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ABSTRACT
Henry Robinson’s writings and pamphlets offer a rare mix of works by a London merchant interested in tolerance, trade, economy, social reforms, law, education and politics. Published between the 1640s and the early 1650s, his texts were deeply rooted in the most innovative thought of his time, dialoguing with Bacon, Selden, Mun, Hartlib, Milton, and Galilei. An active merchant, he was charged with important responsibilities during the period of the Commonwealth and Protectorate. This essay focuses on a neglected aspect of Robinson’s life and career, namely his stay in the Tuscan port city of Livorno in the early 1630s. It looks to demonstrate that Robinson’s economic and religious thought bore the imprint of his Italian experience and of the complex social, political and religious context of the Mediterranean in the early seventeenth century. Through a close-reading of a selection of his numerous tracts and of archival material found in Tuscan archives, this article argues that Robinson’s experience and knowledge of the Mediterranean context played an important role in his original conceptions of tolerance and his new ideas on social and economic matters. More broadly, the case of Robinson highlights the intense economic, political and intellectual connections between Tuscany and England in the first half of the seventeenth century.
Acknowledgments
I am very grateful to Margaret Jacob (to whom this article is dedicated), Lynn Hunt, Naomi Taback, Sebouh Aslanian, Matthew Kadane, Silvia Sebastiani, Jacob Soll and Francesca Trivellato for their valuable remarks on an earlier version of this essay presented at the conference “Mobility and Early Modernity: Religion, Science, and Commerce in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries – A Conference in Honor of Margaret Jacob” at the William Andrews Clark Memorial Library. I deeply thank Stefano Villani for his advice and for sharing some notes with me about Henry Robinson. I wrote a first version of this essay when I was a Herodotus Fund Member at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. I thank all the participants of the early modern seminar at IAS for their generous comments. I also thank the reviewers and editors of The Seventeenth Century for their fruitful suggestions and ideas.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Anonymous [Robinson], Liberty of conscience. The attribution of this text was made by his Presbyterian opponent, Thomas Edwards, in 1646 (Edwards, Grangræna, I: 290), and confirmed by several scholars of the 19th and 20th centuries (See Jordan, Men of Substance, 89).
2. St. Helen Bishopsgate Church was the parish church of Shakespeare in the 1590s. The famous jurist Alberico Gentili was buried there in 1609, as well as many Italians of London. See Bannerman (ed.), Registers.
3. About the life and works of Robinson: Jordan, Men of Substance; Zaller, “Henry Robinson”.
4. About the printing context and the “pamphlet wars” during the Civil War, see Peacey, Politicans; Raymond, Pamphlets, 161–275; Como, Radical Parliamentarians.
5. Jordan, Men of Substance, 179.
6. Anonymous [Robinson], Short Discourse, 20. He added: “We have yet sayled safe between these two rocks, and may (if we have hearts) prevent the mischiefs of both, and see Liberty exactly stated, and justly restrained with the Golden reynes of Justice, Sobriety, and limited by Religion and Conscience, and Justice sitting on the Throne, poysed with Truth, whose fresh and Cristal streams shall glyde sweetly, and insensibly, yea, run by every mans dore to refresh all his injoyments.” See, about Robinson’s Short Discourse, Burgess, British Political Thought, p. 336.
7. Jordan, Men of Substance, 65.
8. Ibid.
9. Heckscher, Mercantilism, II: 295.
10. Lecler, Histoire de la tolérance, 219–20 and 791–2; Haller, Liberty and Reformation, 159–61; Hill, Intellectual Origins, 249; Worden, Rump Parliament, 110 and 260; Webster, Great Instauration; Brenner, Merchants and Revolution, 572.
11. Zaller, “Henry Robinson”.
12. Shaw, “Henry Robinson”. Robinson published Liberty of conscience (printed in 1643 but published in March 1644) shortly before Roger Williams’s influential Bloudy Tenent of Persecution (July 1644) and Walwyn’s Compassionate Samaritane (July 1644).
13. Prynne, A Fresh Discovery, 6 and 9–10; quoted by Jordan, Men of Substance, 53, fn.77. Prynne, as Stationers’ Company counsel, instigated Robinson’s arrest for illicit printing on May 14, 1645. See, about this episode, Como, Radical Parliamentarians, 318.
