0:00:05 > 0:00:07My name is Adam Nicolson.
0:00:07 > 0:00:10I'm a writer. And ever since I was a teenager,
0:00:10 > 0:00:13I have been gripped by the 17th century.
0:00:13 > 0:00:16It was Britain's most revolutionary century
0:00:16 > 0:00:18when all the forces of modernity
0:00:18 > 0:00:21began to stir under the old order,
0:00:21 > 0:00:24slugging it out on the great battlegrounds
0:00:24 > 0:00:27of religion and politics.
0:00:29 > 0:00:32Two civil wars, one king almost blown up,
0:00:32 > 0:00:34another with his head cut off,
0:00:34 > 0:00:36a third simply got rid of.
0:00:36 > 0:00:39But more important than any of that
0:00:39 > 0:00:43was the factor which drove the revolutionary changes
0:00:43 > 0:00:46in this first truly modern century.
0:00:46 > 0:00:48Writing.
0:00:50 > 0:00:52Writing was everywhere.
0:00:52 > 0:00:55Notebooks, chapbooks, account books,
0:00:55 > 0:00:57business correspondence, letters,
0:00:57 > 0:01:00diaries, pamphlets, newspapers.
0:01:00 > 0:01:03This was the century of the written word.
0:01:03 > 0:01:08It was the first great age of self-depiction.
0:01:08 > 0:01:10All kinds of people were learning to read and write.
0:01:10 > 0:01:12And, through their writings,
0:01:12 > 0:01:16we can know them like never before in history.
0:01:16 > 0:01:20A woman sent to prison for her conscience.
0:01:21 > 0:01:24A sailor who wanted to share his adventures.
0:01:26 > 0:01:30A solitary genius who used his notebooks
0:01:30 > 0:01:33to unlock the secrets of the universe.
0:01:33 > 0:01:37Reading and writing allowed people to question what they'd been told.
0:01:37 > 0:01:39To engage in fierce debate
0:01:39 > 0:01:43and to rewrite the rules of politics and self-expression.
0:01:43 > 0:01:46This was the beginning of the age we now live in.
0:01:46 > 0:01:49The moment we left the Middle Ages behind
0:01:49 > 0:01:51and set out on the track to modernity.
0:01:51 > 0:01:53'And that transformation
0:01:53 > 0:01:56'is what fascinates me about the 17th century.'
0:02:12 > 0:02:14It was a world on the move.
0:02:16 > 0:02:19In the streets of London, there were cart jams
0:02:19 > 0:02:21and the roads were filled with people
0:02:21 > 0:02:24in search of new lives, new opportunities.
0:02:24 > 0:02:28The city tripled in size through the century.
0:02:28 > 0:02:32More than half-a-million Englishmen emigrated.
0:02:32 > 0:02:35Either in search of God or to get rich.
0:02:36 > 0:02:39Distance had entered English lives.
0:02:39 > 0:02:43Britain was turning from a small, insignificant island
0:02:43 > 0:02:45to a booming international economy.
0:02:49 > 0:02:52In this film, I'm going to explore
0:02:52 > 0:02:56through the lives and written words of people on the move,
0:02:56 > 0:03:00how writing made new ways of life possible in this expanding world.
0:03:00 > 0:03:05Fuelling the change from an insular country to an international economy.
0:03:05 > 0:03:08The key transition to modern life.
0:03:08 > 0:03:13Writing made love possible when the lovers were hundreds of miles apart.
0:03:13 > 0:03:16Allowed people to own things the other side of the ocean.
0:03:16 > 0:03:21It changed Britain, opening its pores to a modern future.
0:03:28 > 0:03:31This was a century of ambition and mobility.
0:03:31 > 0:03:34Of people prepared to seek prosperity and happiness
0:03:34 > 0:03:36away from their roots.
0:03:36 > 0:03:40There was a need to make life coherent at a distance.
0:03:40 > 0:03:42And only writing could do that.
0:03:42 > 0:03:47My first story begins with a couple who tried to bridge that distance
0:03:47 > 0:03:51with some incredibly intense love letters.
0:03:51 > 0:03:54Now, of course, people have always written love letters,
0:03:54 > 0:03:57but the 17th century sees a sudden burgeoning
0:03:57 > 0:04:00of intimate family correspondence.
0:04:00 > 0:04:03And here in Suffolk, in the village of Groton,
0:04:03 > 0:04:05lived one of the most prolific set
0:04:05 > 0:04:09of family correspondents, the Winthrops.
0:04:09 > 0:04:11And the letters they wrote to each other
0:04:11 > 0:04:15are some of the most poignant and beautiful ever written.
0:04:35 > 0:04:37So this is Groton, the village of Groton.
0:04:37 > 0:04:41And here is Groton Place, which is the house of the Winthrops.
0:04:41 > 0:04:45A great big, chunky gentry house.
0:04:45 > 0:04:48This is where the local rulers lived. And this was them.
0:04:48 > 0:04:51And the Winthrops, you might think of them as pompous,
0:04:51 > 0:04:53stuffed-up gents, but actually,
0:04:53 > 0:04:56they're very different from that.
0:04:56 > 0:04:57They are Puritans.
0:04:57 > 0:05:00I have John Winthrop here on this iPad.
0:05:00 > 0:05:03And John looks like the kind of man
0:05:03 > 0:05:06who won't have any games played on a Sunday.
0:05:06 > 0:05:10Won't have any licentiousness or drunkenness
0:05:10 > 0:05:13or bear-baiting or badger-baiting.
0:05:13 > 0:05:16All of that is complete anathema to him.
0:05:16 > 0:05:21Like other Puritans, he wants to purify the Church of England.
0:05:21 > 0:05:23Purify the whole country.
0:05:23 > 0:05:27Rid it of all of those Roman Catholic old things
0:05:27 > 0:05:29which are part of the past.
0:05:29 > 0:05:32He's interested in a new, clean, pure future.
0:05:33 > 0:05:36Although the family home was in Suffolk,
0:05:36 > 0:05:40John spent much of his time away in London...
0:05:40 > 0:05:45where he was a legal official in the Court of Wards and Liveries.
0:05:45 > 0:05:48He was influential, well-connected -
0:05:48 > 0:05:50a man to be reckoned with.
0:05:52 > 0:05:56Living in what was fast becoming the largest city in Europe.
0:05:58 > 0:06:02It was a hotbed of vice, drink, theatre and prostitution.
0:06:02 > 0:06:05A world away from Suffolk
0:06:05 > 0:06:09and, most importantly, from his beloved wife, Margaret.
0:06:16 > 0:06:18She was a little grander than him.
0:06:18 > 0:06:21She was the daughter of a judge and a knight.
0:06:21 > 0:06:23But they'd been brought up in the same Puritan world
0:06:23 > 0:06:25and they shared the same values.
0:06:25 > 0:06:29Belief in a godly family, a godly community
0:06:29 > 0:06:34and an intense personal devotion to God himself.
0:06:34 > 0:06:37And, like many young gentry women,
0:06:37 > 0:06:39she'd been brought up very well.
0:06:39 > 0:06:41Very carefully. Especially to write.
0:06:41 > 0:06:44And these are some of her letters here.
0:06:44 > 0:06:47And the way that she has written these words on the page
0:06:47 > 0:06:51is so carefully done, it's almost as if
0:06:51 > 0:06:54she has embroidered them onto the paper.
0:06:54 > 0:06:58This is not a busy mail hand.
0:06:58 > 0:07:00Here is a letter from her husband.
0:07:00 > 0:07:03It's almost scribbled in a rough, busy secretary hand,
0:07:03 > 0:07:07like he hasn't really got time to write it on the page.
0:07:07 > 0:07:10She has time absolutely flooding into this.
0:07:10 > 0:07:14And as she writes, "Most dear and loving husband,
0:07:14 > 0:07:18"I cannot express my love to you as I desire
0:07:18 > 0:07:21"in these poor, lifeless lines."
0:07:21 > 0:07:26There is something amazingly modest about Margaret Winthrop.
0:07:26 > 0:07:30But in another way, it is a picture of incredible
0:07:30 > 0:07:33warmth and intimacy between them,
0:07:33 > 0:07:37bridging that gap between Groton and London.
0:07:37 > 0:07:40And so, when she ends, she says,
0:07:40 > 0:07:44"And thus desiring to be remembered in your prayers.
