1

XIV International Economic History Congress, Helsinki 2006Session 1

THE INFORMATION PROBLEM FOR FRENCH TRADE IN NORTHERN MARKETSIN THE XVIIIth CENTURY

Pierrick Pourchasse (Brest, France)

Between the troubled times at the end of Louis XIV’s reign (1715) and the

beginning of the revolutionary wars (1792), real breaches in national activity, French

trade enjoyed many prosperous years despite the wars which marked the period.

Trade with the North, just as with colonial and Mediterranean trade, was expanding

and brought new life to the French economy.

Before studying the trade with Northern Europe, we must define the

geographic space of this “North” for the French of the XVIIIth century. The difficulty in

determining this trade area exactly remains constant, as much historically as in the

French historiography of some authors including those of Great Britain and the

United Provinces1. These two great maritime powers, in fact, played an essential part

in the trade with Northern Europe and it is impossible to study trade with the North

without constantly referring to them. In this study, the area concerned regroups all the

countries of the Baltic zone, including Norway and the port of Archangel as well as

the “North” of XVIIIth century French statistics, that is to say, the German ports on the

North Sea. The geographic zone is huge, going from the towns neighbouring France

such as Bremen or Hamburg to as far as distant Muscovy.

France, as did her neighbours, bought raw materials from Northern Europe.

Her shipyards needed planks from Prussia, masts from Riga, tar from Finland and

hemp from Russia. Her winegrowers needed oak wood from Pomerania and Poland,

her fishing industry Norwegian fish roe for bait, her cloth industry Courland flax seed

and her iron industry Swedish iron bars, etc. During the cereals crises, Northern

resources were vital in order to satisfy national food requirements. According to the

balance of trade figures, these purchases represented 7.4% of the total of French

imports between 1721 and 1740, 11.8% between 1761 and 1780 and 12.8%

between 1787 -1789. The wide variety of requirements was compensated for by a

great demand for French products by Northern countries during the same period:

1 LABROUSSE E. et al., Histoire économique et sociale de la France, Tome 2, Paris, 1970, p. 509.

2

8.2% of total exports between 1721 and 1740, 21.3% between 1761 and 1780 and

33.6% from 1787 to 17892.

1 - Balance of trade with the whole of the "North"

0

20000000

40000000

60000000

80000000

100000000

120000000

14000000017

16

1720

1724

1728

1732

1736

1740

1744

1748

1752

1756

1760

1764

1768

1772

1776

1780

1784

1788

Years

Am

ount

(lt.)

Importations Exportations

Source. ROMANO R3 et AN F 12 251, 252 et 253.4

France was an exception in Western Europe in that she exported more than

she imported. The positive nature of her trade balance with the North resulted from

her sales of wine products, the kingdom’s traditional export, salt and particularly, the

new colonial goods. In the XVIIIth century, she was first amongst the countries

exporting colonial goods to the North. It is true that there was very little competition at

that time. Brazil, formerly the leading producer “had disappeared. The Spanish

American possessions did not long count for anything but cocoa. The Dutch had

given preference to varied supplies. The British, finally, had abstained, being mainly

preoccupied by their own re-supplying and worried about a badly controlled flood of

2 JEANNIN P., « Les marchés du nord dans le commerce français au XVIII° siècle », in LEON P. (ed.),Aires et structures du commerce français au XVIIIe siècle, Lyon, 1975, p. 47.

3 ROMANO R., « Documenti e prime considerazioni intorno alla "Balance du Commerce" dalla Franciadal 1716 al 1780 », in Studi in onore di Armando Sapori, T.II, Milan, 1957, p. 1267-1299.

4 Following the modification of the balance, the figures for 1781 to 1786 were never published.

3

goods which would have started a price war.”5 As regards sugar, which represented

the major part of cargoes of colonial products to the North, France acted on the

periphery by supplying the raw materials necessary to the large refining industries of

the Hanseatic and Prussian towns.

In this way, France had the advantage in organising trade with the Northern

countries since she had potential cargoes available for the outward voyage as well as

for the return trip whilst her Dutch and British competitors were, for most of the time,

obliged to go to the Baltic in ballast. Moreover, this situation improved throughout the

century: her exports increased by 491% between 1721 and 1740 and she was in first

position as supplier to Hamburg and Bremen. Although the figures collected by the

French administration are open to criticism, they do however convey a general

tendency: the increase in French exports to the North and the positive nature of

these exchanges for the French economy.

The organisation of this trade theoretically belonged to two partners in a

context of interdependence between the markets. However, while this trade was

expanding, France was absent from that with the North in the XVIIIth century, her

ensign rarely being seen in the Baltic and most business transactions going through

the indispensable Dutch middleman or through foreign merchant networks.

5 MORINEAU M., « La vraie nature des choses et leur enchaînement entre la France, les Antilles etl’Europe (XVIIe-XIXe siècle) », Revue Française d’Histoire d’Outre Mer, 84, 314, 1997, p. 21-22.

4

2 - Number of French ships leaving France and passingthrough the Sound towards the East

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

1720

1724

1728

1732

1736

1740

1744

1748

1752

1756

1760

1764

1768

1772

1776

1780

1784

1788

Years

Num

ber o

f shi

ps

Source : Bang et Korst, Tabeller over Skibsfart..., op. cit., et Øresunds toldkammer.

French ships only accounted for a very small part of this traffic while shipping

leaving France increased during the century, even if this increase was greatly slowed

down during the wars. When Great Britain and France were at war, the French flag

no longer passed through the Sound as it did in the example of the Austrian

Succession (1744-1748), the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) and the war with

America (1780-1783). During the latter conflict, the United-Provinces, in opposition to

Great Britain, were not able to take over France’s trade with the North and this was

carried out by Scandinavian ships only, a considerable loss. In the course of the last

years of the Ancien Regime, the strong presence of the French fleet was due to the

particular circumstances of these years (Russo-Swedish war and the cereal crisis

which monopolised the Dutch ships6).

