The 'mystery and business' of navy agents, c. 1700-1820

Wilcox, Martin (2011) The 'mystery and business' of navy agents, c. 1700-1820. International Journal of Maritime History, XXIII (2). pp. 41-68. ISSN 0843-8714

Abstract

The "new naval history" has done much to reduce the isolation in which the Royal Navy was formerly studied and to explore the many and varied interactions between te "wooden world" and the wider world. The politices of the navy and the processes by which money was made available for it have been explore; the extent to which the navy drew on the same pool of lablour as privateering and merchant shipping, and to which men moved between the sectors has been examined; detailed studies have illustrated how private sector resources and expertise were mobilised to achieve the strategic ends of the state.The navy did not stand apart from society but was deeply influenced by wider changes in the economy and policy of eighteenth-century Britain, which in turn it influenced in numerous ways. Many of these connections remain under researched. Among them are navy agents, the conduits throughwhich seafarers' money flowed into the wider economy.

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