14. Anonymous [Robinson], John the Baptist, 84–5; quoted by Hill, Intellectual origins, 249.
15. Appleby, Economic Thought, 74.
16. Robinson, Certain Proposalls, 10. See, about this Dutch model: Appleby, Economic Thought, 73–98; Pincus, “Neither Machiavellian Moment nor Possessive Individualism”, 718–20; Weststeijn, Commercial Republicanism, 228.
17. Wennerlind, “Money”.
18. Jordan, Men of Substance, 53.
19. Webster, Great Instauration; Webster (ed.), Samuel Hartlib, 41 and 46; Jacob, Radical Enlightenment, 38. See also the letter sent by Robert Boyle, John Sadler, John Dury, Samuel Hartlib, Benjamin Worsley and Henry Robinson to Cressy Dymock in 1650: “Wee earnestly entreate you to goe on in making Experiments of those particulars which wee desire and expect from you, both in your Manure and Engines of Motion” (in Electronic Enlightenment Scholarly Edition of Correspondence).
20. Jordan, Men of Substance, 250; Wennerlind, “Money”, 79–80.
21. Jordan, Men of Substance, 250–1; Robinson, Office of Adresses.
22. Finkelstein, “Nicholas Barbon”; Slack, “Material Progress”; Slack, Invention of Improvement, 93–9.
23. This approach is inspired by the “histoire croisée” method. See: Werner and Zimmermann, “Beyond Comparison”. However, the reciprocal impact of English pamphlets on Tuscan political economy, albeit important, is far beyond the scope of this single essay.
24. Archivio di Stato di Pisa (hereafter ASP), Consoli del Mare, “Suppliche,” 975, no. 217, August 31, 1630 (supplication); October 26, 1630 (rescript). See also the will drafted by Joseph Watkins before the Tuscan public notary: Matteo Ciuppi: The National Archives, Kew Gardens (hereafter TNA), PROB 11/160/743, fos. 516-7v (fo. 516v). On Falchi and Della Vigna, see Engels, Merchants, 144.
25. Engels, Merchants, 307.
26. De Roover, “Thomas Mun”.
27. Archivio di Stato di Livorno (hereafter ASL), Capitano, poi Governatore ed Auditore, “Suppliche,” 2603, fo. 56, supplication November 2, 1631; rescript: December 6, 1631. See also: ASP, Consoli del mare, “Suppliche,” 976, n° 104, April 16 1632; rescript: May 16, 1632.
28. Archivio di Stato di Firenze (hereafter ASF), Notarile Moderno, Prot. 13341, Francesco Ambrogi, no. 181, December 15, 1632.
29. ASP, Consoli del Mare, “Suppliche,” 977, no. 14, November 5, 1633; rescript: November 29, 1633.
30. ASL, Capitano, poi Governatore ed Auditore, “Suppliche,” 2603, fo. 297. About this palm game, see Dinelli, “Giuochi di palla”.
31. See the influential work by Trivellato, Familiarity of Strangers; for recent works about the port city of Livorno, see: Prosperi (ed.), Livorno; Addobbati and Aglietti (eds.), Città delle nazioni; Tazzara, Free Port of Livorno; Frattarelli Fischer, Arcano del mare.
32. Earle, Corsairs, 50 and 52; Hubbard, “Sailors” 351 (and the important bibliography about British sailors therein).
33. On the English community in Livorno, see Pagano De Divitiis, English Merchants; D’Angelo, Mercanti Inglesi; Donati, Inquisizione e Granducato; Giunti and Lorenzini, (eds.), Archivio di pietra; and the important works by Stefano Villani, “Cum scandolo catholicorum”; Villani, “Una piccola epitome”. See also the following references in this article.
34. Mun, England’s Treasure, 46–7.
35. Roberts, Merchants Mappe, ch. IIII: 25.
36. Roberts, Merchants Mappe, ch. CXXXI: 43; chap. CLXXIII, 91; Anderson, “Roberts, Lewes”. See, about Lewes Roberts: Hoock, “Professional Ethics”. About the positive image of Livorno in early modern English prints, from Thomas Mun to Daniel Defoe, see Lillie, “Commercio, cosmopolitismo”.
