Following the Money in Jane Austen's Novels

Edward Said said that Austen's novels are emblematic of a European tradition which is inextricable from European colonialism.  Said made the argument that the peripheral status of the empire in the novels of, for example, Dickens, showed the centrality of imperialism and the same argument could conceivably be made of Austen's novels.

Other critics have argued against this, saying that there are layers in her novels which deal with different facets of empire and highlight a subtextual moralistic stance.

Susan Fraiman argues that Said neglects the context in which she wrote and that Austen's writing is deeply concerned with the role of women in society.

Lacking the franchise, enjoying few property rights (and these because she was single), living as a dependent at the edge of her brother's estate, and publishing her work anonymously, Austen was arguably a kind of exile in her own country. (Fraiman, 1995)

The critic Harold Bloom was of a very different view. Bloom thought that she belongs with Shakespeare in terms of psychological subtlety and that readers of her novels should focus on her wit and her "uncanniness… a certain mode of originality.  She created personality, character, and cognition: she brought into being new modes of consciousness”

It is part of what makes the novels so interesting to read, engaging with these different readings. That and the fact that she was a genius. You can delve deeper into how she uses free indirect speech as one example of that - the narrator's voice slipping into a character’s thoughts or voice without quotation marks or “she thought". There is a fantastic chapter in James Wood's book How Fiction Works, about free indirect speech which is very good. Her use of subtext is sublime, as is her wit and superb plotting.

But in this post, we're going to follow the money.

Royal Navy Prize Money & The Pressgang

Jane Austen and the Navy connection is of interest to me. The British navy at the time supported Britain's mercantilism, its trade routes and imperial activities.  

Prize money was often talked of as one of the pillars of the Navy at the time, the others being promotion and punishment. On capturing an enemy ship, its worth was paid out in prize money to the Captain and crew. It was divided into eights and the Captain received three-eighths, one of which went to the Admiral. And so you can see how Captains and Admirals could grow very rich, very quickly during that time.

Two of her brothers Francis and Charles, were in the Royal Navy. In the year Austen began writing Sense and Sensibility in 1797 there were two serious naval mutinies at the Nore and in Spithead. The family would no doubt have read the Gazette detailing actions and promotions. Her brothers would no doubt have mentioned prize money and life at sea. But a look at the harsh reality of naval life is not what she chose to write.

And it was harsh. The press-gang was very active at that time as there were never enough men to man the ships of the Navy. And so, the Navy took people by force. It was “second only to African slavery in the number of forced workers it ensnared.” (Brunsman, 2013).

The Press affected communities the length and breadth of Britain, especially during the Napoleonic Wars:

The press net was cast wider and wider, until at length… practically every class of the population of these islands was subjected to its merciless inroads. (Hutchinson, 1914)

I wrote a piece on this called "Rum, Stornoway and the Lash" on gaelic.blog, if you'd like to read more about it.

Maybe returning sailors kept the brutal reality of life in the service at that time to themselves when ashore, and Naval life at the time was brutal. They would undoubtedly have PTSD - shell shock - they would have had no support of any kind. Talking to veterans, the feeling is that that we could never understand their experiences and so they don't share them. I know the granddaughter of a Second World War veteran who was in the Iolaire tragedy, who said her father never talked of it. 

In Persuasion, Austen has characters from the Navy such as Captain Wentworth and Admiral Croft and whilst the harsh realities of naval life aren't much dealt with, the characters recognisably belong to the service. They would feel quite at home in a Patrick O' Brien novel. (O' Brien described Austen as 'the greatest writer in the language' and his novels are sometimes described as 'Austen at sea'.)

In Persuasion, the main story is centred around this. Captain Wentworth is not being deemed worthy because of a lack of money, but becomes rich through prize money during his time in the Navy.

Enclosure of Land

'Your expenses both in town and country must certainly be considerable, but your income is a large one.' 'Not so large, I dare say, as many people suppose... and I hope in time it will be better. The inclosure of Norland Common, now carrying on, is a most serious drain.' (Elinor talking to John Dashwood, Sense and Sensibility.)

Because of the war with France and the need for more food (and no doubt other reasons), the pace of enclosure increased. This was where land which was originally common land was enclosed and made into private plots, sometimes done through Acts of Parliament.

Certain customary rights were lost, such as being able to graze animals on the common or "estovers", being able to collect wood for fuel.  There were riots about this at the time, as one would expect. It greatly undermined rural subsistence. It increased landlord income. 

Nabobs, Land and Slavery

Colonel Brandon in Sense & Sensibility, whilst not being a nabob, serves in India in the novel. 

The battle of Plassey in 1757 was where the East India Company changed from a trading company to ruling large parts of the Indian sub-continent. John Company would have been one of the sources of much of the wealth in the novel.

These profits merged with domestic booms in wool and textiles - and also the fortunes made in Indigo. I wrote an article on gaelic.blog about the connection between the Isle of Skye and the Indigo Industry in Bihar, if you'd like to read more.

An influx of capital accelerated industrial growth and drove major changes in rural land use—violently seen in the Highland Clearances in Scotland, where traditional agricultural communities were cleared for large-scale sheep farming. Highland landowners also often has an interest in plantations in the Caribbean.

There is a New York Times article called Who Paid the bill for Mansfield Park which is not behind a paywall.

Said is referred to in this article,  describing Jane Austen's assumption, in Mansfield Park of "the importance of an empire to the situation at home. But when her character Sir Thomas Bertram has to visit the Caribbean sugar plantation that supports his country house, Mr. Said says, Austen falls into "esthetic silence." 

It stopped me dead in my tracks when I researched the payments that Highland landowners received as compensation for the number of slaves they had, when slavery was abolished. There is something about reading it in the form of a ledger, people reduced to book-keeping entries, the human suffering rendered as invisible as possible.

All of these sources of wealth come to the surface at times in Austen's writing. Money - who has it, how it is made - were woven into Austen's life, and also her stories.