The English navigation laws and the Baltic trade, 1660–1700

Abstract

Abstract It is the unanimous opinion of modern historians that the celebrated Navigation Laws were primarily aimed at Dutch sea power and commercial supremacy, not only in the colonies but also in Europe. But there has as yet been no specific attempt to discover whether the Laws, when they came into operation, influenced English commercial relations with the Baltic and, if so, how. A vital cornerstone of the Dutch trading system was the domination of the trade and shipping between the Baltic and southern and western Europe. An analysis of the effects of the Navigation Laws as a first break in this edifice of Dutch supremacy is therefore a necessary complement to a study of Angle-Baltic economic contacts after 1660, when the Laws took their definitive shape. Eli F. Heckscher Memorial Lecture delivered 24 November, 1959, at the Meeting of the Economic History Society, Helsinki. Eli F. Heckscher Memorial Lecture delivered 24 November, 1959, at the Meeting of the Economic History Society, Helsinki. Notes Eli F. Heckscher Memorial Lecture delivered 24 November, 1959, at the Meeting of the Economic History Society, Helsinki.