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Colonial Tonnage Measurements: A Comment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

Gary M. Walton
Gary M. Walton
Affiliation:
The Ohio State University
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Extract

Shipping tonnages have been frequently used as a basis for inquiries covering a wide and increasing range of topics in economic history. For example, industry studies, descriptions of shipping routes and trade flows, colonial balance of payments estimates, and an analysis of the sources of productivity change in shipping have all been based–at least in part–on tonnage figures. A major problem in using tonnages as a means of historical quantification is that the term “ton” (either a shipping ton or a commodity ton) has varied substantially over time. This is especially true for the Colonial Period, when it was defined differently depending on its usage or the agent or the country reporting it. Fortunately, several recent research efforts have greatly improved our understanding of the meaning and limitations of historical tonnages.

Type
Notes
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , September 1967 , pp. 392 - 397
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1967

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References

1 For a few examples, see Davis, Ralph, The Rise of the English Shipping Industry in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century (London: Macmillan and Co. Ltd., 1962)Google Scholar; Sheperd, James F., “A Balance of Payments for the Thirteen Colonies, 1768-72: A Summary,” The Journal of Economic History, XXV (12 1965), 691–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; and Walton, Gary M. “Sources of Productivity Change in American Colonial Shipping, 1675-1775,” The Economic History Review, XX (04 1967), 67–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 For commodity ton measurements see , Davis, Rise of English Shipping, pp. 178-80, 182, 198, 239, and 282–84Google Scholar . For shipping tonnages see Davis, Ralph, “Tonnage Measurement and its Meaning,” Appendix C of “The Organization and Finance of the English Shipping Industry in the Late Seventeenth Century” (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1955)Google Scholar ; Lane, Frederic C., “Tonnages, Medieval and Modern,” The Economic History Review, 2d ser., XVII (12 1964), pp. 213–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar ; and McCusker, John J., Colonial Tonnage Measurement: Five Philadelphia Merchant Ships As a Sample, The Journal of Economic History, XXVII (03 1967), 82–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 , McCusker, “Colonial Tonnage Measurement,” p. 82.Google Scholar

4 McCusker states on page 87: “Unhappily the arrangement of these lists is without order and the enormity of the task entailed by a search for one ship severely circumscribes the usefulness of the naval officer's reports for our purposes.” He is correct in describing the “enormity of the task” involved, but had he pursued it he might have discovered the data reported here. However, there was no reason to suspect the dual listing of tonnages, since for all other years and ports only registered tonnage is reported.

5 , Davis, Rise of English Shipping, p, 7.Google Scholar

6 , McCusker, “Colonial Tonnage Measurement,” p. 91.Google Scholar

7 See the statement on tonnages by Lawrence A. Harper in the U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1957 (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1960), p. 745Google Scholar ; and , Davis, Rise of English Shipping, p. 7Google Scholar.

8 See the review of Davis' book by Salisbury, William in The Mariner's Mirror, XLIX (08 1963), 235–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and , Lane, “Tonnages, Medieval and Modern,” p. 228Google Scholar.