America Compared: Britain’s Atlantic and Asian Empires

The following table enumerates the economic benefits derived by Great Britain from its various colonies, which sent a wide variety of goods to Britain and also served as markets for British exports.

English/British Imports and Exports (annual averages in pounds sterling)
England* Britain*
1700–01 1750–51 1772–73 1789–90
Imports from Asia, Africa, and America
North America 372,000 877,000 1,997,000 1,351,000
The Fisheries** 0 7,000 27,000 188,000
West Indies 785,000 1,484,000 3,222,000 4,045,000
Africa 24,000 43,000 80,000 87,000
East Indies 775,000 1,101,000 2,203,000 3,256,000
Total 1,956,000 3,512,000 7,529,000 8,927,000
Exports to America, Asia, and Africa
North America 362,000 1,355,000 3,254,000 3,763,000
West Indies 336,000 589,000 1,402,000 1,892,000
Africa 145,000 188,000 777,000 799,000
East India 125,000 653,000 893,000 2,173,000
Total 968,000 2,785,000 6,326,000 8,627,000

*The “England” column shows data for England and Wales; “Britain” includes Scotland as well.

**Includes Massachusetts Bay, Maine, and Newfoundland; by the 1760s more than £500,000 worth of fish was being sent annually to the West Indies and southern Europe.

Source: Adapted from The Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. 2, ed. P. J. Marshall (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 101.

Table 5.1: TABLE 5.1

QUESTIONS FOR ANALYSIS

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  2. Question

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