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Au cours des années comprises entre 1744 et 1763, le monde atlantique connaît deux guerres majeures. La France et ses colonies américaines sont impliquées dans une lutte acharnée contre l’Empire britannique. Les deux puissances rivales misent alors largement sur la guerre de course. Au-delà des conséquences commerciales et militaires évidentes, la guerre de course perturba aussi les communications transatlantiques. En effet, la prise d’un navire signifiait le plus souvent la perte des lettres qu’il transportait ou, dans le meilleur des cas, leur saisie, interrompant du même coup l’acheminement maritime du courrier. Les archives des Prize Papers, conservant des lettres et autres documents saisis par des corsaires britanniques, incarnent bien cette réalité. On y trouve notamment de nombreuses lettres françaises interceptées dans ces circonstances. Considérant que …
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153.More information
ABSTRACTBy exploiting an exceptionally rich documentation made up of the correspondance between eighteenth century cod fishery outfitters from Granville and Saint-Malo and their forwarding agent in Marseille, this article analyses the triangular trade that linked western French ports, the Grand Banks, and Marseille. Between 30 and 45 ships plied this route every year in times of peace and brought back cargoes worth some two to four million livres. By the eighteenth century this business had acquired a high degree of complexity in which success depended on ships returning to their home port within a year and the rapid communication of commercial information. The numerous and frequent letters exchanged between outfitters and their forwarding agent illustrates the hopes, fears, and disappointments of these businessmen and allows a microeconomic analysis of the cod fish trade. By underlining the tremendous risks involved, the article reveals the important role played by the forwarding agent who not only sold the fish and found a return cargo, but also participated financially in outfitting ships, and insuring them.
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154.More information
The geographical closeness of North America, the possibilities offered by the cultures of the Northeast of the territory, the need for the colonial productions, made naturally a natural business partner from the moment the American colonies had got organized and from the moment a local merchant navy could lean on an agricultural hinterland.This trade was forbidden by both main powers, which tried to make apply the Exclusive in opposition with their American subjects (French and British) which wanted to make the most fruitful possible business. The central, distant powers did not have the means to forbid it completely. The productions were complementary ; cod and beef salted, dried fishes, flour, wood of lumber, dried vegetables on one hand, sugar, rum, molasses at first then cotton, cocoa then and coffee from 1730s on the other hand.The trade between the British colonies of the Antilles and North America was naturally authorized but it became suspect from 1770 as the tension became more marked between Great Britain and its North American colonies.Two islands concentrated the shady trade in the Dutch zone, Saint Eustache ( Statius) island situated in the center of Lesser Antilles and more late, Saint-Barthélemy become Swedish, for Lesser Antilles and Saint Thomas and Sainte-Croix, Danish islands in the Virgin Islands, close to Greater Antilles.In spite of the oppositions of metropolises, in particular Great Britain and France, the trade with North America developed in secret by using all the resources of the shady and the local authorities made many of the bad will to exercise the repression recommended by the MetropolesAfter the War of Seven Years and the occupation of the French territories by the English, then especially after the American War of Independence ( War of America) and the birth of United States of America, allies of France, the situation changed and the trade was able to develop freely with the North Americans by the ports of warehouses but also thanks to secret practices favored by the regulations.The Revolution stopped this cooperation because the American state chooses the English camp under the pressure of the British administration contrary to the inhabitants of the ports who adhered to the ideas of the Revolution and who remained faithful to their former friendships. After 1794, with the aggressive policy of Victor Hugues, the alliances overturned and the Americans became, temporarily, the enemies to fight but the trade with North America started up again with renewed vigor in the XIXth century.