0:07:44 > 0:07:47"I bid my good husband good night.
0:07:47 > 0:07:49"Little Sam, as well.
0:07:49 > 0:07:52"Thinks it is time for me to go to bed.
0:07:52 > 0:07:57"And so I beseech the Lord to keep you in safety and us all here.
0:07:57 > 0:08:00"Farewell, my sweet husband."
0:08:00 > 0:08:03Honestly, as if she's talking to him.
0:08:03 > 0:08:08And then signs off, "Your obedient wife, Margaret Winthrop."
0:08:08 > 0:08:13But she misspells obedient and has to put a little "I" in there
0:08:13 > 0:08:15when the rest of it has been done.
0:08:17 > 0:08:21Their dozens of letters enabled Margaret and John
0:08:21 > 0:08:23to coexist at a distance.
0:08:23 > 0:08:27A yo-yo exchange of love from Suffolk to London,
0:08:27 > 0:08:29London to Suffolk.
0:08:29 > 0:08:33Sometimes, Margaret even sent a cheese or a pudding with her letter.
0:08:35 > 0:08:38But things weren't altogether peaceful.
0:08:38 > 0:08:42Through the 1620s, the Puritans came under increasing pressure
0:08:42 > 0:08:45to conform to what they hated -
0:08:45 > 0:08:46the new ceremonialist mainstream
0:08:46 > 0:08:50promoted by the bishops and at court.
0:08:51 > 0:08:55In September 1627, John wrote to Margaret in Groton
0:08:55 > 0:08:57expressing his fears,
0:08:57 > 0:09:01but reaffirming his trust in their unity.
0:09:01 > 0:09:03He felt that they were strangers on Earth,
0:09:03 > 0:09:07but he urged her in this passionate letter
0:09:07 > 0:09:08to stick to their beliefs
0:09:08 > 0:09:12because only there did true rewards lie.
0:09:12 > 0:09:15And he wrote to her that they should, "Live that life of faith
0:09:15 > 0:09:20"which only affords true peace, comfort and contentment.
0:09:20 > 0:09:23"And if the world shall disclaim us as none of hers,
0:09:23 > 0:09:26"and refuse to hold out to us
0:09:26 > 0:09:30"such full breasts as she doth to others,
0:09:30 > 0:09:32"this shall not need to trouble us,
0:09:32 > 0:09:36"but rather may give us matter of joy."
0:09:36 > 0:09:40It's the deepest possible outpouring of love for this woman
0:09:40 > 0:09:44in the vision of their shared life in the future.
0:09:48 > 0:09:52Their love was able to blossom through the exchange of letters.
0:09:52 > 0:09:55But it wasn't always easy to communicate like this.
0:09:55 > 0:10:00Before 1635, when the Royal Mail was opened up to everyone,
0:10:00 > 0:10:03there was no organised large-scale postal service.
0:10:03 > 0:10:06The way in which letters were carried
0:10:06 > 0:10:09throughout the 16th and 17th century
0:10:09 > 0:10:11is often very ad hoc.
0:10:11 > 0:10:17Certainly, before the 1635 reforms and the Civil War,
0:10:17 > 0:10:20the forms of address that people would use are often very vague.
0:10:20 > 0:10:23If you were using a personal bearer that was carrying a letter,
0:10:23 > 0:10:26you could say, "Give this to my wife
0:10:26 > 0:10:29- "and let this be delivered to her." - Just that?
0:10:29 > 0:10:30Literally just that.
0:10:30 > 0:10:33But isn't that...? That's on the shift, isn't it?
0:10:33 > 0:10:37So if that is the 16th century, early 17th century way of it,
0:10:37 > 0:10:39by the end of the century,
0:10:39 > 0:10:42these things are becoming rather more official and bureaucratic.
0:10:42 > 0:10:46Absolutely. Much more efficient, much more organised,
0:10:46 > 0:10:50much more regular and much more secure.
0:10:50 > 0:10:52I think that's the key thing.
0:10:52 > 0:10:57The letter is becoming increasingly personal and increasingly private.
0:10:57 > 0:10:59And that's connected to the post,
0:10:59 > 0:11:02it's also connected to shifts in the nature of literacy.
0:11:02 > 0:11:05And they are able to put down on paper
0:11:05 > 0:11:08personal thoughts and personal emotions
0:11:08 > 0:11:10in a way that they haven't in the past.
0:11:10 > 0:11:12So this is the birth of privacy.
0:11:12 > 0:11:15This is absolutely the birth of privacy.
0:11:15 > 0:11:18One of the other things we see over this period
0:11:18 > 0:11:20is the rise of the love letter.
0:11:20 > 0:11:24The way in which individuals are articulating emotion
0:11:24 > 0:11:26in a way they haven't previously.
0:11:31 > 0:11:36The private letter was a new kind of vehicle for private emotion.
0:11:36 > 0:11:41And this makes for one of the most revelatory paradoxes of the century.
0:11:41 > 0:11:44Because they could write to each other
0:11:44 > 0:11:45without fear or reserve in private,
0:11:45 > 0:11:48we can see these people more clearly
0:11:48 > 0:11:51than almost anyone from any earlier time.
0:11:51 > 0:11:55And there is another line of Winthrop family correspondence
0:11:55 > 0:11:58which allows us even further into their world -
0:11:58 > 0:12:02a world which was itself expanding overseas.
0:12:02 > 0:12:08The Winthrops' second son Henry had started life as a wayward child
0:12:08 > 0:12:11and now was a risk-taking teenager.
0:12:12 > 0:12:16Having spent his childhood in quiet rural England,
0:12:16 > 0:12:19he was straining at the Puritan leash.
0:12:19 > 0:12:21ROCK MUSIC
0:12:28 > 0:12:31Margaret and John thought a little international travel
0:12:31 > 0:12:33might help him grow up.
0:12:33 > 0:12:35Perhaps one day, he, too,
0:12:35 > 0:12:39would become a good Puritan with a strong work ethic.
0:12:39 > 0:12:40He is my next character.
0:12:40 > 0:12:45A young man who tried to use writing to make his fortune.
0:12:53 > 0:12:57The Winthrops' son Henry, complete ne'er-do-well,
0:12:57 > 0:13:01wayward boy, drunk, girls.
0:13:01 > 0:13:04You know, never attending to writing
0:13:04 > 0:13:07or anything serious and puritanical.
0:13:07 > 0:13:09Any letter he wrote...Whoa!
0:13:09 > 0:13:12..was always spattered with appalling grammar
0:13:12 > 0:13:15and even worse spelling.
0:13:15 > 0:13:16HE LAUGHS
0:13:16 > 0:13:19And you can imagine, when I try...Whoa!
0:13:19 > 0:13:22..try to read one of these letters, it is totally illegible.
0:13:22 > 0:13:25You can only imagine what his dad thought
0:13:25 > 0:13:27when one of these arrived home...
0:13:27 > 0:13:29Oh! ..at Groton.
0:13:30 > 0:13:33Whoa! Bloody hell! Wahey!
0:13:33 > 0:13:35Hah! Whoa! Whey!
0:13:35 > 0:13:37HE LAUGHS
0:13:38 > 0:13:41Oh, Jesus Christ!
0:13:41 > 0:13:43Whoa! Anyway...
0:13:43 > 0:13:44Thank you.
0:13:48 > 0:13:50Despite his dodgy writing,
0:13:50 > 0:13:53Henry's future would soon rely on everything
0:13:53 > 0:13:57the letter could do for him in an expanding world.
0:13:57 > 0:14:00In December 1626, when he was 20,
0:14:00 > 0:14:03the Winthrops sent their naughty boy to the West Indies
0:14:03 > 0:14:07to gain experience in transatlantic business.
0:14:09 > 0:14:13The English Caribbean was just opening and the British had started
0:14:13 > 0:14:15to establish footholds on Barbados,
0:14:15 > 0:14:19Saint Kitts, Nevis and Montserrat.
0:14:19 > 0:14:21These would become the money pump
0:14:21 > 0:14:24at the heart of the British colonial empire.
0:14:26 > 0:14:31For now, they were rough, wild, drunken and desperate places.
0:14:31 > 0:14:33A cockpit of frontier competition
0:14:33 > 0:14:36between young English, French and Dutchmen,
0:14:36 > 0:14:38all hungry to make their pile.
