Volume 1

Microcosm of London / [Anon].

Date:
[1808-1811]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Microcosm of London / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    232/248 page 220
    wards rose to 42,000/. and finally to the sum mentioned, and still to the same person, Sir Thomas Smith. In 1613, by the peaeeful politics of James I. our imports brought in 48,250/. our exports 61,322/. 16.?. Id. the whole of the revenue from the customs amount- ing this year to 109,572/. 18.?. 4d. in the port of London only. Our exports from the out-ports raised 25,471/. 9.?. 9d.; the imports, 13,030/. 9?. 9d. The sum total was 148,074/. 17.?. lOd. In 1641, just before the beginning of our troubles, the customs brought in 500,000/. a year; the effect of a long series of peaceful days. The conse- quences of our civil broils reduced them, at the period of the Restoration, about 110,000/. yearly; from which period we are enabled to be more correct, and to state the progress of our navigation and customs with greater precision and certainty, up to the year 1784. We shall have great satisfaction, in the appendix to this work, if we are enabled to bring these accounts correctly to a later period, and to shew from real documents, the utmost effect of the futile declaration of war against our commerce, made by the despot of the continent, in his boasted blockading system. In these statements the old Customhouse valuations are taken, for the sake of the comparisons which have been hitherto made from them; but the ope- ration of the convoy tax has occasioned the prices to be fixed pretty near the real value, so that the amount of the imports and exports can now be ascer- tained with greater accuracy than formerly.
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