Environmental History of Early Modern Europe - HIS 1165-003 - Caroline Murphy

• John Forster, Englands Happiness Increased, or A Sure and Easie Remedy Against All Succeeding Dear Years (London: printed for A. Seile, 1664).
  See pages [i-ii] and 24.
  [Source: Early English Books Online; re-keyed text available]
  Summary: The author proposes to increase cultivation of potatoes to feed the poor and offers recipes for baking bread with potatoes among others.
• "Advertisements and Notices," Daily Post, June 24, 1720.
  [Source: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers Collection.]
  Summary: C. Joynes, who in 1717 had been granted a patent by King George for the exclusive production of potato starch, is looking for partners interested in improving land for the cultivation of potatoes.
• Caspar von Voght, “Potatoes a Blessing [excerpt],” in Poor Green Erin: German Travel Writers' Narratives on Ireland from Before the 1789 Rising to After the Great Famine, edited, translated and annotated by Eoin Bourke (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2011), 65-66.
  [Source: Poor Green Erin: German Travel Writers’ Narratives on Ireland from Before the 1789 Rising to After the Great Famine.]
  Summary: First-hand observations of Ireland by Caspar von Voght, a German merchant and social reformer. Von Voght visited Ireland in 1794 and credited the potato for the survival of the Irish poor.
• Mary Ann Grant, Sketches of Life and Manners: With Delineation of Scenery in England, Scotland, and Ireland Interspersed with Moral Tales and Anecdotes in Original Letters, vol. 2, 2nd ed. (London: Cox, Son, and Baylis, 1811).
  See title page, 237, 239-40.
  Summary: Little is known about the author, Mary Ann Grant. Born in the second half of the 18th century in England, she moved with her family to Scotland where she married a military officer. The excerpt features a passage in which she describes soil conditions in Ireland and the importance of the potato for the poor.

• Senate of Bahia, "Letter to his Majesty Concerning the Need to Find a Means to Encourage an Increase in the Exports of the Products of this Land, Owing to the Way They Have Slumped Due to Their Dearness and High Taxation, 12 August 1687."
  See chapter 6.6, pp. 230-33.
  [Source: Stuart B. Schwartz, Early Brazil: A Documentary Collection to 1700 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010).]
  Summary: Heavily taxed during the war with the Dutch, sugar plantations in northeastern Brazil struggled to compete with the emerging sugar cane industries in the Caribbean. The Senate of Bahia pleads for tax relief in this letter to the Portuguese king.
• A State [sic] of the Present Condition of the Island of Barbadoes: With Some Reasons, Why There Ought Not to Be Any More Duties or Imposts Laid on Sugars than What Already Are; Shewing, That They Pay Full as Much as Thy [sic] Can Bear, and That They Who Make That Manufactory, Pay More in Proportion, than Any Other of His Majesty's Subjects ([London, 1698?]).
  [Source: Early English Books Online]
  Summary: Argues that the Crown should reduce taxation on sugar imported from its colonies.
• Edward Littleton, The Groans of the Plantations, or a True Account of Their Grievous and Extreme Sufferings by the Heavy Impositions upon Sugar and Other Hardships: Relating More Particularly to the Island of Barbados (London: printed by M. Clark, 1689).
  [Source: The Making of the Modern World]
  Summary: Argues that the Crown should reduce taxation on sugar imported from its colonies.

