The Loss of the "Trades Increase"

"Richmond Barbour’s new monograph about the tragic story of the Jacobean merchant ship the Trades Increase performs a neat trick: it combines scrupulous archival research in early modern maritime and corporate history with contemporary relevance...[A] well-crafted study both of an important vessel for seventeenth-century maritime history and a significant expedition within British imperial history and travel writing studies. Clearly written and scholarly, the book is essential for all those interested in early modern trade and expansion and a cracking good read."—Renaissance and Reformation

"[A]s Richmond Barbour shows in his well-written book, The Loss of the Trades Increase, there is much more to the first and only voyage of the Trades Increase than its ignominious end at Bantam in October or November 1614....[T]he journey toward the loss of the Trades Increase is captivating...[A] valuable contribution to the study of the early period of the East India Company, while also being an enjoyable page-turner."—Journal of British Studies

"Richmond Barbour gives a fascinating account of the disastrous history of the Trades Increase, the largest ship in the British East India Company fleet and an embodiment of Jacobean England's hopes for trade and expansion. This is much more than a maritime disaster story; it is a cultural history, essential reading for an understanding of the development of early modern England."—Stephen Orgel, Stanford University

"Richmond Barbour has a real gift for characterization, and he's particularly good at bringing out the motives and emotions of the men whose often unhappy and conflict-ridden lives he narrates. The Loss of the 'Trades Increase' is valuable as much for the insight it gives into early modern mentalities as for the well-researched account it provides."—David J. Baker, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill