The book covers a number of topics:
East Cowes (Isle of Wight) and
its beginnings as a shipbuilding centre; contract shipbuilding in 17th century
England; the contrast between Dutch and
English shipbuilding styles; international relations in the Baltic region in the
early 18th century; the founding of St.
Petersburg; Peter the Great's quest
for a modern navy; naval shipbuilding
in Russia in the early 18th century; Britain's foreign policy in the Baltic region
concerning Russia.
Synopsis:
Selling arms or technology to the enemy
is always an emotive and complex subject in any century. In
the last decade of the twentieth century, certain companies
and government departments found themselves under suspicion
for allowing the export of technology, skills and services to
Iraq.
In the early eighteenth century, the same issue was under
discussion and the same regrets and recriminations were
eventually unleashed, when the British government allowed
English master shipwrights to enter into the service of Peter
the Great of Russia, thereby ensuring the export of English
shipbuilding technology to Russia; a move it was forced to
regret twenty years later. Balance of power in the Baltic was
at the root of this policy, as Britain resolved to curb the
growing dominance of Sweden in the Baltic Sea, an area that
was fast becoming a "Swedish Lake". As always with British
foreign policy, protection of trade and trade routes dictated
this English angst. Indeed, English merchants, with the
connivance of Russian Company members, often engaged in the
illicit trade of procuring and selling of English ships to
Russia, knowing full well they were to be used as warships!
Joseph Nye, a
shipbuilder, whose shipbuilding career was based in East Cowes
on the Isle of Wight, was
one of many English technicians and professionals, who were
lured by Peter the Great, Czar of Russia, to work in the
modernising of his country. Indeed, in the course of twenty
years, Nye and
others helped to establish at St. Petersburg, from almost
nothing, a Russian navy that not only ended Sweden's dominance
in the Baltic, but also provoked various degrees of alarm in a
variety of British spectators, such as Daniel Defoe, Admiral
Norris, and a good number of government ministers and
diplomatic envoys.
While in Russia, Joseph Nye built
ships for the Czar, taught shipbuilding in the English manner
to his subjects, and became sufficiently close to Peter the
Great to be given a position of honour at his funeral in 1725.
He led a privileged life and was earning far more than he
could ever have hoped to in Britain, due to the Czar's huge
respect for shipbuilders and near-obsessional interest in
naval matters.
And yet throughout his forty years in Russian service, Nye was on
close personal terms with the Czar, a complex, contradictory
character, who mixed enlightenment with ruthlessness, going so
far as to have his own son tortured and condemned to death for
treason. |