• "Parliamentary Intelligence." Times, February 24, 1795, 3-4.
  [Source: Times Digital Archive]
  Excerpts: “In respect to the Taxes proposed, to many of them he had no objection; but the Hon. Gentleman took credit for them in different, and even in opposite ways. Many of them, he had declared, did not affect the poor. In the article of tea, however, he believed that it was not only in general use among the poor, but he was also sorry to add, that it formed the chief part of the consumption of many of them."
  "The observation of the Right Hon. Gentleman (Mr. Fox) respecting the additional duties upon teas and wines were not founded, as, on a more deliberate view, it would be found, that the poor would get teas cheaper and better, and that wines would be obtained more pure, and less adulterated than ever.”
• Jonas Hanway, A Journal of Eight Days Journey from Portsmouth to Kingston upon Thames (...) To Which is Added An Essay on Tea (London, printed for H. Woodfall, 1757).
  [Source: Global Commodities (Adam Matthew Digital)]
  Summary: Warns of the dangers of “bohea tea” in face of the growing tea consumption among common people. Look up the meaning of “bohea tea” in the Oxford English Dictionary (Falvey: Databases A-Z).
• Frontispiece from Hanway's A Journal of Eight Days.
  [Source: Global Commodities (Adam Matthew Digital)]
  Summary: Depicts scenes from the tea trade and English tea consumption.
• The Good and Bad Effects of Tea Consider'd (London: printed for John Wilkie, 1758).
  See pages 32-33.
  [Source: Global Commodities (Adam Matthew Digital)]
  Summary: Warns of the dangers of “bohea tea” in face of the growing tea consumption among common people. Look up the meaning of “bohea tea” in the Oxford English Dictionary (Falvey: Databases A-Z).

• Tobias Conrad Lotter, Mappa Geographica Regionem Mexicanum Et Floridam ([Augsburg : Tobiæ Conradi Lotteri], 1750).
  [Source: Distinguished Collections - VU]
• Willem Janszoon Blaeu, Americae Nova Tabula (s.l., 1642).
  [Source: Distinguished Collections - VU]
• Hendrik Hondius, America: Noviter Delineata ([Amsterdam], 1631).
  [Source: Distinguished Collections - VU]
• Matthias Quad, Johann Bussemacher, and Gerhard Mercator, Typus Orbis Terrarum, Ad Imitationem Universalis Gerhardi Mercatoris: Cuius Secundum Tam Veterum Quàm Recentiorum Supputationem 5400 Miliaria Germanica Ambitus Complectitur (s.l., 1596).
  [Source: Distinguished Collections - VU]
• Waldseemuller’s map (1507)
  [Source: Library of Congress]
• Cantino planisphere (1502)
  [Source: Biblioteca Estense, Modena, Italy]
  Summary: Rhumb line construction; includes latitudes as well as the Tordesillas line.
• Caverio map (1506)
  [Source: Gallica, Digital Library of the Bibliothèque nationale de France]
  Summary: Rhumb line construction; includes Tordesillas line.

• Bartolomé de las Casas, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (s.l., 1552).
  [Source of the English translation: Wikisource]
  See chapter 1: "The Cruelties of the Spaniards Committed in America."
  Spanish original: Bartolomé de las Casas, Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias (s.l., 1552).
  [Source: Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes]
  Summary: The author describes the brutal treatment of the indigenous populations by Spanish invaders.
• Bernardino de Sahagún, Historia general de las cosas de nueva España [General History of the Things of New Spain], also known as The Florentine Codex, volume 3, book 12, folio 53 (s.l., 1577).
  [Source of digital copy: Library of Congress; Source of manuscript: Medicea Laurenziana Library, Florence]
  English translation of original Nahuatl and Spanish source texts from: James Lockhart, We People Here: Nahuatl Accounts of the Conquest of Mexico (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), chapter 29. Falvey Library, 3rd floor: F1219.73.W4 1993
  Summary: The author describes the spread of a disease, likely smallpox, around the time of the first arrival of Spanish conquerors in the region known today as Mexico. The original manuscript features side-by-side Nahuatl and Spanish text.

Click on the link to find a selection of early modern works about the pros and cons of proposed new canals in Early Modern England.

