Interesting post. What caught my eye especially was the founding of the Bank of England.
Some years ago I read a book by N.A.M. Rodger, the UK's official naval historian, called "Command of the Ocean" (the second in a series of 3), which had the same story from the navy's point of view.
As Rodger tells it, during that period there was no permanent British navy. A few ships were kept around, but it war broke out merchant ships were seized and fitted with guns. This system had long had problems, such as 1) the permanent ships were not maintained, and their crews drifted away to other work, and 2) the seizure of merchant ships would cause such ships to avoid England if there was war, or even a rumor of war.
Establishment of the BoE, in this telling, provided the navy with a means to sell bonds during peacetime to keep up their ships. They even created a system of dry-docks on the Thames to be able to work on ships out of the water (apparently a big innovation at the time).
Interesting post. What caught my eye especially was the founding of the Bank of England.
Some years ago I read a book by N.A.M. Rodger, the UK's official naval historian, called "Command of the Ocean" (the second in a series of 3), which had the same story from the navy's point of view.
As Rodger tells it, during that period there was no permanent British navy. A few ships were kept around, but it war broke out merchant ships were seized and fitted with guns. This system had long had problems, such as 1) the permanent ships were not maintained, and their crews drifted away to other work, and 2) the seizure of merchant ships would cause such ships to avoid England if there was war, or even a rumor of war.
Establishment of the BoE, in this telling, provided the navy with a means to sell bonds during peacetime to keep up their ships. They even created a system of dry-docks on the Thames to be able to work on ships out of the water (apparently a big innovation at the time).