This paper examines Joseph Addison's essay "The Royal Exchange," published as No. 69 in The Spectator on May 19, 1711. The discussion traces Addison's enthusiastic attitude toward London's center of international commerce, including his proto-economic observations on comparative advantage, England's resource poverty, and the civilizing power of trade. The paper also places Addison's views in historical context by comparing early 18th-century optimism about commercial exchange with the more complicated social and geopolitical realities of the modern era, ultimately questioning how Addison might regard the Royal Exchange's contemporary equivalent.
The paper demonstrates effective use of primary source quotation integrated with secondary scholarly commentary. By weaving together Addison's original prose, historian observations (Beljame, Dobree, and Lorimer; Humphreys), and the student's own interpretation, the paper models how to build a layered literary-historical argument without allowing any single voice to dominate.
The essay opens with a brief institutional history of the Royal Exchange, then moves into Addison's personal attitude toward the venue. Subsequent sections address his economic thinking — touching on comparative advantage and England's reliance on trade — before considering his view of commerce as an instrument of international goodwill. The conclusion pivots to a modern contrast, reflecting on how much London and global commerce have changed since 1711.
In a series of essays in The Spectator, Joseph Addison provided contemporary commentary on the life and times of the English. This paper discusses the author's attitude toward his subject matter as evinced in The Spectator, No. 69 — on the subject of the Royal Exchange — in order to determine how and whether modern attitudes might differ from their early 18th-century counterpart.
The Royal Exchange was a famous financial institution formerly located in the City of London. Before it closed in 1939, it served as an important forum for the business dealings of London merchants and traders, who had previously conducted their transactions in the street or in crowded shops. The institution that Addison knew was actually the second of three such incarnations. The first exchange had been officially opened in 1570 and was burned to the ground in the Great Fire of London in 1666. The second Royal Exchange opened in 1669 and became the subject of Addison's essay; many of its offices were rented to private companies, and its basement vaults were used for the storage of pepper from the East India Company. This second building was also destroyed by fire in 1838.
With such a colorful history and representing such a center of social and commercial activity, it is little wonder that Addison found such amusement in his visits there. According to Beljame, Dobree, and Lorimer (1948), "Addison certainly wrote for the boudoir as much as for the coffee-house: a paper has to be bought to be read in the home, and this may partly account for Addison's enormous sales" (xix). In his numbered series of essays in The Spectator, Addison describes vivid scenes from everyday life in London: "Coffee-house life with its debates, news-sheets, clubs of common interests (even the common interests of oddities), and indeed its whole routine . . . We observe street-scenes, commercial houses (No. 69 creates a splendid pattern of Royal-Exchange activity and the romance behind the process of trade), moneyed and trading interests" (Humphreys 31).
In his introduction to "The Royal Exchange" essay, Addison makes his opinion about the institution clear and enthuses: "There is no Place in the Town which I so much love to frequent as the Royal-Exchange. It gives me a secret Satisfaction, and in some measure, gratifies my Vanity, as I am an Englishman, to see so rich an Assembly of Countrymen and Foreigners consulting together upon the private Business of Mankind, and making this Metropolis a kind of Emporium for the whole Earth" (Addison 1). Indeed, Addison likens the multitudes gathered at the Exchange to a modern United Nations and Wall Street rolled into one giant cornucopia of mankind, made all the more interesting by the fact that average Londoners could stroll by and witness important international business transactions being concluded for themselves.
Developing the concept of comparative advantage well before modern economists conceived of it, Addison reports that merchandise of all types could be found being traded at the Royal Exchange from countries where it was best produced: "Nature seems to have taken a particular Care to disseminate her Blessings among the different Regions of the World, with an Eye to this mutual Intercourse and Traffick among Mankind, that the Natives of the several Parts of the Globe might have a kind of Dependance upon one another, and be united together by their common Interest. Almost every Degree produced something peculiar to it" (Addison 5).
The fact that London had developed into the center of international trade in the early 18th century, and that the Royal Exchange represented the focal point of this multicultural commerce, made the institution highly appealing as a window on the world for Addison and his peers. This appeal was made all the more compelling because 18th-century England, like 20th-century Japan, lacked abundant natural resources and had only financial acumen and expertise to offer the world. In this regard, Addison points out that, "If we consider our own Country in its natural Prospect, without any of the Benefits and Advantages of Commerce, what a barren uncomfortable Spot of Earth falls to our Share. Natural Historians tell us, that no Fruit grows Originally among us, besides Hips and Haws, Acorns and Pig-Nutts, with other Delicates of the like Nature; That our Climate of itself, and without the Assistances of Art, can make no further Advances towards a Plumb than to a Sloe, and carries an Apple to no greater a Perfection than a Crab." Nevertheless, he celebrates the transformative power of trade: "Our Ships are laden with the Harvest of every Climate: Our Tables are stored with Spices, and Oils, and Wines: Our Rooms are filled with Pyramids of China, and adorned with the Workmanship of Japan: Our Morning's Draught comes to us from the remotest Corners of the Earth: We repair our Bodies by the Drugs of America, and repose ourselves under Indian Canopies" (Addison 6).
If the truth was known, it is likely that not even the Royal Exchange of 1711 was as romantic as Addison portrayed it. But even if it was, the fact remains that times change, and the London of the 21st century has been transformed from its position of prominence in the 18th century to one of an increasingly complicated role in the Western world — beset by a wide range of social problems that threaten the stability of the country in the coming years. It is likely that Addison would have disliked the modern version of the Royal Exchange, and given the destruction of the World Trade Center in September 2001, he would probably have avoided the place altogether.
Addison, Joseph. Spectator, No. 69, May 19, 1711. [Royal Exchange.]
Beljame, Alexandre, Bonamy Dobree, and E.O. Lorimer. Men of Letters and the English Public in the Eighteenth Century, 1660–1744: Dryden, Addison [and] Pope. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1948.
Humphreys, A.R. Steele, Addison and Their Periodical Essays. London: Longmans, Green, 1966.
"Royal Exchange." Encyclopedia Britannica. 2006. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. 7 Oct. 2006. http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9094014.
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