37. At the turn of the 16th and the 17th-centuries, English sailors trading with Tuscan enemies (such as “Turks”) could be lawfully captured by Tuscan galleys and enslaved. See, for example, Davies, True Relation.
38. Villani, “Una piccola epitome”, § 4.
39. ASP, Consoli del mare, “Suppliche,” 975, no. 189.
40. ASP, Consoli del mare, “Suppliche,” 975, no. 24, September 1628; no. 67, February 1628 (1629). ASP, Consoli del Mare, 975, 976, 977. About all these merchants, see also the petition sent to the Trinity House in favor of an English consul at Genoa, signed by Robert Sainthill, Job Throckmorton, Isaac Honiewood, Henry Draper, Henry Robinson, Tobias White, Cobham Doves, Thomas Simmber, Robert Swyer, George Bacher, Edward Abbott, Richard Rowe (in Harris (ed.), Trinity House, 112–117, no. 401).
41. Grassby, “Love, Property and Kinship”, 338 and 344). About the family ties between the Robinsons and the Williams, see Jordan, Men of substance, 51.
42. Pierotti, “Annotazioni”, 66.
43. TNA, Secretaries of State: State Papers Foreign, “Tuscany,” 98, vol. 3, fo. 203: atque etiamnum nos per has easdem litteras nostras constituere eumdem Morgannum Reade Consulem nostrum in omnes mercatores nostros Anglicanos ibidem commercia exercentes; see: Villani, “Consoli della nazione inglese”.
44. Pierotti, “Annotazioni”, 67.
45. See Engels, Merchants, 211; Bulut, Ottoman-Dutch Economic Relations, 132–5.
46. Hayward, “Inglesi a Livorno”, 270–1.
47. ASP, Consoli del Mare, 976, “Suppliche,” no. 114. Signatories: 1 Fabio Orlandini. 2 Bernardo de Broch. 3 Cornel Berck & Lambert Smit. 4 Ruberto Santhill. 5 Gergio Bacher. 6 Job Trochmorton. 7 Arigo Draper. 8 Isacho Honyvodi. 9 Peris Gontier et Daniel Beuerse. 10 Giacomo Salikx. 11 Pietro de Cocquel. 12 Donato Cantati. 13 Bartolomeo Rio. 14 Biagio da Franca. 15 Antonio da Costa Biando. 16 Arrigo Robinson. 17 Jacome Salam.”
48. About the role of the Mediterranean as a laboratory for early modern English expansion, see Games, Web of Empire, 47–79.
49. Wood, History of the Levant Company, 31 and 43; Stern, Company-State, 54.
50. ASP, Consoli del mare, “Suppliche,” 970, no. 24, July 19, 1608; Ibid., no. 32, August 8, 1608; Finkelstein, Harmony and the Balance, 75; De Roover, “Thomas Mun”.
51. Finkelstein, Harmony and the Balance, 75; Lillie, “Commercio”, 346–51.
52. Roberts, Treasure of Traffike, 24–5.
53. Mun, England’s Treasure, 46–7.
54. Mun could have known in Tuscany Bernardo Davanzati (1529-1606), the author of Lezione delle monete (1558) dedicated to the secretary Piero Usimbardi, defending the idea that money was not simply an instrument of merchant exchanges (Finkelstein, Harmony and the Balance, 75). See Custodi (ed.), Scrittori classici italiani.
55. Mun’s praise was found almost word for word in a petition written by the governors of the East India Company in 1628 and addressed to the English Parliament The Petition and Remonstrance of the Governor and Company of Merchants of London, Trading to the East Indies (London, 1628). This petition was reprinted in 1641. See, about Mun’s defence of overseas trade, Mishra, Business of State, 134–9.
56. About Salvetti, see Villani, “Progettata edizione”; Villani, “Antelminelli, Alessandro”.
57. ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 4208, “Inghilterra: Minute di lettere della Segreteria ai residenti e agenti e a diversi”, letter from Cioli to Salvetti, February 7, 1639. I am very grateful to Stefano Villani (Univ. Maryland) for sharing that letter with me.
58. ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 4199, “Inghilterra: Lettere dei residenti e agenti”, March 26, 1639.
59. ASF, Mediceo del Principato, 2132, n. n., to balì Cioli, London, December 27, 1638; quoted by Frattarelli Fischer, “La Livornina”, 49.
60. ASF, Mediceo del Principato, “Minute di lettere,” 180, “Minute di lettere di Ferdinando II,” fo. 452: February 7, 1639.
61. Robinson, Englands Safety, 2.
62. Robinson, Englands Safety, 3–5. Note that Robinson’s publisher, namely Nicholas Bourne, ex-partner of Nathaniel Butter, was, the same year, the publisher of Lewes Roberts’s Treasure of Traffike. Almost thirty years before, in 1614, the same Nicholas Bourne published the True Relation of the barber William Davies who was enslaved in Livorno at the beginning of the 17th-century (see fn. 37).
63. Robinson, Englands Safety, 12 and 57 (about exchange rates with a “Ligorne” example, in favour of a moderate importation of bullion): “for it is our benefit that monies bee plentifull also in such Countries where we carrie our commodities to sell; and shall otherwise have little encouragement to continue it, so that a moderation is to be desired, and must be observed in all proceedings.”
64. Robinson, Englands Safety, 4.
65. Robinson, Certain Considerations, the Epistle Dedicatory. About the legal context of that time in England, see Prall, Agitation for Law Reform, 54–6.
66. See, about this 17th-century invention of a lex mercatoria: Cordes, “Search for a medieval Lex mercatoria”.
67. See, for a discussion of this economic thinking: Drayton, Nature’s Government, 57; Mishra, Business of State, 117–45.
68. Robinson, Englands Safety, 47.
69. Robinson, Englands Safety, 48. About the peculiarities of Italian patricians regarding trade, see Angiolini, “Nobles et marchands”.
70. Anonymous [Robinson], Short Discourse, 15. One might add that the long reign of Ferdinand II (r. 1621-1670) hardly equalled in prestige that of his grandfather Ferdinand I (r. 1587-1609), promoter of the port of Livorno, whose political and economic acumen was readily praised by English merchant-writers.
71. Robinson, Englands Safety, 35.
72. See, about the system of supplications related to the merchant court in Florence (the Mercanzia): Shaw, “Writing to the Prince”. About supplications and merchant courts in Tuscany during the 17th-century, see Calafat, “La somme des besoins”.
73. Robinson, Englands Safety, 35.
74. See Jordan, Men of Substance, 236–8.
75. Robinson, England Safety, 36.
76. Unlike Henry Parker, Robinson did not formally state his position on the “ship money” tax (see Mendle, “The Ship Money Case”). However, his proposals for a drastic reduction in customs duties placed him squarely in the camp of the opponents of Charles I’s tax policy.
77. Robinson, England Safety, 9.
78. Ibid., 20. The first English free port of the early modern period was arguably the Moroccan city of Tangiers, proclaimed a “free port” by King Charles II in 1662. However, English rule over the North African port city lasted only about twenty years. During the 18th century, British free ports were opened in English overseas colonies.
79. Ibid., 21.
80. Ibid., 5.
81. Robinson, Briefe considerations, 6; Robinson, Certain Proposalls, 11–2.
82. Worsley, Free Ports, 4. See also Leng, Benjamin Worsley.
83. Dermigny, “Escales”, 556–8.
84. Robinson, Briefe Considerations, 1.
85. Robinson, Englands Safety, 2.
86. Robinson, Libertas, 4–5. For high estimates of the number of English captives in Ottoman North Africa, see: Davis, “Counting European Slaves”; Colley, Captives, 71. For a useful analysis of the Libertas in the context of the English Civil War, see Matar, “Barbary Corsairs”.
87. ASF, Notarile Moderno, Prot. 13341, fos. 14v-15v, July 12, 1631. See on the economy of ransoming captives in the Mediterranean: Kaiser and Calafat, “Economy of Ransoming”; Hershenzon, Captive Sea.
88. About the diplomatic context of that time with Ottoman North Africa, see Calafat, “Ottoman North Africa”.
89. Button, Algiers.
90. Robinson, Libertas, 9.
91. Ibid., 10.
92. Ibid., 11. About the specific political and military context of the Mediterranean area during the 17th-century, see Greene, “Beyond the Northern Invasion”. About the links between Venice and England at that time, see Fusaro, Political Economies, 202–68.
