8 February 2012, 6:09 pm
the Methuen Treaty of 1703 between Britain and Portugal guaranteed English merchants the same liberties, privileges, and exemptions as enjoyed by the Portuguese in both metropolitan and colonial commerce. The treaty also limited the tariffs that could be levied on British goods. The chief minister for the Portuguese, King Joseph II, and the Marquis de Pombal, however, tried to create a Portuguese textile industry based on a guaranteed Brazilian market. The Methuen Treaty guaranteed favorable treatment for English woolen textiles, the largest British export at the start of the eighteenth century, but did not mention English cottons, a loophole which Pombal exploited to promote a Portuguese cotton textile industry. He also managed to get Portuguese wine a monopoly in the British market. The Brazilian colony attracted immigration during the eighteenth-century gold rush in the interior and during the development of coffee plantations in the south. Altogether, nearly one thousand tons of gold and three million carats of diamonds were taken from the region between 1700 and l800. Although the gold was con- trolled by Portugal and shipped to Lisbon, it did not remain there. Under the Methuen Treaty of 1703, England supplied textile products to Portugal. These were paid for with gold from the Brazilian mines that ended up in London banks and helped to finance the Industrial Revolution.... Read More »
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