Studies of state formation and state-building in early modern Britain have almost overwhelmingly focused on how domestic resources were mobilised, taking for granted that the state existed practically in a state of autarky that mirrored the 'glorious isolation' of the nineteenth century. Examining the role that foreign manpower and money played between 1688 and 1815 in this paradigmatic 'fiscal-military state' suggests that British state formation can instead be understood in this period as a partnership between the state and what has recently been conceptualised as a European 'fiscal-military system', a series of cosmopolitan networks and hubs that moved military resources around Europe. The British state was structurally dependent upon the foreign manpower and money it supplied in order to maintain its paradoxical combination of powerful wartime mobilisation, low peacetime taxation and the preservation of British political liberties. Easy access to these resources enabled ministers to retain a bare-bones military and naval establishments in peacetime and then, in wartime, to 'surge' the state by using off-the-shelf foreign military labour to hold the line while British forces were recruited. Relying upon cheap foreign money enabled the British state to hold down taxation and expensive borrowing. After 1780, however, British ministers began to lose access to the European fiscal-military system and were forced to look to domestic resources, which generated damaging political conflicts within Britain. The transition to a fiscal-military state in 'glorious autarky' therefore occurred long after the existing historiography supposes, and largely out of necessity rather than by choice.

Abstract The increase in spending after 1770 forced the assembly to reassess its ‘fiscal constitution’ or the compact between taxpayers and the state. Taxpayers proved willing to shoulder the increased costs of the colonial state, but only if the money was spent for their own security, and in a transparent and equitable way. The years after the American Revolutionary War were therefore marked by a period of ‘economical reform’, mirroring that in Britain, as the assembly began to overhaul its fiscal structures to meet popular demands. It proved difficult to overhaul the collection of direct taxes, since that brought the assembly into conflict with the parish vestries, and even more difficult was the reform of indirect tax collection, which brought the assembly into conflict with the imperial government. Military spending therefore drove fiscal reform, often along bureaucratic lines, but was also shaped by the limits of the assembly’s political power in the face of other groups.

Abstract Security in Jamaica was dominated by the presence of the imperial garrison, which was supported in numerous ways by the planters in the island, who recognized that their own security depended on its effectiveness. Consequently the colonial state took on a growing number of expensive functions to assist the garrison, including the supply of barracks, wood, and water; the payment of allowances for lodging and medical care; the regulation of access to rum; the recovery of deserters; and the hire of military labourers to preserve the health of the men. The most extensive—and expensive—commitment was the vote of ‘island pay’ for the garrison, a subsidy for provisions that, at its peak in 1800, made up around half of the expenditure of the colonial state. Examining how the assembly was persuaded to vote the necessary funds demonstrates the vital role of politicking in the formation of the colonial state, not least since the agreement fell apart as the fragile consensus began to dissolve.

Polycarbonate composites are widely used in applications subjected to compression loading at varying strain rates, benefiting from their ability to withstand large deformations due to the ductile nature of polycarbonate. However, the deformation and failure mechanisms, and the effects of fibre orientation, during large strain deformation are poorly understood. This study examines the rate-dependent properties of 20 wt % short glass fibre reinforced polycarbonate loaded in different orientations relative to the fibre flow and at strain rates from 0.01 to 2350 s- 1. High-speed optical and infrared imaging are used to aid interpretation of the deformation and failure arising from the formation of adiabatic shear bands. Novel experimental approaches are used to qualify and quantify the deformation mechanism: load-reload tests, final strain-controlled split Hopkinson bar experiments with ex-situ tomography. These are supported by dynamic in-situ X-ray measurements published previously. These comprehensive datasets establish a deep understanding of the constitutive behaviour of this ductile composite material that will enhance its use in a wide range of applications.

Abstract This chapter outlines the nature of White and Black, free and enslaved society in Jamaica, before addressing the role that fear played as a driver of white actions, especially after 1791. Like the other plantation societies in the early modern Americas, society in Jamaica was built on racial differences, between a small free White elite, a growing number of free people of colour, and a vast number of enslaved Black people. This was a society based on fear: White elites were terrified of Black revolts. Both the frequency and magnitude of these intense moments of terror increased after 1770, particularly after the Haitian Revolution in 1791. This fear served to maintain White solidarity and cohesion, and to unify them around a set of policies which aimed to prevent black resistance by creating fear in turn, through the exercise of brutal violence but also through the mere threat of violence. They also used small privileges and crumbs of preferment which could be exploited to generate frictions and fissures within communities, disrupting social and political solidarity and therefore disrupting rebellions. The tropical leviathan, the colonial fiscal-military state, was the instrument used for this purpose.