93. Robinson, Libertas, 10. See also Matar, “Barbary Corsairs”, 249–50.
94. Robinson, Libertas, 7. This battle is also evoked by the Turkish traveller Ewliyā Čelebi (1611-1684), and by Paul Rycaut in his History of the Turkish Empire, who praised the naval power of “these bold Brittons.” See for more details on this event: Calafat, Mer jalousée, 252–65.
95. About this long-lasting topos, see Brummett, “Ottomans as a World Power”.
96. Robinson, Libertas, 12.
97. Calafat and Santus, “Avatars du Turc”; Santus, “Turco” a Livorno.
98. Frattarelli Fischer and Villani, “People of Every Mixture”; Trivellato, Familiarity of Strangers, 74–84.
99. Trivellato, Familiarity of Strangers, 70–101.
100. Quoted in Donati, Inquisizione e Granducato, 138. See also Villani, “Dalla Gran Bretagna all’Italia”.
101. Numerous examples can be found in Archivio della Congregazione per la Dottrina della Fede, Rome, Stanza Storica, HH2-d (correspondence between the Pisan Inquisition and the Congregation of the Holy Office).
102. Villani, “Una piccola epitome”, § 5–8.
103. Archivio Storico Diocesano, Livorno, Registri matrimoniali, 2, fo. 28v, September 2, 1629.
104. Villani, “L’histoire religieuse”, 262; Engels, Merchants, 129.
105. Villani, “Unintentional Dissent”, 377–8.
106. ASF, Notarile Moderno, Prot. 13341, no. 19, 14v-15v; n° 46, f° 39.
107. ASL, Governatore ed Auditore, “Atti Civili,” 75, n° 328.
108. Villani, “Cum scandalo catholicorum”, 20–5; Donati, Inquisitione e Granducato, 172.
109. Villani, “Unintentional Dissent”, 385; Donati, Inquisitione e Granducato, 172.
110. Note that Robinson, in Briefe considerations, and Englands Safety, was firmly opposed to the eating of meat during Lent, but his justifications drew less on religious considerations than on economic reasons: according to him, the demand for fish could stimulate English sea power and naval lucrative activities.
111. Quoted by Villani, “Unintentional Dissent”, 390.
112. Archivio Storico Diocesano, Pisa, Inquisizione, 5, fos. 859r-v, November 24, 1615; quoted in Calafat and Santus, “Avatars du Turc”, 499.
113. Ginzburg, Cheese and the Worms; Schwartz, All can be Saved; Tommasino, Venetian Qur’an, 185–6.
114. Burnett, Descartes, 12–14.
115. Galilei, Opere, XVI: 520.
116. See Vermij, “Instruments”.
117. Jordan, Men of Substance, 89.
118. Anonymous [Robinson], Liberty of Conscience, 17. See: Carlin, “Toleration”, 219–20.
119. Anonymous [Robinson], Liberty of Conscience, 17–18.
120. Ibid.
121. About English debates about “free speech” and unlicensed pamphlets during the Civil Wars, see: Como, Radical Parliamentarians, 149–61; Como, “Secret Printing”.
122. Anonymous [Robinson], Liberty of Conscience, 17.
123. Ibid., 6 (emphasis added).
124. Games, Web of Empire, 64–66.
125. Trivellato, Familiarity of Strangers, 80–1; Villani, “Una finestra mediterranea”.
126. Anonymous [Robinson], Liberty of Conscience, 7.
127. On Crypto-Jews and “Marranos” in Tuscany, see Frattarelli Fischer, Vivere, 15–68; about Moriscos in Tuscany, see Santus, “Moreschi in Toscana”; Pomara Saverino, Rifugiati, 99–104.
128. Using the example of Livorno, this idea is one of the arguments raised in Menasseh ben Israel’s Humble Addresses (1655) in favour of the readmission of the Jews in England: M. ben Israel, Humble Addresses, 2. See Ravid, “How Profitable”, 164; Bregoli, Mediterranean Enlightenment, 218–22.
129. Anonymous [Robinson], Liberty of Conscience, 27.
130. About the controversy between Robinson and Dury, see: Caricchio, “John Dury”.
131. Como, Radical Parliamentarians, 261.
132. Trivellato, Familiarity of Strangers, 73.