COMMERCE AND NAVIGATION.
The first settlers of Virginia encountered many difficulties: but such were their industry and per severance, that by the year 1619, only twelve years after the commencement of the building of James town,they not only stocked the English market with their staple, tobacco, but opened a trade for it with Holland, and established warehouses in Middle burgh and Flushing. As there was a duty of five per cent payable on this article when imported into England, king James did not see with indifference the diversion of a part of his revenue to foreign states: and though the colonists remonstrated against the injustice of the proceeding, they were ordered to bring all their tobacco to England, in despite of their privileges as Englishmen, and of the plain letter of their charter. The injustice did not end here:for tobacco was made a royal monopoly; and the king, " out of pity to the country" as he declared, that the planters should not make more than one hundred weight of tobacco per man; for the market was so low that he could not afford to give them more than three shillings a pound for it." He, however, sold it out at much higher prices.
The order to bring all their tobacco to England the Virginians evaded; and to their trade with Europe, they added a profitable trade with the Indians for pelt•y. To these branches of trade was added, in 1620, a trade in slaves, in which year a Dutch ship bound homeward from the coast of Guinea, sold twenty of this wretched race to the colonists.
The order to bring all tobacco to England, ap pears to have been the only commercial restriction the mother country imposed on the colonies, till the year 1646: for the proclamation issued by king Charles in 1638, prohibiting the sailing of ships with passengers or provisions to New England, without special license, was strictly of a political nature. No duty was charged on goods exported from England to the colonies, and the produce of the colonies when imported into England paid a duty of only five per cent. Foreign vessels were permitted to trade to the colonies, and foreign merchants to settle in them as agents and factors.
Under this system, notwithstanding their fre quent wars with the Indians, and many faults in their internal policy, the progress of the colonists in wealth was not inconsiderahle. To agriculture and to a trade with the Indians for peltries, the New Englandmcn soon added fisheries: and a trade with the West Indies. The introduction of the culture
of sugar into Barbadocs, which took place about the year 1641, rendered the last mentioned trade very profitable.
In the year 1646, an ordinance was passed declar ing that whereas the several plantations of Vir ginia, Bermuda, Barbadoes, and other places, have been much beneficial to this kingdom by the increase of navigation and of the customs arising from the commodities cf the growth of these plantations im ported into this kingdom. And as goods and neces saries carried thither from hence have not hitherto paid any custom: for the better carrying on of said plantations, it is now ordered by the lords and com mons in parliament, that all merchandise, goods, and necessaries for the supportation, use, and ex pense of said plantations, shall pay no custom nor duty for the same, the duty of excise only excepted, for three years to come, except to the plantations in Newfoundland; security being given here, and certificate from thence, that the said goods be really exported thither, and for the only use of the said plantations.—Provided always, that none in any of the said plantations do suffer any ship or vessel to lade any goods of the growth of the planta tions, and carry them to foreign parts, except in English bottoms: under forfeiture of the before named exemption from custom." A jealousy of the Dutch, partly political and partly commercial. led to the enaction of this, the first of the British navigation acts, touching the colonies. It left the colonists at liberty to export their produce whither they chose, provided it was exported in English bottoms: and it did not prevent foreign ships from making sales of cargoes in the colonies, but only from taking in lading there. Such was the letter of the law. The penalty im posed for a breach of it, or rather the favour offered for the observance of it, a continuance for three rears only of an exemption from customs on goods export ed from England to the colonies, was so incon siderable, that it was probably little regarded. Without understandingthc philosophy of free trade, the colonists had practical experience of its benefits: and the Virginians were little disposed to obey the ordinances of a parliament which had set the royal power at defiance.