138 The British West India Colonies, [FEB. 



sion, and to watch over their rising prosperity, and encourage their pro- 

 ductive industry not, certainly, for their benefit alone, but in order 

 that the mother country might secure and appropriate the entire advan- 

 tages of that industry ; that she might, by and through them, open new 

 and certain markets for the consumption of her own manufactures and 

 produce establish, especially in times of difficulty, safe depots for the 

 extension of her foreign trade and create fixed and regular employ- 

 ment to increase the number of her ships and seamen. 



With this view, the various legislative enactments have, from the 

 earliest times down to the present moment, been framed. 



The celebrated Navigation Act of the 12th of Charles the Second, 

 secured the plantation trade to British shipping, by enacting that the 

 produce of the Colonies could only be transported from thence in British 

 ships ; and that, instead of proceeding to the nearest or best market, the 

 colonists should only export their produce to another English colony, or 

 to England, Wales, or Ireland, " there to be laid on shore," under the 

 penalty of forfeiting the ship and goods, or their value. 



The rapid development of the numerous advantages accruing to the 

 mother country from the colonial trade, soon led to further restrictions. 

 The statute 15, Car. II. c. J, prevented the colonists from purchasing 

 their European supplies at the cheapest markets, obliging them to take 

 from home every thing they required, with the exceptions of horses and 

 victuals from Ireland and Scotland. 



The preamble to this important " Act for the encouragement of 

 Trade," states in concise terms the nature of the policy by which the 

 government was, at this early period, actuated; 



" In regard his Majesty's plantations beyond seas are inhabited and 

 peopled by the subjects of this his kingdom of England, for the main- 

 taining a greater correspondence and kindness between them, and keep- 

 ing them in a firmer dependence upon it, and rendering them yet more 

 beneficial and advantageous unto it in the further employment and 

 increase of English shipping and seamen, vent of English woollen and 

 other manufactures and commodities, rendering 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 commo- 

 dities of other countries and places, for the supplying of them ; and it 

 being the usage of other nations to keep their plantation-trade to them- 

 selves," &c. And for the purpose of still further securing to England 

 the whole advantages of this colonial trade, our several Colonies were pro- 

 hibited from having any direct intercourse with each other. Ireland was 

 also excluded from the benefits of the trade, until these measures were 

 eventually modified in the same reign to the extent of re-opening an 

 intercourse subject, however, to the payment of very heavy duties. 



Although the Colonies did not acquiesce in these heavy restrictions, 

 and the Island of Barbadoes openly, in 1676, remonstrated against 

 them, they not only continued to be rigidly and jealously enforced, " in 

 regard it much concerneth the trade of this kingdom," but direct duties 

 began, about this time, to be levied at home upon sugar and other tro- 

 pical produce ; and although some modification took place in favour of 

 vessels employed by Spaniards bringing fc money," the law continued in 

 this state down to the reign' of George the Second, when a material 

 relaxation, in regard to their staple commodity, took place. It was then 

 enacted (by 12th Geo. II. cap. 20), that British-built ships, navigated 

 according to law, the sole property of British subjects, who were resident, 



