Szczecin’s Maritime Timber Trade and Deliveries to Spain Between 1750 and 1760 on the Basis of Wochentlich-Stettinische Frag- und Anzeigungs- Nachrichten1

The 18th century was marked with the developing absolutism and the centralisation of state power which translated into a rivalry between dominating European sea powers: Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Spain. From the perspective of the Port of Szczecin, Spain had never been a serious trade partner due to many unfavourable conditions connected to politics, economy, and logistics. However, significant amounts of silver that Spain had obtained through her territories in America drew the Prussian monarchs’ attention and influenced them to promote trade with the Kingdom. King Frederick William I made one of the first attempts to do so in 1719 by trying to encourage Pomeranian tradesmen to forge stronger ties with their Iberian counterparts (which was supposed to be beneficial to the Spanish war effort against England, France, and Austria). He faced local tradesmen’s disapprobation or even animosity. To respond to the king’s irritation caused by the tradesmen’s hidebound approach they presented him with a memorandum in which they explained that Pomerania

had focused exclusively on trading within the Baltic Sea region and that the merchants would not go further than to France and eastern England. The king deemed those arguments insufficient, so a congress of representatives of port cities in Prussian Pomerania was held to respond to the king's claims. Accused of cowardice and a lack of initiative they defended their position stating that, in order to deliver to the Iberian Peninsula, merchants would have to use at least two-decker ships, heavily armed, manned by up to 150 people including soldiers. Pomeranian merchants did not have such ships at their disposal. Moreover, they did not have enough capital necessary to bring the Iberian project to fruition. The merchants also explained that they were not familiar with the market, so they lacked insight in any demand for what Pomerania had to offer 2 .
The project was abandoned because the king did not manage to convince the merchants to establish a connection with Spain. In the middle of the 18 th century, a suggestion to make those trade links emerged again. This time it was Marques de la Ensenada, the minister of the Spanish navy, who reached out with the idea prompted by the repercussions caused by the 1748 Forest Ordinance with which the navy wanted to monopolise the use of timber from the Iberian Peninsula; according to this new law, any commercial forestry operations could only be undertaken with the navy's approval. The effects of this law were contradictory to its intentions as villages and municipalities that managed their forests opposed it. This resulted in a rapid drop in the amount of timber delivered to the navy, so Spain had to look for new sources outside of the metropole. Under the circumstances, the navy minister directed his attention not only to the West Indies, an obvious location from the perspective of Spain, but also to the Baltic region -not entirely accessible to Spanish merchants 3 , yet rich in timber 4 .
The goal of this text is to show that even though direct trade between Spain and Pomerania existed, it was not as representative as the connection with Denmark, the Netherlands, or England. The present article, however, expands the body of knowledge regarding Szczecin's trade network. What is more, it aims to demonstrate the execution of the Spanish navy's plan regarding the southern Baltic coast in the first decade of its implementation (1750-1760) from the perspective of both Szczecin and its satellite 2 Radosław Gaziński, Handel morski Szczecina w latach 1720-1805(Szczecin: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Szczecińskiego, 2000, 276-277. Szczecin's conflict with Frankfurt by the river Oder and the breaking of its trading ties with Greater Poland also caused difficulties. Andrzej Grodek, "Handel Odrzański w rozwoju historycznym", in: Monografia Odry, ed. Andrzej Grodek et al. (Poznań: Instytut Zachodni, 1948). Only in the 1840s, after the river Świna was deepened, did the port's situation begin to improve. Henryk Lesiński, "Udział Kamienia i Wolina w żegludze i handlu morskim w XVI-XVIII wieku", Przegląd Zachodniopomorski 1 (1981): 19. 3 The Spanish had limited access to the Baltic markets because of the trade monopoly of the Dutch and English merchant houses, the bitter enemies of Castilian monarchs, in that area. port Świnoujście. To that end, timber trade was shown on the backdrop of Szczecin's exchange with other ports connected to the main Pomeranian port with long-established ties. The Port of Szczecin was not focused exclusively on trading timber, but also other goods, such as cereal grains, linen, broadcloth, or bricks. This text is supposed to inspire further research and discussion; it is based on the data gathered from a weekly newspaper Wochentlich-Stettinische Frag-und Anzeigungs-Nachrichten. The data was confronted with the information from digitised Sound Dues registers 5 .
Until 1849, the Royal and Prussian Information Chamber had monopolistic control over publishing any judicial, police, and administrative announcements granted by Frederick William I. Moreover, any market, financial or industrial information, including notifications regarding ship movements in ports or prices of goods, were published in Wochentlich… 7 . The end of the Chamber's monopoly, caused by other periodicals being allowed to issue announcements, resulted in the newspaper's downfall.
In the aforementioned period, the frequency of the newspaper's release changed. Initially, it was issued on a weekly basis 8 , later it was released three times a week, and in 1829 it became a daily 9 .
Wochentlich… had a distinctive structure. Administrative announcements were printed first, then commercial offers from Szczecin appeared, followed by those from other locations. After that, information on people leaving the city, famous individuals entering Szczecin (zu Stettin angekommene Fremde), as well as a society section were to 5 Digitised Sound Dues registers, accessed: 15.07.2019, http://www.soundtoll.nl/index.php/en/. 6 Władysław Myk, "Zarys rozwoju szczecińskiej prasy codziennej od XVI do XX wieku (1537-1945)", Przegląd Zachodniopomorski 1-2 (1997): 49. 7 Information regarding cultural events, as well as the society column and family announcements regarding christenings, marriages, funerals, etc. was also published. 8 In the period under discussion, Wochentlich-Stettinische Frag-und Anzeigungs-Nachrichten was released once a week. be found. Apart from that, a price list of selected items, information on fees 10 , and news regarding ships moving in and out of Szczecin and Świnoujście, including the name of the vessel, details about the captain, and a description of cargo were included. Market prices of Vor-and Hinterpommern wool would close every issue 11 .

