4 - Maritime Trade as the Pivot of Foreign Policy

Summary

The glory of preserving the balance of Europe, a glory so much founded on justice and humanity, flattered the ambition of England; and the people were eager to provide for their own future security, by opposing the progress of so hated a rival [sc. France].

Hume, The History of Great Britain. Containing the Commonwealth, and the Reigns of Charles II and James II, 1757

The balance of power in Europe was central to Hume's historical vision. From the vantage point of mid-eighteenth-century Europe, the maxim of the balance of power, which had been firmly established since classical antiquity, was seen as essential to the mutual prosperity and security of European states.This maxim became especially germane as France began to compete for commercial wealth and thus to increase anxieties about the dangers of universal monarchy. In the event that France would go on to dominate Europe and the New World, England and its allies on the Continent would face significant pressure to defend their government and religion. Hume was a vociferous proponent of the classical doctrine of the balance of power, which, he observed, was ‘founded on true politics and prudence, and […] preserved distinct for several ages the partition made after the death of that famous conqueror [sc. Alexander]’.Yet his defence of the balance of power was not refracted through the prism of Thucydides’ Peloponnesian War or Cicero's Roman Republic.Rather, his views on foreign policy demonstrated a clear understanding of England's path towards commercial wealth, which, in turn, called for an entirely new role for England in the European state system.

In the past few decades, Hume's views on foreign policy have generated interest. Forbes contended that Hume's argument for the balance-of-power doctrine exemplified his cosmopolitan ideals. According to this view, Hume consistently advocated a cosmopolitan, or more precisely a ‘Europocentric’, view of geopolitics This stands in stark contrast to the insular view of geopolitics as popularised in the middle of the eighteenth century, when England came to be seen as an island nation. Robert Manzer and Karen O'Brien have echoed this reading by placing Hume's integrated continental strategy in the context of popular demands for a new geopolitics freed from universal monarchy, autocratic rule, and religious oppression. Frederick Whelan has adopted a comparative approach, bringing into focus the extent of Hume's debt to Machiavellian statecraft.