Abstract
The Methuen treaty signed between Portugal and Great Britain in 1703 is normally interpreted as the decisive cause of Portugal’s economic and political dependence upon Great Britain, which explains the substantial delay imposed on the beginning and further development of the Portuguese industrialization process during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This conventional wisdom is not confirmed by historical evidence. Despite the long tradition of debate in Portuguese historiography, which has tried to point out other reasons and other trade agreements that should be considered for explaining Portuguese economic backwardness, the Methuen myth persists in the common-sense imagination. This chapter debates the historiographical inheritance associated with the Methuen treaty and discusses how the contextualization of its signing may provide a new assessment of its historical meaning.
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Notes
- 1.
The study of the activities of the British community of merchants in Portugal has been the subject of several studies, including H. E. S. Fisher, The Portugal Trade. A Study of Anglo-Portuguese Commerce, 1700–1770 (London: Methuen, 1971), and L. M. E. Shaw, The Anglo-Portuguese Alliance and the English Merchants in Portugal, 1654–1810 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988).
- 2.
On the polarization between France and England at the end of the seventeenth century see Michael Braddick, ‘The English Government, War, Trade and Settlement, 1625–1688’, in: The Oxford History of the British Empire, Vol. I. The Origins of Empire, ed. Nicholas Canny (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 286–308.
- 3.
For a detailed description of this international political context, see Leonor F. Costa, ‘Da Restauração a Methuen: ruptura e continuidade’, in: O Tratado de Methuen (1703). Diplomacia, Guerra, Política e Economia, ed. José Luís Cardoso (Lisbon: Livros Horizonte, 2003), 31–49. See also Violet M. Shillington and Beatrice W. Chapman, The Commercial Relations of England and Portugal (London: Routledge, 1907).
- 4.
On the intersection between trade and conflict see Lucia Coppolaro and Francine McKenzie, eds., A Global History of Trade and Conflict since 1500 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).
- 5.
For a synthetic approach to mercantilist doctrines and economic policies, as well as the range of different interpretations that these have given rise to in the historiography of economic thought, see Lars Magnusson, Mercantilism. The Shaping of an Economic Language (London and New York: Routledge, 1994). A good example of the continuation and updating of studies of national cases relating to mercantilism is given by Andrea Finkelstein, Harmony and the Balance. An Intellectual History of Seventeenth-Century English Economic Thought (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000).
- 6.
On the ideological foundations of colonial enterprise throughout the mercantilist era see David Armitage, The Ideological Origins of the British Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
- 7.
On the issue of neutrality and trade, see Antonella Alimento, ‘Commercial Treaties and the Harmonization of National Interests: The Anglo-French Case (1667–1713)’, in: War, Trade and Neutrality. Europe and the Mediterranean in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, ed. Antonella Alimento (Milan: Franco Angeli, 2011), 107–128.
- 8.
See Koen Stapelbroek, ‘The Rights of Neutral Trade and its Forgotten History’, in: Trade and War: The Neutrality of Commerce in the Inter-State System, ed. Koen Stapelbroek (Helsinki: Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, 2011), 3–13.
- 9.
Excerpts from these pamphlets are commented on by John V. C. Nye, War, Wine, and Taxes. The Political Economy of Anglo-French Trade, 1689–1900 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), 52–53.
- 10.
On the role of Portugal as a gateway to the wider colonial market of Brazil, see François Crouzet, La guerre économique franco-anglaise au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Fayard, 2008). According to Crouzet, Portugal was the third country in the ranking of British exports in the early eighteenth century and, throughout the first half of this same century, the overall increase in British exports to Portugal contrasted with its relatively moderate performance with other commercial partners (Crouzet, La guerre économique, 160–161). British imports from Portugal were equal to the total imports of all the other nations, throughout the first half of the eighteenth century. As to the importance of the discoveries of gold and diamonds in Brazil (especially after 1720) in furthering Portuguese trade with England, according to Crouzet (La guerre économique, 164), England received 30 per cent of the amount of gold mined in Brazil between 1700 and 1760, which was used to pay for merchandise bought by Portugal in the British markets.
- 11.
See the transcription of this speech in A. D. Francis, The Methuens and Portugal, 1691–1708 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966), 354–355.
- 12.
On this topic, see Paul Duguid, ‘The Making of Methuen: The Commercial Treaty in the English Imagination’, História 4 (2003), 9–36.
- 13.
For a global understanding of the relationship between the strategic behaviour of merchants and the representation of political interests in the mercantilist era, from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth century, see Robert Brenner, Merchants and Revolution. Commercial Change, Political Conflicts and London’s Overseas Traders, 1550–1653 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991).