• William Ward, “The Newbus Ox,” 1812, mezzotint with hand coloring on paper, 51.1x61.3 cm, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.
  [Source: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection]
• William Ward, ”Portrait of the Short Horned Bull Patriot,” 1810, intaglio print, 50.8X60 cm, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.
  [Source: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection]
• Francis Jukes, “Portrait of a Two-Year-Old Ewe, of the New Leicestershire Kind,” 1802, etching and aquatint with hand coloring on paper, 48.3x59.4 cm, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection.
  [Source: Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection]
• Arthur Young, Annals of Agriculture and Other Useful Arts, v.6 (Bury St. Edmund's: printed for the editor, 1786).
  See chapter: "A Ten Days Tour to Mr. Bakewell’s," pp. 452-505 (p. 1023 of continuously paginated book of multiple volumes).
  [Source: Making of the Modern World; reproduction of original from Kress Library of Business and Economics, Harvard University.]
• Arthur Standish, The Commons Complaint·: VVherein Is Contained Tvvo Speciall Grieuances (London: William Stansby, 1611).
  [Source: Early English Books Online; reproduction of the original in the Bodleian Library]
• The British Improvement of Timber and Uncultivated Lands. ([London, 1720?]).
  [Source: Making of the Modern World; reproduction of the original in the Goldsmiths' Library of Economic Literature, Senate House Library, University of London)
• Lott Yeoman, An Earnest Address to the People of England: Containing an Enquiry into the Cause of the Great Scarcity of Timber, Throughout the Dominions Belonging to His Majesty. With Some Hints Towards the More Efectually Securing and Preserving the Same, Particularly That Part of It Applied in Ship-building, Which May Prove of the Last Importance to These Kingdoms (London: printed for the author, 1766).
  [Source: Eighteenth Century Collections Online; reproduction of the original in the Goldsmiths' Library of Economic Literature, Senate House Library, University of London]
• Gabriel Reeve, Directions Left by a Gentleman to His Sonns: For the Improvement of Barren and Healthy Land in England and Wales (London: printed for R. Royston, 1670).
  [Source: Early English Books Online; reproduction of original in the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign Campus) Library; includes re-keyed, machine-readable text]

• Cornelius Vermuyden, A Discourse Touching the Drayning the Great Fennes,: Lying Vvithin the Severall Counties of Lincolne, Northampton, Huntington, Norfolke, Suffolke, Cambridge, and the Isle of Ely, as It Was Presented to His Majestie (London: printed by Thomas Fawcet, 1642).
  [Source: Early English Books Online; reproduction of the original in the British Library]
• Andrewes Burrell, Exceptions Against Sir Cornelius Virmudens Discourse for the Draining of the Great Fennes, &c. (London: published by the author, 1642).
  [Source: Early English Books Online; reproduction of the original in the British Library]
• Charles II, King of England, A Proclamation for the Preservation of the Great Level of the Fens, Called Bedford Level, and of the Works Made for the Dreining of the Same (London: printed by John Bill and Christopher Barker, 1662).
  [Source: Early English Books Online; reproduction of the original in the British Library]
• Some Particulars to Shew How the State Will Receive a Present Benefit, by Passing of the Earl of Lindseyes Drayning ([s.l., 1700?]).
  [Source: Early English Books Online; reproductions of original in Worcester College (University of Oxford) Library]

• John Harrison, A Narrative of the Proceedings Relative to the Discovery of the Longitude at Sea; by Mr. John Harrison's Time-keeper; Subsequent to Those Published in the Year 1763 (London: printed for the author, 1765).
  [Source: Eighteenth Century Collections Online; reproduction of original from the British Library]
• The Case of Mr. John Harrison ([London, 1767?]).
  [Source: Eighteenth Century Collections Online; reproduction of original from the British Library]

• F. Clifton, "Dr Clifton's Prescription for the Cure of the Small-Pox." The Gentleman's Magazine: Or, Monthly Intellegencer, January 1734, 27. [Source: British Periodicals]
• Mary Wortley Montagu, “Letter 31 to Mrs. S.C.,” in Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M-y W-y M-e: Written During Her Travels in Europe, Asia, and Africa: To Which Are Added Poems, by the Same Author (Paris: printed by P. Didot, the Elder, [1798?]), 94-96.
  [Source: Eighteenth Century Collections Online]
• Edward Jenner, An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolæ Vaccinæ: A Disease Discovered in Some of the Western Counties of England, Particularly Gloucestershire, and Known by the Name of the Cow Pox (London: printed for the author, 1798).
  [Source: Eighteenth Century Collections Online]
• Henry Banks, “Report from the Committee on Dr. Jenner’s Petition, respecting his Discovery of Vaccine Inoculation.” Reports from the Committees of the House of Commons (n.p.,1802).
  [Source: UK Parliamentary Papers]