1120 MISCELLANEOUS. 



or the West Indies and the second regulated the trade of the Colonies 

 in America or the West Indies, with other parts of the world. The 

 former, after repealing a number of acts, either in whole or in part, 

 permitted the importation from any foreign country in North or 

 South America, or West Indies, into colonial free ports, certain 

 enumerated articles, consisting chiefly of bread stuff, provision, lum- 

 ber, live stock, seeds and raw materials, subject to specified duties; 

 which were, by the act, appropriated to the use of the colonies where 

 they were to be collected with a proviso that the importation should 

 be made on British bottoms, or vessels bona fide the build of and 

 owned by the inhabitants of the country of which the articles im- 

 ported were the growth or manufacture. It also permitted the ex- 

 portation from the said free ports, of any article of the growth or 

 manufacture of any of His Majesty's Dominions, or any other article 

 legally imported into the said Ports, provided the vessels carrying 

 the same, whether British or Foreign, proceeded direct to the country 

 in America or the West Indies to which they respectively belonged. 

 The other acts, regulating the trade between the Colonies and Europe, 

 permitted the exportation in British built vessels, owned and navi- 

 gated according to law, of any article, the growth or, manufacture of 

 said Colony, or legally imported into the same direct, to any foreign 

 port in Europe or Africa, or to Gibraltar, the Island of Malta, or 

 the dependencies thereof, or the Islands of Guernsey, Jersey, Alder- 

 ney, or Sark; it also authorised the importation from any port in 

 the above-mentioned countries, of certain articles enumerated in a 

 schedulef annexed to the Act, on the payment of duties, to be applied 

 in a similar manner as those arising under the other act. 



The very liberal provisions of these two acts were afterwards con- 

 solidated, with many valuable improvements, into one statute, the 

 6 Geo. 4th, Cap. 114, entitled " an Act to regulate the trade of the 

 British possessions abroad ; " which took effect on the 5th of January, 

 1826. 



This act commences by directing that no goods, except the produce 

 of the fisheries in British ships, be exported from any of the British 

 possessions in America, by sea, from or to any place other than the 

 United Kingdom and its possessions, except to and from certain free 

 ports, the number of which his Majesty is empowered to increase, of 

 which Halifax was one. 



Permission is granted, by the Act, to the ships of any nation 

 having colonies that shall grant to British ships a similar privilege, 

 and to them not having colonies that should place the commerce and 

 navigation of Great Britain and her possessions, on the footing of 

 the most favoured nation, to import into any of the British possessions 

 abroad, from the country to which they belong, goods, the produce 

 of those countries, and to export goods from such possessions, to be 

 carried to any foreign country wnat-ever. Instead of enumerating 

 the articles which may be imported, the act contains a brief " table 

 of restrictions." 



After which it prescribes a table of duties on the Imports, chiefly 

 advalorem, and directs the Collector to pay the produce thereof over 

 to the Colonial Treasurer, to be appropriated by the General As- 

 sembly. One of the most important clauses, is that which establishes 

 certain of the Free Ports, viz. Kingston, in the island of Jamaica, 

 Halifax, in Nova Scotia, Quebec, in Canada, Saint John, in Xew 

 Brunswick, and Bridge Town, in the Island of Barbadoes to be 



