half of the Sea-men which we do at present; but seing time hath discovered some Inconveniencies in it, if not Defects, which in my poor opinion do admit of an easie Amendment, and seing that the whole Act is not approved by unanimous consent, I thought fit to Discourse a little concerning it, wherein after my plain method I shall lay down such Objections as I have met with, and subjoyn my Answers, with such Reasons as occur to my memory in confirmation of my own Opinion.

The Objections against the whole Act are such as these;

OBJECT. 1. Some have told me, That I on all occasions magnifie the Dutch policy in relation to their Trade, and the Dutch have no Act of Navigation, and therefore they are certainly not always in the right, as to the understanding of their true Interest in Trade, or else we are in the wrong in this. I answer, I am yet to be informed where the Dutch have missed their proper Interest in Trade, but that which is fit for one Nation to do in relation to their Trade, is not fit for all, no more than the same Policy is necessary to a prevailing Army that are Masters of the Field, to an Army of less force, then to be able to encounter their Enemy at all times and places: The Dutch by reason of their great Stocks, low Interest, multitude of Merchants and Shipping, are Masters of the Field in Trade, and therefore have no need to build Castles, Fortresses and places of Retreat; such I account Laws of limitation, and securing of Particular Trades to the Natives of any Kingdom; because they, viz. the Dutch may be well assured, That no Nation can enter in common with them in any Trade, to gain Bread by it, while their own use of Money is at 3 per cent, and others at 6 per cent and upwards, &c. Whereas if we should suffer their Shiping in common with ours in those Trades, which are secured to the English by Act of Navigation, they must necessarily in a few Years, for the reasons above said, eat us quite out of them.

OBJECT. 2. The second Objection to the whole Act is; Some will confess that as to Merchants and Owners of Ships the Act of Navigation is eminently beneficial, but say, that Merchants and Owners are but an inconsiderable number of men in respect of the whole Nation, and that Interest of the greater number, that our Native Commodities and Manufactures should be taken from us at the best rates, and Foreign Commodities sold us at the cheapest, with admission of Dutch Merchants and Shiping in common with the English, by my own implication would effect.

My answer is, That I cannot deny but this may be true, if the present profit of the generality be barely and singly considered; . . .

but this Kingdom being an Island, the defence whereof hath alwayes been our Shiping and Sea-men, it seems to me absolutely necessary that Profit and power ought joyntly to be considered, and if so, I think none can deny but the Act of Navigation hath and doth occasion building and employing three times the number of Ships and Sea-men, that otherwise we should or would do, and that consequently, If our Force at Sea were so greatly impared, it would expose us to the receiving of all kinds of Injuries and Affronts from our Neighbours, and in conclusion render us a despicable and miserable People.

OBJECTIONS TO SEVERAL PARTS OF THE ACT OF NAVIGATION OBJECT. 1. The Inhabitants and Planters of our Plantations in America, say, This Act will in time ruin their Plantations, if they may not be permitted, at least to carry their Sugars to the best Markets, and not be compelled to send all to, and receive all Commodities from England.

I answer, If they were not kept to the Rules of the Act of Navigation, the consequence would be, that in a few years the benefit of them would be wholly lost to the Nation; It being agreeable to the policy of the Dutch, Danes, French, Spaniards, Portugals and all Nations in the World, to keep their external Provinces and Collonies in a subjection unto, and dependency upon their Mother-Kingdom; and if they should not do so, the Dutch who as I have said, are Masters of the Field in Trade, would carry away the greatest of advantage by the Plantations, of all the Princes in Christendom, leaving us and others only the trouble of breeding men, and sending them abroad to cultivate the Ground, and have bread for their Industry. . . .

D. The English Colonial System: an Unfavorable View, 17761

The general policy of England toward her colonies was nowhere so clearly stated by any contemporary writer as by Adam Smith. He was the intellectual father of modern individualism, and believed that the state should not interfere in matters of trade or industry, but should permit the individual to seek his own economic interests. Consequently he did not approve of the mercantile doctrines which found their expression in the economic policy of England toward her colonies.

But there are no colonies of which the progress has been more rapid than that of the English in North America.

Plenty of good land, and liberty to manage their own affairs

1 An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. By Adam Smith (Edinburgh, 1776). Edited by Edwin Cannan (London, 1904), 73-86, passim.

their own way, seem to be the two great causes of the prosperity of all new colonies.

In the plenty of good land the English colonies of North America, though, no doubt, very abundantly provided, are, however, inferior to those of the Spaniards and Portugueze, and not superior to some of those possessed by the French before the late war. But the political institutions of the English colonies have been more favourable to the improvement and cultivation of this land, than those of any of the other three nations. . . .

Fourthly, in the disposal of their surplus produce, or of what is over and above their own consumption, the English colonies have been more favoured, and have been allowed a more extensive market, than those of any other European nation. Every European nation has endeavoured more or less to monopolize to itself the commerce of its colonies, and, upon that account, has prohibited the ships of foreign nations from trading to them, and has prohibited them from importing European goods from any foreign nation. But the manner in which this monopoly has been exercised in different nations has been very different.

