New Time Series for Scotland's and Britain's Trade with the Thirteen Colonies and States, 1740 to 1791

HE most useful statistical material we have on British trade with the colonies before the American Revolution comes from the records of the Inspector-General of Exports and Imports.' This office, which began operations in i696, kept quite detailed accounts of the quantities and estimated values of all commodities that England exported or imported. Despite the obvious utility of such records and the frequent references made to them by contemporaries, no equivalent office was set up for Scotland at the union of the two kingdoms in I707-no doubt because the value of Scotland's trade did not at first seem high enough to merit burdening her customs with further overhead. Not until 17541755, as we shall see, was an Inspector-General of Exports and Imports for Scotland established at Edinburgh. His annual reports began in I755.2 The Inspectors-General at both London and Edinburgh were on the customs establishment and subject to the immediate authority of the separate customs boards for England and Scotland. The annual accounts of the Inspectors-General appear to have been forwarded by customs only to the Treasury and Board of Trade.3 In addition, usually on instructions from the Treasury, special reports giving a great variety of commercial statistics were prepared for the two houses of Parliament,4 the Treasury itself, and the Board of Trade. Although the Treasury did not publish the annual reports and treated all information from the Inspectors-General as not available to the public,5 the special reports made to either house

Economic history · Genealogy · Geography · Series (stratigraphy · Geology · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Paleontology

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