6 VAN REGEMORTER J. –L., « Commerce et politique: préparation et négociation du traité franco-russede 1787 », Cahiers du monde Russe et Soviétique, IV, 3-1963, p. 250.

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3 - Number of foreign ships leaving France andpassing through the Sound towards the East

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

1720

1723

1726

1729

1732

1735

1738

1741

1744

1747

1750

1753

1756

1759

1762

1765

1768

1771

1774

1777

1780

1783

1786

1789

Years

Num

ber o

f shi

ps

Source : Bang et Korst, Tabeller over Skibsfart..., op. cit., et Øresunds toldkammer.

France appeared to be excluded from its own trade. French ships did not

frequent the Baltic. For a dozen French ships registered each year at the Sound

between 1713 and 1780, the Dutch had 800 on average and the British 500. On the

other hand, all sources consulted confirm that the French weakness on a shipping

level was that of commerce. Whether this was in transport or in trade, French

exchanges with the North were in the hands of foreigners.

One question naturally arises. How can we explain this paradoxical situation of

a country favoured by a positive trade balance which leaves this trade movement in

the hands of its foreign competitors?

The traditional explanations for French absence in the “North”

Traditionally, several reasons have been put forward to explain the weakness

of French trade7. As regards sea traffic, this was in the hands of foreign ships, in

particular Dutch, as their freight charges were much lower than the French. The

7 Archives Départementales Loire Atlantique C 754. BAMFORD P. –W., « French Shipping in NorthernEuropean Trade », The Journal of Modern History, XXVI, 3-1954, p. 207-219.

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commonly accepted idea is that French sea traffic was much less competitive than

that of its competitors for different reasons.

French ships were expensive but this fact is in itself the consequence of the

poor French presence in the North. Raw materials for shipbuilding coming from the

North were handled by foreign middlemen, in particular Dutch who profited from this.

On the other hand, Dutch construction methods made it possible to build ships

capable of carrying large loads and at reduced costs. The solution was to buy ships

in Holland or Sweden which was, moreover, current practice. In 1720, the

Compagnie des Indes (French India Company) rebuilt its fleet through buying vessels

in Amsterdam and Hamburg. In the same way, the Petersen & Bedoire Company of

Stockholm regularly offered their ships to the Compagnie des Indes which acted as

their agent8..

The second reason: French crews were larger. Since the end of the XVIIth

century, the maritime laws introduced by Colbert required the presence on board ship

of a certain number of ship’s boys and novices in addition to the basic ship’s crew.

The study of the ratio of the number of crewmen in relation to that of the tonnage

carried made it possible to state that the productivity of the United-Provinces’ fleet

was distinctly superior to that of their European competitors9. On the other hand,

French ships had crews comparable to those of the Scandinavian fleet and the

reduction of the number of seamen throughout the century was similar to those of

other fleets10. It must, however, be noted that the pay of the ship’s boys and novices

was very low and it was not always an advantage to have smaller crews as this

slowed down manœuvres and lengthened loading and unloading time in port.

Final reason: the French sailor was expensive to employ. Many reports

indicate that foreigners were content with little whilst the French wanted fresh food

accompanied by wine and brandy. Michel Morineau has clearly shown that this was a

stereotype, food rations for Europeans were similar11. Another stereotype is to

8 In 1765, a ship of 160 lasts “La Bourse de Stockholm” from the “Terra Nova” shipyards of Carlos &Claes Grill was sold for a total of 65, 000 livres, by Petersen and Bedoire of Stockholm, through themedium of the company belonging to Mr Névé, owner of several ships regularly chartered by theLorient firm.

9 POURCHASSE P., La France et le commerce du Nord au XVIIIe siècle, Ph. D., Lorient, 2003, p. 431-435.

10 NORTH D. –C., « Sources of Productivity Change in Ocean Shipping, 1600-1850 », Journal ofPolitical Economy, 76, 5-1968, p. 953-970.

11 MORINEAU M., « Post-scriptum de la Hollande à la France », in : Pour une histoire économique vraie,Lille, 1985, p. 46.

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maintain that French seamen were better paid than their neighbours. In fact, the

highest pay seems to have been, in decreasing order, that of British, Dutch, French

and Danish sailors12. This salary scale explains why many Scandinavian or French

seamen sailed on ships of the United-Provinces.

Concerning the trade aspect, other reasons have been put forward, such as

the absence of trade treaties. This is particularly true as regards Russia, though the

United-Provinces, which had no treaty with this country, were very active in their

trading there. France did not sign a trade treaty with the Czar’s empire until 1787 due

to diplomatic differences between the two governments (France was allied with

Sweden and Turkey, the main enemies of Russia). The results do not appear to have

come up to what they hoped for. For De Ségur, French ambassador at Saint-

Petersburg, the French weakness was due to the short-term policies of the French

businessmen and the effects of the treaty could only be of little value13.

These assertions, if they are all true, are not enough to explain the absence of

French trade in the North and it is necessary to look for other explanations. Why did

the French not succeed in a trade where their British, Dutch or Scandinavian

neighbours proved to be so active? In order to understand this weakness, problems

relative to the irregularity of information may provide new answers. Did France have

a good information network with the North or, in the opposite case, was she

disadvantaged compared to her competitors? To answer these questions we must

study how the merchants set about constructing information networks then the

actions of their competitors to protect their knowledge of the markets and finally, the

role of the State in improving the efficiency of French trade.

