A second Navigation Act, passed at the beginning of the reign of Charles II., prescribed that “no goods or commodities whatsoever shall be imported into or exported from any of the king’s lands, islands, plantations, or territories in Asia, Africa, or America, in any other than English, Irish, or plantation built ships, and whereof the master and at least three-fourths of the mariners shall be Englishmen, under forfeiture of ships and goods.” It was further provided that “no sugar, tobacco, cotton, wool, indigo, ginger, fustic and other dyeing woods, of the growth or manufacture of our Asian, African, or American colonies, shall be shipped from the said colonies to any place but to England, Ireland, or to some other of his Majesty’s said plantations, there to be landed, under forfeiture of goods and ships.”
Bland’s remonstrance.
The motive in these restrictions is obvious enough. Their effects were ably set forth in 1677, in a memorial by John Bland, a sagacious London merchant, whose grasp of the principles of political economy was very remarkable for that age.[32] In order that merchants in England might buy Virginia tobacco very cheap, the demand for it was restricted by cutting off the export to foreign markets. In order that they might sell their goods to Virginia at exorbitant prices, the Virginians were prohibited from buying anything elsewhere. The shameless rapacity of these merchants was such as might have been expected under such fostering circumstances. If the planter shipped his own tobacco to England, the charges for freight would be put so high as to leave him scarcely any margin of profit.
Some direct consequences.
Such restrictions were apt to have other effects than those contemplated. The “protected” merchants chuckled over their sagacity in keeping Dutchmen away from Virginia, for thus it would become possible to make the Dutchmen pay three or four shillings in England for tobacco that cost a ha’penny in the colony. But the worthy burghers of the Netherlands took a different view of the matter. They began planting tobacco for themselves in the East Indies, so that it became less necessary to buy it of the English. Another somewhat curious consequence may be stated in Bland’s own words: “Again, if the Hollanders must not trade to Virginia, how shall the planters dispose of their tobacco? The English will not buy it [all], for what the Hollander carried thence was a sort of tobacco not ... used by us in England, but merely to transport for Holland. Will it not then perish on the planters’ hands? which undoubtedly is not only an apparent loss of so much stock and commoditie to the plantations who suffer thereby, but for want of its employment an infinite prejudice to the commerce in general.”
Some indirect consequences.
There was yet another aspect of the matter. “I demand then, in the next place, which way shall the charge of the governments be maintained, if the Hollanders be debarred trade in Virginia and Maryland, or anything raised to defray the constant and yearly levies for the securing the inhabitants from invasions of the Indians? How shall the forts and public places be built and repaired, with many other incident charges daily arising, which must be taken care for, else all will come to destruction? for when the Hollanders traded thither, they paid upon every anchor of brandy (which is about 25 gallons) 5 shillings import brought in by them, and upon every hogshead of tobacco carried thence 10 shillings; and since they were debarred trade, our English, as they did not, whilst the Hollander traded there, pay anything, neither would they when they traded not ...; so that all these charges being taxed on the poor planters, it hath so impoverished them that they scarce can recover wherewith to cover their nakedness. As foreign trade makes rich and prosperous any country that hath within it any staple commodities to invite them thither, so it makes men industrious, striving with others to gather together into societies, and building of towns, and nothing doth it sooner than the concourse of shipping, as we may see before our eyes, Dover and Deal what they are grown into, the one by the Flanders trade, the other by ships riding in the Downs.”
Exposure of the humbug.
But if in spite of all these arguments the Navigation Act must stand, then, says this acute writer, “let me on the behalf of the said colonies of Virginia and Maryland make these following proposals, which I hope will appear but equitable:—
“First, that the traders to Virginia and Maryland from England shall furnish and supply the planters and inhabitants of those colonies with all sorts of commodities and necessaries which they may want or desire, at as cheap rates and prices as the Hollanders used to have when the Hollander was admitted to trade thither.