0:14:41 > 0:14:45When Henry Winthrop arrived in Barbados, he decided to stay.
0:14:45 > 0:14:47This most easterly of the West Indies,
0:14:47 > 0:14:4990 miles out into the Atlantic,
0:14:49 > 0:14:52thrown like a sixpence on Newmarket Heath,
0:14:52 > 0:14:55as one English traveller described it,
0:14:55 > 0:14:57looked, to Henry, like his future.
0:15:10 > 0:15:13One of the first things Henry did when he got to Barbados
0:15:13 > 0:15:16was to write home to the family.
0:15:16 > 0:15:17It was fantastic here.
0:15:17 > 0:15:21"One of the pleasantest islands in all the West Indies,"
0:15:21 > 0:15:25as he wrote in his atrocious handwriting to his uncle at home.
0:15:25 > 0:15:27He was going to make all of them rich.
0:15:27 > 0:15:30He'd already planted some tobacco and, come harvest time,
0:15:30 > 0:15:34£500 worth of it would be winging its way to England.
0:15:34 > 0:15:37He was going to change the Winthrops' fortunes.
0:15:41 > 0:15:42All he needed was a little help.
0:15:42 > 0:15:45A couple of servants wouldn't go amiss.
0:15:45 > 0:15:48Some saws, some pickaxes, shovels.
0:15:52 > 0:15:55Even though he could scarcely write a coherent sentence,
0:15:55 > 0:15:59Henry knew he had to rely on his pen.
0:15:59 > 0:16:02His transatlantic enterprise would only thrive
0:16:02 > 0:16:06if his letters summoned help from home.
0:16:07 > 0:16:11The Winthrop dad and uncles all complied.
0:16:11 > 0:16:13John sent the equipment out, cousins sent money.
0:16:13 > 0:16:17Maybe this was a bandwagon they could climb on.
0:16:17 > 0:16:20His mother wrote to say she was pleased.
0:16:20 > 0:16:23Perhaps this did represent a good future
0:16:23 > 0:16:25for her slightly feckless younger son.
0:16:29 > 0:16:31'The formula was this -
0:16:31 > 0:16:36'communication plus investment should, anyway, equal cash.'
0:16:36 > 0:16:40Don't mess with me! That's a five and a one.
0:16:41 > 0:16:46Early settlers in Barbados were quite successful in growing tobacco.
0:16:46 > 0:16:49The demand back in London was huge.
0:16:49 > 0:16:51Both men and women smoking it,
0:16:51 > 0:16:54partly as a stimulant, partly a medicine.
0:16:54 > 0:16:57Even sick sheep in 17th-century Wiltshire
0:16:57 > 0:17:00were given tobacco to perk them up a bit.
0:17:01 > 0:17:05Henry's letters back home were relentlessly optimistic.
0:17:05 > 0:17:08Whatever they had heard about conditions in Barbados,
0:17:08 > 0:17:12his tobacco was going to make them a fortune.
0:17:12 > 0:17:15So if you'd been landing here with Henry Winthrop,
0:17:15 > 0:17:18what kind of island would you have found?
0:17:18 > 0:17:23They would have found a tropical island completely forested.
0:17:23 > 0:17:26A virgin place, an exciting place,
0:17:26 > 0:17:28a challenging place, perhaps.
0:17:28 > 0:17:29Somewhere quite different
0:17:29 > 0:17:32within the experience of the average Englishman.
0:17:32 > 0:17:35What did they make of their new world?
0:17:35 > 0:17:37It was a frontier society.
0:17:37 > 0:17:40We were a frontier society for a short period of time.
0:17:40 > 0:17:42It was a young male-dominated society.
0:17:42 > 0:17:45What did these young men have to do?
0:17:45 > 0:17:48Well, drink themselves stupid most of the time.
0:17:48 > 0:17:50Then Cromwell ships all the girls out from the London brothels.
0:17:50 > 0:17:54That can't have been good for the moral quality of the place, can it?
0:17:54 > 0:17:58Well, I mean, as a gentleman, I really don't want to go there.
0:17:58 > 0:18:01Because I suppose these women, unfortunate,
0:18:01 > 0:18:03when they came over...you know what,
0:18:03 > 0:18:05they made a life for themselves.
0:18:05 > 0:18:07So the population started very small,
0:18:07 > 0:18:10but it didn't stay small for long, did it?
0:18:10 > 0:18:12Once the transition was made with sugar,
0:18:12 > 0:18:14then the population literally exploded.
0:18:14 > 0:18:16Remember, you're talking about the 1630s
0:18:16 > 0:18:19from about 6,000, heavily male
0:18:19 > 0:18:25and then by the 1650s, you were in the region of 70,000.
0:18:25 > 0:18:28So families on both sides of the Atlantic
0:18:28 > 0:18:31were kept together by writing.
0:18:31 > 0:18:36Writing was a social bond between these divided parts.
0:18:36 > 0:18:39Many of the colonists who came over
0:18:39 > 0:18:41had one foot in the West Indies
0:18:41 > 0:18:44and one foot in North America.
0:18:44 > 0:18:46And people moved between the two areas
0:18:46 > 0:18:48or moved back to the British Isles.
0:18:48 > 0:18:50So there was constant movement
0:18:50 > 0:18:55and a need to constantly inform each other about the situations.
0:18:58 > 0:19:02Henry was, of course, keen to prove himself to his family.
0:19:02 > 0:19:06Needless to say, awash in the moral anarchy of Barbados,
0:19:06 > 0:19:08he did not deliver.
0:19:08 > 0:19:11Despite that failure to generate any income,
0:19:11 > 0:19:15he waited anxiously for a supportive letter from home.
0:19:15 > 0:19:17Is that right?
0:19:17 > 0:19:20In 1629, the letter arrived from the dad.
0:19:20 > 0:19:23And you can have no doubt that family relationships
0:19:23 > 0:19:27were still in full action the full width of the Atlantic
0:19:27 > 0:19:29because this was wigging.
0:19:29 > 0:19:32Where was the money? Where was any tobacco worth selling?
0:19:32 > 0:19:36Because the tobacco Henry had sent already was rubbish.
0:19:36 > 0:19:41Ill-conditioned, foul, full of stalks and evil coloured.
0:19:41 > 0:19:45They couldn't even sell it for five shillings a pound.
0:19:47 > 0:19:50His father gave him the bad news.
0:19:50 > 0:19:53"I've dispersed a great deal of money for you.
0:19:53 > 0:19:55"More than my estate will bear.
0:19:55 > 0:19:58"And I can supply you no further
0:19:58 > 0:20:02"unless you send me some commodity," by which he meant tobacco.
0:20:02 > 0:20:07"I have many other children that are unprovided."
0:20:07 > 0:20:10His uncles would take none of his tobacco.
0:20:10 > 0:20:13His family would provide him no more money.
0:20:13 > 0:20:16His begging letters had received no handout.
0:20:16 > 0:20:18He had failed.
0:20:27 > 0:20:29HE SIGHS
0:20:52 > 0:20:56Henry had produced nothing but a stream of letters.
0:20:56 > 0:20:58And if his family and mother are emblems
0:20:58 > 0:21:00of the Puritan frame of mind -
0:21:00 > 0:21:02proper, godly and serious.
0:21:02 > 0:21:07Henry comes from right the other end of 17th-century English life.
0:21:07 > 0:21:11The wild strain. A chancer, a trickster, a shyster.
0:21:11 > 0:21:16A man with words and schemes coming pouring out of his mouth.
0:21:16 > 0:21:18And a man for whom the powers of seduction
0:21:18 > 0:21:21and persuasion were his main currency.
0:21:21 > 0:21:25And, for both of them, the written word was of equal use.
0:21:25 > 0:21:29And so conversations which would otherwise have happened
0:21:29 > 0:21:31in the parlour of a manor house in Suffolk
0:21:31 > 0:21:33now took the form of letters.
0:21:33 > 0:21:36Letters which were taking two and a half months each way
0:21:36 > 0:21:41to cross the 4,000 miles of ocean that separated the family.
0:21:41 > 0:21:44And Henry, like most of his contemporaries
0:21:44 > 0:21:46and equivalents, had failed.
0:21:46 > 0:21:49And, do you know, he couldn't have cared less.
