SELECTIONS. I. LEADING SECTIONS FROM THE ENGLISH NAVIGATION ACTS. ACT OF 1660, 12 CAR. II., c. 18. An Act for the Encouraging and Increasing of Shipping and Navigation. For the Increase of Shipping and Encouragement of the Navigation of this Nation, wherein, under the good Providence and Protection of God, the Wealth, Safety and Strength of this Kingdom is so much concerned; (2) Be it enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, and by the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament assembled, and by the Authority thereof, That from and after the first day of December, one thousand six hundred and sixty, and from thenceforward, no Goods or Commodities whatsoever shall be imported into or exported out of any Lands, Islands, Plantations or Territories to his Majesty belonging or in his Possession, or which may hereafter belong unto or be in the Possession of his Majesty, his Heirs and Successors, in Asia, Africa, or America, in any other Ship or Ships, Vessel or Vessels whatsoever, but in such Ships or Vessels as do truly and without Fraud belong only to the People of England or Ireland, Dominion of Wales, or Town of Berwick upon Tweed, or are of the Built of and belonging to any the said Lands, Islands, Plantations, or Territories, as the Proprietors and right Owners thereof, and whereof the Master and threefourths of the Mariners at least are English; III. And it is further enacted by the Authority aforesaid, That no Goods or Commodities whatsoever, of the Growth, Production or Manufacture of Africa, Asia or America, or of any Part thereof, or which are described or laid down in the usual Maps or Cards of those Places, be imported into England, Ireland or Wales, Islands of Guernsey and Jersey, or Town of Berwick upon Tweed, in other Ship or Ships, Vessel or Vessels whatsoever, but in such as do truly and without Fraud belong only to the People of England or Ireland, Dominion of Wales, or Town of Berwick upon Tweed, or of the Lands, Islands, Plantations or Territories in Asia, Africa, or America, to his Majesty belonging, as the Proprietors and right Owners thereof, and whereof the Master, and three-fourths at least of the Mariners are English; IV. And it is further enacted by the Authority aforesaid, That no Goods or Commodities that are of Foreign Growth, Production or Manufacture, and which are to be brought into England, Ireland, Wales, the Islands of Guernsey and Jersey, or Town of Berwick upon Tweed, in English-built Shipping, or other Shipping belonging to some of the aforesaid Places, and navigated by English Mariners, as aforesaid, shall be shipped or brought from any other Place or Places, Country or Countries, but only from those of the said Growth, Production or Manufacture, or from those Ports where the said Goods and Commodities can only, or are, or usually have been, first shipped for Transportation, and from none other Place or Countries; VIII. And it is further enacted by the Authority aforesaid, That no Goods or Commodities of the Growth, Production or Manufacture of Muscovy, or of any the Countries, Dominions or Territories to the Great Duke or Emperor of Muscovy or Russia belonging; as also that no Sort of Masts, Timber or Boards, no foreign Salt, Pitch, Tar, Rosin, Hemp or Flax, Raisins, Figs, Prunes, Olive-Oils, no Sorts of Corn or Grain, PotAshes, Wines, Vinegar, or Spirits called Aqua- Vitae, or Brandy-Wine, shall from and after the first day of April, which shall be in the Year of our Lord one thousand six hundred sixtyone, be imported into England, Ireland, Wales, or Town of Berwick upon Tweed, in any Ship or Ships, Vessel or Vessels whatsoever, but in such as do truly and without fraud belong to the People thereof, or some of them, as the true Owners and Proprietors thereof, and whereof the Master and three-fourths of the Mariners at least are English: And that no Currans nor Com SECTIONS FROM ENGLISH NAVIGATION ACTS. 3 modities of the Growth, Production or Manufacture of any the Countries, Islands, Dominions or Territories to the Ottoman or Turkish Empire belonging, shall from and after the first day of September, which shall be in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred sixty-one, be imported into any the afore-mentioned places in any Ship or Vessel, but which is of English built, and navigated, as aforesaid, and in no other, except only such foreign Ships and Vessels as are of the Built of that Country or Place of which the said Goods are the Growth, Production or Manufacture respectively, or of such Port where the said Goods can only be, or most usually are, first shipped for Transportation, and whereof the Master and three-fourths of the Mariners at least are of the said Country or Place; XVIII. And it is further enacted by the Authority aforesaid, That from and after the first Day of April, which shall be in the Year of our Lord one thousand six hundred sixty-one, no Sugars, Tobacco, Cotton-Wool, Indigoes, Ginger, Fustick, or other dying Wood, of the Growth, Production or Manufacture of any English Plantations in America, Asia or Africa, shall be shipped carried, conveyed or