Note 98 — Chapter IV

"1651.—The Parliament of England passed the famous Act of Navigation. It had been observed with concern, that the English merchants for several years past had usually freighted the Hollanders' shipping for bringing home their own merchandise, because their freight was at a lower rate than that of the English ships. For the same reason the Dutch ships were made use of even for importing American products from the English colonies into England. The English ships meanwhile lay rotting in the harbours, and the English mariners, for want of employment, went into the service of the Hollanders. The Commonwealth now turned its attention towards the most effectual mode of retaining the colonies in dependence on the parent State, and of securing to it the benefits of their increasing commerce. With these views the Parliament enacted, 'That no merchandise, either of Asia, Africa, or America, including the English Plantations there, should be imported into England in any but English-built ships, and belonging either to English or English Plantation subjects, navigated also by an English commander, and three-fourths of the sailors to be Englishmen; excepting such merchandise as should be imported directly from the original place of their growth, manufactured in Europe solely: and that no fish should thenceforward be imported into England or Ireland, nor exported thence to foreign parts, nor even from one of their own ports, but what should be caught by their own fishers only." (Holmes' Annals of America, Anderson, ii., 415, 416; Robertson, B. 9, p. 303; Janes' edit. Vol. I., p. 294.) Mr. Holmes adds in a note: "This Act was evaded at first by New England, which still traded to all parts, and enjoyed a privilege peculiar to themselves of importing their goods into England free of customs." (History Massachusetts Bay, Vol. I., p. 40.)