Polycarbonate is a widely used ductile glassy polymer that can undergo large strain deformation before failure. During the plastic deformation process, some mechanical energy is converted to heat, which, if the specimen is loaded at rates sufficient that the heat cannot conduct out of the material, can result in significant temperature rises that affect the mechanical response. Typically, this is expected to result in a reduction in stress at large strain, compared to the behaviour under isothermal conditions; however, compared to other glassy polymers, it has been observed that less softening than expected is experienced in polycarbonate at high strain rates. The current paper describes a thorough investigation of temperature rises in polycarbonate. Compression experiments are performed using a screw-driven machine, a hydraulic machine, and a long split Hopkinson bar, all instrumented with a high-speed infrared camera to measure temperature rises at strain rates between 0.01 and 2600 s- 1 at a starting temperature around 20 degrees C. Further, temperature rises in compression experiments at 0.5 s- 1 and starting temperatures between -80 to 150 degrees C are measured using embedded thermocouples. These span the range of the secondary- to glass-transitions of polycarbonate, allowing investigation of the effect of these transitions. These experiments are supported by finite element simulations, which use a phenomenological viscoplastic model, to ensure the thermal boundary conditions are adiabatic. Temperature rises are observed in both temperature and rate-dependent tests: experiments at higher strain rates and lower temperatures experience a greater temperature rise because of the higher yield stress; however, there are differences in the conversion ratio between plastic work and heat (Taylor Quinney coefficient), which is both temperature and rate dependent, and strongly affected by both the secondary and glass transitions.

Abstract Alongside the garrison the assembly also maintained its own colonial forces, ranging from the militia to the parties of Maroons and blackshot sent into the interior after runaway slaves. On occasion the assembly even voted funds for large companies of semi-permanent troops. These enabled the planters to project power into the interior of the island, and to fight a ‘tropical’ way of war that required special skills which the imperial garrison did not possess. Such measures also offered opportunities for free and even enslaved people of colour to obtain rewards, giving them a stake in the system of plantation slavery and helping to break up dangerous racial solidarities. The trade-off was that the expansion of this system, especially after 1815, as the imperial government began to reduce the size of the garrison, meant that the growing cost of maintaining these auxiliaries increasing fell on the colonial state.

Abstract This chapter examines petitioning in Jamaican politics between 1664 and 1840, aligning it with wider work on the operation of colonial politics in the British Atlantic on the one hand, and the agency available to marginalised groups on the other. Using a quantitative study of petitions, it demonstrates that the volume of petitions rose and fell roughly in line with legislative initiatives and spending by the colonial Assembly, testifying to the importance of the petition as a political and administrative mechanism in colonial rule. Case studies of petitioning by free people of colour and the Jewish community suggest that it was often an important way for groups denied direct political representation to raise their concerns with the colonial legislature, though the success of the process of petitioning often reflected wider political circumstances. The petition was therefore an important mechanism within colonial society, but also a double-edged sword – one that could be used by groups to assert agency but also to deny it to others. The analysis therefore qualifies the emphasis on the growth of petitioning in the 18th and 19th centuries as a vehicle for protest and political agency from groups excluded from the franchise or other political rights.

Polyamide 6 and its composites are widely used in engineering applications that are exposed to high strain rate deformation. This paper investigates the thermomechanical properties of two polyamide 6 composites, both reinforced with 30 wt% short glass fibres, and one of which additionally contains an impact modifier, to provide an understanding of the mechanical response over a wide range of strain rates and temperatures. Compression experiments were performed at rates between 2 and 3000 s-1, with high speed optical and infrared cameras to aid interpretation of the rate-dependent failure arising from the formation of adiabatic shear bands. Further high strain rate experiments were performed with ultra-fast X-ray phase-contrast imaging to provide in-situ internal damage evaluation. These data will improve the utilization of these composites and aid in development of advanced thermomechanical models.

Polyamide 6 is a widely used engineering plastic; however, its thermomechanical properties are not well understood, particularly at medium and high strain rates. In this research, the thermomechanical properties of Polyamide 6 were extensively characterized. Differential Scanning Calorimetry was performed to investigate the glass transition temperature and crystallinity. Frequency sweep Dynamic Mechanical Analysis was carried out through the secondary- and glass-transitions, and the temperature dependent storage moduli obtained from different sweep frequencies were used to construct a master curve. Quasi-static tensile tests at two loading speeds were conducted with digital image correlation for full-field strain mapping. Compression properties were measured at strain rates between 0.001 and 6000 s-1 at room temperature, and temperatures between -60 and 200 degrees C at 0.01 s-1. The mechanical response is highly rate- and temperature-dependent; at large strains and elevated rates, apparent softening occurs owing to heat generation, which was quantified using an infrared camera.

Polycarbonate composites are widely used in products exposed to high strain rate deformation. This paper investigates the thermomechanical properties of polycarbonate and 20 wt% glass fibre reinforced polycarbonate to provide characterisation data and improved mechanistic understanding of the response to load, supported by Dynamic Mechanical Analysis and time-temperature superposition. Compressive behaviour is characterised from 0.001 to 5000 s- 1 at room temperature and from -60 to 120 degrees C at 0.01 s- 1; and a thermal imaging camera used to obtain temperature rise data. Quasi -static tensile experiments were also performed in different orientations relative to the injection flow direction. High -rate compression experiments are performed with X-ray imaging. As well as information about rate dependence of yield stresses and softening in the two materials, these data show how adiabatic shear band formation can cause significant softening in the composite. These data will enhance application of these polymers and facilitate development of advanced thermo-mechanical models.

Scholars have argued that the Bubble Act of 1720 frustrated company formation in Britain, resulting in over a century of lost economic growth. More recently, Ron Harris and others have argued that it actually had limited effect, since workarounds were found and, in any case, the commercial demand for incorporation was low. This chapter tests his argument with reference to the Jamaica Mines Company, founded in 1720 during the South Sea Bubble to prospect for gold in that island. It shows that the company was not a fraud but a bona fide commercial venture, but that its corporate form offered few advantages for entrepreneurs, and even eventually proved its downfall. Ultimately the Bubble Act therefore made little difference, since the commercial and financial advantages that incorporation offered in this period were therefore less marked than has often been assumed.

The relationship between the rise of the modern European state and military resource mobilization has been studied either through the capacity of Europe's fiscal-military states to mobilize war-making resources internally or the continued importance of private, non-state contractors to fund, recruit and supply armies. Missing from this literature is an understanding of how military contractors acquired supplies outside of national borders as well as the sorts of diplomatic and personal connections these contractors drew upon to move war goods across multiple jurisdictions for hundreds of miles. This article adopts a micro-historical approach to the history of military resource mobilization, paying close attention to one shipment of grain purchased in central Europe by the British army during the War of Spanish Succession (1701–1714). By studying closely how British money paid French Huguenot contractors to buy the grain and transmit it across northern Italy to feed German and Spanish troops fighting in Spain, this one case shows how scholarship can move towards a transnational history of military logistics based on key urban centres rather than nations and borders.

Ballistic impact is a highly complex environment, the understanding of which is compounded by the advanced materials used for ceramic-polymer composite armours. In this study, the influence of surface preparation and polymer backing properties on the energy absorptive capabilities and ballistic performance of simplified model armours was approached via a methodical investigation using simplified materials and geometries. Quasi-1D (beam) specimens consisting of polyurethane-backed alumina were loaded under three-point bend quasistatically and at impact speeds. The specimen geometries allowed for the fracture pathways to be observed. To produce the specimens, two polyurethanes with different glass transition temperatures were cured onto alumina strips, eliminating the requirement for a dedicated adhesive and thus simplifying the interfacial dynamics. Further modifications were made by applying a primer surface treatment, by using unbonded polyurethane and adhered polyurethane, and by replacing the polyurethane with glass-reinforced polycarbonate. The beam specimens were loaded quasi-statically at 0.05 mm s-1 at ambient and sub-ambient temperatures, and at 50-300 m s-1 at ambient temperatures. The quasi-static specimens were found to fail by one of two failure modes with approximately a 3x energy absorption difference; the failure was highly dependant upon the interface and polymer characteristics. Under impact, a significant proportion of the energy absorption was provided by the kinetic energy of the fragments. Although, the polymer backing and interfacial properties were found to influence fracture paths during loading. FEA simulations were used to model the behaviours using characterisation data from a previous study; these were found to predict the experimental response well.

This chapter compares the creation of the penal laws and slave codes in Ireland and the Caribbean respectively as codes of law for social repression. Both were products of negotiations between imperial and colonial groups, and developed as accumulations of laws, practices and precedents through the operation of colonial legislative power. They therefore reflected the unevenness of power in early modern empires, described by Lauren Benton as a 'search for sovereignty'. A comparison of the most egregious set of punishments in both sets of laws – castration – shows how these measures were driven by colonial interests for social or political reasons, and intermittently opposed by the British Government, often for its own pragmatic reasons. Because imperial power was so uneven, the experience of subaltern peoples in Ireland and the Caribbean therefore varied greatly, but in both cases reflected a common political dynamic.

3D Printing techniques are additive methods of fabricating parts directly from computer-aided designs. Whilst the clearest benefit is the realisation of geometrical freedom, multi-material printing allows the introduction of compositional variation and highly tailored product functionality. The paper reports a proof-of-concept additive manufacturing study to deposit a supramolecular polymer and a complementary organic filler to form composites with gradient composition to enable spatial distribution of mechanical properties and functionality by tuning the number of supramolecular interactions. We use a dual-feed extrusion 3D printing process, with feed stocks based on the supramolecular polymer and its organic composite, delivered at ratios predetermined. This allows for production of a graded specimen with varying filler concentration that dictates the mechanical properties. The printed specimen was inspected under dynamic load in a tensile test using digital image correlation to produce full-field deformation maps, which showed clear differences in deformation in regions with varying compositions, corresponding to the designed-in variations. This approach affords a novel method for printing material with graded mechanical properties which are not currently commercially available or easily accessible, however, the method can potentially be directly translated to the generation of biomaterial-based composites featuring gradients of mechanical properties.