England's relationship with the Baltic trading area has remained a generally neglected aspect of English commercial development in the seventeenth century. The spectacular colonial ventures have traditionally attracted more historical attention, although the Baltic trade in this period was more fundamental to the English economy: it supplied precisely those naval commodities, such as flax, hemp, timber, pitch and tar, which facilitated the creation of fleets for the colonial trades. Medieval English trade had been conditioned by a search for markets, and the predominantly agricultural economy of the Polish Commonwealth proved to be an ideal target for cloth exports. By the early seventeenth century, however, this traditional relationship was changing. The growing English fleets demanded steady supplies of naval stores which Poland was increasingly unable to supply, while the Polish economy, weakened by wars and entering a period of decline, could no longer afford the luxury of cloth imports from England.
1. English perceptions of the Polish Commonwealth; 2. The mechanics of English diplomacy in the Eastland; 3. The early history of the Eastland Staple at Elbing; 4. The operation of the staple; 5. The pattern of English shipping into the Baltic; 6. English exports to the Baltic; 7. English imports from the Baltic; 8. The threat to the Eastland Staple at Elbing; 9. The depression of 1620 and the crisis of England's Baltic trade; 10. The political crisis, 1620-9; 11. The mission of Sir Thomas Roe to the Eastland; 12. Attempts at reconciliation with Danzig, 1630-5; 13. The climax of English commercial diplomacy, 1635-42; 14. Conclusion.
