THE KEYS OF THE KINGDOM

Abstract

This chapter highlights Bishop Berkeley's 'keys of the kingdom', in which he argued that the seaports of the south and east were lynchpins in an economy that had become highly export dependent. It notes that they were the conduits through which trade passed, where goods were assembled, processed and despatched, and where financial services were available. And 'merchants' did indeed possess the keys. The chapter examines the classic era of the merchant, the sedentary négotiant who dominated the business and usually the government of port cities, who dealt in a variety of import/export lines of trade with overseas correspondents, and who settled accounts by means of an internationally accepted set of protocols governing the use of bills of exchange across western Europe and the North Atlantic. It also describes the Irish merchant communities in Sligo, Galway, and Dublin who were overwhelmingly male and culturally diverse. Finally, the chapter assesses the Catholic merchants' pre-eminent position in this wholesale trade after the enormous setbacks of the seventeenth century.