ABSTRACT
The impact of the French wars on British business, while deemed to have been positive in that Britain emerged in 1815 with the world's strongest economy, emerges from counterfactual speculation with a negative balance sheet. Industrial and commercial development would, it is claimed by J.G. Williamson (1984, 1987), have been more spectacular, had not heavy government borrowing absorbed private-sector capital that might otherwise have been invested in business and manufacturing. Cotton and iron output grew at 7.57% and 4.1% p.a. respectively between 1760 and 1800 and, while both continued to expand during the 1790s and 1800s, fixed capital formation, states Williamson, would have been 6.4% higher, had Britain avoided involvement in the wars against revolutionary and Napoleonic France (Crafts, 1985: 23; Williamson, 1984: 702).
