What Impact did the French Revolutionary Wars have on Bristol's Overseas Trade, 1783-1802?

本研究探讨了布里斯托的海外贸易是如何受到战争在十八世纪后期。通过对利润丰厚的食糖贸易的案例研究，这项研究建立在不断增长的史学基础上，旨在了解商人如何克服战争的压力。这项研究使用了新的社会经济方法，包括使用社会网络分析，来分解和解释战争的影响。这项研究使用了著名糖商的记录，包括詹姆斯·托宾和约翰·平尼，以及缺席的糖种植园主和国会议员威廉·迪金森使用的公司。它还查阅了布里斯托商人冒险家协会以及布里斯托西印度协会的记录。重点是五个关键领域，每个领域都试图了解商人和种植园主如何制定科普战争的策略。这项研究调查了糖的生产，质疑约翰·平尼和威廉·迪金森等缺席者如何能够在危机时期维持大西洋彼岸的种植园。在这里，我们关注的是资本货物的进口，包括机器和食品，生产过程，以及律师和经理在种植园中的作用。这项研究还着眼于战前和战争期间的航运和船舶拥有，考虑私掠，保险和护送如何帮助和阻碍商人。在这里，我们查阅了商业冒险家协会的记录，利用他们详细的码头费簿来检查进入布里斯托的船只的吨位和数量。糖市场本身也同样被考虑，着眼于商人和经纪人在评估糖的质量和影响其销售方面的作用，以及西印度协会作为商人和政府之间以及商人和制糖厂之间的说客和调解人的作用。该研究进一步考察了贸易的季节性以及市场对战争的反应。信用网络被详细研究，使用社会网络分析来衡量约翰·平尼个人网络的规模、密度和组成，试图了解它是如何应对这一时期的压力的。国民核算体系的使用还使人们能够查明他的贸易社区中以背风群岛和布里斯托为中心的有影响力的成员，并审查他们在网络中的地位。约翰·平尼的公司，托宾和平尼，网络活动进行了详细分析，在扩大和巩固其网络，以及驱逐和排斥不受欢迎的成员。特别注意的声誉机制和验证的信誉，支撑网络。最后，研究将评估各种和平时期压力的影响，包括美国革命的后果，粮食生产的严重问题，没有导致武装冲突的地缘政治紧张局势，以及废除奴隶贸易的运动，以了解这些事件如何制约商人对1793年战争爆发的反应。

This study examines how Bristol's overseas trade was affected by warfare in the late-eighteenth century. Using a case study of its lucrative sugar trade, this research builds on a growing historiography that seeks to understand how merchants overcame the pressures of warfare. The study uses novel socioeconomic approaches, including the use of Social Network Analysis, to break down and interpret the impact of warfare. The study uses the records of prominent sugar merchants, including James Tobin and John Pinney, and the firms used by William Dickinson, an absentee sugar planter and MP. It also consults the records of the Society of Merchant Venturers of Bristol, as well as the Bristol West India Association. The focus is on five key areas, for each seeking to understand how merchants and planters developed strategies to cope with warfare. The study examines the production of sugar, questioning how absentees such as John Pinney and William Dickinson were able to maintain their plantations from across the Atlantic in times of crisis. Attention is paid here to the import of capital goods, including machinery and provisions, the production process, and the role of attorneys and managers in the plantation. The study also looks at shipping and ship-owning before and during the war, considering how privateering, insurance and convoying helped and hindered merchants. Here the records of the Society of Merchant Venturers are consulted, using their detailed wharfage books to examine the tonnage and number of ships entering Bristol. The sugar market itself is likewise considered, looking at the role of the merchant and broker in assessing the quality of sugar and effecting its sale, and the role of the West India Association as lobbyist and mediator between merchants and government, and between merchants and sugar refiners. The study further examines the seasonality of the trade, and the response of the market to warfare. Credit networks are looked at in detail, using Social Network Analysis to measure the size, density and composition of John Pinney's personal network over time, seeking to understand how it changes in response to the pressures of the period. The use of SNA further allows influential members of his trading community, centred on the Leeward Islands and Bristol, to be identified, and their position in the network to be examined. The networking activities of John Pinney's firm, Tobin & Pinney, are analysed in detail, looking at the expansion and consolidation of their networks, as well as the expulsion and exclusion of undesirable members. Particular attention is paid to the reputational mechanisms and the validation of creditability that underpinned the network. Finally, the study will evaluate the impact of various peacetime pressures, including the aftermath of the American Revolution, acute issues with crop production, geopolitical tensions that did not result in armed conflict, and the movement to abolish the slave trade, to understand how these events conditioned the merchants' response to the onset of war in 1793.