British naval history abounds with myths, but nowhere are they as prevalent as in the matter of food and drink. Most of these myths are fairly old, but over the last few years there has been a new one: that because the Victualling Board (VB) was a large purchaser of foodstuffs in Britain, especially in London, this must have had a profound effect on agriculture and the marketing and prices of food. Despite the early nineteenth-century commentator, Thomas Tooke, who dismissed it as a fallacy, the notion that war stimulates demand for food continues. Advocates of this include Donald Grove Barnes in his A History ofthe English Com Laws and A.H. John in "Farming in Wartime, 1793-1815."1 The most recent proponents, John Brewer and N.A.M. Rodger, apply the idea to the Seven Years' War, but others have also claimed it for the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars.' In this paper, evidence has been restricted to these latter two wars, since there have been no detailed studies of naval victualling during the American War of Independence. Such evidence as is easily available, however, indicates little, if any, change in policies or practice. 3
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