The Merchant Ship in the British Atlantic, 1600-1800

Reviewed by: The Merchant Ship in the British Atlantic, 1600–1800: Continuity and Innovation in a Key Technology by Phillip Reid Amélia Polónia (bio) The Merchant Ship in the British Atlantic, 1600–1800: Continuity and Innovation in a Key Technology By Phillip Reid. Leiden: Brill, 2020. Pp. xiv + 308. The Merchant Ship in the British Atlantic, 1600–1800: Continuity and Innovation in a Key Technology By Phillip Reid. Leiden: Brill, 2020. Pp. xiv + 308. The title of this book is well chosen: Phillip Reid writes not about "British Merchant Ships," but "The Merchant Ship in the British Atlantic." These were the ships, often built in New England, that maintained early modern trans-Atlantic commerce. His sources are largely American, due to lack of funding for lengthy visits to British archives. This book is located between economic maritime history, the history of technology, archaeology (also experimental), and digital simulations. With his inspiring approach, Reid shares the painful albeit rewarding experience of many multidisciplinary historians. Reid carries forward the "English Atlantic" concept developed by Ian K. Steele [End Page 933] in his 1986 book of the same title. He thus joins the long-standing feud over whether British-built ships lasted longer than British-Americanbuilt ones. Reid rightly points out that the views in the literature depend on the sources selected. The criteria for evaluating the efficiency of ships, he claims, must be more complex than just the average age of ships arriving in select ports. London maritime insurers included British-American-built ships among the best category—a good example of economic history providing insights in the history of technology. Reid dissects a letter by a British merchant ordering a medium-size Atlantic merchant ship from a New England shipyard (ch. 3, p. 97 f.). The letter specifies exactly what size and quality the merchant firm wanted, but significantly left other details to the shipwright's expertise. Reid takes this beyond the mere descriptive: from the specifications, he convincingly deduces that the ship would most likely be for the "Guinea Trade," a euphemism for slave transport. As the author argues, dedicated "slavers' ships" were the exception at the time; most ships involved in the slave trade were converted to transport other goods when sailing eastward from the Americas. This book fully understands the thinking of the period: "proportion" and "geometry" are not "scientific" in the modern sense, but part of "natural philosophy," with both an aesthetic and a utilitarian aspect (p. 114). Reid warns readers against the common trap of assuming that "modern" and "scientific" automatically mean "better." Here, the history of technology overlaps with cultural history, requiring a sound knowledge of how the world seemed to operate at the time. In late eighteenth-century Britain, the alleged French superiority led to calls for a more "scientific" approach to naval design. In evaluating this, Reid wisely cautions that the many papers in fashionable journals need not reflect mainstream thinking: "Ordinary shipwrights were not publishing articles in European Magazine"—they kept on building merchant ships, applying the experience acquired in their trade. One new insight this book offers is to question French "superiority" in ship design—not for nothing did English shipowners order new vessels from North America rather than, say, Brittany. Turning to the merchants who used ships to transport their wares, Reid emphasizes that, for them, risk management was crucial. Sailing the Atlantic was fraught with all sorts of dangers that required a diversification of risks. No one bore more risks and dangers, though, than the millions of slaves transported from West Africa to the Americas. One may question Reid's estimate, but he alleges that about 750 merchant ships must have been sailing for the "Africa Trade" alone at any given time. Here the author should have followed his own advice: accurate estimates depend on the availability, representativity, and nature of sources. Finally, Reid addresses why it took so long for the tiller to be replaced [End Page 934] by the steering wheel. He draws heavily on experiences with full-scale replica ships, indicating that the alleged advantages are only marginal. Computer-based simulation yields similar results, and with new arguments, Reid agrees that risk-averse owners

Ancient history · Archaeology · Atlantic World · Feud · Key (lock) · Operations research · Computer Science · Engineering · Global Maritime and Colonial Histories · History · Maritime and Coastal Archaeology · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies