International Influences
Throughout the period the European nations were often at war with one another while also pursuing their own interests in different parts of the world. It was the era when the New World began became of ever greater interest to the European nations and emigration and trade began to burgeon in colonies in north America and the Caribbean. Trade with the far-east via South Africa and the East Indies also began to grow. Late in C17th the incidence of slavery began to grow.
Life in Poole was affected by these developments. Changes in England including the Civil Wars, the restoration of the Monarchy, the rise of Protestantism and the creation of the United Kingdom in 1707, provided an ever changing backdrop to events here. The settlement of disputes between the European nations, as established by the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, represented a springboard for Poole’s further very positive development during the Georgian period.
In their development of the Newfoundland fish processing and associated trade, and the extensive coastal shipping and trading interests trade Poole entrepreneurs of the day had created an excellent position to be able to exploit the further trade benefits of that agreement in the succeeding decades.