What Impact did the French Revolutionary Wars have on Bristol's Overseas Trade, 1783-1802?

This study examines how Bristol's overseas trade was affected by warfare in the late-eighteenth century. Using a case study of its lucrative sugar trade, this research builds on a growing historiography that seeks to understand how merchants overcame the pressures of warfare. The study uses novel socioeconomic approaches, including the use of Social Network Analysis, to break down and interpret the impact of warfare. The study uses the records of prominent sugar merchants, including James Tobin and John Pinney, and the firms used by William Dickinson, an absentee sugar planter and MP. It also consults the records of the Society of Merchant Venturers of Bristol, as well as the Bristol West India Association.
The focus is on five key areas, for each seeking to understand how merchants and planters developed strategies to cope with warfare. The study examines the production of sugar, questioning how absentees such as John Pinney and William Dickinson were able to maintain their plantations from across the Atlantic in times of crisis. Attention is paid here to the import of capital goods, including machinery and provisions, the production process, and the role of attorneys and managers in the plantation. The study also looks at shipping and ship-owning before and during the war, considering how privateering, insurance and convoying helped and hindered merchants. Here the records of the Society of Merchant Venturers are consulted, using their detailed wharfage books to examine the tonnage and number of ships entering Bristol. The sugar market itself is likewise considered, looking at the role of the merchant and broker in assessing the quality of sugar and effecting its sale, and the role of the West India Association as lobbyist and mediator between merchants and government, and between merchants and sugar refiners. The study further examines the seasonality of the trade, and the response of the market to warfare.
Credit networks are looked at in detail, using Social Network Analysis to measure the size, density and composition of John Pinney's personal network over time, seeking to understand how it changes in response to the pressures of the period. The use of SNA further allows influential members of his trading community, centred on the Leeward Islands and Bristol, to be identified, and their position in the network to be examined. The networking activities of John Pinney's firm, Tobin & Pinney, are analysed in detail, looking at the expansion and consolidation of their networks, as well as the expulsion and exclusion of undesirable members. Particular attention is paid to the reputational mechanisms and the validation of creditability that underpinned the network. Finally, the study will evaluate the impact of various peacetime pressures, including the aftermath of the American Revolution, acute issues with crop production, geopolitical tensions that did not result in armed conflict, and the movement to abolish the slave trade, to understand how these events conditioned the merchants' response to the onset of war in 1793.