French firms lack of knowledge of the markets

The efficiency of foreign trade networks in FranceTrade in the North was carried out on commission. This type of contract

worked through an agency such as that defined in economics14. The two parties had

opposing interests as one was looking for the lowest price, while the other, the

12 BAETENS R., « Sailors in the Southern Netherlands and Belgium (16th-19th Centuries) », in: “ThoseEmblems of Hell”? European Sailors and the Maritime Labour Market, 1570-1870, Resarch inMaritime History N° 13, 1997, p.267-285.

13 Archives des Affaires Etrangères (AE), Paris, Mémoires et documents, France, 2013, fol. 185.

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highest return. For every merchant it was vital to have total confidence in his agent

and therefore to choose him wisely so that he could undertake to do business in ideal

conditions15. Without being a specialist, the latter had to be able to judge the quality

and price of the goods he was required to purchase. He had to provide all the

information necessary to enable his principal to know the market opportunities. “In

unbalanced economies where transport is slow, the quality of information networks is

an important factor in discriminating between the companies first to be informed of

movement in the rates for raw materials, consumer tendencies in the market or

accidents such as the collapse of businesses, public borrowing or wars.”16 The

merchants who acted with incomplete information introduced mental constructs into

their actions which could make them completely useless17. In letters to their

correspondents in Marseille, Pierre His and Pierre Boué of Hamburg “are finding out

about the forecasts for the harvest, quantities in stock and are on the look out for the

slightest variation in prices.”18 The merchant made his profit from the differences in

the price rates of the products, often fluctuating greatly between markets, the winner

being “the one most quickly informed of the situation that is, the one with the best

information network.”19 The Société d’Agriculture de Bretagne (the Breton Agricultural

Society) gave as an example, the information systems of Britain, Holland and the

Northern countries who “are notified as soon as wheat is in short supply in Portugal,

Spain or Italy and shipments are made at once.”20 In addition, the principal is

prevented from overseeing the operation by the geographic distance. From these

findings, various strategies were set up.

As one mistrusts foreigners more than one’s fellows, the Northern merchants

sent their compatriots to the towns where they did business. The United-Provinces

blazed the trail. Dutch merchants avoided local agents and all forms of indirect

contact and counted on their own postal networks21, often members of the merchant

14 JENSEN M.-C. et MECKLING W.-H.., « Theory of the Firm : Managerial Behavior, Agency Costs andOwnership Structure », Journal of Financial Economics, vol. 3, 10-1976, p. 305-360.

15 WEGENER SLEESWIJK A., « La relation problématique entre principal et agent dans la commission:l’exemple de l’exportation des vins vers les Provinces-Unies au XVIIIe siècle », in: MARZAGALLI S. etBONIN H., Négoce, Ports et Océans XVIe-XXe siècles, Pessac, 2000, p. 29-45.

16 VERLEY P., L’échelle du monde, Paris, 1997, p. 195.17 NORTH D. –C., Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance, Cambridge, 1990, p. 8.18 RAIMBERT G., Histoire du commerce de Marseille, Paris, 1966, p. 831.19 VERLEY P., op. cit., p. 235.20 Corps d’observation…, op. cit., p. 175.21 MARTIN G., Nantes et la Compagnie des Indes, 1928, p. 76.

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dynasties of the countries concerned, sent out from the Republic22. In France,

following the Dutch, the Germans arrived in great numbers. Scandinavians settled

less often but their consular system ensured a well-structured network of agents in

the ports of interest to them. The French watched their exchanges with the North

increase with interest and encouraged the settlement of these communities. All

French ports, even small ones (Le Croisic, Morlaix) had German, Dutch, Danish and

Swedish colonies. In this way foreign merchants improved their efficiency by reducing

business costs linked to the management of commercial agents23.

The legal position of foreigners in France favoured them. When they arrived in

a port, they could rent premises without going through any special formalities. Only

after one year of residence were they entered on the local tax roll and obliged to pay

royal taxes. They were subject to the same laws as other merchants. They took part

in meetings with local merchants but had not the right to vote in the Chamber of

Commerce. Up to the second generation, they remained foreigners though the third

generation was theoretically considered to be French24. In Bordeaux, German

immigrants were 90% Protestant and retained their religion. Following the measures

of the Edict of Fontainebleau in 1685, naturalisation was impossible and most of

them retained their status of foreigner. Heinrich Luetkens, a German merchant

settled in Bordeaux did not become French even though he had spent twenty-six

years in France and was married to a Frenchwoman who had borne him five

children25.

Foreign merchants created a real international network through inter-marriage

where we often find the Huguenot diaspora. Wilhelm-Peter Metzler, originally from

Frankfurt, married Marine-Pauline Boyer26 in 1738. She was a member of one of the

most powerful families of the Protestant clan in Bordeaux, a branch of which had

settled in Hamburg at the beginning of the century. Later, their son married

Catherine-Elisabeth de Bethmann, heiress of another powerful Bordeaux family

which was originally German. In 1772 and 1774, two of Marie-Pauline’s nieces

22 ISRAËL J., Dutch Primacy in World Trade, Oxford, 1989, p. 367.23 GREIF A., „Contract enforceability and economic institutions in early trade. The Maghribi traders’

coalition”, American Economic History Review, LXXXIII, 3, p. 525-548; GREIF A., “Théorie des jeuxet analyse historique des institutions. Les institutions économiques au Moyen-Âge”, Annales HES,LIII, 3, p. 597-634.

