"
The Navigation Act of 1660, following the policy laid down in the statute
of 1651 enacted under the Commonwealth, was a direct blow aimed at the
Dutch, who were fast monopolizing the carrying trade. It forbade any goods
to be imported into or exported from His Majesty's plantations except in
English, Irish, or colonial vessels of which the master and three fourths
of the crew must be English; and it forbade the importation into England of
any goods produced in the plantations unless carried in English bottoms.
Contemporary Englishmen hailed this act as the Magna Charta of the Sea.
There was no attempt to disguise its purpose. "The Bent and Design," wrote
Charles Davenant, "was to make those colonies as much dependant as possible
upon their Mother-Country," by preventing them from trading independently
and so diverting their wealth. The effect would be to give English, Irish,
and colonial shipping a monopoly of the carrying trade within the Empire.
The act also aided English merchants by the requirement that goods of
foreign origin should be imported directly from the place of production;
and that certain enumerated commodities of the plantations should be
carried only to English ports. These enumerated commodities were products
of the southern and semitropical plantations: "Sugars, Tobacco,
Cotton-wool, Indicoes, Ginger, Fustick or other dyeing wood."
To benefit British merchants still more directly by making England the
staple not only of plantation products but also of all commodities of all
countries, the Act of 1663 was passed by Parliament.
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