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Manoel Gonzales tells us that he was a native of Lisbon, educated by the Jesuits. His mother pulled him from the school on suspicion that the priests were after his inheritance, so Manoel set himself to expand his father’s business instead. On April 23rd, 1730 – St George’s Day, as he noted — Gonzales set out for Falmouth, intending to reconnoitre his chosen market.

IT is a great, rich, and powerful kingdom. Separated by the sea from other countries, so that it cannot be attacked by other nations, but with great trouble and danger. This island is very convenient for trade, being so situated upon a strait, that ships going either east or west are obliged to pass through it. There are also many sea-ports and havens, artificial and natural; so that the English by their situation can extend their trade into all parts of the world.

But there is another thing that renders England rich, viz. the liberty of conscience, granted and allowed to every nation,⁠ whereby great numbers of foreigners are invited to come and trade here sooner than in Spain and other countries, where liberty of conscience is not allowed. No European country can boast of having such a good form of government.⁠ The property of chattels and goods being not precarious as in other countries; so that when a man by his industry gets an estate, his children if he please, and not his lord, shall inherit it.⁠

The defects of England may be thus reduced: one thing is very prejudicial to their trade, viz. that they eat a great quantity of meat, and are naturally too much addicted to ease; so that they are obliged to put on board their ships as many more men and provisions as the Dutch. Though the English are very fond of money, and consequently easy to be bribed, yet they despise a moderate gain; whereas the Dutch, being content with a reasonable advantage, get more goods to be transported from one place to another, than the English.

There is perhaps no country where rheums and coughs are more predominant, especially in winter, which are often attended with ill consequences, if not timely prevented: agues and rheumatisms are also very rife, especially near the sea. Lastly, lawsuits are here a very common distemper, which by the great number of lawyers are often spun to a great length, to the prejudice of good neighbourhood, if not to the utter ruin of families.

Footnotes

Footnote

Every nation

That is, to people visiting England regardless of their nationality. From the sixteenth century onwards, the Inquisition in Europe’s Roman Catholic states, such as Portugal, Italy, France, Spain and the Spanish Netherlands, drove tens of thousands of Protestants over the Channel to Britain. See The Edict of Nantes.

Footnote

Form of Government

Britain’s constitution took mature form in 1689 after the ‘Glorious Revolution’. Prior to this, we had an absolute monarch making all the laws, and an advisory Parliament. In 1689, Parliament became the law-makers, and the monarch their adviser and moderator. Most European states remained absolute monarchies or republics with little democratic accountability: see William Pitt the Younger on Britain’s ‘temperate zone’.

Footnote

Inherit

In 1731, inheritance tax constituted little more than the stamp duty on Wills introduced in 1694. Gonzalez puts his finger on three solid reasons why the Industrial Revolution happened mainly in Britain: stable national sovereignty, individual liberty, and private property rights.

Author Details

By Manoel Gonzales fl. 1730
Source
Abridged from ‘A Voyage to Great Britain’ (circa 1730) attributed to Don Manoel Gonzales, in ‘General Collection of Voyages and Travels,’ (1808-14) Volume II, selected and edited by John Pinkerton (1758-1826). Spelling modernised.

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