18 STATISTICAL ACCOUNT OF THE 



Essequebo, or tlie Orinoko, had all the privileges of British 

 shipping; and vessels could be built in future much cheaper 

 at home, if the competition of the tropical trade, for which fir 

 and oak shipping are well adapted, were in some measure 

 withdrawn. The navigation laws have done nothing but mis- 

 chief; they delayed, by half a century, tlie natural progress- 

 of North America, and therefore in a great degree, occasioned 

 her rebellion ; and if they are not repealed with respect to the 

 West Indies, they threaten to occasion there a practical anar- 

 chy, in which the sovereignty of Britain will be nominally re- 

 spected in her colonies, but her laws every where disobeyed 

 by a general connivance. The several governors are obliged 

 to exert perpetually a dispensing power, and thus, in fact, to 

 abrogate a system of legislation, which accumulated experi- 

 ence has shown to be pernicious.. 



There are some convincing observations on this subject in 

 the Annual Review for 1804, which I hold it useful to repeats 



The fundamental principle of our navigation-laws', presents 

 itself already in a statute of the fifth year of Richard II. which 

 enacts that none bring in or carry out merchandize but in En- 

 glish ships. This regulation was somewhat relaxed in favour 

 of the French provinces belonging to England ; for under 

 Henry VII. additional provisions were made in the fourth 

 year of his reign, for importing the claret of Guienne in 



