1118 MISCELLANEOUS. 



and those in the plantations ; keeping the Colonies in a firmer depend- 

 ence upon the Mother Country, making them yet more beneficial and 

 advantageous to it, in the further employment and increase of Eng- 

 lish shipping, vent of English manufactures and commodities, render- 

 ing the navigation to and from them more safe and cheap; and 

 making this Kingdom a staple not only of the commodities of the 

 plantations, but also of the commodities of other countries and 

 places for the supply of them; it being the usage of other nations to 

 keep their plantation trade to themselves." 



This Act ordained that no commodity of the growth or production 

 of Europe, should be imported into the British plantations, but such 

 as were laden and put on board in England, Wales, or Berwick, and 

 in English shipping, navigated according to law, and carried directly 

 to the colonies. With the exception of salt for the fisheries, wines 

 from Madeira and the Azores, and horses and victuals from Ireland 

 and Scotland. By a subsequent act, passed in the 7th and 8th Willm. 

 3d, c. 22d, the produce of the colonies was not permitted to be shipped 

 to Ireland or Scotland, unlesss first landed in England, and its impor- 

 tation was restricted to ships built in England, Ireland, or the Plan- 

 tations, wholly owned by English subjects, and navigated according 

 to Law. Provision with various regulations to prevent counterfeit 

 certificates and other frauds. 



Amongst other regulations for securing the due execution of the 

 navigation acts, a duty was imposed upon the principal " enumer- 

 ated " commodities, when not intended to be conveyed to Great 

 Britain; for it had been found, that under colour of shipping the 

 articles for another British colony or Plantation, they were often 

 vended at sea to the shipping of other nations, or transported to 

 Europe direct. These articles, from having been particularly speci- 

 fied in the acts, have been very generally distinguished from those not 

 named by the common appellation of " enumerated " articles, and 

 were of two sorts first, such as were either the peculiar produce of 

 America, or as could not be, or at least were not, produced in the 

 mother country. Secondly, such as were not the peculiar produce of 

 America, but which were or might be produced in the mother country, 

 though not in such quantities as to afford a sufficient supply, and were 

 therefore obtained from European countries. By confining the enu- 

 merated articles to the home markets, the merchants were not only 

 enabled to buy them cheaper in the plantations, and consequently sell 

 them at a better profit at home, but to esablish between the planta- 

 tions and foreign countries an advantageous carrying trade, of which 

 Great Britain was necessarily the centre or emporium, as the Euro- 

 pean country into which the articles were first to be imported. The 

 importation of articles of the second kind was so managed as to in- 

 terfere, not with the sale of those of the same kind which were pro- 

 duced at home, but with the sale of those imported from foreign 

 countries; because, by means of proper duties, they might be ren- 

 dered always dearer than the former, and yet much cheaper than the 

 latter; This was intended to operate as a discouragement to the 

 produce of some foreign countries, with which the balance of trade 

 was held to be unfavourable to Great Britain. These, with many other 

 intermediate and subsequent statutes, in amendment of, and addition 

 thereto, completed this artificial and restrictive system. 



