Astrea Essay

As the dispatch of the Astrea implies, during the War of Jenkins’ Ear Vernon recognised the advantages of the exploitation of the colonies in North America as the source of naval stores, thanks to the proposal that the officers at Port Royal advanced on the procurement of masts from New England. As the intercolonial trade between North America and the West Indies provided Jamaica with large amount of timber, naval stores, and provisions from the early eighteenth century, the officers fully grasped the merits of the direct transportation of naval stores from North America in spite of the fact that the dockyard at Port Royal depended on the supply of goods from England. The naval stores policy through which Britain could encourage the inhabitants in North America to produce and deal with naval stores made American naval stores profitable commodities in the intercolonial trade as well as the transatlantic trade. As the navy had purchased some amount of American masts, pitch, and tar and consuming them in the royal docks in Britain since the early eighteenth century, the navy duly considered the colonies in North America as the
important source of naval stores in the 1730s and 1740s. However, the voyage of the Astrea disclosed to the navy the possibilities of the creation of the new naval logistics network in the western part of the Atlantic, and the Royal Navy continued to provide the dockyard at Port Royal with American naval stores from Boston. The Astrea spent more time on shipping naval stores from Boston than the officers and Vernon anticipated, however, and the direct transportation of naval stores from New England to the West Indies was still impractical in the War of Jenkins’ Ear.
The intercolonial trade between North America and the West Indies prospered and the shipping list at Kingston from 1709 to 1711 illustrates that some quantity of naval stores and timber had been already imported from several ports in North America to Jamaica, while the navy did not effectively utilise naval stores produced in North America for the supply of the overseas base. The navy’s inadequate logistic network in the Western Hemisphere including little authority of the dockyard at Port Royal to procure naval stores made the transportation of naval stores from New England to Jamaica
inefficient. The Navy cherished a strong interest in the conveyance of naval stores from North America to the West Indies during the War of Jenkins’ Ear, although it did not have the adequate logistic network guaranteeing the stable and speedy supply for Jamaica. As the navy constructed the warships in Boston in 1746, it aggressively exploited forests in North America from the 1740s. The dispatch of the Astrea was a critical step to improve the naval logistics in the Western Hemisphere by utilising American naval stores which was the result of the naval stores policy, but, in contrast, her voyage shows the limitation of the naval logistics network in the War of Jenkins' Ear.