Alden, Dauril

English

University of New Mexico

Colonial Latin American Historical Review
Volume 8
Issue 4 Volume 8, Issue 4 (Fall 1999) Article 7
9-1-1999
L.M.E. Shaw, The Anglo-Portuguese Alliance and
the English Merchants in Portugal, 1654-1810
Dauril Alden
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Recommended Citation
Alden, Dauril. "L.M.E. Shaw, The Anglo-Portuguese Alliance and the English Merchants in Portugal, 1654-1810." Colonial Latin
American Historical Review 8, 4 (1999): 492. https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/clahr/vol8/iss4/7
492 COLONIAL LA TIN AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW FALL 1999 
The Anglo-Portuguese Alliance and the English Merchants in Portugal, 1654-
1810. By L. M. E. Shaw. (Brookfield, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 1998. xii + 
233 pp. Illustrations, map, notes, bibliography, index. Price not available.) 
The negotiation and implementation of the Anglo-Portuguese treaty of 
1654 occupied a central place in L. M. E. Shaw's earlier volume, Trade, 
Inquisition and the English Nation in Portugal, 1650-1690 (Manchester: 
Carcanet Press Limited, 1989). While Lusitanian abuses of that treaty represent 
a primary theme in the volume under review, it is certainly mistitled, for it 
contributes little to our understanding of Anglo-Portuguese diplomatic relations 
during this period. Indeed, the careers of British diplomats in Portugal are of 
less concern to the author than the role of British consuls whose activities 
interested her before. Furthermore, she fails to make clear why the treaty of 
1654 exceeded in importance that of the better known treaties of 1661 and 
1703. 
The book's thirteen chapters are divided into four sections. The first is 
a broad, but unoriginal, survey of Anglo-Portuguese diplomatic and 
BOOK REVIEWS 493 
commercial relations during the period. The second focuses on "the British 
Community," primarily the British Factory in Lisbon, most of whose records 
have vanished. The third examines the vexations of British merchants with 
Portuguese customs and judicial authorities, particularly with respect to three 
branches of commerce: wheat imports, port wine exports, and the Brazil trade. 
The book ends with a rather superficial conclusion that fails to present an 
arresting thesis that might unite and sustain this diffuse volume. 
The book replicates the strengths and faults of its predecessor. 
Seemingly, it is based upon an impressive array of archival sources in both 
Britain and Portugal and upon an extensive published literature. However, the 
author fails to demonstrate familiarity with the contributions of many scholars 
in Brazil and the United States. As before, the text is replete with erroneous 
statements, of which the following are examples: The Lisbon earthquake (1755) 
did not destroy "most of the Portuguese government's records" (pp. [vi], xi, 
and 33); the mesa da consciencia was not an agency of the Inquisition (p. 97); 
and Cabral did not land "near the present town of Santos (read Porto Seguro)" 
(p. 113). Throughout, dates are unreliable, in part because the volume was not 
carefully proofed, and the literary style is often pedestrian. 
As in her previous volume, it is clear that the author's sympathies lie 
with British merchants rather than with their adversaries who, in her view, 
consisted of rival, largely New Christian merchants and a priest-ridden 
bureaucracy. Unfortunately, despite the author's undeniable industry, there is 
little in this volume to recommend it. 
Dauril Alden 
Department of History 
University of Washington 


L.M.E. Shaw, The Anglo-Portuguese Alliance and the English Merchants in Portugal, 1654-1810

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L.M.E. Shaw, The Anglo-Portuguese Alliance and the English Merchants in Portugal, 1654-1810

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