The Voyage of Jacobean England's Greatest Merchant Ship, "Trades Increase": A Microstudy of 17th-Century Global Capitalism

FAIN: FA-57151-13

Richmond Tyler Barbour
Oregon State University (Corvallis, OR 97331-8655)

The tragic voyage of Jacobean England's greatest merchant ship--a magnificent ruin burned to the waterline in Java as the crew succumbed to tropical diseases--and the ensuing controversy over Eastern trade epitomize the ambitions and limitations of the East India Company's founding generation. The full story of the voyage and its public and corporate texts has not been told. Published journals and most summaries were produced by scholars who endorsed British expansionism and saw the early failures as episodes in a grand imperial narrative, not as symptoms of inherent vulnerability. My archival work has uncovered manuscripts enabling the responsible delivery of this compelling story to post-colonial readers: a "micro-history" that illuminates the long view of global capitalism and corporate power. The voyage manifested destabilizing divisions of interest that resonate in the globalized economy of the 21st century.

Associated Products

“His Majesty’s Ships and the Sight of Them:” The Construction of the Prince Royal (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: “His Majesty’s Ships and the Sight of Them:” The Construction of the Prince Royal
Author: Richmond Barbour
Abstract: 1609 was a year of great expectations and extravagant building projects in greater London, not least of them naval. The greatest merchant ship of the age, the Trades Increase, was christened by the king at Deptford in December while the enormous Prince Royal, the first three-decker built for the English navy, neared completion at Woolwich. The great ships were too wide of beam to pass through their respective dock-heads, however, and both launches, to the embarrassment of the builders, initially failed. Noting Jacobean England’s enjoyment of ships as mobile fortresses and engines of thunderous spectacle, the paper analyses the shipwright Phineas Pett’s relations with Prince Henry and other patrons and thus explains the surplus value of ostentation in the ship Pett built for the Prince, an exorbitant vessel that within a decade required costly retrofits to stay in service.
Date: 10/18/13
Conference Name: Pacific Northwest Renaissance Society

The Loss of the "Trades Increase" An Early Modern Maritime Catastrophe (Book)
Title: The Loss of the "Trades Increase" An Early Modern Maritime Catastrophe
Author: Richmond Barbour
Year: 2021
Primary URL: https://site.pennpress.org/mla-2021/9780812252774/the-loss-of-the-trades-increase/
Primary URL Description: Publisher website
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 9780812252774

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