- 14.
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776) (Glasgow Edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976), Book IV, Chapter VI.
- 15.
Sir Philip Francis, ‘[Final note to] Letter on the Jealousy of Commerce by Monsieur De Pinto’, in: Essay on Circulation and Credit, ed. Isaac de Pinto (London: J. Ridley, 1774), 241–242. For political reasons, Sir Philip Francis, the author of the translation and notes to the English edition of this book by Isaac de Pinto, caused his name to be replaced by that of a relative of his, Reverend S. Baggs, which appears in the foreword to the work. This detail is recounted and explained by Richard H. Popkin, ‘Isaac de Pinto’s Criticism of Mandeville and Hume on Luxury’, Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 154 (1976), 1705–1714: 1712.
- 16.
Dom Luís da Cunha was the Portuguese ambassador in London when the treaty was signed. A central figure in Portuguese diplomacy, he distinguished himself through the attributes that he displayed as a political adviser to the king, Dom João V.
- 17.
Dom Luís da Cunha, Testamento Político ou Carta Escrita ao Senhor Rei D. José I Antes do Seu Governo (1748) (Lisbon: Impressão Régia, 1820), 38.
- 18.
Dom Luís da Cunha, Instruções Políticas a Marco António de Azevedo Coutinho (1736) (Lisbon: Comissão Nacional para as Comemorações dos Descobrimentos Portugueses, 2001, ed. Abílio Diniz Silva), 276.
- 19.
Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, Escritos Económicos de Londres, 1741–1742 (Lisbon: Biblioteca Nacional, 1986, ed. José Barreto).
- 20.
Carvalho e Melo, Escritos Económicos de Londres, 131.
- 21.
See Sandro Sideri, Trade and Power. Informal Colonialism in Anglo-Portuguese Relations (Rotterdam: Rotterdam University Press, 1970).
- 22.
Among the authors who most contributed to the formation of this group of historiographers who proved capable of looking at the Methuen treaty without the customary nationalist fervour, attention is drawn in particular to: João Lúcio de Azevedo, Épocas de Portugal Económico. Esboços de História (Lisbon: Livraria Clássica Editora, 1928); Luís Teixeira de Sampaio, ‘Para a história do Tratado de Methuen’, O Instituto 76/1 (1928), 125–141; and Francisco António Correia, ‘O Tratado de Methuen’, Revista do Instituto Superior de Comércio de Lisboa 24 (1930), offprint.
- 23.
See Carl A. Hanson, Economia e Sociedade no Portugal Barroco, 1668–1703 (Lisbon: Publicações Dom Quixote, 1986), 287–300.
- 24.
Jorge Borges de Macedo, ‘O Tratado de Methuen’, in: Dicionário de História de Portugal, ed. Joel Serrão (Lisbon: Iniciativas Editoriais, 1966, Tomo III), 48–55.
- 25.
Borges de Macedo, ‘O Tratado de Methuen’, 53.
- 26.
Jorge Borges de Macedo, ‘Diplomacia, agricultura e comércio transitário: factores subalternizados no estudo do Tratado de Methuen’, in: Nova Economia em Portugal. Estudos em Homenagem a António Manuel Pinto Barbosa (Lisbon: Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 1989), 75–93.
- 27.
Borges de Macedo, ‘Diplomacia, agricultura e comércio transitário’, 77.
- 28.
See Jorge Pedreira, ‘Diplomacia, manufacturas e desenvolvimento económico. Em torno do mito de Methuen’, in: O Tratado de Methuen (1703), ed. Cardoso, 131–156.
- 29.
A. D. Francis, The Methuens and Portugal, 1691–1708 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1966).
- 30.
Francis, The Methuens and Portugal, 187–192.
- 31.
It should be borne in mind that Methuen did not act only on behalf of the English public cause. His own personal and family interests were bound up with the treaty, since his brother was a cloth manufacturer in Bradford-on-Avon, England, a son-in-law (Humphrey Simpson) was a wine importer, and he, John Methuen, dedicated himself to the production of wine in Portugal (see Francis, The Methuens and Portugal, 204).
- 32.
For an approach to all of these implications, see the texts gathered together in O Tratado de Methuen (1703), ed. Cardoso.
- 33.
I am grateful to the editors of this volume, Antonella Alimento and Koen Stapelbroek, for the comments and suggestions provided at the different stages of the preparation of this chapter.
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Cardoso, J.L. (2017). The Anglo-Portuguese Methuen Treaty of 1703: Opportunities and Constraints of Economic Development. In: Alimento, A., Stapelbroek, K. (eds) The Politics of Commercial Treaties in the Eighteenth Century. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53574-6_3
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