0:21:57 > 0:22:00Henry Winthrop was typical of an entire generation
0:22:00 > 0:22:03of 17th-century Englishmen.
0:22:03 > 0:22:07Just edging into literacy, dependent on it for his life scheme,
0:22:07 > 0:22:11with his letters stretched across the width of the Atlantic,
0:22:11 > 0:22:13he never quite made it.
0:22:13 > 0:22:16The riches which that transatlantic trade
0:22:16 > 0:22:18would deliver within a decade or two
0:22:18 > 0:22:20were never quite within his reach.
0:22:22 > 0:22:25He had little choice but to return to England.
0:22:25 > 0:22:29But back in London, to the horror of his parents,
0:22:29 > 0:22:31he went on living it up.
0:22:31 > 0:22:35Buying a scarlet suit and a cloak lined with plush,
0:22:35 > 0:22:40and then, to general dismay, seducing his cousin Bess.
0:22:43 > 0:22:46But then radical change arrived in the Winthrops' lives.
0:22:46 > 0:22:50Through the late 1620s, as devout Puritans,
0:22:50 > 0:22:53John and Margaret were being increasingly marginalised
0:22:53 > 0:22:54in their own country
0:22:54 > 0:22:59as Crown and Church turned against their Puritan way.
0:22:59 > 0:23:03When suddenly, they were offered an escape route.
0:23:03 > 0:23:06In 1620, a small group of English Puritans
0:23:06 > 0:23:10had crossed the Atlantic to settle in New England.
0:23:10 > 0:23:14Now, nine years later, John Winthrop was offered the post
0:23:14 > 0:23:17of Governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
0:23:17 > 0:23:22They moved there and the Winthrops became a truly Atlantic family.
0:23:22 > 0:23:25Part of the great 17th-century wave of expansion
0:23:25 > 0:23:30which saw the literate English start to embrace the world ocean.
0:23:32 > 0:23:36The Winthrops, Henry included, all ended up in Massachusetts.
0:23:36 > 0:23:37And, from that point onward,
0:23:37 > 0:23:41scarcely one word written between them survived.
0:23:41 > 0:23:43They were all together now.
0:23:43 > 0:23:47Safe in God's embrace, in a better, purer place.
0:23:47 > 0:23:51And the need for writing had simply dropped away.
0:23:51 > 0:23:53Distance had been eradicated
0:23:53 > 0:23:56and they had left the world of words behind.
0:23:56 > 0:24:00But there's one rather sad footnote to this story.
0:24:00 > 0:24:03Henry, of course, showing off, as ever,
0:24:03 > 0:24:05decided when he got to Massachusetts
0:24:05 > 0:24:09that he'd go for a swim in a river,
0:24:09 > 0:24:12whose water was far, far too cold for him.
0:24:12 > 0:24:17And inevitably, having got in the river, he drowned.
0:24:17 > 0:24:18SPLASH
0:24:24 > 0:24:28Writing played a major part in the life of the Winthrops.
0:24:28 > 0:24:31It allowed the parents to stay in touch at a distance
0:24:31 > 0:24:36and their son Henry to try his hand at making money from the Tropics.
0:24:43 > 0:24:46An expanding world, an increasingly literate world.
0:24:46 > 0:24:49These twin aspects of the 17th century
0:24:49 > 0:24:52were intimately bound up with each other.
0:24:52 > 0:24:54Written communication allowed
0:24:54 > 0:24:59this country's engagement with the world to stretch and swell.
0:24:59 > 0:25:02At the same time, accounts of the exotic and the foreign
0:25:02 > 0:25:05deeply stimulated the English imagination.
0:25:06 > 0:25:09There is no piece of 17th-century writing
0:25:09 > 0:25:12which embodies that relationship more richly
0:25:12 > 0:25:15than the extraordinary illustrated journal
0:25:15 > 0:25:20of the country boy turned world straddling seaman, Edward Barlow.
0:25:20 > 0:25:25His memoir brought a whole new world home for the people to read.
0:25:36 > 0:25:39Barlow's life track is simple enough.
0:25:39 > 0:25:41From poor farmer's son
0:25:41 > 0:25:44to captain of a great East India Company merchantman.
0:25:44 > 0:25:48But even more remarkable than that story of ambition fulfilled
0:25:48 > 0:25:51is his own dazzling account of it.
0:25:58 > 0:26:01From the beginning, his book was always intended
0:26:01 > 0:26:02as a public declaration.
0:26:02 > 0:26:04He had an audience in mind.
0:26:04 > 0:26:08Like many ancient mariners and foreign correspondents,
0:26:08 > 0:26:11he wanted to grab people at home by the collar and say to them,
0:26:11 > 0:26:16"Don't you realise what it is I've been going through?"
0:26:16 > 0:26:18This is a copy of this book.
0:26:18 > 0:26:21A really extraordinary document.
0:26:21 > 0:26:23An incredibly-rare survival
0:26:23 > 0:26:26from that world of itinerant working men
0:26:26 > 0:26:29that had ballooned in the 17th century.
0:26:29 > 0:26:34And in it is the only portrait we have of Barlow himself,
0:26:34 > 0:26:37drawn by him, of himself as a boy
0:26:37 > 0:26:42on the day he decided to leave home and head out to sea.
0:26:52 > 0:26:55Edward Barlow grew up in a small village.
0:26:55 > 0:26:58For him, his horizons felt limited.
0:26:58 > 0:27:01He wanted a challenge in life.
0:27:01 > 0:27:03Whoo!
0:27:03 > 0:27:04HE LAUGHS
0:27:10 > 0:27:15Well, even as a 13 year old, Barlow thought village life was dull.
0:27:15 > 0:27:19It wasn't for him and he couldn't understand why people
0:27:19 > 0:27:24weren't wanting to get out, to escape, to get on.
0:27:24 > 0:27:28And so this is what he wrote in his diary later on in life.
0:27:28 > 0:27:31"I thought I as good go see what I could.
0:27:31 > 0:27:35"Knowing it couldn't be much worse whosesoever I came.
0:27:35 > 0:27:38"And that, at any rate, I would be out of the ill will
0:27:38 > 0:27:40"of some of our neighbours.
0:27:40 > 0:27:42"Some of them wouldn't even venture a day's journey
0:27:42 > 0:27:45"from out of the smoke of their chimneys
0:27:45 > 0:27:47"or the taste of their mother's milk."
0:27:50 > 0:27:52To Barlow, that's just crazy.
0:27:54 > 0:27:56Oi! Out the way!
0:28:02 > 0:28:05In 1657, he decided it was time to leave
0:28:05 > 0:28:09the confines of his Lancashire village and see the world.
0:28:12 > 0:28:15He waved goodbye to his mother across a wheat field.
0:28:15 > 0:28:18She begged him to stay.
0:28:20 > 0:28:22Barlow arrived in London.
0:28:22 > 0:28:26A spectacular moment for a country boy.
0:28:27 > 0:28:32London was accelerating into its late 17th-century boom.
0:28:32 > 0:28:34It was the city of promise.
0:28:34 > 0:28:36And at its heart, the river.
0:28:36 > 0:28:38The route to a wider world.
0:28:40 > 0:28:44Here on a bridge over the Thames, right in the middle of the city,
0:28:44 > 0:28:49he came across something he'd never seen or even heard of before.
0:28:49 > 0:28:52And he describes it in his journal.
0:28:52 > 0:28:55"Looking below the bridge upon the river
0:28:55 > 0:28:58"and seeing so many things upon the water,
0:28:58 > 0:29:01"with long poles standing up in them
0:29:01 > 0:29:03"and a great deal of ropes about them.
0:29:03 > 0:29:08"Which made me wonder what they should be.
0:29:08 > 0:29:11"Not knowing that they were ships.
0:29:11 > 0:29:14"For I never had seen any before that time."
0:29:22 > 0:29:26"Sometimes I would stand here, where I could see the river,
0:29:26 > 0:29:29"for half an hour to see the ships and boats sail along,
0:29:29 > 0:29:32"taking great pleasure therein."
0:29:33 > 0:29:36There is a fascinating link here.
0:29:36 > 0:29:39As the country expanded in its connections with the world,
0:29:39 > 0:29:44Barlow's own perception of himself expanded with it.
0:29:44 > 0:29:49Via those beautiful ships, Barlow and Britain could both go global.
0:29:52 > 0:29:54How rare was it for a man on the lower deck
0:29:54 > 0:29:56to write a journal like this?
0:29:56 > 0:29:59Anything to do with the lower deck in this period
0:29:59 > 0:30:02is extremely difficult to get your hands on.
0:30:02 > 0:30:06So we're very lucky to have Barlow as a way into that world.
0:30:06 > 0:30:09It's beautifully made.
0:30:09 > 0:30:12It would be incredible if this had emerged from a drawing room.
0:30:12 > 0:30:15If you imagine the lower deck world, you think of it kind of dark,
0:30:15 > 0:30:18rough, difficult, illiterate.
0:30:18 > 0:30:22You know, a kind of dominating, rather bullying place.
0:30:22 > 0:30:25How does this emerge from that world?
0:30:25 > 0:30:29Barlow's life starts as a very poor boy indeed.
0:30:29 > 0:30:31In the memoir part of the journal,
0:30:31 > 0:30:35he writes that his parents couldn't afford clothes
0:30:35 > 0:30:37suitable for him to attend church on a Sunday.
0:30:37 > 0:30:40But they did put him to school.
0:30:40 > 0:30:43So he knew how to write, do you think, before he went to sea?
0:30:43 > 0:30:45I think so, yes.
0:30:45 > 0:30:49So, this is not some old tar teaching him the skills of writing?
0:30:49 > 0:30:51Not teaching him the skills of writing,
0:30:51 > 0:30:53but perhaps teaching him the skills of drawing.
0:30:53 > 0:30:56And what is that extraordinary thing there?
0:30:56 > 0:30:59That could be a tree.
0:30:59 > 0:31:00I don't think that's a tree!
0:31:00 > 0:31:03- A great fir tree.- A Christmas tree!
0:31:03 > 0:31:05Yes.
0:31:05 > 0:31:09This is a painting of London, Deptford, I think,
0:31:09 > 0:31:15just at the moment when Barlow arrives in London.
0:31:15 > 0:31:19Here we have essentially the world of the East India Company.
0:31:19 > 0:31:22This is a shipyard that's been used by the company
0:31:22 > 0:31:24to build and repair ships.
0:31:24 > 0:31:28This is seriously blinged up here, isn't it?
0:31:28 > 0:31:32Oh, yes. This is advertising the wealth and the status of the company,
0:31:32 > 0:31:34but also the wealth and the status of the country.
0:31:36 > 0:31:40So, in the journal, what does he tell us?
0:31:40 > 0:31:44Well, it's sort of the great arc of his life at sea.
0:31:44 > 0:31:46It begins as a memoir
0:31:46 > 0:31:50and then quickly gets down to the nitty-gritty of life at sea.
0:31:50 > 0:31:52So, in this section here,
0:31:52 > 0:31:55he's essentially complaining about how hard his life is.
0:31:55 > 0:32:00"I... always thinking that beggars had a far better life of it
0:32:00 > 0:32:03"and lived better than I did."
0:32:03 > 0:32:05It's a tough life at sea.
0:32:05 > 0:32:08The financial rewards clearly here
0:32:08 > 0:32:11are not as great as he perhaps had hoped.
0:32:11 > 0:32:15But Barlow does have this sense of adventure.
0:32:15 > 0:32:17He has gone to sea to see the world.
0:32:30 > 0:32:33He sailed from this coast. London's just down there.
0:32:33 > 0:32:35The Thames Estuary is just down there.
0:32:35 > 0:32:38He would've headed out and had, really,
0:32:38 > 0:32:41the whole world in his hands. Anywhere you like.
0:32:41 > 0:32:44You could go to Suriname, you could go to Barbados,
0:32:44 > 0:32:47you could go to New England, the coast of Africa.
0:32:48 > 0:32:50Anything was possible.
0:32:50 > 0:32:52And that is what is different.
0:32:52 > 0:32:56It is a kind of new world, ready to be grabbed.
0:33:04 > 0:33:08Barlow was as green as they come.
0:33:08 > 0:33:12He didn't even know that seawater was salty.
0:33:12 > 0:33:17And they gave him a cabin which he wrote in his journal, was like,
0:33:17 > 0:33:20"A gentleman's dog kennel."
0:33:20 > 0:33:23It wouldn't have been at all unlike this.
0:33:23 > 0:33:26And here, he set off on a career
0:33:26 > 0:33:31which, for the next five decades, embraced the world.
0:33:31 > 0:33:35The global reach of it is really extraordinary.
0:33:35 > 0:33:38And every part of it is in his journal.
0:33:41 > 0:33:45Barlow was joining one of the boom businesses of the century.
0:33:45 > 0:33:51In 1603, the navy had only 41 ships and 8,000 sailors.
0:33:51 > 0:33:53As the century drew to a close,
0:33:53 > 0:33:57those numbers had increased fivefold.
0:33:57 > 0:33:59The navy needed men.
0:33:59 > 0:34:01So for Barlow and thousands of others like him,
0:34:01 > 0:34:05this was a chance for a whole new scale of life.
0:34:05 > 0:34:09It's perfectly possible to imagine
0:34:09 > 0:34:12Barlow living exactly this kind of life.
0:34:12 > 0:34:17It's a hot autumn day and sweat is pouring off me.
0:34:17 > 0:34:22And so when the young boy arrives to work on the naval ship in London,
0:34:22 > 0:34:24it would have been a shock.
0:34:24 > 0:34:28There is no, er...sympathy here for weakness.
0:34:28 > 0:34:33This is a place for strong men doing capable things.
0:34:34 > 0:34:35The purpose of his journal in part
0:34:35 > 0:34:37was to establish how this country boy
0:34:37 > 0:34:41had won dignity through the life of a sailor.
0:34:41 > 0:34:44Even his account of how he came to write the book
0:34:44 > 0:34:47was a reflection on the dangers of that life at sea.
0:34:48 > 0:34:51In 1672, unknown to Barlow and his shipmates,
0:34:51 > 0:34:54Britain went to war with the Dutch,
0:34:54 > 0:34:58fighting for the lucrative trade in all the valuable goods of the east.
0:34:58 > 0:35:02Spices and silks, coffee and calico.
0:35:02 > 0:35:06Barlow's ship was jumped by the Dutch off the coast of Sumatra.
0:35:06 > 0:35:08The outnumbered British surrendered
0:35:08 > 0:35:12and the heavily-armed Dutch clamoured onboard.
0:35:12 > 0:35:15So the Dutch were swarming all over the boat.
0:35:15 > 0:35:17This was the great crisis of his life.
0:35:17 > 0:35:19It's when they were taken prisoner.
0:35:19 > 0:35:21And of course, he wrote about it in the journal.
0:35:21 > 0:35:28"Seeing that in an instant, all our goods, chests and clothes
0:35:28 > 0:35:31"and ship and all were made prize of."
0:35:31 > 0:35:33The crew of a surrendering ship
0:35:33 > 0:35:36could expect everything to be taken off them.
0:35:36 > 0:35:38And Barlow, of course, himself,
0:35:38 > 0:35:41was desperate that his own gold was going to be nicked.
0:35:41 > 0:35:44So he stuffed his shoes full of it
0:35:44 > 0:35:48and, amazingly, got away with that.
0:35:48 > 0:35:50Now Barlow was a prisoner.
0:35:50 > 0:35:53And in the long expanses of nothing to do,
0:35:53 > 0:35:56he began to write the great monument to his own life.
0:35:56 > 0:35:59"And thus I thought good
0:35:59 > 0:36:02"to describe to my friends or acquaintance,
0:36:02 > 0:36:06"or to any which might take the pains to read it over.
0:36:06 > 0:36:09"And here, they may understand in part
0:36:09 > 0:36:14"what dangers and troubles poor seamen passed through
0:36:14 > 0:36:17"and also of the manners and situation
0:36:17 > 0:36:23"of most places which I have been at since I first went to sea."
0:36:25 > 0:36:28The impressive nature of the world
0:36:28 > 0:36:30and his own equally-impressive energies and enterprise
0:36:30 > 0:36:33sit side-by-side on the page.
0:36:33 > 0:36:37His book is a hymn to adventure and self-congratulation.
0:36:37 > 0:36:40See how great the world is.
0:36:40 > 0:36:42See how big I now am.
0:36:44 > 0:36:47The more you look at Barlow's book, the more marvellous it becomes.
0:36:47 > 0:36:52It is absolutely stuffed to over-brimming with the marvellous,
0:36:52 > 0:36:55with the marvellous things he's been out into the world to see
0:36:55 > 0:36:59and which he's capturing and setting down here in his book.
0:37:00 > 0:37:02So here's a picture,
0:37:02 > 0:37:05the true picture of a shark eating a man, chewing off his leg.
0:37:08 > 0:37:11Then, on the next page, these fantastic images
0:37:11 > 0:37:14of what he calls man-of-war files
0:37:14 > 0:37:18that catch and did eat flying fish in the seas.
0:37:18 > 0:37:20And things which previously might have been
0:37:20 > 0:37:22part of the world of fantasy.
0:37:22 > 0:37:25I mean, weirdly-imagined fish that flew
0:37:25 > 0:37:29and birds catching the fish as they flew across the sea.
0:37:29 > 0:37:32And then this really marvellous page
0:37:32 > 0:37:37of a scene in India with an elephant and a river with its shoals.
0:37:37 > 0:37:41And here, a rhinoceros - a big statuesque rhinoceros.
0:37:41 > 0:37:44And he describes it, "The emblem of the rhinoceros
0:37:44 > 0:37:49"that was brought from Bengal in the year 1684
0:37:49 > 0:37:54"and sold at London for £2,100."
0:37:58 > 0:38:01The book is a measure of the multiple expansions
0:38:01 > 0:38:03going on in the 17th century.
0:38:03 > 0:38:06Of country boys into world citizens,
0:38:06 > 0:38:10of farmer sons into practise writers and describers of the world.
0:38:10 > 0:38:13Of a frame of mind that knew only cows and sheep
0:38:13 > 0:38:17to familiarity with elephants and rhinoceroses.
0:38:20 > 0:38:24Literacy brought the world home to Barlow's readers.
0:38:24 > 0:38:27He could give it to them. They could receive it.
0:38:27 > 0:38:31It made him a man he could never otherwise have been.
0:38:31 > 0:38:34And it showed them a world they could never otherwise have known.
0:38:41 > 0:38:43Barlow's journal is the great statement
0:38:43 > 0:38:45of the value and dignity of his own life.
0:38:45 > 0:38:47He climbed the coastal ladder
0:38:47 > 0:38:49to become a master of an East Indiaman,
0:38:49 > 0:38:53a great writer, illustrator and a storyteller.
0:38:53 > 0:38:56And one of the stories at the heart of that journal
0:38:56 > 0:39:00is that when his ship was wrecked, hit a rock, everything was awash,
0:39:00 > 0:39:04all his possessions were in danger, and what did he save?
0:39:04 > 0:39:06He saved his book.
0:39:10 > 0:39:14Barlow had sailed the world, but had never done that well out of it.
0:39:14 > 0:39:19He died pretty poor. Almost his only legacy, his book.
0:39:19 > 0:39:21But writing was not only there
0:39:21 > 0:39:24to record the century's global expansiveness.
0:39:24 > 0:39:28It also helped drive that expansion.
0:39:32 > 0:39:36By the 1660s, British trade across the Atlantic
0:39:36 > 0:39:38was expanding dramatically.
0:39:38 > 0:39:41Slaves from Africa, beef from Ireland,
0:39:41 > 0:39:45wine from Madeira, sugar from the Caribbean.
0:39:45 > 0:39:49All of that depended on a dense network of written words.
0:39:49 > 0:39:51Instructions, orders, receipts,
0:39:51 > 0:39:54commissions, complaints.
0:39:54 > 0:39:56And at the centre of that web, driving the expansion,
0:39:56 > 0:39:58and deeply knowable
0:39:58 > 0:40:01because their writing survives,
0:40:01 > 0:40:04were a few often slightly-shadowy figures
0:40:04 > 0:40:07like my next character, the networking businessman.
0:40:07 > 0:40:11Never off his Blackberry, communicating, communicating,
0:40:11 > 0:40:15communicating every moment of the day.
0:40:24 > 0:40:27Sugar, one of the great new stimulants of the century
0:40:27 > 0:40:29would soon remake the world.
0:40:29 > 0:40:33By 1670, the Caribbean was producing
0:40:33 > 0:40:36well over half of all the sugar consumed in England.
0:40:36 > 0:40:39This highly-desirable commodity
0:40:39 > 0:40:45was about to create a new class of British sugar oligarchs.
0:40:55 > 0:40:58One of the best documented of early English traders in the Caribbean
0:40:58 > 0:41:00is a man called William Freeman.
0:41:00 > 0:41:04He was born in 1645, the son of a sugar planter from Saint Kitts,
0:41:04 > 0:41:07one of the English possessions in the Leeward Islands.
0:41:07 > 0:41:10Now, Freeman, was part of that coarse
0:41:10 > 0:41:12and aggressive class of new Englishmen
0:41:12 > 0:41:16who were ruthlessly starting to make their fortune out of the sugar boom.
0:41:16 > 0:41:18Incredibly entrepreneurial,
0:41:18 > 0:41:21fiercely energetic, always hungry for more.
0:41:21 > 0:41:23And when he was 19,
0:41:23 > 0:41:27he was already working as a merchant on his own account in Nevis.
0:41:27 > 0:41:29A man already on the make.
0:41:38 > 0:41:43Freeman's life was devoted to one thing and one thing only - money.
0:41:43 > 0:41:45Fluently literate, he became the writer
0:41:45 > 0:41:49of a vast compendium of demanding and imperious letters
0:41:49 > 0:41:52whose tone is completely unmistakable today.
0:41:52 > 0:41:56Urgent, businesslike, often furious,
0:41:56 > 0:41:59sometimes capable of a kind of commercial charm.
0:41:59 > 0:42:03But, in the end, interested only in his own needs.
0:42:03 > 0:42:08His own self-promotion and his own ever-growing stash.
0:42:12 > 0:42:17For people like Freeman, writing was the all-important tool.
0:42:17 > 0:42:21Its key quality was to convey information at a distance.
0:42:21 > 0:42:26Writing shrank distance and so made possible that new phenomenon,
0:42:26 > 0:42:29the transatlantic businessman.
0:42:29 > 0:42:32His business relied on sugar.
0:42:32 > 0:42:36Sugar needed labour and the place to get the best labour was Africa.
0:42:36 > 0:42:40Freeman's business relied on slaves.
0:42:40 > 0:42:43Whenever one of Freeman's ships came from Africa,
0:42:43 > 0:42:47one of his slave ships, usually to Nevis or Montserrat,
0:42:47 > 0:42:49to a beach just like this,
0:42:49 > 0:42:53he would go down there, either as a slave trader on his own behalf
0:42:53 > 0:42:56or as an agent for the Royal African Company.
0:42:56 > 0:42:59And there's no doubt that Freeman would have thought of this
0:42:59 > 0:43:02as a completely straightforward commercial transaction.
0:43:03 > 0:43:06But of course, there is another
0:43:06 > 0:43:10gruesome human dimension to this story.
0:43:10 > 0:43:15And very occasionally, it just leaks out of the edges of his letters.
0:43:15 > 0:43:19And he says he proposes to sell them by the whole ship's lading.
0:43:19 > 0:43:22That is the whole cargo in one go.
0:43:22 > 0:43:27"Such as were able to go over the ship's side."
0:43:27 > 0:43:31It takes a moment or two to recognise what that means,
0:43:31 > 0:43:32but of course, what it means
0:43:32 > 0:43:35is that some of the people who'd been brought from Africa
0:43:35 > 0:43:40were unable to get out of the hold in which they'd travelled here.
0:43:40 > 0:43:44Dead or ill or just disabled.
0:43:47 > 0:43:50This business built on human blood and human suffering
0:43:50 > 0:43:54became one of the most important of the 17th century.
0:43:56 > 0:43:59And Freeman was right at the heart of it.
0:44:02 > 0:44:08By 1684, there were over 46,000 African slaves in Barbados.
0:44:08 > 0:44:11More than the population of whites.
0:44:11 > 0:44:15Writing, essentially an instrument of power and control,
0:44:15 > 0:44:17remained the reserve of the whites.
0:44:17 > 0:44:20Slaves were forbidden to learn to read and write,
0:44:20 > 0:44:24but their European owners meticulously documented them,
0:44:24 > 0:44:28and that's how we know what little we know about them today.
0:44:31 > 0:44:33How brutal a world was it?
0:44:33 > 0:44:34Very brutal.
0:44:34 > 0:44:41You're talking punishments that range from castration on one hand
0:44:41 > 0:44:44to perhaps mild mutilation on the other hand.
0:44:44 > 0:44:47Hands off, or...?
0:44:47 > 0:44:50Hands off, fingers off, noses cut off.
0:44:50 > 0:44:55- Ears cut off, feet, in an extreme case.- Really?
0:44:55 > 0:44:59And then you have stories of slave workers
0:44:59 > 0:45:02being buried up to their necks in the ground
0:45:02 > 0:45:06in an ants' nest, an ant hole.
0:45:06 > 0:45:10And the ants bring allowed to eat them alive literally.
0:45:10 > 0:45:12You pour some molasses or treacle on them.
0:45:12 > 0:45:15And in law in the Caribbean,
0:45:15 > 0:45:18slaves are defined as property.
0:45:18 > 0:45:20- Property?- Property.
0:45:20 > 0:45:22They're not quite persons.
0:45:22 > 0:45:27I've seen people's wills where they just list their belongings.
0:45:27 > 0:45:30And it's the furniture, the paintings, the prints,
0:45:30 > 0:45:34the books, the boats, the slaves.
0:45:34 > 0:45:36That's typical.
0:45:36 > 0:45:40In some cases, you find references to slaves and other stock.
0:45:40 > 0:45:41Yeah.
0:45:41 > 0:45:43And the other stock would have been cows and sheep and goats,
0:45:43 > 0:45:46horses, that kind of thing.
0:45:46 > 0:45:49How literate a society was this? Were people able to write?
0:45:49 > 0:45:54There was landowners, the estate owners, almost always literate.
0:45:54 > 0:45:59And they bring that literacy with them for the most part from England.
0:45:59 > 0:46:02But the basic reason, again, is economic.
0:46:02 > 0:46:04You need to keep records.
0:46:04 > 0:46:06You need to look after your business.
0:46:06 > 0:46:09You need to know whether you're making a profit.
0:46:09 > 0:46:12- So the society's literate because cash is king.- Precisely.
0:46:12 > 0:46:14- Yeah.- Yes, precisely.
0:46:17 > 0:46:21Freeman's next step up was to go to London.
0:46:22 > 0:46:25London was fast becoming the world's greatest metropolis.
0:46:25 > 0:46:29The exchange centre of this word web.
0:46:29 > 0:46:33It couldn't have been more different from rural Nevis.
0:46:34 > 0:46:37There was profit in slaving and profit in sugar,
0:46:37 > 0:46:42but the real secret of Caribbean moneymaking was fingers in pies.
0:46:42 > 0:46:45And the place where the pies were made was London.
0:46:46 > 0:46:51Writing allowed Freeman to conduct his business transatlantically.
0:46:51 > 0:46:54But with each letter taking four months to get a reply,
0:46:54 > 0:46:57the level of stress was overwhelming.
0:46:57 > 0:47:01And he was finding it difficult to keep up with the London pace.
0:47:03 > 0:47:05He fell out with John Bramley,
0:47:05 > 0:47:08his partner in the Montserrat plantation,
0:47:08 > 0:47:10who he suspected of cheating him.
0:47:10 > 0:47:12And again and again,
0:47:12 > 0:47:17he wrote in frustration to a lawyer on the island, William Fox,
0:47:17 > 0:47:22"I am so exasperated by the disingenuity of Mr Bramley,
0:47:22 > 0:47:26"who I find makes use of all means,
0:47:26 > 0:47:28"be they ever so indirect,
0:47:28 > 0:47:31"to circumvent and defraud me."
0:47:32 > 0:47:36These anxious letters were a measure of just how difficult it was
0:47:36 > 0:47:40to run a 17th-century transatlantic network.
0:47:40 > 0:47:43Geography expanded to the point where communication
0:47:43 > 0:47:46had become almost impossible.
0:47:48 > 0:47:50Only the sight of the profits
0:47:50 > 0:47:53could have made such a pressured life tolerable.
0:47:55 > 0:47:57Freeman often finished off his letters with a phrase
0:47:57 > 0:47:59that he had a world of business to do.
0:47:59 > 0:48:01And that was the vision of his life.
0:48:01 > 0:48:05One in which his business had expanded to embrace an ocean.
0:48:05 > 0:48:10And as a product of that tautened and strained world,
0:48:10 > 0:48:13there's one modern quality which emerges
0:48:13 > 0:48:16from every page of his letter book. Stress.
0:48:18 > 0:48:22This was the beginning of modern working life as we know it.
0:48:22 > 0:48:25Emerging out of the capital city.
0:48:33 > 0:48:36London grows remarkably fast in the course of the 17th century.
0:48:36 > 0:48:39It's a city of 200,000 in 1600,
0:48:39 > 0:48:43575,000 by the end of the century.
0:48:43 > 0:48:47So more than doubling, nearly tripling in 100 years.
0:48:47 > 0:48:52And overtaking Paris, just about 1660,
0:48:52 > 0:48:55to become the largest city in western Europe.
0:48:55 > 0:48:57And why is it booming that fast?
0:48:57 > 0:49:00Well, London has two big things going for it.
0:49:00 > 0:49:03It's both a capital city and it's a port.
0:49:03 > 0:49:09The key commodities for the Atlantic trades were tobacco and sugar
0:49:09 > 0:49:16and there are enormous increases in the imports of those commodities.
0:49:16 > 0:49:20It's been estimated that there's enough tobacco there
0:49:20 > 0:49:25for half the population to consume half a pipeful of tobacco a day.
0:49:25 > 0:49:28What's London like as a result of this new business?
0:49:28 > 0:49:33Well, it's a more diverse and vibrant place.
0:49:33 > 0:49:36We're here walking through these alleyways
0:49:36 > 0:49:41which I think would have been with a hubbub of different voices
0:49:41 > 0:49:44from different corners of the world.
0:49:44 > 0:49:48The Royal Exchange has been described as early as 1607 as like a babel,
0:49:48 > 0:49:50so many different voices.
0:49:50 > 0:49:52There's a lovely engraving of the Exchange in the 1640s
0:49:52 > 0:49:56done by Wenceslaus Hollar
0:49:56 > 0:49:59in which we can see Turks clearly visible with their turbans
0:49:59 > 0:50:02and Muscovites with their fur hats.
0:50:02 > 0:50:05- There's a kind of vitality in that, isn't there?- Absolutely.
0:50:05 > 0:50:10It would have been a real buzz, the Exchange.
0:50:12 > 0:50:14Freeman was at the centre of the buzz.
0:50:14 > 0:50:19And like his fellow entrepreneurs, money was running in their blood.
0:50:20 > 0:50:22But the boundaries between legitimate
0:50:22 > 0:50:25and illegitimate trade were completely blurred.
0:50:25 > 0:50:28Everyone was on the make.
0:50:28 > 0:50:30And it was expected they would be.
0:50:31 > 0:50:34At least half of English overseas trade
0:50:34 > 0:50:37came from that cut-throat business, smuggling.
0:50:38 > 0:50:43Anything from wool and wine to spirits and fine linen.
0:50:43 > 0:50:46And Freeman's transatlantic letter connections
0:50:46 > 0:50:48provided the perfect setup
0:50:48 > 0:50:52for some deeply-profitable black market shenanigans.
0:50:54 > 0:50:59In September 1678, he wrote to his friend Robert Helms in Nevis
0:50:59 > 0:51:01to tell him of a scheme he had.
0:51:01 > 0:51:04A scheme to make money by smuggling French brandy.
0:51:04 > 0:51:07He'd boat a small boat called the Batchelor,
0:51:07 > 0:51:11probably no more than 50 foot from stem to stern.
0:51:11 > 0:51:15And with it, he was going to smuggle French brandy out to the Caribbean.
0:51:15 > 0:51:17This was completely illegal because no French brandy
0:51:17 > 0:51:20could be sold in any possession of the English crown.
0:51:20 > 0:51:22But there was money in it.
0:51:22 > 0:51:24And Freeman wanted to do it.
0:51:24 > 0:51:25This was his plan.
