The volume of shipping varied at different times, but it was always a huge component of European economies. There were points in the preindustrial period when

The volume of shipping varied at different times, but it was always a huge component of European economies. There were points in the preindustrial period when several percent of English workers were on ships at any given time. The percentage would have been higher in the Netherlands. And investing in shipping was definitely not limited to the high and mighty; ships were rarely owned outright, but were divided into shares, and I've read of shares as small as 1/64 of a ship.