The Smugglers' Trade in Sixteenth Century England

十六世纪英国的走私贸易

• 批准号: AH/D000386/1
• 负责人: Evan Jones
• 金额: $ 2.85万
• 依托单位: University of Bristol
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2007 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FD000386%2F1
• 关键词: Smugglers; Trade; Sixteenth; Century; England

This is the most sophisticated historical study every undertaken of the illicit trade, in this country or abroad. All previous studies of smuggling, most of which concern the illicit trade of the eighteenth -early nineteenth centuries, have contented themselves with examining the reaction of the State to contraband traffic. By contrast, this book examines the world from the smugglers' point of view, making extensive use of business records generated by merchant-smugglers. To examine such records, the applicant uses methodologies similar to those employed by modern fraud investigators. It was for the development and application of these methodologies that he won the Economic History Society's 'T.S. Ashton prize' in 2001. Using the business records of smugglers, the book investigates why individuals smuggled, how they managed their businesses, how they protected their illicit trade and what they did to prevent detection and capture. In addition, the book examines the economic framework within which smugglers operated and, in particular, how changing fiscal, regulatory and market conditions affected the scale and nature of smuggling during the late medieval and early modern period. Concentrating on evidence from Bristol, the book thus opens a window, for the first time, on the smugglers' world. There are two reasons why this book will be an important publication. First, it demonstrates that it is possible to achieve something that has long been thought impossible - a detailed reconstruction of the illicit trade. Since the sources employed in this study are not unique to the period, other historians will be able to adopt this methodology to undertake similar investigations of the smugglers' trade, both in this country and abroad. Indeed, since the private commercial records of the seventeenth-nineteenth centuries are more detailed and numerous than those of the Tudor period, it should prove easier for historians working on later centuries to undertake similar investigations. This book therefore has the potential to open the door to the creation of a new branch of commercial history. The second reason why this book is important, is that its findings will force economic historians to re-evaluate their assumptions about England's early modern commercial history. It also will reveal, for the first time, the impact the illicit trade had on economic, social, political and urban development. The book's most obvious contribution to existing historical debates is that it will force historians to reconsider the use they make of data derived from the customs accounts, on which all interpretations of England's early modern commercial development are based. The book demonstrates that while customs data can generally be accepted as an accurate record of trade for goods subject to low officials costs (taxes and regulations), when such costs were high the illicit trade could account for the bulk of total trade. This has important implications for the use of customs data by economic historians seeking to determine the structure or development of English overseas trade. For example, the book reveals that since exports were subject to far higher official costs than imports in the sixteenth century, the data derived from the customs accounts provide a highly misleading impression of both England's trade balance and the importance of imports relative to exports. Similarly, since official costs and restrictions on trade increased markedly during the second half of the sixteenth century, the illicit trade would have grown in size. The customs accounts therefore underestimate the growth of England's overseas trade at this time.

无论是在国内还是在国外，这都是对非法贸易进行的最复杂的历史研究。以前对走私的所有研究，大多涉及十八世纪至十九世纪初的非法贸易，都满足于研究国家对违禁品贩运的反应。相比之下，这本书从走私者的角度审视世界，广泛使用了商人走私者产生的商业记录。为了审查这类记录，申请人使用的方法与现代欺诈调查人员使用的方法类似。正是由于这些方法论的发展和应用，他在2001年获得了经济史学会的T.S.阿什顿奖。这本书利用走私者的商业记录，调查了个人走私的原因，他们如何管理自己的企业，他们如何保护自己的非法贸易，以及他们为防止被发现和抓获做了什么。此外，该书还考察了走私者活动的经济框架，特别是不断变化的财政、监管和市场条件如何影响中世纪晚期和现代早期走私的规模和性质。这本书聚焦于布里斯托尔的证据，从而第一次为了解走私者的世界打开了一扇窗。这本书之所以成为一本重要的出版物，有两个原因。首先，它表明有可能实现一些长期以来被认为不可能的事情--对非法贸易的详细重建。由于本研究使用的资料来源并非该时期独有，其他历史学家将能够采用这种方法对国内外的走私者贸易进行类似的调查。事实上，由于17-19世纪的私人商业记录比都铎时期的更详细、更多，所以研究后来几个世纪的历史学家应该更容易进行类似的调查。因此，这本书有可能为创建一个新的商业史分支打开大门。这本书之所以重要的第二个原因是，它的发现将迫使经济史学家重新评估他们对英国早期现代商业史的假设。它还将首次揭示非法贸易对经济、社会、政治和城市发展的影响。这本书对现有历史辩论最明显的贡献是，它将迫使历史学家重新考虑他们对来自海关账户的数据的使用，对英国早期现代商业发展的所有解释都基于这些数据。该书表明，虽然海关数据通常可以被接受为官方成本(税收和法规)较低的货物贸易的准确记录，但当此类成本较高时，非法贸易可能占总贸易的大部分。这对于寻求确定英国海外贸易结构或发展的经济历史学家使用海关数据具有重要意义。例如，该书揭示，由于在16世纪，出口的官方成本远远高于进口，来自海关账户的数据对英格兰的贸易平衡和进口相对于出口的重要性都提供了极具误导性的印象。同样，由于官方成本和对贸易的限制在16世纪下半叶显著增加，非法贸易的规模将会扩大。因此，海关账目低估了英国目前海外贸易的增长。

项目成果

Inside the Illicit Economy: Reconstructing the Smugglers' Trade of Sixteenth Century Bristol

非法经济内部：重建 16 世纪布里斯托尔的走私贸易

• 发表时间: 2012
• 作者: Jones Evan T.