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About 3 ⁄ 7 of British national debt in 1776, and 1 ⁄ 3 of major stocks like the East India Company, were held by Dutch bankers. [4] In 1815, at the end of the Napoleonic Wars, British government debt reached a peak of £1 billion (that was more than 200% of GDP). [5]
It was estimated that in 1776, the total amount of debt that British merchants claimed from the colonies equaled £2,958,390; Southern colonies had claims of £2,482,763, nearly 85 per cent of the total amount. [63] Before the crisis, the commission system of trading prevailed in the southern plantation colonies.
The United Kingdom national debt is the total quantity of money borrowed by the Government of the United Kingdom at any time through the issue of securities by the British Treasury and other government agencies. At the end of March 2023, UK general government gross debt was £2,537.0 billion, or 100.5% gross domestic product. [2]
The rise and growth of the national debt, combined with the creation of an effective banking system. (The greater part of the 18th century was occupied with the working out of these results.) The government of William III faced the expense of war whilst simultaneously needing to allay discontent at home. As a preliminary to settling the ...
The Seven Years' War (1756-1763) brought great financial burdens on Great Britain, Kingdom of Prussia, Austria, France, and Sweden.The costs of fighting a protracted war on several continents meant Britain's national debt almost doubled from 1756 to 1763, and this financial pressure which Britain tried to alleviate through new taxation in the Thirteen Colonies helped cause the American Revolution.
British colonial architecture, such as in churches, railway stations and government buildings, can be seen in many cities that were once part of the British Empire; [280] Western technologies and architecture had been globalised in part due to the Empire's military and administrative requirements. [281]
As industrialisation took effect in the late 18th and early 19th century, the United Kingdom possessed a strong national government that provided a standard currency, an efficient legal system, efficient taxation, and effective support for overseas enterprise both within the British Empire and in independent nations.
The following table gives gross domestic product (GDP) estimates of the British Empire and its territories in 1870 and 1913, as a percentage of the world economy and the empire's economy, along with comparisons to the United States and Russian Empire.