24 HUHN F.-K., Die Handelbeziehungen zwischen Frabkreich und Hamburg, im 18. Jahrhundert, Thèse,Hambourg, p.. 34-36.

25 HENNINGER W., Johann Jacob Von Bethmann 1717-1792..., op. cit., p. 41.26 Jeanne, Marie Pauline Boyer’s sister, married the important shipowner, François Bonnaffé in 1756.

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married two of the Luetkens brothers, another important family originally from

Hamburg. The Lüttman family, merchants in Nantes, had members in all the large

ports involved in trade: Hamburg apart, Catherina Lüttman was the wife of Cornelis

de Neyere of Amsterdam, and her sister Hanna married the merchant Andreas

Heidritter of London where his brother Johannes was also a merchant27.

Foreign agents and merchants kept close links with their town or country of

origin. Trade associations linked different branches of the same family settled in

France and in the North. Relations with their families in the North or in Germany, who

were often also merchants, were constantly maintained. Wills show their attachment

to their country of origin. Jean-Philipp Weltner, a Bordeaux merchant, left 100 000

livres to his nephew in Lübeck as well as 10 000 livres to the poor of the Hanseatic

town.

The absence of French networks in the North

In the XVIIth century, the French, in particular those of St Malo, had used the

system of national commissioners for Spanish-American trade by sending a large

number of their compatriots to the port of Cadiz. On the other hand, in the XVIIIth

century, the French merchants who had settled in the North did not have enough

means to build efficient information networks and only participated in a small way in

exchanges between France and the North. The only real French business house set

up in Northern Europe was the Nantes firm Grou & Michel. In 1742, it was handling

almost a third of the Hamburg imports from Nantes28. On the other hand, the

company continually complained of the rise in taxes they had to pay in the Hanseatic

town which were much higher than those the Germans paid in France. According to

the Consul Rochefort, “Messrs. Grou & Michel pay…1349 livres, while the largest

Hamburg trading post in France does not pay more than 2 to 300 livres.”29 Despite all

their claims, Grou & Michel had to settle the full tax bill under the threat of having

their goods seized30. However, according to the Consul Lagau, who succeeded

Rochefort, the firm complained of excessive taxes “which should not however exceed

27 HINTZE P., Geschichte des Geschlechts Lüttman in Hamburg, Hamburg, 1928, p. 22.28 TREUTLEIN G., Schiffart und Handel zwischen Nantes und dem europäischen Norden von 1714 bis

1744, Ph. D., Heidelberg, 1970, p. 138.29 Archives Nationales (AN) B1 607, 17/10/174030 AN B7 350, 03/02/1744.

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those paid by the bourgeois and other inhabitants”31. Grou & Michel continued their

activities until the year 1750 before leaving the Hanseatic town.

In Russia, only three firms were registered in the 1750s: Godin, Michel and

Raimbert. If these firms had many plans to develop trade between France and

Russia, following the example of the introduction of tobacco from the Ukraine to

replace that from Virginia and Maryland, they lacked solid financial bases, were

unable to undertake large-scale operations and therefore, unable to prosper. In 1778,

the consul in Saint-Petersburg pointed out that “Michel’s profits remained low but that

was not known until after his death. As for Raimbert, he was not rich either32.” He

added that, if he returned to France, he would not do business with any of the French

firms in Russia.

French merchants, protected by the system of exclusivity, preferred to invest

in the colonial trade which was developing in the XVIIIth century and lagged behind in

the organisation of their trade with the North. In order to make up for lost time, their

plans were always mixed with an urgent request for State aid which was impossible

to set up in an open market such as that of the North. Those who launched into the

adventure in the Northern seas noted that, through a lack of knowledge of the

markets, their attempts generally ended in financial loss and for them, the North

became synonymous with low profit trade.

This lack of information on the North did not encourage merchants to launch

themselves into these markets and this lack of ambition was seen by the absence of

their ships in northern waters where the French flag was never seen.

Maritime trade was a vital source of information under the Ancien Régime.

The ships carried the mail necessary to transactions, the captains, upon return to

their port of origin, reported on market tendencies and the important events which

could influence economic activity. Braudel describes Amsterdam as “a wonderful

centre of information”33, thanks, in part, to their ships which criss-crossed the seas all

over the world. When Breton merchants, who had large stocks of Norwegian roe

available, thought they could get more from the North at a good price, they were

amazed to see a small number of Norwegian boats arrive and their hopes to

31 AN B1 620, 29/03/1763.32 AN B1 988, 1778.33 AYMARD M. (dir.), Dutch Capitalism and world capitalism. Capitalisme hollandais et capitalisme

mondial, Paris, 1982, p. 203.

12

speculate were shattered34. The Bergen merchants, aware of the fishing situation in

Brittany, thanks to their captains who called regularly at all the European ports,

preferred to suspend operations rather than to do bad business.

The presence of ships in foreign ports formed the basis of the setting-up of

merchant communities in these ports. As has been so well expressed by Pierre Léon

and Charles Carrière, “the men followed the ships.”35 France had good grounds to

succeed in trade with the North, thanks to its exports but its ships hardly ever went

there. Whilst in earlier centuries, food crises coincided with the French flag holding an

important position in the Baltic36, in the XVIIIth century, this was no longer the case.

At the time of the cereal crisis of 1751-1752, only one French ship went to fetch

cereals from the North. The Baltic “knows our products but has hardly ever seen our

merchants.”37

Information controlled by the Huguenot community

This lack of knowledge regarding the North was due, in part, to the Huguenot

communities which locked in the markets and carefully controlled information to

prevent the arrival of competitors from their homeland. This appears to be true as

regards the important position of Hamburg where the French houses of Huguenot

origin were successful examples of trading. Let us take the example of the Boué

family established in Hamburg.

