Against this parliament, indeed, the Virginians openly raised the standard of opposition. where upon an ordinance was issued in 1650 prohibiting all correspondence with them except by leave of the council of state, authorising the capture of their ships and merchandise, and prohibiting, under forfeiture of ships and goods, any foreigner from resorting to Virginia, or trading thither, without a license, on any pretext whatever.
This ordinance did not affect the New England provinces or Maryland, but in the following year it was enacted that no — merchandise either of Africa, Asia, or America, including our plantations there. should he imported into England, in any but English built ships. and belonging either to English or English plantation subjects." This ordinance of the rump parliament was the basis of the celebrated British navigation act, passed in 1660, after the restoration of Charles the second. The latter act made it illegal to trade with the colonies except in British and British plantation ships, and forbid foreign merchants to settle there. It prohibited the Americans from carrying tobacco, sugar, cotton, wool, indigo, gin ger, fustic, and other dying woods, to any places but England, Ireland, and his majesty's plantations: but left them at liberty to carry other articles of their produce to foreign countries, and there to purchase such merchandise as they might want. But this last mentioned privilege was confined within very nar row limits by another act, passed in 1663, by whieh it was declared that no merchandise of European growth, production, or manufacture, should be im ported into the colonies, except it were laden or shipped in England, with the exception of " salt for the fisheries, wines from Madeira and the Azores, and servants, victuals, and horses from Scotland or Ireland." The restrictions the British government impos ed on its plantations, were similar to those adopted by other European powers. The design of each was to monopolise the trade of its own colonies, and in their acts of pacification in regard to America, it was usual to insert an article binding the subjects of each contracting power, mutually to abstain from sailing to or trading in any of the harbours, or places, possessed by the other party in the western hemisphere. While the laws of England, therefore,
restricted the North Americans to purchasing Euro pean commodities in the markets of England, a few articles only excepted, the laws of France and Spain restricted their commerce in America to the British colonies. But the North Americans were not very strict in their observance of any of these regulations. In defiance of the Spanish monarch, they appear to have entered into a contraband trade with the Spanish colonies before the year 1660. They be gan to cut logwood in the bay of Campeachy in 1662, and in 1669 they carried considerable quantities of that article to Jamaica and to New England. They also entered into a trade with the French colonists. Of their not paying strict re gard to the British navigation laws, we have evidence in a proclamation issued by king Charles, in 1675," for prohibiting the importation into his American plantations of any European merchandise but what should be laden in England: and for putting other branches of those acts into strict execution telating to America." Sir Josiah Child, in his discourse on trade, published about the year 1670, among other charges against the New Englandmen, asserts that " they do sometimes assume the liberty of trading contrary to the act of navigation, by rea son of which many American commodities, espe cially tobacco and sugar, are transported in New England shipping, directly into Spain and other foreign countries, without being landed in England, or paying any duty to his Majesty." As a settlement was not effected in Carolina till 1663, as the British did not get possession of New York and New Jersey till 1664, and as Pennsylva nia was not settled till 1682, the British colonial policy was matured in all its essential principles, when the only colonies of any importance on the continent were those of Virginia, Maryland, and New England. At this early period do we find their commerce of importance enough to excite the monopolizing spirit of the mother country, and the people bold enough to break through the restraints imposed on them by transatlantic policy.