Another well-known writer of that period, Sir Henry Petty,[191] estimates the value of the whole of the shipping of Europe, old and new, at eight pounds per ton. He also furnishes some valuable information with regard to the extent of the shipping of Europe at the time he wrote. Estimating the whole at 2,000,000 of tons, he apportions to the English 500,000, the Dutch 900,000, the French 100,000, the Hamburgers, with the subjects of Denmark and Sweden, and the town of Dantzic 250,000 tons, and he gives, which seems small, the remaining 250,000 tons as belonging to Spain, Portugal, and Italy. He further states that the Dutch East India Company had then a capital of 3,000,000_l._, and that goods to the value of that sum were annually exported from Holland into England. The shipping belonging to France was then, it would appear, only one-ninth of that belonging to the Dutch, or one-fifth of that of Great Britain, which, on the authority of Dr. Charles Devonport, had doubled between 1666 and 1688, while her royal navy had in the same time increased from 62,594 to 101,032 tons.[192] [Sidenote: British clearances, 1688, and value of exports.] [Sidenote: 1692.] From another return[193] we for the first time ascertain the annual clearances outwards from Great Britain, and the value of the cargoes of the ships. These in 1688 amounted to 190,533 tons of English, and 95,267 tons of foreign vessels, the gross value of these exports being 4,486,087_l._, showing an annual increase not merely steady but rapid during the previous ten years. War, however, again harassed the people. France, the old enemy of England, now sought to pluck from her the laurels she had won from the Dutch, and to claim a maritime supremacy over both nations. Her naval force had now become so formidable, being augmented by numerous privateers, that it played havoc among the merchant vessels of Great Britain, destroying or capturing nearly the whole Smyrna fleet, consisting of many richly laden vessels, as also two of the English men-of-war which accompanied them.[194] [Sidenote: War with France.]