In 1700, Pierre Boué (1677-1745), a Huguenot born of a family of merchants

and financiers originally from south-west France, arrived in Hamburg. He joined his

sister and his uncle who had already taken refuge there following the Revocation of

the Edict of Nantes and so was one of the first members of the Huguenot colony in

the Hanseatic town38. Like many merchants’ sons, he had been trained in commerce,

mainly in Amsterdam and Copenhagen. When he arrived in Hamburg, he set up as a

merchant specialising in maritime trade with Britain, both as ship-owner and financier.

With his brother, he also managed the largest shipyard in the Hanseatic town. In

1720, he planned to create a maritime insurance company but the town council did

34 Archives Départementales du Morbihan, 11 B53, 11/06/1780.35 LEON P. et CARRIERE C., Histoire économique …, op. cit., p. 194.36 PELUS-KAPLAN M.-L., « Crise de subsistances et « commerce du Nord » dans la seconde moitié du

XVIe siècle », in : Paris et ses campagnes sous l’Ancien Régime. Mélanges offerts à Jean Jacquart,Paris 1994, pp. 241-250.

37 BAMFORD P.-W., Forest and French Sea Power, Toronto, 1956, p. 143.38 Hamburgisches Geschlechterbuch Bd 13, p. 43-44.

13

not allow limited companies and refused permission for this. When he died, he was

succeeded by his son then his two grandsons under the name of “Boué & Sons”. In

1765, the business became part of the first Hamburg insurance company dealing with

risk at sea and fire39.

The Boué family network is an example of the multiple international links which

formed the Huguenot diaspora. Marriage united the Boués with the Bardewisch,

Balguerie, Rions, Chaunel, Nairac, Boyer, Texier, Eyma, Godefroy and Meschinet,

etc., all great business families established in Bordeaux, La Rochelle, Hamburg and

Amsterdam. Of the 38 Boué family marriages listed in Hamburg, 28 are with

Huguenot partners of French origin. During the 1790s, when French colonial power

was wiped out, the family began to marry into British families40.

39 Weber K., Deutsche Kaufmannsfamilien im atlantischen Manufaktur- und Kolonialwarenhandel:Netzwerke zwischen Hamburg, Cádiz und Bordeaux (1715-1830), Ph. D., Hamburg, 2001p. 263.

40 Id., p. 275.

14

Pierre Boué maintained excellent relations with France. He was the agent for

the Compagnie des Indes in the Hanseatic town and supplied it with ships, masts and

other Northern products. From 1729 onwards, he did business in sugar with the

merchant and ship-owner Jean Pellet41 who found him an opening in the market of

the “Compania Guipuzcoana de Caracas” of Saint-Sebastien in Spain to whom he

delivered cloth, tar, hemp and other goods42.

Pierre Boué was a clever man, very good at public relations and, therefore, at

collecting information. In 1727, the writer of a report on products from the North

spoke very highly of the Hamburg merchant: “The one person most helpful as

regards the purchase of masts was Mr Pierre Boué. I am sure we would find it difficult

to find a more intelligent, more careful and more honest agent in the North. Of all the

merchants, he is the one I consider the most trustworthy and most sensible.”43 Count

de Plelo met him when he passed through Hamburg in 1729 and was also

impressed: “My stay here gave me the chance to become acquainted with Mr Pierre

Boué, the agent for La Compagnie des Indes. He seems to me to be a good man

41 CAVIGNAC J., Jean Pellet, commerçant de gros, 1694-1772. Contribution à l’étude du négocebordelais au XVIIIe siècle, Paris, 1967, p. 220 et suiv.

42 WEBER K., Deutsche Kaufmannsfamilien…, op. cit., p. 265-266.43 AN B1 451, 05/08/1727.

15

with a wide knowledge of business and who, through his links with the North and the

Baltic, could usefully serve the king in everything concerning maritime trade.”44

Around a dozen other Huguenot families had set up commercial firms in

Hamburg more or less successfully: His, Godefroy, Bosanquet, Boyer, Chaunel,

Texier, Loreilhe, Jogues, Le Blanc & Co. and Deshons Brothers, etc. Although these

Huguenots held on to their native nationality with the foreign contract, because one

had to be Lutheran in order to obtain Hamburg citizenship, and took part in the

development of the important French maritime trade, they were not French

merchants. Their activities reached all countries in Northern Europe, they married

their children just as easily in Germany, Switzerland, Holland and Britain as they did

in France and, as generations followed one after the other, were more or less

assimilated with their Hamburg counterparts. They used their relations for trading

with France preferably, though also with Britain or with countries where Huguenot

immigration had also spread45. They formed a supranational community whose

common interest was trade. Their strongest geographic attachment, if there was one,

was not their native country but the port or country of business. According to Herbert

Lüthy, the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes ended with the “constitution of a

Protestant society with French roots rejected and thrown out by the laws of the

kingdom and, for the most active amongst them, deprived of French nationality, a

truly international society whose scattered groups, within and without France, were all

in different degrees, foreigners to the society of the king which was legal France.”46

The example of the ships bought by La Compagnie des Indes from Pierre

Boué shows that the latter had done his best to do good business in profiting from his

knowledge of the market. Between 1719 and 1723, the Hamburg shipyards delivered

the main part of the initial stock of ships to the Company, i.e. seventeen vessels47.

The construction costs were very high compared to national construction, with an

average of 327 livres per tonne, against 274 livres for Lorient and 240 livres for Le

Havre48. Despite the high price, the ships did not give satisfaction. One captain

44 AN B1 451, 8/04/1729.45 CARTER A. –C., « Financial Activities of the Huguenots in London and Amsterdam in the Mid-

Eighteenth Century », Proceedings of the Huguenot Society of London, 19, 6, 1959.46 LÜTHY H., La banque…, op. cit., p. 773.47 Meyer J., « Marchands et négociants allemands dans la France de l’ouest au XVIIe et XVIIIe

siècles », Etudes Germaniques, 37, 2-1982, p. 199-200.48 HAUDRERE P., La Compagnie française des Indes au XVIIIe siècle (1719-1795), Paris, 1989, p. 515.

16

judged his frigate to be “badly built, such as those made for foreigners.”49 In 1732,

the director of the Company complained about two ships built in Hamburg which “are

giving me more trouble than those built here. We have found faults, some of which

are beyond repair and others to be repaired here: we have to careen and strip them,

then line and nail them. It would be to the advantage of the Company to stop having

them built there.”50 Finally, the life of the ships built on the banks of the Elbe was

shorter than that of those of other shipyards used by the Company: three voyages

and less than nine years of service as against five voyages and more than twelve

years for British ships. Ships built in Lorient fell between these two extremes51. In

1730, the Company was obliged to renew its fleet, “for fear of soon having to cease

trading due to lack of means of transport.” Once again, the Company asked the Boué

shipyard to supply six vessels of 400 to 500 tonnes, despite the problems

encountered with their previous purchases from Hamburg52.

In Stockholm, the Huguenots Bedoire, Lefebure and Toutin also became

wealthy businessmen. It should be noted that in Sweden, they had no problems in

becoming naturalised and were very quickly integrated into the merchant then into

the native community. As in Hamburg, they took over trade with France and

monopolised the networks and also information to their benefit. In Sweden, the few

active French houses did not expand at all.

Foreign trade strategy in the North

The Dutch and British control of the markets

Pride of place might be put forward to understand this lack of investment by

the merchant class in Northern trade: “the great advantage these different nations

have over us does not only come from the fact that they were doing this before we

were…”53. The Dutch as well as the British with their famous “merchant adventurers”

had, for a long time, had a solid network in all the Baltic countries. These first foreign

firms are explained by the need for the most essential goods. France had natural

49 Bibliothèque Nationale, Département des manuscrits, Fr. 9090.50 AN Colonies, C2 280, f° 101.51 HAUDRERE P., La Compagnie…, op. cit. p. 516.52 BEAUCHESNE G., Histoire de la construction navale à Lorient, Vincennes, 1980p. 96.53 AE Nantes, Elseneur vol. 1, 13/05/1777.

17

wealth (forests, minerals) as well as agriculture (cereals) available and these much

more so than their neighbours so she became interested in products coming from the

North much later and on a much smaller scale than their competitors.

In Saint-Petersburg, for example, “circuits and networks were often regularly

dominated by tenacious groups which appropriated them then barred the others from

exploiting them when necessary.”54. This comment made by Fernand Braudel could

be applied to French trade in the North. The writers of reports on Northern trade

knew this: “The harm began long ago. It was increased considerably when the

Protestants took refuge and who, through their opportunities and their repeated offers

of service, were able to obtain orders from the smallest merchants in the kingdom.”55

The Northern markets were controlled by these foreign Huguenot groups which

grimly protected their “private zone”. For a French merchant, setting up a firm in

these countries appeared to be a very risky adventure.

The French community in Hamburg was much reduced compared to the

German colonies in French ports. Apart from the tax problem, French merchants

were not welcome in the Hanseatic town. For Consul Rochefort, the Hamburg town

council did everything possible to stop foreigners settling “so that all trade remained

in the hands of the Hamburg merchants established in France but living here.”56 The

success of the firm Grou & Michel gave rise to certain jealousy57 as confirmed in a

report of 1777: “There are no French business houses in this town, the main reason

for this is that the jealousy of the local merchants has never allowed them to set up

successfully.”58 The British and the Dutch, who played a much greater part in

Northern trade, “are also viewed with much greater favour and the few French are

looked at askance despite the protection the king has given to their merchants in

France and the advantages they benefit from there.”59 This distrust of the French

merchants was perhaps of a religious origin, accentuated by the anti-Protestant

policies of the King of France and the actions of the Huguenot communities.

All French attempts came up against foreign business houses established long

before in Northern towns, particularly in Russia. Theoretically, in the Russian capital,

54 BRAUDEL F., Civilisation matérielle, Economie et Capitalisme, XVe-XVIIIe siècle, Tome 3, Les Jeux del’échange, Paris 1979, p. 129.

55 Archives Départementales Loire Atlantique, C 754.56 AN B1 607, 17/10/1740.57 AN B1 620, 29/03/1763.58 AN B3 426, 10/01/1777.59 AN B3 419, 18/09/1741.

18

the retail trade was in Russian hands, foreigners only dealing in the wholesale trade.

However, the Petersburg merchants could not cope with this as their few shops were

in a sorry state and that posed problems for the wines which “need to be checked

and cared for continually.” On the other hand, “the individuals of the merchant body

and the bourgeois of Petersburg being almost as poor and miserable, are not able to

buy in large quantities.”60 In addition, the foreign merchants had complete control of

all Russian commerce. British business was particularly pre-eminent in Saint-

Petersburg, sustained by the skill and energy of its members and encouraged by the

voluntarist economic policy of the government in London.

Unlike the French merchants, the British houses in Saint-Petersburg formed a

“redoubtable colony”, assembled in a trade counter that they financed by

subscription. The British entrepreneurs “held regular meetings, had unions, wise

rules and, at all times were mutually supportive; they agreed on the management of

annual general operations, fixed the prices of goods and very nearly the rate of

exchange; moreover, they gave the Russians eighteen months credit for all they sold

them and paid cash for the hemp, masts, fat, wax and leathers that they bought from

them.”61

The handling of information

The aim of the colony was to defend its common interests and to stop all

incursions by another community which would be prejudicial to its activities. It

benefited from the weak French presence in the Northern trade markets to denigrate

French trade and products.

“Disinformation” regarding French trade was one of the customary actions

carried out by foreign communities in Northern ports. British merchants falsified

invoices for the goods which came through the Sound or gave incorrect information

on the ships’ destination with the aim of convincing the Russians that Britain was

their main customer and that the other European nations were of little importance62.

In this way, the British “threw an impenetrable veil over the eyes of the Russian

60 AN B3 432, 27/08/1743.61 SEGUR L.-P. (de), Mémoires ou Souvenirs et anecdotes. Tome second, Paris, 1826, p. 299.62 FOX F., « A View of French-Russian Trade Relations in the Eighteenth Century: The Ms. Le

Gendre », Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, Bd 16, 1968, p. 486.

19

nation regarding our consumption (that of France) of goods from this country.”63

According to Arnould, the British purchased goods that they did not need in order to

deprive them of these64. In order to hold on to the privileges accorded to their

merchants “the British minister redoubled their activities; the many merchants of this

nation handing out on one side gifts and acts of accommodation, found the means of

making the export tables for Saint-Petersburg grow and to limit those for imports65.

The British merchants did not hesitate to use more direct methods to sweep

away thoughts of trade with France. In 1723, the arrival of a ship belonging to the

Compagnie des Indes made them fear that a trade treaty between France and

Russia had been signed. To countermand this French attempt, the British merchants

gave “the tsar, maliciously, samples of wine and brandy, supposed to have come

from France on these ships and were awful. These were given to all the Russian

nobility who conceived such a bad opinion of them that all Petersburg called all poor

quality goods supplied by the British, Dutch and Hamburg merchants “produce of

France.”66 In this way, “The Russians believed that they could not do without the

British to buy their products and found little advantage in trade relations with France

which, while buying little from them, sold in large and expensive quantities.”67

Several French plans were blocked because it was impossible to obtain

information on how markets in the North were run. The Breton Agricultural Company

wanted to take over the import of flax seeds without having to go through the

inevitable Lübeck middleman who had total control of this business. The report it sent

to the king showed that the trade chain between Courland and Brittany was very

complex and completely out of the hands of those most interested that is, the

producer and the consumer, the action of the middlemen remaining an “impenetrable

mystery.”68 If certain aspects of this grain trade have been clarified, others remain

unclear for reasons unknown, particularly in Courland, where the seed market was

well-controlled by the Hanseatic towns where silence seems to have been obligatory:

“We were not able to obtain details regarding charges before embarking. There were

63 AN B7 414, 08/02/1761.64 ARNOULD, De la balance du commerce et des relations commerciales extérieures de la France dans

toutes les parties du globe particulièrement à la fin du règne de Louis XIV et au moment de laRévolution, Paris, An 3, p. 207

65 SEGUR L.-P. (de), Mémoires ou Souvenirs…, op. cit., p. 298.66 AN B3 432.67 SEGUR L.-P. (de), Mémoires ou Souvenirs …, op. cit., p. 299.68 Corps d’observation de la Société d’agriculture, de commerce et des arts établis par les Etats de

Bretagne, Rennes, 1760, Paris, 1772, p. 199.

20

no doubt reasons which stopped the Libau merchants we consulted from replying to

our questions.”69 How the prices between the suppliers in Courland and the French

dealer were arrived at remain unknown, so the Northern merchants “sold at prices

they decided on as they pleased.”70

The world of French trade was not, therefore, able to get into the Northern

markets. Faced with this situation, how did the authorities react? State institutions, by

means of official decisions, laws and rulings, etc., could make structures for operating

the national economy and improving its performance71. One of their major roles was

to produce economic information to help firms by reducing the uncertainty regarding

exterior markets72. The setting up of efficient consular networks was one of the

means used by the State to collect information and so facilitate entry into new

markets.

The French State’s lack of ambition

A reduced consular network

France, like all the great powers of the XVIIIth century, possessed a network of

consuls throughout Europe. In a world where communication was slow and sources

of information highly valued, the work of the consuls was of prime importance in

informing the commercial world of the situation in foreign markets. In order to

measure the efficiency of this institution, the comparative study of the French and

Scandinavian consular services is most interesting in that it reveals a great

difference, as much as in the density of the networks as in the ability to provide

information between France and her competitors.

The recruitment of consular staff does not follow the same principles. French

consuls abroad were theoretically representatives of the king, French nationals and

Catholic, who were forbidden to participate in trade under pain of removal from office

and a heavy fine. There were, however, numerous exceptions regarding vice-consuls

as it was often impossible to find a national candidate and Protestant merchants were

69 Corps d’observation de la Société d’agriculture, op. cit., p. 366.70 CAMBRY, Voyage dans le Finistère. Voyage d’un conseiller du département chargé de constater

l’état moral et statistique du Finistère en 1794, Paris, 2000, (1ère édition 1836), p. 59.71 NORTH D.-C., Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance, Cambridge, 1990; North

D.-C., « Institutions, transaction costs, and the rise of merchant empires », in: J.-D.TRACY., ThePolitical Economy of Merchant Empires, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991, pp. 22-40.

72 HARGREAVES HEAP S., Rationality in Economics, Oxford, 1989, p. 71.

21

sometimes put in charge of French consulates. At Helsingor, the Danish family

Hanssen was part of the merchant and ship-owing elite of the town while, at the

same time, in charge of the French consulate from 1697–1777. In Norway, the

consuls, Huguenots in the majority, carried out all merchant activities necessary to

ensure a decent income. On the other hand, when the post came up for renewal, the

authorities tried to stick to the rules which often resulted in posts left vacant,

sometimes for several years. Although, theoretically, they could not work at anything

else, French consuls were, in general, underpaid73. Brosseronde, consul at

Helsingor, declared that he had incurred debts of 30,000 livres in carrying out his

duties.

As regards the Scandinavian countries, the consuls were almost always

merchants appointed by the commercial colleges, institutions whose aim was to

develop the country’s economic activities. In Sweden, the most important merchant

families monopolised the posts in the large ports74.

The density of consular networks was not at all favourable to France.

Wherever they were on the European seas, Danish ships could find a consulate or a

vice-consulate to come to their aid. In this way, Denmark had eight consuls and thirty

vice-consuls active in France. France had only seven consulates (Trondheim,

Bergen, Helsingor, Hamburg, Gothenburg, Saint-Petersburg and Dantzig) and about

ten vice-consulates which worked intermittently throughout the whole of the Northern

countries. The French authorities pointed out that, as there was no trade, there was

no need for consuls. On their side, the merchants replied that it was difficult to trade

without consular representation.

The consuls and circulation of information

The Danish or Swedish consuls had to provide the “commercial colleges” with

much information on trade prices, rates of exchange, movements and trading

conditions. This information was then made available to the merchants. In Denmark,

in 1782, “Efteretninger om den inden og udenlanske hanhel, skibsfart, fabrique og

manufactur baesen som og on agerdyrkningen og Oeconomien I almindelighed”

(Information on interior and exterior trade, shipping, production and manufacture,

73 Archives Nationales B7 418.74 MÜLLER L., Consuls, Corsairs, and Commerce. The Swedish Consular Service and Long-distance

Shipping, 1720-1815, Uppsala, 2004.

22

based on (and concerning) agriculture and economy in general) was published; a

summary of all the information collected by the Office of Trade for the economic

players of the country. The French consuls were obliged to provide reports and

documents related to trade and shipping and to favour the trade of the countries they

represented. The ruling of 1781 (first title) listed the information required from the

French consular services:

Article 14: an annual report on the shipping and trade situation and on the

means of improving it

Article 15: quarterly statements plus an annual statement on trade imports

and exports for the district

Article 16: a quarterly plus an annual statement on French merchant vessels

This information was mainly of a general nature and did not provide practical

or useful information for the world of trade. In their correspondence, the consular

services appeared to be more preoccupied by the presence of French seamen

aboard foreign ships and enemy shipping, particularly British, or the geopolitical

situation of the great Northern powers.

Generally speaking, the French consular system had difficulty in functioning.

The monarchy’s financial problems prevented the opening of new consulates or held

up their renewal. Helsingor, a strategic port for trade in the North, had no French

consular representation for 16 years because, according to the authorities, French

trade in the Baltic was extremely lethargic. Meanwhile, “French merchants have no

national representative in Helsingor, in order to pay duty they must apply to the

merchants of the place where the principal trade is this type of commission. We can

assure you that we know nothing more revolting than the cupidity of these brokers.

Working in league with the customs officers because their right to commission

increases in proportion to the sum paid, they arbitrate the evaluation of exchange

and we have received alarming reports full of false and onerous charges.”75 In

addition, the consul appointed in 1776 did not speak Danish and complained of being

unable to obtain information from Customs at the Sound. This lack of ambition goes

back to the creation of a post in Berlin which could centralise all correspondence

between “French consuls, representatives and merchants set up in Riga, Königsberg,

Dantzig, Lübeck, Hamburg, Copenhagen and other ports and towns in Germany”

75 AN B7 426, 01/08/1767.

23

envisaged by the diplomat de Villardeau in 173476. This post never saw daylight even

though Prussia became one of the main trading partners of France in the North.

The functioning of French consulates in the North is one example of the

authorities’ lack of ambition to build up real networks with the aim of organising bases

for trade with Northern Europe. French trade did not benefit from any positive

intervention by the State regarding knowledge of exterior markets.

The foreigners, in a strong position due to setting up there first as well as their

mastery of information on Northern markets, organised trade in a very productive

fashion with which it then became very difficult to compete. The strength of their

shipping, the density of their merchant networks and the efficiency of their consular

services allowing them to accumulate information and reduce transaction costs, gave

them a comparatively considerable advantage over their French competitors77.

These disadvantages were not, however, irreversible. On the other hand, the

French merchants, lying in wait for good business opportunities, no doubt felt little

interest in trade which called for long-term investment. Their attempts show little

follow-up or ambition. They were above all attempts where they hoped to make a

maximum profit without the real will to organise the perennial structures necessary for

getting a foothold into a market and entering into competition with foreign networks.

The Atlantic area offered other possibilities and French merchants preferred investing

in this trade which afforded the double advantage of being protected while offering

the possibility of doing exceptionally good business. Northern trade, on the contrary,

was competitive where profit, though more regular, was never exceptional.

Finally, the authorities, just as the commercial world, chose the most profitable

solution, that is, the use of foreign trade and fleets which would satisfy supply and

demand at reasonable cost. Even the State thought the same concerning the

purchase of naval supplies in the North, Vergennes himself declared that it was

better to buy from the British than to go and fetch these because you could get them

cheaper. For most of the XVIIIth century, a large part of the supplies for the French

navy passed through the agency of enemy British houses established in the North.

76 AN B3 418, 07/1734.77 STIGLER G., The Organization of Industry, Boston, 1968, p. 262.