INFORMATION ON TIMBER PRODUCTION
As previously mentioned, commercial offers for merchants were also published in Wochentlich-Stettinische Frag-und Anzeigungs-Nachrichten 12 . These announcements (usually no longer than five lines) make it possible to partially uncover where the timber shipped from Szczecin and Świnoujście was produced.
Between 1750 and 1760, the newspaper printed 178 announcements regarding the sales of different types of firewood (mainly oak, beech, and alder) or to the construction and shipbuilding industries. Prefabricated wooden components, such as staves, boards, and rafters were also listed.
Most of the timber sales information published in Wochentlich… came from towns located no further than 50 km from Szczecin. Out of 63 locations which supplied timber, as few as eight were mentioned more than five times 13 . Only Podjuchy (Podejuch) made announcements about timber for sale on a regular basis, as almost 17% of the notifications published in Wochentlich… came from the Monastery of Saint John Foundation in Podjuchy. The Foundation announced regularly (30 times) that they had timber for sale. Other locations which appeared in that section routinely, were Goleniów (Gollnow, 13 times) 14 , Podlesie (Friedrichswalde, now a part of Sowno, 10 times) and Szadzko (Saatzig, nine times). On the basis of the data collected it can be assumed that timber trade was one of the local income sources of these locations, but to confirm this hypothesis a detailed analysis of the economy of e.g. the Monastery of Saint John Foundation or the town of Goleniów would have to be conducted.
Three towns near the Oder -Pudagla (8 times), Grambin (6 times), and Dunzig (6 times) -also form an interesting group. Grambin and Dunzig came under the Ueckermünde forest jurisdiction. Announcements regarding timber for sale from these three towns were published jointly in Wochentlich…, usually accompanied by information about selling timber from Pudagla (8 times) under the Kasibór (Caseburg) jurisdiction.
A vast majority of timber sales announcements in Wochentlich… were not published regularly. Out of 63 locations that were mentioned, 39 appeared only once. 16 towns appeared two to five times, which suggests that occasional timber excess was sold by a given town, but this also requires a more careful analysis of the local economies.
Announcements were made mainly by institutions and local administration. As mentioned above, no-one published more of them than the Monastery of Saint John Foundation. The announcements by Ueckermünde, Karsibór, or Goleniów were made by their local administrations 15 . Szczecin's merchants 16 and Junkers 17 made announcements about timber for sale less often.

TIMBER TRADE AND SHIP MOVEMENTS IN THE PORT OF SZCZECIN (STETTIN) AND THE PORT OF ŚWINOUJŚCIE (SWIENEMÜNDE)
The data crucial for this article is to be found in the closing pages of the newspaper, where information about ship movements in the Ports of Szczecin and Świnoujście was printed.
The data gathered from the newspapers shows that between 1750 and 1760 the ship traffic in Świnoujście was greater than that in Szczecin. Out of the total number of ships that docked in the Port of Szczecin (6452 vessels), 57% (3704) arrived, and approx. 43% (2748) departed from it 20 . It was the other way around in the Port of Świnoujście, where 47% (5745) arrived and 53% (6793) left 21 out of the total of 12 538 vessels.
According to the data found in Wochentlich…, Świnoujście was also the port which played a bigger part in the outbound shipping of timber through Szczecin Lagoon to the Baltic Sea. Among 2748 ships listed as leaving Szczecin, 51% (1408 ships) transported timber, while 1340 vessels (49%) carried different cargo. Meanwhile, in Świnoujście, out of the total of 6793 ships which left the port, as much as 75% (5115 vessels) transported timber, and only a quarter of ships (1678 ships) carried other goods. Out of all vessels that shipped timber mentioned in Wochentlich… (6523) approx. 78% (5115) departed from Świnoujście and only around 22% (1408) departed from Szczecin. This indicates that the Port of Szczecin was focused not only on one product (timber) but diversified into other goods (cereal grains, linen, broadcloth, or bricks) unlike Świnoujście, which specialised in selling timber products.

PORTS OF DISCHARGE AND EXPORTED TIMBER
Timber export through the Szczecin Lagoon and into the Baltic Sea normally began in March and ended in December, before Christmas. Carriers were very active in the warmest months, i.e. from April to September, with June and July being the busiest months (respectively 144 and 146 ships on average). This rhythm was closely linked with the climate in that region of the Baltic Sea as sailing in the late autumn and spring was dangerous and often impossible due to storms, European windstorms, and the freezing of the Szczecin Lagoon and the Oder. In the period under discussion, Copenhagen was the main port of discharge for ships departing from Szczecin and Świnoujście. Approx. 69.1% of all ships registered as carrying timber left for Denmark's capital city 22 . Other important ports of discharge for the Pomeranian timber were London (7.1% ships), Bordeaux (5%) and Amsterdam (4.5%) 23   The data from Wochentlich… shows that only 0.7% (48) of all ships carrying timber that departed from Szczecin and Świnoujście arrived directly at Spanish ports, mainly at Málaga (0.4% -25 ships), Cádiz (0.2% -25 ships) and, as from 1757, San Sebastián, a port in the Basque Country (0.1% -eight ships).

Ports of discharge
The data from Wochentlich… shows that only 0.7% (48) of all ships carrying timber that departed from Szczecin and Świnoujście arrived directly at Spanish ports, mainly to Málaga (0.4% -25 ships), Cádiz (0.2% -25 ships) and, as from 1757, San Sebastián, a port in the Basque Country (0.1% -eight ships).

Fig. 3. Main ports of discharge for ships carrying timber from the Ports of Szczecin and
Świnoujście.

Other -the remaining 1.4%
The data regarding the timber which left both ports is difficult to interpret due to a lax approach of the staff responsible for listing the cargo and publishing this information in the newspaper. As in the Wochentlich… announcements, information regarding the timber loaded onto the ships included its type, function, or what prefabricated components were made out of it (sometimes more than one feature was listed but it did not happen often) 23 .
The data regarding the timber which left both ports is difficult to interpret due to a lax approach of the staff responsible for listing the cargo and publishing this information in the newspaper. As in the Wochentlich… announcements, information regarding the timber loaded onto the ships included its type, function, or what prefabricated components were made out of it (sometimes more than one feature was listed but it did not happen often) 24 .

Fig. 5. Types of timber leaving from the ports of Szczecin and Świnoujście
Firewood, a low-quality timber, was the largest group of products (25.3% of timber carried by the ships). The most problematic group is the second largest one, which was listed simply as wood (Holtz, 23,6% of the carried timber) 25 . Other large groups are also defined by the function of the material; those are timber for construction (13%) and barrel making (11%). The final function-oriented group (and crucial for this paper) 24 Cf. Wochentlich… 38 (1757): 495, for a ship called De Junge Jan Duckes headed to San Sebastián, the type of wood, the function of timber, and names of the products were listed. 25 Unfortunately, it was not possible to establish what was understood by Holtz. It seems that it was low-quality wood that could not be put into any other category, but one of the ships headed to Spain was also described as carrying Holtz, which makes the issue more complicated, as it is unlikely that timber of poor quality was exported to the Iberian Peninsula from as far away as Pomerania due to the costs of the journey [Wochentlich… 20 (1757)

