100 SHEEP INDUSTRY OF THE UNITED STATES 



Previous to their assertion of national independence, the commerce of 

 the Dutch did not extend beyond the confines of Europe. But new 

 regions of traffic were now open to their dauntless enterprise, and in 

 1595 ships sailed into the East Indies and competed with Spain and 

 Portugal for trade in those parts, a competition that was successful, 

 notwithstanding the claim of Spain to exclusive rights of navigation in 

 the Indian seas. 



In 1609, Grotius published his memorable assertion of the common 

 freedom of the sea to all nations. Its immediate object was to over- 

 throw the Spanish claim to the exclusive navigation of the Indian and 

 Pacific oceans, and to establish as part and parcel of the public law of 

 Europe the right of every neutral flag to trade in those and all other 

 seas. Spain refused to yield its claim even in preliminary negotiation, 

 and never in fact until it had been stripped of half its colonial depend- 

 encies and utterly beaten in every quarter of the world by the free- 

 trading Dutch and compelled to buy, for their own use, nutmegs, cloves, 

 and mace from their hated rivals. 



From this time Holland grew in maritime power and almost monopo- 

 lized the carrying trade of the world. Her vessels were found in all 

 the seas and traded in the ports of New England, New York, Maryland, 

 and Virginia. England was jealous, and pretexts were not wanting to 

 destroy a rival with whom it could not successfully compete. The 

 causes of the commercial greatness of Holland were forgotten in envy 

 at its success. 



It ceased to appear as the gallant champion of the seas against Spain and became 

 envied as the successful rival. The English Government resolved to protect the 

 English merchants. Cromwell desired to confirm the maritime power of his country, 

 and St. John, a Puritan and a republican in theory, though never averse to a limited 

 monarchy, devised the first act of navigation, which, in 1651, the politic Whitelocke 

 introduced and carried through Parliament. Henceforward the commerce between 

 England and her colonies, and between England and the rest of the world, was to be 

 conducted in ships solely oAvned and principally manned by Englishmen. Foreign- 

 ers might bring to England nothing but the products of their respective countries, 

 or those of which their countries were the established staples. The act was leveled 

 against Dutch commerce and was but a protection of British shipping; it contained 

 no clause relating to a colonial monopoly or specially injurious to an American col- 

 ony. Of itself it inflicted no wound on Virginia or New England. In vain did the 

 Dutch expostulate against the act as a breach of commercial amity ; the parliament 

 studied the interests of England and would not repeal laws to please a neighbor.* 



A naval war followed which proved disastrous to Holland, and Eng- 

 land gained a supremacy on the seas, which she has since maintained, 

 and established on a firm footing the British commercial policy pro- 

 tection to British shipping which many years before she had essayed 

 but not successfully accomplished. The English and Dutch war lasted 

 from 1051 to 1G54, and one of the first acts of the English Government 

 directly affecting colonial trade was in 1GGO, when it was enacted that 

 "no merchandise shall be imported into the plantations but in English 



* Sawcroft's History of the United States, vol. I, p. 145. 



