the inclement political context and the numerous wars that raged, international commerce not only continued but remained robust and lucrative. This owes much to the actions and abilities of mercantile agents themselves, as they not only worked to maintain business links but acted to influence governmental policy regarding commerce. Equally, it is worth re-emphasizing that this was not an era in which political leaders sought to destroy international commercial links – to do so would be counter-productive. Early modern national economies were interdependent and motivations for implementing economic legislation, even during periods of war, owed as much (if not more) to domestic than to international concerns. There are many examples in the analyses that follow of mercantile agents receiving formal support for their actions, even if this contravened official wartime policy.