Types of wood
Firewood, a low-quality timber, was the largest group of products (25.3% of timber carried by the ships). The most problematic group is the second largest one, which was listed simply as wood (Holtz, 23,6% of the carried timber) 24 . Other large groups are also defined by the function of the material; those are timber for construction (13%) and barrel making (11%).
The final function-oriented group (and crucial for this paper) is timber for boatbuilding (5.9%). Other features listed concern timber prefabricated components, such as hull planks (6.6%), staves (6%), pipe cask staves (5.2%) and French barrel staves (3.1%). The smallest group in the register regarded the type of wood: it was oak (only 0.2%) but, unfortunately, neither its function nor the type of prefabricated components made with it was mentioned.
Out of the categories listed in Wochentlich…, mainly barrel staves were delivered to the Spanish ports between 1750-1760 (65%, which means 31 out of 47 ships). Pipe cask staves (including wine barrel staves) and hull planks, classified as prefabricated elements, 24 Unfortunately, it was not possible to establish what was understood by Holtz. It seems that it was low-quality wood that could not be put into any other category, but one of the ships headed to Spain was also described as carrying Holtz, which makes the issue more complicated, as it is unlikely that timber of poor quality was exported to the Iberian Peninsula from as far away as Pomerania due to the costs of the journey [Wochentlich… 20 (1757) is timber for boatbuilding (5.9%). Other features listed concern timber prefabricated components, such as hull planks (6.6%), staves (6%), pipe cask staves (5.2%) and French barrel staves (3.1%). The smallest group in the register regarded the type of wood: it was oak (only 0.2%) but, unfortunately, neither its function nor the type of prefabricated components made with it was mentioned.
Out of the categories listed in Wochentlich…, mainly barrel staves were delivered to the Spanish ports between 1750-1760 (65%, which means 31 out of 47 ships). Pipe cask staves (including wine barrel staves) and hull planks, classified as prefabricated elements, were each transported by seven ships (15%). Construction timber, boatbuilding timber and unidentified Holtz were each carried by only one ship.

CAPTAINS AND THEIR SHIPS
As mentioned above, Wochentlich… also included names of the ships which partook in the trade exchange with the Ports of Szczecin and Świnoujście. Personal data of skippers who were in charge of them was also of value.
As stated in Wochentlich…, the captains usually made no more than two trips, depending on the length of the journey. Despite that, some managed to make as many as 11 trips in one year (but those journeys were usually short). One of them, skipper Michael (or Michel) Köhler, sailed to Copenhagen 11 times in both 1752 and 1757 (on a number of different ships). Captains who sailed to Spain were not mentioned twice in one year, which is understandable provided the time it took to travel there: a one-way trip was six to eight weeks long.
Köhler stood out as a captain not only because of the number of trips he managed to make in one year, but also the number of ships which he commanded 26 . Captains would usually lead one vessel, but Köhler broke the efficiency records commanding possibly as many as four different ships 27 .
The captains who made more than one journey a year would usually go to the same port of discharge. For example, if captain Paul Wegner made 11 trips in a year, the port of discharge for his ship Hoffnung was always Copenhagen. Captain Köhler went against this trend too, as in one year (1757) he made 10 trips to three ports altogether: Copenhagen, Flensburg, and London.
Some issues of Wochentlich… also listed ships that waited in the Port of Świnoujście to depart on a longer journey across the Sound straits. This data is interesting as, apart from copying information about the ships leaving the port, in some cases additional information such as a type of the ship or its home port was included. This makes it possible to establish what types of ships carried Pomeranian timber and which port the captains overseeing the shipping came from (apart from the local ones these were mainly Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Götteborg, and Copenhagen). Unfortunately, out of the total number of vessels registered as docked in the port in 1757 (83 ships) 18 descriptions included information regarding the size of the ship: there were 11 one-masted and seven three-masted ones. In the case of ships waiting for a trip to Spain only 20 out of 37 vessels had their type listed: there were 19 three-masted ships and one snow 28 .
When it comes to home ports, out of the total of 27 ships sailing to Spain six came from Göteborg; there were also two from Rotterdam, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen each, one came from Äbo, one from Wolgast, and one from an unspecified Danish port. Home ports of the remaining vessels were not specified.

WOCHENTLICH… AND THE SOUND DUES REGISTERS
A comparative analysis of the data from Wochentlich-Stettinische Frag-und Anzeigungs-Nachrichten with those from the Sound Dues registers (the lists of tolls collected from foreign ships sailing through the Sound between 1429 and 1857 made by Denmark) shows how weak the former is as a source since the data obtained from it is unreliable. Out of 48 ships that sailed through the Sound to reach Spain between 1750 and 1760 according to Wochentlich…, four were not mentioned in the Sound Dues registers. In the same period, as many as 54 ships that had Szczecin or Świnoujście as a port of loading were listed in the Sound.
Apart from information such as the date, a port of loading, a port of discharge, type of cargo, and the skippers' personal data, the Sound Dues registers included the name of every ship's home port. According to the Sound Dues registers, the home ports of most ships sailing to Spain were in the Netherlands -Amsterdam (10 ships) or Rotterdam (10) -and Sweden -Göteborg (10). Out of the remaining 24 ships, there were no vessels from Prussian Pomerania, but four listed Stralsund (3) or Greifswald situated on the Swedish Vorpommern as their home ports 29 . ***** In light of the data retrieved from the newspaper, 50 ships moved between the ports in Málaga, Cádiz, and San Sebastián and the Ports in Szczecin and Świnoujście. Fortyseven ships carrying timber and one carrying wheat departed from those Pomeranian ports between 1750 and 1760. In that period, only two vessels travelled from Spain to Pomerania (both from Málaga), which carried oil, wine and break bulk cargo (Stückguter) 30 .
These were not the only Spanish goods that found their way to the Pomeranian market. In 1756, the newspaper published information about Spanish tobacco for sale available from a merchant named Daniel Graffen 31 .
A comparative analysis of the data retrieved from Wochentlich… and the Sound Dunes registers between 1750 and 1760 shows that Spain was not an important partner for Szczecin in terms of direct trade 32 . Even though timber export played a significant part in trade in Szczecin and Świnoujście, exports to the Spanish market formed for less than 1% of deliveries in the initial years of Ensenada's plan. The outbreak of the Seven Years' War, which made it impossible to keep to the plan in the final two years of the decade 33 , and a stronger position of other Baltic ports such as Gdańsk or Riga, where the representatives of the Spanish Crown resided, are some of the possible 29 An interesting case of the vessel commanded by Carl Gotfried Burmeister is worth mentioning. In 1751, it was mentioned in Wochentlich… as docked in the Port of Świnoujście. Wolgast was listed as its home port and Carl Burmeister as its skipper. In the same year, a vessel commanded by C. G. Burmeister was registered in the Sound, but its home port was Stralsund, not Wolgast. Neither the Sound registers, nor the 1751 editions of Wochentlich… include the name of the ship, but in the following years Burmeister commanded a three-masted vessel Printz Ludwig. 30 In 1752, a ship carrying Spanish wine with Świnoujście listed as its port of loading was mentioned.
Wochentlich… 20 (1752) reasons. The Prussian policy of strict rationing, bans, tolls, and monopolies, which had been introduced to limit the consumption of foreign goods and boost state production, also influenced trade ties between these two countries 34 .
When it comes to timber trade in Szczecin and Świnoujście, the data shows that in the decade under discussion Pomeranian merchants continued trading mainly within the Baltic Region and the coasts of eastern England and France, according to the traditional model. The dominance of Copenhagen as a port of discharge, followed by London and Bordeaux, clearly shows that a traditional trading network in Pomerania was being maintained.
Types of timber exported do not indicate that Pomerania delivered significant amounts of timber to supply any western European navy in an effort to build ships in the first decade of executing Ensenada's plan. Timber delivered to Spain was mainly used to build casks, but construction and boatbuilding timber (in small quantities) was also listed 35 .
According to the data in the Spanish archives, the amount of timber delivered from Szczecin to Spain was the greatest only between 1770 and 1780 36 , so the results of the analysis of the first decade of implementing the plan are not contradictory to a claim that timber from Pomeranian ports was used in expanding the fleet of the Spanish Empire in the 18 th century. For this reason, the research concerning the problem in the following years of the second half of that century is going to be continued 37 . 34 Gaziński,Handel morski,27. 35 In Opis miasta Szczecina (The Description of the City of Szczecin), Ludwig Wilhelm Brüggemann states that, in 1777, construction timber was moved to France and Spain for the total price of 9978 thalers, and boatbuilding timber for 1550 thalers. The drawback of this list is the fact that data from two countries was provided in one column. However, it shows that in the following years some construction and boatbuilding timber reached the Iberian Peninsula. Ludwig Wilhelm Brüggemann, Opis miasta Szczecina. Transl., Introduction and ed. Agnieszka Gut (Szczecin, Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Szczecińskiego, 2018): 102. 36 Reichert,Direct supplies,7. 37 The quality of the information gathered from the newspaper is a separate issue. As mentioned above, notes on ship movements in the port were taken fairly carelessly resulting in numerous inconsistencies, which cause problems upon comparing the data with the Sound Dues registers. Another difficulty is posed by unclear entries regarding the cargo shipped, especially when it comes to the unspecified Holtz category. Despite its imperfections, Wochentlich… is a valuable resource for those involved in the research for this project as it makes it possible to recreate ship movements in the port and it provides the data from the announcements about both timber and Spanish goods.