Citizens of the World
London Merchants and the Integration of the British Atlantic Community, 1735–1785

Examines the business and social strategies of the men who developed the British empire in the eighteenth century.

David Hancock (Author)

9780521629423, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 13 September 1997

504 pages, 66 b/w illus. 11 tables
23.4 x 15.5 x 2.7 cm, 0.695 kg

"This is a detailed study of the business and social climbing of a group of eighteenth century British merchants active in the Atlantic world....Hancock has done a prodigious amount of research." J.R. McNeill, The Journal of Interdisciplinary History

Citizens of the World examines the business and social strategies of the men who developed the British empire in the eighteenth century. This book focuses on twenty-three London merchants who traded with America in an age of imperial expansion. These 'associates' started their careers as marginal people, sought and took advantage of opportunities around the world, and approached their business and social lives with the integrating and improving ideals of the practical Enlightenment. Professor Hancock reveals how they managed the business of the empire and turned themselves into gentlemen: he tracks their shipping over fifty years, investigates their farms and plantations, cumulates their investment portfolios, follows them into their scientific societies, and watches them build country houses and fill them with art. He places all this activity in the context of the developing institutions of Britain's colonies in America and polite society at home.

Part I. The Crucible of Trade: 1. A larger world
2. Mercantile origins: 'passengers only'
Part II. The Management of Trade: 3. Managing from a 'Merchant's public counting house'
4. Shipping and trading in an 'empire of the seas'
5. Planting: 'a great fund of riches and of strength to Great Britain'
6. Slaving: Bance Island's 'general rendezvous'
7. Government contracting: 'a work of Hercules'
8. Financing: 'turning the great wheel of unfathomable commerce round'
Part III. Becoming a Gentleman: 9. The urge to improve
10. The way to be rich and respectable
Epilogue: mercantile legacies: 'industrious friends'.

Subject Areas: Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700 [HBLH], History of the Americas [HBJK]