Louis Proyect quoted: >It can be stated unhesitatingly that the contribution made by this capital >was decisive for the accumulation of the commercial capital and money >capital which, between 1500 and 1750, created the conditions which proved >propitious for the industrial revolution. It is difficult to calculate the >total amount involved, but if one takes into account only the most >substantial contributions these add up to a staggering sum. Or, as Keynes said: "The booty brought back by Drake in the Golden Hind may fairly be considered the fountain and origin of British foreign investment. Elizabeth paid off out of the proceeds the whole of her foreign debt and invested a part of the balance (about �42,000) in the Levant Company; largely out of the profits of the Levant Company there was formed the East India Company, the profits of which during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were the main foundation of England's foreign connections; and so on. [John Maynard Keynes, Treatise on Money, vol. 2 (Collected Works, vol. 7), p. 139.] Doug
