List of figures; List of tables; Preface; Abbreviations used in the footnotes; Introduction: approaches and concepts; Part I. The Setting: 1. The eighteenth-century structure of merchant enterprise; 2. The consequences of the Industrial Revolution and the French wars; Part II. New Streams of Enterprise: 3. Merchants in the Atlantic trade; 4. The agency houses: trade to India and the far East; 5. The international houses: the foreign contribution to British mercantile enterprise; 6. The home trade houses; Part III. Response to Instant Communication: 7. Problems of restructuring mercantile enterprise; 8. British-based investment groups before 1914; 9. Imperialism and British trade; Part IV. Conclusions: 10. Performance of british mercantile enterprise; Manuscript sources; Index of firms and people; Index of plates; Index of subjects.