transported from any of the said English Plantations to any Land, Island, Territory, Dominion, Port or Place whatsoever, other than to such other English Plantations as do belong to his Majesty, his Heirs and Successors, or to the kingdom of England or Ireland, or Principality of Wales, or Town of Berwick upon Tweed, there to be laid on shore; ACT OF 1662, 14 CAR. II., c. 11. XXIII. And whereas some Doubts and Disputes have arisen concerning the said late Act, For increasing and encouraging of Shipping and Navigation, about some of the Goods therein prohibited to be brought from Holland and the Parts and Ports thereabouts; (2) Be it enacted and declared, that no Sort of Wines, (other than Rhenish) no Sort of Spicery, Grocery, Tobacco, Pot-Ashes, Pitch, Tar, Salt, Rozin, Deal-Boards, Fir, Timber, or Olive-Oil, shall be imported into England, Wales, or Berwick, from the Netherlands or Germany, upon any Pretence whatsoever, in any Sort of Ships or Vessels whatso ever; ACT OF 1663, 15 CAR. II., c. 7. V. And in regard his Majesty's Plantations beyond the Seas are inhabited and peopled by his subjects of this his Kingdom of England, for the maintaining a greater Correspondence and Kindness between them, and keeping them in a further Dependance upon it, and rendring them yet more beneficial and advantageous unto it in the further Imployment and Increase of English Shipping and Seamen, Vent of English Woollen and other Manufactures and Commodities, rendring the Navigation to and from the same more safe and cheap, and making this Kingdom a Staple, not only of the Commodities of those plantations, but also of the Commodities of other Countries and Places for the Supplying of them; and it being the Usage of other Nations to keep their Plantations Trade to themselves : VI. Be it enacted, and it is hereby enacted, That from and after the five and twentieth Day of March, one thousand six hundred sixty-four, no Commodity of the Growth, Production or Manufacture of Europe, shall be imported into any Land, Island, Plantation, Colony, Territory, or Place to his Majesty belonging, or which shall hereafter belong unto or be in the Possession of his Majesty, his Heirs and Successors, in Asia, Africa or America, (Tangier only excepted) but what shall be bonafide, and without Fraud, laden and shipped in England, Wales, or the Town of Berwick upon Tweed, and in English built Shipping, or which were bona-fide bought before the first day of October one thousand six hundred sixty and two, and had such Certificate thereof as is directed in one Act passed the last Sessions of this Present Parliament, intituled, An Act for preventing Frauds, and Regulating Abuses in his Majesty's Customs; and whereof the Master and three Fourths of the Mariners at least are English, and which shall be carried directly thence to the said Lands, Islands, Plantations, Colonies, Territories, or Places, and from no other Place or Places whatsoever; any Law, Statute, or Usage to the contrary notwithstanding; See English Statutes at Large. II. THE COLONIAL POLICY OF EUROPE. FROM ADAM SMITH'S WEALTH OF NATIONS, BOOK IV., CH. VII., THE Colony of a civilized nation which takes possession, either、 of a waste country or of one so thinly inhabited, that the natives easily give place to the new settlers, advances more rapidly to wealth and greatness than any other human society. The colonists carry out with them a knowledge of agriculture and of other useful arts, superior to what can grow up of its own accord in the course of many centuries among savage and barbarous nations. They carry out with them, too, the habit of subordination, some notion of the regular government which takes place in their own country, of the system of laws which supports it, and of a regular administration of justice; and they naturally establish something of the same kind in the new settlement. But among savage and barbarous nations, the natural progress of law and government is still slower than the natural progress of arts, after law and government have been so far established as is necessary for their protection. Every colonist gets more land than he can possibly cultivate. He has no rent, and scarce any taxes to pay. No landlord shares with him in its produce, and the share of the sovereign is commonly but a trifle. He has every motive to render as great as possible a produce, which is thus to be almost entirely his own. But his land is commonly so extensive, that with all his own industry, and with all the industry of other people whom he can get to employ, he can seldom make it produce the tenth part of what it is capable of producing. He is eager, therefore, to collect laborers from all quarters, and to reward them with the most liberal wages. But those liberal wages, joined to the plenty and cheapness of land, soon make those laborers leave him, in order to become landlords themselves, and to reward, with equal liberality, other laborers, who soon leave them for the same reason that they left their first master. The liberal reward of labor encourages marriage. The children, during the tender years of infancy, are well fed and sa |