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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 July 2016
Almost nothing is known of trade between Ireland and the continent during the first half of the seventeenth century. It is true that the existence of direct commercial links can be deduced from isolated references in the state papers and elsewhere, but these give little or no material for constructing a detailed picture. The importance of the wine trade may be inferred from the fact that when customs duties were increased in 1632, wine, along with salt, was the only imported commodity to be affected; from this one may conclude that the administration considered that the quantity of wine imported was sufficiently great for an increased duty to be worthwhile. This is indirect evidence, however. The value of the present document is that it throws some direct light upon the state of an important branch of Irish overseas trade in a particular year. The destruction of all but a few of the Irish port books makes such direct evidence all the more valuable. Mention may here be made of copies of some of the earliest Irish port books which are to be found in the papers of Sir Arthur Ingram who was one of the original farmers for Ireland in 1613. The examination of continental economic arcives may in due course help to fill the gap still futher.
1 In this connection, the following may be mentioned : Calendar of state papers relating to Ireland, Acts of the privy council, 1613-14, and Calendar of Ormond deeds, vi, 1584-1603. In her Anglo-Irish trade in the sixteenth century (1929), Miss A. K. Longfield has a valuable chapter on the wine trade. Advertisements for Ireland, ed. G. O'Brien (R.S.A.I., 1923), and G. O'Brien, Economic history of Ireland in the seventeenth century (1919), throw light in general upon Irish trade during this period. Cf. also Pinkerton, W., ‘Contributions towards a history of Irish commerce’, in U.J.A. series I, iii. 195-6 (1855)Google Scholar, and, Westropp, T. J., ‘Early Italian maps of Ireland, 1300-1600, with notes on foreign settlers and trade’ in R.I.A. Proc, xxx, sect, c, no. 16, 361–428.Google Scholar Roberts, Lewes, Merchant's mappe of commerce (1638), pp. 22O-22Google Scholar, deals with Irish trade. Some facts about the Irish wine trade at an earlier period are given in Alice Stopford Green, The making of Ireland and its undoing (1908), ch. 1.
2 Cal S.P. Ire., 1625-32, p. 648.
3 Temple Newsam MSS, Leeds City Library. They take their name from the house built by Ingram, which is now the City Art Gallery. In H.M.C. Var. Coll., viii, 1-195, there is a rather inadequate calendar of the papers as a whole, under the title ‘Wood MSS’. Since the calendar was made they have been transferred by the Wood family to the Leeds corporation.
4 Holland, for example, offers unexplored possibilities in this direction, in the form of contracts made between Dutch merchants to trade with Ireland. There is some material in the Gemeente Archif in Amsterdam. Rotterdam contains little of relevance to Ireland. The archives of Middelburg which had some trade with Ireland during this period were destroyed during the second world war.
5 Liber mun. pub. Hib., pt 2, pp. 165-6Google Scholar.
6 E.g. Anthony Hall in Carrickfergus (ibid., p. 152) and Christopher Hesketn in Drogheda (ibid., p. 148) were customers for the general customs farm as well as being agents for the wine monopoly.
7 Longfield, A. K., Anglo-Irith trade in the sixteenth century, p. 139 Google Scholar.
8 Cal. pat. rolls Ire., Jas I, p. 101.
9 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1633-47, p. 175. Cf. also Strafforde's letters and dispatches, ed. W. Knowler (1739), ii. 76, 175.
10 Cal. Carew MSS, 1603-24, p. 130.
11 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1611-14, p. 298.
12 Acts privy council, 1615-16, p. 478.
13 Cal S.P. dom., 1603-11, p. 480.
14 Steele, Tudor & Stuart proclam. i. 137, no. 1159.
15 Ibid., p. 138, no. 1171.
16 Coleraine port book, 1612-13, Temple Newsam MSS. Cf. also Moody, T. W., The Londonderry plantation (1939), p. 348 Google Scholar, and for a general sketch of the economic background, ch. xm passim; particulars of the trade of Derry and Coleraine are here drawn from the port books of Bristol and Chester in the P.R.O., London.
17 Coleraine port book, 1615.
18 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1615-25 p. 124.
19 The figure for the year ending 25 Dec. 1665, was 990 tuns of which 406
were Spanish and 580
were French. Cal. S.P. Ire., 1663-5, p. 698.
20 The comparable figure for 1953 (26 counties) was 418,804 gallons. Trade statistics of Ireland for year 1953 and December 1953 (Dublin:Stationery Office, p. 17).
21 A tun was the equivalent of 252 old wine gallons. A butt (or pipe) was roughly a half tun, a hogshead was a quarter tun, that is 126 gallons and 63 gallons respectively, though these standards were not always precisely adhered to. A wine gallon was smaller than an imperial gallon (231 cubic inches, compared to 277
cubic inches). Cf. Lewes Roberts, Merchant's mappe of commerce (1638).
22 I am indebted to Mrs A. M. Millard of the London School of Economics for generously providing these figures from her own work on the trade of London in the early seventeenth century.
23 Cal. S.P dom., 1611-18, p. 187.
24 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1611-14, p. 71.
25 I am informed by Mrs A. M. Millard that most Spanish commodities imported into England at this date came via France. It may be for political reasons that direct trade with Spain was difficult at this time; on the other hand, French wine paid less duty than Spanish wine, 30s. a tun compared to 40s. or, if imported by native merchants, 2Ctf. compared to 30s. Thus it was more profitable to import wine from France; cf. Thomas Cave, ‘Instructions for customs officers’, in T.C.D MS F 3.1.17, f. 126.
26 Cal. S.P. Ire., 1611-14, p. 200.
27 Londonderry port book, 1614-15, Temple Newsam MSS. Cf. also Moody, Londonderry plantation, p. 347.
28 Wentworth to Coke, 28 Aug. 1633. Strafforde's letters and dispatches, i. 706.
29 These figures include a few ships that made the voyage more than once in the year. English ships were also the most prominent during the Wexford fishing season in 1614. Cf. Wexford port book, 1614-15, Temple Newsam MSS.
30 As it did apparently in 1570. See Longfield, op. cit., p. 137
31 Report on Dublin customs in 1632 (B.M., Add. MS 47095, f. 74). Summarised in H.M.C., Egmont MSS, i. pt 1, 71-2.
32 Cf. G. D. Ramsay, ‘The smugglers’ trade; a neglected aspect of English commercial development', in R. Hist. Soc. Trans., series 5, ii. 131-57 (i952), and N. J Williams, ‘ Francis Shaxton and the Elizabethan port books’ in E.H.R., lxvi. 387-95 (1951), for valuable discussions of the economic importance of smuggling.
33 A list of wool merchants of Drogheda who took out bonds to export wool to England in 1618 consisted almost entirely of ‘old English’ names (P.R.O., S.P./63/234. f. 156; Cal S.P. Ire., 1615-25, p. 189).
