ABSTRACT
In reality, trading to far-away places was only a small part of total foreign trade in the mid-eighteenth century. The import from the West Indies and North America of warm-climate products such as tobacco and sugar, and their re-export to Europe, was also important. Exports of cotton yarn and manufactures grew dramatically from the later eighteenth century, exceeding wool textiles in value in the early 1800s. Over the eighteenth century as a whole, the import and export trades combined grew about six fold, considerably faster than the economy as a whole. In forming a final judgement on the economic effects of British policy, however, it is worth remembering that the alternative to markets protected in favour of British goods would probably not have been a free market, but one protected against British goods. Foreign trades, and the profits accruing from it, were certainly a factor in Britain's economic growth.
