History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce, Volume 2 (of 4)

by W. S. Lindsay

Commercial jealousy in the West Indies.

But commercial jealousy had already seized the English colonists in the West Indies, and had led them to claim an exclusive monopoly of the trade with the colonies on the continent; while, at the same time, the contraband traffic carried on by the French and the Dutch was pressed on the consideration of parliament. Hence it was that a Bill received the sanction of the House of Commons prohibiting, under forfeiture of ship and cargo, the importation into any part of English America of sugar, rum, or molasses grown in plantations not of English origin. Although this bill failed in the House of Lords, an Act was passed in 1733[211] for encouraging the sugar trade, the effect of which was to grant drawbacks on re-exportations from Great Britain of West India sugar, and to impose duties on the importation into America of the produce of foreign plantations. From the preamble of this Act foreign rivals appear to have surpassed the English colonists in the quality of their sugar, and to have supplanted their shipping in the carrying trade: so that the English professed they were unable to carry it on without relief from the parliament of Great Britain.

Following this example, all classes, as a matter of course, appealed for protection, and an artificial system grew up which, even if justifiable at the beginning, proved, when the separation of the colonies took place, to be altogether impracticable. The shipowners at home were equally ready to find pretexts for parliamentary interference in their favour. Thus, in 1749-50, they held a meeting in the city of London, “to promote British shipping and British navigation,” at which sixty gentlemen were present, and “the Case” then drawn up was signed by fifty-nine of them.[212] Their object seems to have been to prevent foreign ships taking away, as back-freight, goods entitled to drawback or bounty; the system of bounties practised by other nations operating against English shipping, though the policy of retaliation then adopted did not always remedy the evil complained of. Hence it is that we find incessant remonstrances by shipowners that foreigners came to English ports with freights and cargoes of small value, and loaded tin, lead, and other goods only to be obtained in England, and their assertion that, by the help of drawbacks and of bounties freely conceded abroad, the foreigners gained, on the whole, a larger freight than English vessels could do in the same time. English shipowners sought, therefore, to obtain fresh limitations on the foreigner, so as to raise their freights to an equality with those earned in the general market of the world. In the statements thus set forth, the shipowners, however, were compelled to admit that “at all foreign ports which had no shipping of their own, ours (English) are always chosen preferable to the ships of any other nation.”

Seven Years’ War, 1756-1763.

Its effect on the colonies.

Of the “Seven Years’ War” it is not our province to write, but of its results as affecting the English colonial arrangements, we may remark that the expenses of that war mainly induced the Legislature to pass in 1764 the Act of 4 George III., chap. 15, which ultimately led to the separation of the North American colonies from Great Britain. This Act, combined with various conditions taken from the Navigation Laws, requiring heavy duties on numerous articles imported into the colonies from the countries that produced them, or from anywhere else except from Great Britain, and prohibiting the importation of sugar from the colonies, except in British bottoms, necessarily aroused the indignation of the American colonists, and sowed the seeds of future rebellion.

Unwise legislative measures.

But unfortunately these impolitic stipulations were only the commencement of a series of unwise, if not unjust measures, carried out with extreme rigour, with the object of preserving for the British shipowner and manufacturer the exclusive monopoly of the trade with the colonies. No doubt an extensive illicit trade had already been established between the continental North American colonies and the foreign West India settlements, carried on in American ships and in defiance of British law. Indeed, the people of the New England States, of New York, Carolina, and Pennsylvania built numerous small vessels, expressly for the purpose of supplying these islands with various articles of their own production, especially lumber, provisions, horses, live stock, tobacco, corn, flour, and vegetables; and even made voyages to Europe, selling both ships and cargo in European ports in spite of the fiscal laws of the mother-country. But though this trade was ruined by the regulations for the suppression of smuggling, and by the collection of the King’s duties in hard silver, which drained the colonies of the bullion they received in exchange for the sale of their ships and cargoes, these measures, which were carried into effect with great vigour, operated with an equally injurious severity on the West Indian colonies, especially on Jamaica, in spite of a very lucrative traffic still carried on between that island and the Spanish Main.

Unfortunately, the English government had viewed without compunction the infraction of the Spanish laws, so long as their shipowners and merchants reaped an immense advantage by their clandestine trade. Nor did the dread of perpetual imprisonment and slavery deter their mariners from engaging in this trade. Indeed, when these were wanting, Spanish-Americans supplied the deficiency by vessels of their own; while the governors of the islands connived at the illicit traffic. But a different spirit of morality was now to prevail. Directions were sent out from England to enforce the Navigation Acts in all their strictness: custom-house commissions were issued to the men-of-war, who were ordered to seize, without distinction, all foreign vessels found in any of the ports of the West India Islands; the British government becoming from one extreme of laxity the most strict and energetic repressors of Spanish as well as American smuggling. The result was that their own shipping suffered, and their exports to Jamaica declined 168,000l. in one year. In 1766 the ports of Jamaica and Dominica were opened to all foreign vessels whatsoever; but if credit can be given to one of the historians[213] of the West Indies, the Spanish masters of vessels who resorted to Jamaica, having their names reported in the customs’ lists, were thus betrayed to the Spanish authorities, who visited their offences with the most severe punishment.

Effect of the new restrictions.