Navy & Maritime Marine: the State was immature, yet powerful, and had to Delegate and Decentralize its Policy Implementation: to the county/city and private sector
“Follow the Money” Who Paid For the Virginia Company Colonization? (Answer” private Merchant Adventurers). What was the mission of the company and its expeditions. (Answer: Mostly, the goal of the London Virginia expedition was to converts exports form the colony into English imports. How was the expedition paid for? The Company was a partnership with the first Stuart King, but he had other priorities on his agenda. When it came to paying his share of the cost, he was a piker. He delegated some kingly powers and provided some incentives, but cash on the barrel was not his style.
The Virginia Company’s mission was intended to be a logical next step in England’s merchant adventurer-led overseas affairs. More precisely, the Virginia expedition was a bimodal venture between the Outer Ports of England who wanted to settle in what is today’s New England, and the London merchant adventurers who saw North America as more a waystation to the Far East, India, China and Japan.
It was up to the private merchant adventurers to pay the bills–with their own investment, stock subscriptions, and mostly debt. It was intended that it would uncover stuff to be imported to England where it could be sold and the proceeds would pay the costs. That was a fatal flaw. By today’s standards the Virginia Company from its start was a leaky, barely afloat high seas bankruptcy. As I argue in this history, the Virginia Company was unable to manage its colonization initiatives in Virginia–and until 1620 Massachusetts. Somers Island (Bermuda) the colony in the “sweet spot”, i.e. undiscovered, undeveloped, unpopulated and an island was its exception. Instead the colony was left mostly to its devices–in essence it was thrust into its own undeclared self-government. In this brief module I observe that it was also left to its own self-protection, the ultimate function for self government.
The initial Virginia Company incorporation was an abortion that somehow survived. The most important point is how Virginia survived and that follows in the mainline narrative. The thrust of this brief module is that in the late Tudor, Early Stuart English colonization there was no real British Empire, or for that matter Britain, and the Seas Ruled this non-existent Empire, and the local militia, such as it was, brought their own weapons into battle.
the Tudor English “Navy”: Since we typically have high regard for the power of the British navy, we need to understand the mighty and powerful English navy we hear about in our histories, movies, TV, and novels, was at least fifty years (considerably more actually) in the future. When Elizabeth assumed the throne England had a mere 20-30 moderate-sized ships. By 1600, she had expanded the navy to about 50. In 1588, the Spanish armada was about 130 ships that carried about 30,000 soldiers. The English navy, accordingly, offered little protection to its merchant marine in its overseas ventures—in fact quite the opposite. During Elizabeth’s reign, England’s small navy, was supplemented with English merchant adventurers and ship owners.
Many of the merchant adventurers that participated in the voyages of discovery were veterans of the war with Spain and such expeditions often used anti Spanish privateering to pay the costs. England could boast of a reasonably vibrant shipbuilding industry with sailors and private businesses that could supply, sail, and repair the ships. That was an important exception to a relatively small manufacturing base. The English private merchant marine that supplemented the small English navy was also in its early years of development. To be competitive, modern one might say, So, in this vital area of foreign affairs England’s relied on a privately-owned shipping industry and shipbuilding, with its own private owners, sailors and suppliers, and even ports.
Also most of us are generally unaware that England’s ally and rival, Holland, seized upon maritime trade as a national economic development initiative during this period. Holland in the midst of its “Eighty Year War” with Spain proclaimed a republic in 1588, but it would achieve its independence only in 1648. During that time, if anything, England was embarrassed with its inability to match Holland’s overseas success, especially in the East (Japan, China and Southeast Asia) and it took decades for England to catch up with Dutch technology and maritime expertise pertinent to shipbuilding, navigation and trade. This would play a role in future English colonization, but in this time period the East India Company should be understood as an effort to contain Holland’s Asian trade ambitions.
No surprise: when the decision was made to expand English overseas trade, England would use its merchant marine and designate a private company to do the heavy lifting. Shortly, we will observe that Elizabeth relied on her private merchant marine in overseas trade and reach a partnership with the London merchant adventurers; that decision was influenced by several factors and dynamics, but she had little alternative but let the private sector take the lead in overseas trade and colonization. The royal navy would take generations to mature and acquire the size, capacity, skillset and technology to compete with the other mercantile players. So, by default, tasks in these overseas areas had to be shared with what today we call the private merchant marine. The Virginia Company an example of this. The great trading companies then were the most visible expression of this public-private partnership driven as much by necessity as by ambition and the desire for wealth.
When the Crown entered into partnership with a private corporation; the corporation was responsible for its own defense, on the high seas and the permanent settlement, and also was tasked with supplementing the English economy through export, import. The Crown and its Court, however, inconsistent supporters, and during the early Stuart years would play a secondary role in these overseas ventures. and their implementation.
The naval power [of the English state] at [the Crown’s] disposal was small; the army available was scarcely adequate for the capture of a major sea-port, let alone its tenure as a base in the heart of enemy territory; expertise in the mounting and handling of large-scale amphibious operations took many decades to mature …
The Queen’s navy was still but a small part of the force [England] could exert at sea … Privateering was the characteristic form of naval war, and the royal navy itself tended to conform to the main patter. The queen employed her ships in privateering, investing them in joint stock expeditions for a corresponding share in the profits, even in voyages over which she exercised no control …. The chief of her navy was also the chief of the nation’s privateering forces: a great shipowner and promoter of private ventures, he sometimes took a personal share in the fitting out of royal ships … He became deeply involved in the whole business of setting forth ships of reprisal, for which he issued licenses. …
Furthermore most of the queen’s leading naval men had a substantial stake in private shipping, from entrepreneurs like the Hawkins’ down to the ordinary captain who served in a royal ship one year, and took out his own the next [99] R. K. Andrews, Trade Plunder and Settlement, pp. 243-49]
The Crown could not task its navy for the development of overseas markets, nor protect the permanent settlement/colonies founded in far away locations such as the American wilderness. Students studying Jamestown may wonder why there weren’t any “redcoats” or English soldiers manning Jamestown walls and palisades–only the settler militia. Aside from the fact that redcoats did not become standard for the English army until the English civil war when they were worn by Cromwell’s New Modern Army, the Crown had no funds for such a force in the New World.
Ron W. Coan 