and men at that day not being learned in the principles of political economy, they were unable to understand that as colonies were fertilized by the mother-country, so the wealth of the mothercountry grew as did that of her dependencies. In those days, merchants, land-owners, and men of education were united in believing that the exploitation of the colonists for the benefit of the people of the mother-country was right and proper. Such a policy does not indicate that they were actuated by a spirit of despotism or disregard of colonial interests, but simply that they were living in the days when the existence of colonies could only be defended on business grounds.1

With this spirit prevailing it needs no elaborate explanation to understand why the English Parliament passed those numerous navigation, tonnage, poundage, and trade acts that aimed to confine the carrying-trade to vessels of English register, and made it obligatory that colonial staples before being shipped to a foreign port should be first laid on the shores of England; and prohibited the importation of foreign goods, with certain enumerated exceptions, in foreign vessels. "A colony was not looked upon at that time as forming a part of the parent state. It was a business venture, entered into directly by the state itself, or vicari

1 Channing: A History of the United States, vol. 1, p. 8. Cf. Wilson: A History of the American People, vol. 1, p. 101; Fiske: The Critical Period of American History, p. 134 et seq.

ously by means of a grant to some individual or company. If the colony did not earn money, it was a failure. . . . To preserve the proper relations to the parent state, the colony should have within itself elements of wealth which should enrich its projectors; it should absorb the productions of the state which founded it; and in no event ought it to come into competition with its progenitor."1

3

Every European nation endeavored to monopolize the commerce of its colonies.2 The Act of 1660 was designed to make England the entrepôt for colonial staples; that of 1663 was intended to give her merchants the profits of handling all European goods that were consumed in the plantations. Lord Sheffield defended the Navigation Act. It prevented the Dutch, he wrote, "from being the carriers of our trade. The violation or relaxation of that Act in favour of the West India Islands, or the American States, will give that advantage to the New Englanders, and encourage in the greatest degree the marine of America, to the ruin of our own. The Bill in its present state, allowing an open trade between the American States and our Islands, relinquishes the only use and advantage of American Colonies, or West India Islands, the monopoly of

1 Winsor: Narrative and Critical History of America, vol. v, p. 59.

2 Smith: Wealth of Nations, vol. II, p. 83; see also Lecky: A History of England in the Eighteenth Century, chapter XII, passim.

8 Bell: Colonial Administration of Great Britain, p. 47.

their consumption, and the carriage of their produce."1

While it is true that the selfish spirit of commercialism made English merchants and adventurers petition Parliament and the Council for the imposition and strict enforcement of these restrictive acts, it is equally true that they were partly urged by necessity and by the belief that in the strands of a tariff were to be found the bonds of empire. The Act of 16632 was passed to "maintain a greater correspondence and kindness between England and the colonies, and to keep them in a firmer dependence upon it, and rendering them yet more beneficial and advantageous upon it"; in 1719, Parliament declared "that the erecting of manufactories in the colonies tends to lessen their dependence on Great Britain." Here the dual purpose is revealed. The colonies were to be "advantageous unto" England, but the statesmanship of that period also believed that if colonies were permitted to follow the natural laws of trade and form commercial alliances, it would be an easy and short step to a political union. Every act of dependent provincial governments, Sir William Keith, Governor of Pennsylvania, wrote, "ought to terminate in the advantage of the mother-state, unto whom it owes its being and protection in all its valuable privileges; hence

1 Sheffield: Observations on the Commerce of the American States, pp. 135-38. 2 15 Car. II, cap. 7.

3 Winsor: Narrative and Critical History, vol. v, p. 223.

it follows that all advantageous projects or commercial gains in any colony, which are truly prejudicial to and inconsistent with the interests of the mother-state, must be understood to be illegal, and the practice of them unwarrantable, because they contradict the end for which the colony had a being, and are incompatible with the terms on which the people claim both privilege and protection."

In his official report upon the Province of New York, Lord Cornbury wrote in 1705: "I declare my opinion to be that all these colloneys which are but twigs belonging to the main tree [England] ought to be kept entirely dependent upon and subservient to England, and that can never be if they are suffered to goe on in the notions they have, that, as they are Englishmen, soe they may set up the same manufactures here as people may do in England; for the consequence will be; if once they can see they can cloathe themselves, not only comfortably, but handsomely too, without the help of England, they, who are already not very fond of submitting to government, would soon think of putting in execution designs they had long harbourd in their breasts. This will not seem strange when you consider what sort of people this country is habited by.

To avert the danger of the colonies injuring the mother-country and to prevent the tenuation of the

1 Byrd: The History of the Dividing Line between Virginia and North Carolina, vol. II, p. 215.

• Bishop: History of American Manufactures, vol. 1, p. 329.

2

political union, restrictive legislation was imposed. The impulse of necessity was the old one of filling an empty purse. The Stuarts were notoriously hard up, and their successors were equally driven to find money to finance the long series of wars which taxed to the utmost the resources of the country. The dance went on and the piper had to be paid, and the colonists must stand their share. Whether a colonist was taxed so that a King's mistress might indulge her latest extravagant fancy, or that a war in which the colonist had little interest might be carried on, or that the merchants of London or the shipowners of Plymouth might become rich whatever the motive it did not soften the resentment of the colonist, who on general principles objected to paying tithes from which he derived no benefits. After the first years of struggle had passed, the American colonists went steadily forward in improving their material condition, although like all bounty-fed people they came to regard it as their due that the home government should foster domestic industries and grant them liberal subventions. On the one hand, there were these repressive Trade and Navigation Acts, yet the English Government was paying heavy bounties and premiums on the production of rice, indigo, naval stores, and timber suited to the purposes of the Royal Navy. It was in 1660 that the celebrated Navigation Act was passed that restricted 1 Channing: Op. cit., p. 495.