ducts and must be landed in England, and carried direct from thence to cap. 17, enacted, That for the further improvement of former European proNavigation Acts, no merchandize of the growth, production or manufacture manufacture of Europe shall be imported into any of the English plantations or factories in Asia, Africa or America, but what shall be laden in England, in English-built shipping, and navigated by at least three-fourths English mariners, and shall be carried to those places directly from England and no where else, on forfeiture of ships and ladings, and none of the products of the English plantations, (viz.) sugar, tobacco, cotton, ginger, fustic and other drugs, shall be carried any where, (except to other plantations), till they be first landed in England under the like forfeiture of ships and cargoes. the colonies in English ships. Colonial procarried any where, except to colonies, until first landed in England. ducts not to be commodities to Ireland till first landed in England. Ireland was left out in this Act, and so became excluded from all trade with the Colonies, and by the 15th, 22nd, and 23rd of Car. II., the enumerated commodities were expressly No enumerated prohibited from being carried to Ireland, until first landed in England. Under these restrictions, more or less stringently enforced, Ireland remained, until Grattan, and the volunteers, and the certainty else of revolution, had them removed about one hundred and twenty years after their enactment, when the 20th Geo. III. cap. 10, placed Ireland on the same footing as Great Britain, both as to the import and export trade of the British plantations in America and Africa. How much of commercial spirit the long continuance of such unjust restriction suppressed, and how much of hate to England and spirit of resistance to her law they roused, it is not to our purpose to argue ; but it is scarce too much to say, that but for the restrictions of these same Navigation Acts, Ireland might have found her own way to a share of the world's trade, and England have been the richer for the commerce, manufactures and industrial energy of her sister kingdom. At the time of the commencement of the war of indepen- American colodence, nies to use only British ships The American colonies could import or export nothing and to export in any but British vessels. D and import only from Great Britain. An American historian's account of the results of the grievance. 15th Car. II. c. vii. Historic note on American trade. They could not export the most important articles of their produce to any part of Europe other than Great Britain. They could import no goods from any part of Europe other than Great Britain.* The separation of America may be traced to these and the like perverse Acts. George Bancroft, the able and earnest historian of the States, tells us, that "these Acts avowed the design of sacrificing the natural rights of the Colonists to English interests. The harbours of the Colonies were shut against the Dutch, and every foreign vessel. American industry produced articles for exportation; but these articles were of two kinds. Some were produced in quantities only in America, and would not compete in the English market with English productions. These were enumerated, and it was declared that none of them should be transported to any other country than those belonging to the crown of England, under penalty of forfeiture; and, as new articles of industry of this class grew up in America, they were added to the list. Hardly had time enough elapsed for a voyage or two across the Atlantic, before it was found that the English merchant might derive still further advantages, by the imposition of still further restraints, at the cost of the * On the breaking out of the war the statutes 14th Geo. III., c. 19 ; 15th Geo. III., c. 10; 15th Geo. III., c. 18; and 16th Geo. III., c. 5, were successively passed with the view, first of restricting, and then of wholly prohibiting, the trade between this country and her rebellious colonies. The prohibition was taken off in 1783 (by 23rd Geo. III., c. 26), and by an Act of that year (23rd Geo. III., c. 39,) the King was empowered to regulate the trade with the United States by Order in Council. This power, combined with occasional legislation on particular points (see 25th Geo. III., c. 1; 27th Geo. III., c. 7), was continued by annual Acts till 1788, when the trade between the United States and the British possessions in America was placed under permanent regulations by the Act 28th Geo. III., c. 6, the power of making orders for their trade with this country being still continued to the King in Council. For main provisions of the Act of 28th Geo. III., c. 6, and subsequent relaxations, see appendix note on trade with the United States.-From paper handed in by Mr. Lefevre to the Committee on Navigation Laws. The Navigation Colonists. A new law prohibited the importation of European commodities into the Colonies, except in English ships from England. The activity of the ships of New England, which should have excited admiration, excited envy in the minds of the English. The law was still more injurious to England, from its influence on the connexion between the Colonies and the metropolis. Durable relations in society are correlative and reciprocally beneficial. In this case, the statute was made by one party to bind the other, and was made on iniquitous principles. Established as the law of the strongest, it could endure no longer than the superiority in force. It converted commerce, which should be the bond of peace, into a source of rankling hostility, and scattered the certain seeds of a civil war." The Navigation Act contained a pledge of the ultimate independence of America.