0:51:25 > 0:51:28The Batchelor was to leave London
0:51:28 > 0:51:33and head off down to Saint Martin in south-west France, near La Rochelle.
0:51:33 > 0:51:36There, it was going to load up with French brandy
0:51:36 > 0:51:39and with some salt to cover his tracks.
0:51:39 > 0:51:44From Saint Martin, it was to sail to Waterford in southern Ireland.
0:51:44 > 0:51:46There, the salt was going to be unloaded
0:51:46 > 0:51:49and beef and pipe staves,
0:51:49 > 0:51:51that's wood to make barrels with,
0:51:51 > 0:51:53were going to be loaded on top of the brandy.
0:51:53 > 0:51:56You wouldn't see the brandy in the hold.
0:51:56 > 0:51:58Then, from southern Ireland,
0:51:58 > 0:52:02it would sail all the way across the Atlantic to Nevis.
0:52:02 > 0:52:04And that's where the brandy would be sold.
0:52:04 > 0:52:07And that's where the money would be made.
0:52:08 > 0:52:12It was a deliberately smoky and complicated scheme
0:52:12 > 0:52:15designed to throw the authorities off the track.
0:52:15 > 0:52:19He put Robert Helms in charge of the Caribbean connection.
0:52:19 > 0:52:22And he writes to Helms to say that Helms must be ready
0:52:22 > 0:52:26for when the ship arrives with the brandy onboard.
0:52:26 > 0:52:30"So that all things may be carried on with safety and silence,
0:52:30 > 0:52:32"which we have not been wanting in here
0:52:32 > 0:52:35"in laying it as well as we can."
0:52:35 > 0:52:37This is Freeman just arranging the deal
0:52:37 > 0:52:40across the other side of the Atlantic.
0:52:40 > 0:52:44But he's absolutely adamant about one thing.
0:52:44 > 0:52:48That his name should nowhere appear in any of the documents.
0:53:06 > 0:53:08They had 20 of these barrels.
0:53:08 > 0:53:10And each barrel had 40 gallons of French brandy in it.
0:53:10 > 0:53:15That's 800 gallons of the very best brandy that Freeman could buy.
0:53:15 > 0:53:17So this isn't some poxy deal,
0:53:17 > 0:53:19this is a real business transaction.
0:53:19 > 0:53:22And you can imagine him back home in England
0:53:22 > 0:53:25desperately writing letter after letter.
0:53:25 > 0:53:27Are they being safe enough? Are they looking after his stuff?
0:53:27 > 0:53:30Are they looking after his money?
0:53:32 > 0:53:34His clever scheme worked.
0:53:34 > 0:53:37The devious plot was not discovered.
0:53:37 > 0:53:39The brandy arrived in the Caribbean.
0:53:39 > 0:53:43It was distributed around the planters of the Leeward Islands
0:53:43 > 0:53:45who were desperate for some relief in the heat,
0:53:45 > 0:53:49and it looked as if the £1,000 Freeman had gambled
0:53:49 > 0:53:52on his exploit was in for a profit.
0:53:55 > 0:53:58It was a minor triumph for the world of the letter.
0:53:58 > 0:54:00Only by arranging it all in advance
0:54:00 > 0:54:02with his agents and co-smugglers
0:54:02 > 0:54:06in France and Ireland, Montserrat and Nevis,
0:54:06 > 0:54:09could he have tricked the authorities so cleverly.
0:54:09 > 0:54:11And only by making it slip between the cracks
0:54:11 > 0:54:14of his already existing ocean networks
0:54:14 > 0:54:17could the brandy arrive unseen.
0:54:17 > 0:54:19In a way, it's a kind of emblem of the modern world.
0:54:19 > 0:54:21International contraband,
0:54:21 > 0:54:25officials making money out of their knowledge of the way the system works,
0:54:25 > 0:54:28as Freeman was still the official London agent
0:54:28 > 0:54:30for the Governor of Montserrat.
0:54:30 > 0:54:35And to do it using the world's most advanced information technology,
0:54:35 > 0:54:36the letter.
0:54:40 > 0:54:44Freeman's letters to his friends, his ship captains,
0:54:44 > 0:54:48his fellow traders, his debtors and creditors,
0:54:48 > 0:54:51his contraband suppliers, his partners in crime,
0:54:51 > 0:54:55had turned him into one of the first transatlantic businessmen.
0:54:57 > 0:55:02All that anxiety had been funnelled into the Freeman coffers.
0:55:02 > 0:55:06And he was now what he always wanted to be - rich.
0:55:09 > 0:55:11Freeman had made a fortune.
0:55:11 > 0:55:15By the time he was 38, he was rich enough to retire.
0:55:15 > 0:55:18And he came down here to Fawley Court near Henley
0:55:18 > 0:55:19in the Thames Valley.
0:55:19 > 0:55:23A house he'd built himself on an estate of 10,000 acres
0:55:23 > 0:55:26which he'd bought for more than £7,000.
0:55:26 > 0:55:29And he'd married a very rich girl, Elizabeth Baxter,
0:55:29 > 0:55:32whose family was incredibly well-connected.
0:55:32 > 0:55:36He had really arrived in capitalist heaven.
0:55:44 > 0:55:49And this was the house he built. Orderly, rational, calm.
0:55:49 > 0:55:53Near the river and crucially away from the grief of London.
0:55:53 > 0:55:55And he wrote to a friend in the Caribbean
0:55:55 > 0:55:58to tell him just how happy he was.
0:55:58 > 0:56:03"If you hear not from me so often as I would, blame me not.
0:56:03 > 0:56:06"I have lately purchased a small seat
0:56:06 > 0:56:08"on the Thames near Henley,
0:56:08 > 0:56:12"being resolved to withdraw from London."
0:56:12 > 0:56:14At last, he was going to relax.
0:56:19 > 0:56:21Neither Fawley nor Freeman's life and riches
0:56:21 > 0:56:24would have been possible without the letter.
0:56:24 > 0:56:26This was global success built on words.
0:56:26 > 0:56:30Not as a vehicle for poetry or philosophy,
0:56:30 > 0:56:35but as a way of squeezing money out of an increasingly juicy world.
0:56:35 > 0:56:37Back in the Caribbean,
0:56:37 > 0:56:40his slaves continued to do the work on his plantations
0:56:40 > 0:56:43that kept Fawley Court running.
0:56:44 > 0:56:48Freeman's profits continued to flow across the Atlantic.
0:56:48 > 0:56:54When he died at 62, he left assets of around £20,000.
0:56:54 > 0:56:57The equivalent of 35 million today.
0:57:01 > 0:57:04Entrepreneurial colonial merchants like Freeman
0:57:04 > 0:57:09are the engine of the Atlantic trade, high on blood sugar.
0:57:09 > 0:57:13And there's a straightforward connection between African slaves,
0:57:13 > 0:57:15growing and selling sugar,
0:57:15 > 0:57:19the development of London as a global entrepot
0:57:19 > 0:57:22and the creation of the British empire.
0:57:23 > 0:57:25None of it would have happened
0:57:25 > 0:57:29unless people like Freeman had a quill in their hands.
0:57:29 > 0:57:34This was an empire founded on ink and paper.
0:57:34 > 0:57:37At an intimate level, the 17th century
0:57:37 > 0:57:42was the most revolutionary time this country has ever known.
0:57:42 > 0:57:45It was an age in which more people in this country
0:57:45 > 0:57:48could read and write than ever before.
0:57:48 > 0:57:51England's communications revolution,
0:57:51 > 0:57:53a transforming moment in our history.
0:57:53 > 0:57:56You could call it the English Spring.
0:57:56 > 0:58:00A time when the whole geometry of the country shifted and revolved.
0:58:00 > 0:58:04The moment when everything we now think and feel
0:58:04 > 0:58:06first came into the open.
0:58:06 > 0:58:08The dignity of the individual
0:58:08 > 0:58:11mattering more than the old hierarchies.
0:58:11 > 0:58:14Science taking its place alongside religion
0:58:14 > 0:58:17as a way of understanding the world.
0:58:17 > 0:58:20The broad expanses of the world itself
0:58:20 > 0:58:23as the arena for a rich and fulfilling life.
0:58:23 > 0:58:27And none of it would have happened without writing.
0:58:27 > 0:58:31Writing made this revolution possible.
0:58:49 > 0:58:52Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd