Scottish trade in the early modern era includes all forms of economic exchange within Scotland and between the country and locations outwith its boundaries, between the early sixteenth century and the mid-eighteenth. The period roughly corresponds to the early modern era, beginning with the Renaissance and Reformation and ending with the last Jacobite risings and the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution.
At the beginning of this period Scotland was a relatively poor country, with difficult terrain and limited transport. There was little trade between different areas of the country and most settlements depended on what was produced locally. International trade followed the format of the Middle Ages, exporting raw materials and importing luxury goods and scarce raw materials. The early sixteenth century saw economic expansion from a low base before the English invasions of the 1540s. The late sixteenth century saw economic distress, inflation and famine, but also greater stability and the beginnings of industrial production as new techniques were imported to the country. The early seventeenth century saw economic expansion until the end of the 1630s, followed by disruption caused by the Bishop's Wars, English Civil Wars and English invasion and occupation.
After the Restoration there was a recovery of trade, particularly to England and with the Americas, despite the problems of tariffs. Attempts to establish a Scottish colony in Central America as part of the Darién scheme ended in disaster in the 1690s. After the Union with England in 1707 the cattle trade and coal production continued to expand and the major area of industrial production was linen. There was growing trade with the Americas, which produced the Tobacco Lords of Glasgow, the trade in sugar and rum from Greenock, while Paisley specialised in cloth. There was also the development of financial institutions, such as the Bank of Scotland, Royal Bank of Scotland and British Linen Company, and improvements in roads both of which would help facilitate the Industrial Revolution that would accelerate in the late eighteenth century.
Background
Jenny Wormald commented that "to talk of Scotland as a poor country is a truism".J. Wormald, Court, Kirk, and Community: Scotland, 1470–1625 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991), , p. 41. At the beginning of the era, with difficult terrain, poor roads and limited methods of transport, there was little trade between different areas of the country and most settlements depended on what was produced locally, often with very little in reserve in bad years.J. Wormald, Court, Kirk, and Community: Scotland, 1470–1625 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991), , pp. 41–55. Foreign trade was in the hands of a relatively small number of royal burghs, while generally smaller baronial and ecclesiastical burghs, that proliferated in the second half of the fifteenth century, acted mainly as local markets and centres of craftsmanship.R. Mitchison, A History of Scotland (London: Routledge, 3rd edn., 2002), , p. 78.
From the fourteenth century Scottish exports, and most imports, were channelled through a monopoly known as the Staple, which was located for most of the late Middle Ages in the Flemish town of Bruges. In 1508 James IV moved the Staple to the small port of Veere in the province of Zeeland, where it remained until the late seventeenth century.A. M. Godfrey, Civil Justice in Renaissance Scotland: The Origins of a Central Court (Brill, 2009), , p. 188. Most of the exports were raw materials, particularly wool, coal and fish. The major imports were luxury goods, such as clothA. MacQuarrie, Medieval Scotland: Kinship and Nation (Thrupp: Sutton, 2004), , pp. 136–40. wine, pottery and military equipment,K. Jillings, Scotland's Black Death: The Foul Death of the English (Stroud: Tempus, 2006), , pp. 69–73. and scarce raw materials such as wood and iron. Major trading partners outside the Netherlands included France, Scandinavia and England. England was only the fourth most important trading partner, ranking just above the Hanseatic and Baltic ports and receiving mainly salt and coal.A. D. Nicholls, The Jacobean Union: A Reconsideration of British Civil Policies Under the Early Stuarts (Greenwood, 1999), , p. 146.
Sixteenth century
From a low base at the beginning of the sixteenth century, trade expanded in the 1530s, but suffered from the English invasions of the Rough Wooing in the 1540s. From the mid-sixteenth century, Scotland experienced a decline in demand for exports of cloth and wool to the continent. Scots responded by selling larger quantities of traditional goods, increasing the output of salt, herring and coal.C. A. Whatley, Scottish Society, 1707–1830: Beyond Jacobitism, Towards Industrialisation (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000), , p. 17. The late sixteenth century was an era of economic distress, probably exacerbated by increasing taxation and the devaluation of the currency. In 1582 a pound of silver produced 640 shillings, but in 1601 it was 960 and the exchange rate with England was £6 Scots to £1 sterling in 1565, but by 1601 it had fallen to a notional value of £12. Wages rose rapidly, by between four or five times between 1560 and the end of the century, but failed to keep pace with inflation. This situation was punctuated by frequent harvest failures, with almost half the years in the second half of the sixteenth century seeing local or national scarcity, necessitating the shipping of large quantities of grain from the Baltic,J. Wormald, Court, Kirk, and Community: Scotland, 1470–1625 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991), , pp. 166–8. referred to as Scotland's "emergency granary". This was particularly from Poland through the port of Danzig, but later Königsberg and Riga, shipping Russian grain, and Swedish ports, would become significant. The trade was so important that Scottish colonies were established in these ports.H. H. Lamb, Climatic History and the Future (London: Taylor & Francis, 1977), , p. 472.
The fortunes of Scottish burghs in the export trade changed across the century. Haddington, which had been one of the major centres of trade in the late Medieval period, saw its share of foreign exports collapse in the sixteenth century. Aberdeen's share of trade remained stable for most of the century, but slumped in the last decade. The small Fife ports grew in significance and Edinburgh took an increasing share of trade through its port of Leith. In 1480 Edinburgh accounted for 54 per cent of export revenue and a century later it was 75 per cent.T. M. Devine, Scotland, in D. M. Palliser, P. Clark and M. J. Daunton, The Cambridge Urban History of Britain, Volume 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), , p. 153. This forced smaller ports to diversify into other commodities and to undertake more coastal trading. Overall there was an increase in foreign trade from the 1570s, of which Edinburgh received the major share.M. Lynch, "Urban society, 1500–1700" in R. A. Houston and I. D. Whyte, Scottish Society, 1500–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), , pp. 99–101.
The reign of James VI (1567–1625) was most significant for its relative stability. Economic policy was limited by rudimentary understanding of economic matters and government efforts largely revolved around the creation of monopolies in the trade of various types of goods. There were the beginnings of industrial manufacture in this period, often utilising expertise from the continent, which included a failed attempt to use Flemings to teach new techniques in the developing cloth industry in the north-east, but more successfully in bringing a Venetian to help develop a native glass blowing industry. In 1596 the Society of Brewers was established in Edinburgh and the importing of English hops allowed the brewing of Scottish beer. George Bruce used German techniques to solve the drainage problems of his coal mine at Culross.J. Wormald, Court, Kirk, and Community: Scotland, 1470–1625 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1991), , pp. 172–3. Lead mining at Leadhills also expanded in this period, with most of the unsmelted ore sold for export.I. D. Whyte, "Economy, secondary sector: industry to 1770s", in M. Lynch, ed., The Oxford Companion to Scottish History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), , pp. 211–12.
Early seventeenth century
Attempts by James VI to make the dynastic union created by his inheritance of the English and Irish thrones in 1603, a political and economic union, floundered on mutual suspicion. The major benefit was in the pacification of the Borders, which brought to an end the widespread raiding and local warfare of the Border Reivers. Charles I's (r. 1625–49) attempts to bring the economies of England and Scotland closer to integration, including an attempt to produce a common fisheries scheme, were also unsuccessful. Generally the early seventeenth century was a time of increasing economic prosperity. Edinburgh obtained a virtual monopoly over international trade in key commodities, with the profits in the hands of a small group of "merchant princes". A number of them invested their wealth in new industries and businesses, such as coal mining, salt production and money lending. The prosperity tailed off in the 1630s and was brought to an end by the Bishop's Wars (1639–40) and Civil Wars (1642–51).
The English invasions of the 1640s had a profound impact on the Scottish economy, with the destruction of crops and the disruption of markets resulting in some of the most rapid price rises of the century.R. Mitchison, A History of Scotland (London: Routledge, 3rd edn., 2002), , pp. 291–3. Under the Commonwealth, the country was relatively highly taxed, but gained access to English markets.J. D. Mackie, B. Lenman and G. Parker, A History of Scotland (London: Penguin, 1991), , pp. 226–9. At the Restoration in 1660, there was an end to high taxation and occupation and the formal frontier with England was re-established, along with its customs duties. There was a slow return to growth, but prosperity probably did not reach the heights of the 1630s. The currency remained one of the most debased and unreliable in Europe. No gold coins were issued by the Edinburgh mint after 1638 and with a balance of payments deficit that necessitated the export of large quantities of silver or bullion, the majority of coins in circulation between 1670 and 1707 were not in Scottish denominations. As a result, Scottish merchants had to perform multiple immediate multiple currency conversions and charitable bequests usually stipulated both an amount and a currency.
Late seventeenth century