* And that independence gave the impulse of competition to our dependence. shipping, and forced us into greatness on the free seas, as we shall presently bring facts to prove. We have heard George Bancroft, from the other side of the Atlantic, let us hear Mr. Huskisson on this. In defence of his modification of the Navigation Laws, he said:" It is generally believed, that the attempt to tax our American Colonies without their consent, was the sole cause of the separation of these Colonies from the mother country; but if the whole history of the period, between 1663 and 1773, be attentively examined, it will, I think, be abundantly evident that, however the attempt at taxation may have contributed somewhat to hasten the explosion, the train had been long laid, by the severe and exasperating efforts of this country, to enforce with inopportune and increasing rigour, the strictest and most annoying regulations of our Colonial and Navigation code. Every petty adventure in which the colonists embarked, was viewed by the merchants of this country, and the Board of Trade, as an encroachment on the commercial monopoly of Great Britain. "The professional subtlety of lawyers, and the practical * Bancroft's History of the United States, pp. 205, 207. Speech of Mr. Huskisson, May 12, 1826. The Navigation Laws the cause rebellion. of American ingenuity of custom-house officers, were constantly at work in ministering to the jealous, but mistaken views of our seaports. Blind to the consequences elsewhere, they persisted in their attempts to put down the spirit of commercial enterprise in New England, until these attempts roused a very different spirit—that spirit which ventured to look for political independence in the result of a successful rebellion." So that, in fact, this Maritime Charter, and its adjuncts, hunted trade into littleness, and then scrambled for that little with such fury of war, that we lost our greatest Colonies. The same oppression is in force now, in a different degree, in all our Colonies, and from the same seed may not the same fruit ripen? From nearly all we have recently had protests against the Navigation Laws, and memorials praying for their immediate abolition.* Operations of the law on America as a colony. Operations on America independent. HOW THE MARITIME CHARTER FOUNDERED AT SEA. It was all plain sailing with the Navigation Act so long as America remained a Colony. Their grievance then was that they could not ship their goods for foreign ports direct, nor receive any thing by foreign vessels, but were, in short shut out from all trade unless with England. The ships of the colonies could however come and go to and from England on the same terms as her own; with that trade the Navigation Act did not interfere. But so soon as America became independent, the Acts came into force against her, and the more stringently that it was only from their own ports that the flags of Europe were admitted to trade at all with this country, the traffic with Asia, Africa and America, being altogether confined to British bottoms. * Return to an Address of the House of Commons, dated 28th January, 1847 ;— for, "Copies of all Memorials and Representations from Canada, and other Colonies, respecting the Differential Duties on Goods Imported into the Colonies, and respecting the Operation and Effect of the British Navigation Laws on their Commerce, since 1845."-See chapter on Colonies. For three years the United States diplomatised for the abolition of this manifest absurdity and wrong; and being unable to succeed, they then passed a Navigation Act of their own, avowedly by way of retaliation, and word for word the same as ours. The case then stood thus:-By our Act, no produce or manufacture of America could be carried to England in any other than English ships. By their Act, no produce or manufacture of England could be carried to America in any other than American ships. Neither country could do without the other. We must have goods of theirs and they of ours; and how we and they got them, sets in the clearest light the wondrous wisdom of the Navigation Laws. A.D. 1787. No American No English American ships came across the Atlantic to Liverpool in ballast, having in their wake English ships with rice, cotton Both cross the and tobacco. English ships crossed the Atlantic to New York in ballast, having in their wake American ships laden with calicoes, cutlery, hardware, earthenware and iron. The which state of things, more or less, lasted for eight and twenty years. Were this mere matter of history, we scarce dare tell that it was so; but there are people living yet who remember it. English sailors, perhaps, who in the middle of the broad Atlantic, going out in ballast, have hailed Americans, also outward bound, in ballast; and these were the good old times that shipowners long to have again, and that Mr. George Frederick Young, their mouth-piece, did publicly declare in June, 1847, to have been an advantage to Great Britain and America. The force of wisdom could no farther go. A glorious nursery for British seamen were those empty ships crossing the Atlantic-floating high, and gently rocked on its broad waves. The only misfortune was, that such a happy state of things came to an end. Trade fell off. Trade fell off. The Americans set themselves to do without us, and began to manufacture Atlantic in ballast. A.D. 1787-1815. |