MISCELLANEOUS. 1117 



course was allowed. This spirit of jealous exclusion, though natural 

 at first, grew confirmed by habit, and in time gave rise to that refined 

 and complicated system of monopoly, with which the trade of every 

 American colony has been fettered and restrained Spain gave the 

 first example, and in the exclusion of foreigners, took to herself not 

 only the trade of her colonies, but even the manufacture of the ar- 

 ticles of primary necessity for their supply. She would not permit 

 them to make any efforts in industry, that might interfere with her 

 own productions and these restrictions extended to the culture of the 

 grape and the olive, which were inhibited by severe penalties. Great 

 Britain soon perceiving that great advantages were to be derived 

 from the commerce of America, followed, with many liberal modi- 

 fications, the policy of Spain, and monopoly became the principle of 

 her Colonial intercourse. This was three-fold monopoly of supply, 

 monopoly of provincial produce, and monopoly of manufacture. By 

 the first, the Colonists could not resort to foreign markets. By the 

 second they were obliged to carry their staple commodities to the 

 mother country; and by the third, to carry them in a raw state to 

 be manufactured, and then sent back to them for their own consump- 

 tion. 



In practice many indulgencies have, from time to time, been ex- 

 tended to her transatlantic possessions; but in theory, this principle 

 has been carried to the most unlimited and extravagant extent. The 

 Earl of Chatham asserted in Parliament " that the British Colonists 

 in America had no right to manufacture even a nail for a horse-shoe." 



To render the account of the trade, at present enjoyed by this 

 Province, intelligible to those not engaged in mercantile pursuits, it 

 will be necessary, and I hope acceptable to the generality of readers, 

 to give, as briefly as is consistent with perspecuity, an historical sketch 

 of the origin and principal changes of the commercial system of the 

 Colonies, previous to the new navigation laws. First as regarded 

 the trade between them and Europe; secondly, between the Colonies 

 themselves ; and thirdly between them and the United States. 



First. As it regarded the trade between them and Europe, the 

 foundation upon which this intricate system was built, was the 

 famous statute, called, by way of eminence, the navigation act, the 

 rudiments of which were framed in 1650. The resistance offered by 

 Barbadoes to Oliver Cromwell, and its attachment to Charles the 

 2nd, occasioned the prohibition of all foreign ships from trading 

 with the English plantations, and of the importation of Goods into 

 England or its dependencies, in any other than English bottoms, or 

 in ships of that European nation of which the merchandize imported 

 was the genuine produce and manufacture. At the restoration, not- 

 withstanding the origin of the act, those provisions were continued 

 by the 12th C. 2nd, Chap. 18, with this very material addition, that 

 the master and three fourths of the crew should be English subjects, 

 and that certain articles, therein enumerated, the production of any 

 English Colony, in Asia, Africa, or America, should not be exported 

 to any place, except to some other English plantation, or to England, 

 Ireland, Wales or Berwick. Three years afterwards these restrictions 

 were extended and strengthened by the 15th C. 2d, Chap. 7, which, 

 after stating that plantations were formed of citizens of the Mother 

 Country, declares the motive of the act to be " the maintaining a 

 greater correspondence and kindness between the subjects at home, 