Some nations have given up the whole commerce of their colonies to an exclusive company, of whom the colonies were obliged to buy all such European goods as they wanted, and to whom they were obliged to sell the whole of their own surplus produce. . . .

Other nations, without establishing an exclusive company, have confined the whole commerce of their colonies to a particular port of the mother country, from whence no ship was allowed to sail, but either in a fleet and at a particular season, or, if single, in consequence of a particular licence, which in most cases was very well paid for.

Other nations leave the trade of their colonies free to all their subjects, who may carry it on from all the different ports of the mother country, and who have occasion for no other licence than the common dispatches of the customhouse. . . . Under so liberal a policy the colonies are enabled both to sell their own produce and to buy the goods of Europe at a reasonable price. But since the dissolution of the Plymouth company, when our colonies were but in their infancy, this has always been the policy of England. It has generally too been that of France, and has been uniformly so since the dissolution of what, in England, is commonly called their Mississippi company. The profits of the trade, therefore, which France and England carry on with their colonies, though no doubt somewhat higher than if the competition was free to all other nations, are, however, by no

means exorbitant; and the price of European goods accordingly is not extravagantly high in the greater part of the colonies of either of those nations.

In the exportation of their own surplus produce too, it is only with regard to certain commodities that the colonies of Great Britain. are confined to the market of the mother country. These commodities having been enumerated in the act of navigation and in some other subsequent acts, have upon that account been called enumerated commodities. The rest are called non-enumerated; and may be exported directly to other countries, provided it is in British or Plantation ships, of which the owners and three-fourths of the mariners are British subjects.

Among the non-enumerated commodities are some of the most important productions of America and the West Indies; grain of all sorts, lumber, salt provisions, fish, sugar, and rum. . . .

The enumerated commodities are of two sorts: first, such as are either the peculiar produce of America, or as cannot be produced, or at least are not produced, in the mother country. Of this kind are, melasses, coffee, cacaonuts, tobacco, pimento, ginger, whale-fins, raw silk, cotton-wool, beaver, and other peltry of America, indigo, fustic, and other dying woods: secondly, such as are not the peculiar produce of America, but which are and may be produced in the mother country, though not in such quantities as to supply the greater part of her demand, which is principally supplied from foreign countries. Of this kind are all naval stores, masts, yards, and bowsprits, tar, pitch, and turpentine, pig and bar iron, copper ore, hides and skins, pot and pearl ashes. The largest importation of commodities of the first kind could not discourage the growth or interfere with the sale of any part of the produce of the mother country. By confining them to the home market, our merchants, it was expected, would not only be enabled to buy them cheaper in the Plantations, and consequently to sell them with a better profit at home, but to establish between the Plantations and foreign countries an advantageous carrying trade, of which Great Britain was necessarily to be the center or emporium, as the European country into which those commodities were first. to be imported. The importation of commodities of the second kind. might be so managed too, it was supposed, as to interfere, not with the sale of those of the same kind which were produced at home, but

1 The commodities originally enumerated in 12 Car. II, c. 18, § 18, were sugar, tobacco, cotton-wool, indigo, ginger, fustic, and other dyeing woods.

with that of those which were imported from foreign countries; because, by means of proper duties, they might be rendered always somewhat dearer than the former, and yet a good deal cheaper than the latter. By confining such commodities to the home market, therefore, it was proposed to discourage the produce, not of Great Britain, but of some foreign countries with which the balance of trade was believed to be unfavourable to Great Britain.

The prohibition of exporting from the colonies, to any other country but Great Britain, masts, yards and bowsprits, tar, pitch, and turpentine, naturally tended to lower the price of timber in the colonies, and consequently to increase the expence of clearing their lands, the principal obstacle to their improvement. But about the beginning of the present century, in 1703, the pitch and tar company of Sweden endeavoured to raise the price of their commodities to Great Britain, by prohibiting their exportation, except in their own ships, at their own price, and in such quantities as they thought proper. In order to counteract this notable piece of mercantile policy, and to render herself as much as possible independent, not only of Sweden, but of all the other northern powers, Great Britain gave a bounty upon the importation of naval stores from America and the effect of this bounty was to raise the price of timber in America, much more than the confinement to the home market could lower it; and as both regulations were enacted at the same time, their joint effect was rather to encourage than to discourage the clearing of land in America.

The liberality of England, however, towards the trade of her colonies has been confined chiefly to what concerns the market for their produce, either in its rude state, or in what may be called the very first stage of manufacture. The more advanced or more refined manufactures even of the colony produce, the merchants and manufacturers of Great Britain chuse to reserve to themselves, and have prevailed upon the legislature to prevent their establishment in the colonies, sometimes by high duties, and sometimes by absolute prohibitions. . .

While Great Britain encourages in America the manufactures of pig and bar iron, by exempting them from duties to which the like commodities are subject when imported from any other country, she imposes an absolute prohibition upon the erection of steel furnaces and slit-mills in any of her American plantations.1 She will not suffer

1 [23 Geo. II, c. 29.]