Chapter 7 - Conclusions

Summary

What reflections should close this study? My initial purpose was to study the provision of marine insurance in Amsterdam during a particular period: 1766–80. For this serial history, the prijscouranten offered an excellent observation point and the advantage of simultaneous reporting on a market with domestic ramifications. At the same time, in the spatial setting of an international economy, splendid Amsterdam coped on the one hand with the fertile heritage of a golden age, and on the other hand, as the decades passed, with inclinations to maturity in that activity. Clearly the eighteenth century hardly hesitated for a moment in assigning it a place of outstanding prestige among the markets of Europe. It enjoyed access to broadly based capital but the very nature of that democracy of wealth held impediments to easy expansion in new directions. Samuel Ricard put a pertinent finger on its complex structure – perhaps there were fewer guilder millionaires than often supposed, but the wealthy nevertheless disposed of funds outside the immediate requirements of their business and these were ready for further investment. Nothing was simpler, he maintained, than to set up an enterprise on the Dam; but nothing more difficult than to hold out there without substantial assets. If anything, the performance of the insurance market tended to bear this out.