A. D. 1660. ' 487 



landed in foreign parts. Thefe enumerated commodities will probably 

 1)6 hereafter found neceflary to be altered with the unforefeen changes 

 neceflarily happening in our American and European commerce. 



This is the fubftance of this very long ad, here fo neceflary to be in- 

 ferted, as being perhaps the moft important fl:atute in behalf of com- 

 merce, that ever was enaded in this, or poflibly in any other, nation: 

 infomuch that Sir Jofiah Child, in his Dilcourfe on trade, thinks it de- 

 ferves to be called our Cbarta mantima. There wanted not, however, 

 authors who at firfl (as in a former one, enafted by the rump) found fault 

 with it, affirming that it would be deflrudive to our commerce, &c. In 

 Roger Coke's Difcourfe of trade, publilhed even fo late as 1 670, he affirms, 

 * that in two years after the navigation-ad of the rump parliament, in 

 ' 1 65 1, the building of fhips in England became one third dearer than 

 ' before, (at which none but fuch a head as his would have wondered) 

 ' and that feamen's wages became fo exceflive dear, that we have wholely 

 ' lofl the Mufcovy and Greenland trades, whereby we gave the Dutch 

 ' and other nations the power of driving the trade of the world.' Yet, 

 quite on the contrary, we, by this navigation-ad, have gradually obtain- 

 ed a vaft increafe of fliipping and mariners : for by patience and fl:eadi- 

 nefs we have, in length of time, obtained the two great ends oi this 

 ever-famous ad, viz. 



The bringing our own people to build fliips for carrying on fuch an 

 extenfive commerce as they had not before. Sir Jofiah Child was of 

 opinion, ' that without this ad we had not now (in 1668) been owners 

 ' of one half of the fl;iipping or trade, nor Ihould have employed one 

 ' half of the feamen we do at prefent.' So vafl: an alteration had this 

 ad brought about in a few years ; infomuch that we are at length be- 

 come, in a great meafurc, what the Dutch once were, i. e. the great car- 

 riers of Europe, more efpecially within the Mediterranean fea. 



By this ad we have alDfolutely excluded all other nations from any 

 dired trade or correfpondence with our American plantations ; and 

 were it not for this ad (fays that able author) we fhould fee 40 Dutch 

 fhips at our own plantations for one of England. That, before the paff- 

 ing of this ad, and whilft our American colonies were but in childhood, 

 the fhips of other European nations, more efpecially of the Dutch, reforted 

 to our plantations both to lade and unlade ; and their merchants and fac- 

 tors neflled themfelves amongfl our people there, which utterly fruflrat- 

 ed the original intent of planting thofe colonies, viz. to be a benefit to 

 their mother-country, to which they owed their being and protedion. It 

 could not therefor be thought ftrange that, when our planters were become 

 able to ftand on their own legs, and to fupply confiderable quantities of 

 materials for exportation, (as was now the cafe of Virginia for tobacco, 

 and of Barbados for fugar, ginger, cotton, &c.) our legiflature thought 

 it high time to fecure to ourfelves alone thofe increafing benefits which 

 had been produced at our fole charge and trouble. And in this reiped; 



