This is a survey of the voyages of English navigators, from the pioneers of the late 15th century to the scientific expeditions of the early 19th century, not only in South American waters, but also the Caribbean and North America.

Traces the maritime expansion of England through descriptions of a multitude of sea voyages from 1480 through 1630. Analyzes exploration, trading enterprise ventures and piracy and reveals how the attempts to create British settlements overseas resulted in the founding of the first New World colonies.

An important part of eighteenth-century maritime conflict involved the destruction of enemy commerce and the protection of home trade. In performing these tasks, state navies were augmented by privateers, vessels owned, equipped and manned by private individuals authorised by their governments to attack and seize the enemy’s seabourne property. For their reward, the investors and seafarers engaged in privateering ventures shared in the proceeds of any ships and goods taken and condemned as lawful prize. Privateering therefore represented a business opportunity to the maritime community, a chance to acquire instant wealth at the enemy’s expense; at the same time, it appeared as a cheap convenient means by which the state might supplement its naval strength. In this important analysis David J. Starkey draws upon a wealth of documentary evidence to throw fresh light upon the character, scale and significance of the British privateering business.

From the time of Cook, the British and their Canadian successors were drawn to the Northwest coast of North America by possibilities of trade in sea otter and the wish to find a 'northwest passage'. The studies collected here trace how, under the influences of the Royal Navy and British statecraft, the British came to dominate the area, with expeditions sent from London, Bombay and Macau, and the Canadian quest from overland. The North West Company came to control the trade of the Columbia River, despite American opposition, and British sloop diplomacy helped overcome Russian and Spanish resistance to British aspirations. Elsewhere in the Americas, the British promoted trans-Pacific trade with China, harvested British Columbia forests, conveyed specie from western Mexico, and established the South America naval station. The flag followed trade and vice versa; empire was both formal (at Vancouver Island) and informal (as in California or Mexico). This book features individuals such as James Cook, William Bolts, Peter Pond, and Sir Alexander Mackenzie. It is also an account of the pressure that corporations placed on the British state in shaping the emerging world of trade and colonization in that distant ocean and its shores, and of the importance of sea-power in the creation of modern Canada.

This book presents a comprehensive historical analysis of merchant shipping on the high seas and associated shipbuilding under sovereign U.S. jurisdiction from precolonial times to the present. It identifies U.S. policy developments that have affected the merchant marine and shipbuilding industries.