Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 2.djvu/92

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90

HISTORY OF

of the articles which could thus only be imported in English or native bottoms.^[1] On the other hand, the restrictions of the act of 1651, as to importation into England, were now made equally applicable to the exportation of goods from England to other European countries.^[2] A Navigation Act similar to the English one was passed by the parliament of Scotland the following year; and the English statute was altered, and in some respects made still more rigid or more comprehensive, by subsequent acts, of which it is not necessary to give any particular account. We may merely mention that, by a clause in an act for regulating the customs, passed in 1662 (13 and 14 Car. II. c. 11, s. 23), it was enacted that no sort of wines other than Rhenish, no sort of spicery, grocery, tobacco, potashes, pitch, tar, salt, resin, deal-boards, fir, timber, or olive oil, should be imported from the Netherlands or Germany, "upon any pretence whatsoever, in any sort of ships or vessels whatsoever, upon penalty of the loss of all the said goods, as also of the ships and furniture."

↑ Some modern accounts of the Navigation Act state that the goods thus forbidden to be brought from any part of Europe except in English ships, or ships of the country, were those that came to he known in commerce by the name of enumerated articles. But this is a mistake: what were formerly called enumerated goods, an expression used in many subsequent acts of parliament, were certain articles, the produce of the English plantations, with regard to which it was provided by the act (sec. 18) that they should not be conveyed to any part of the world whatsoever without first being shipped to England, and brought on shore there.
↑ This important extension of the first Navigation Act has not usually been noticed. But it is common to speak of a provision in the act of the 12 Car. II., making it necessary that, in addition to the ship being English property, the master and at least three-fourths of the sailors should be Englishmen, as a new regulation and a very material improvement upon the old law (see Blackstone, Com. i. 419^{[deeplink needed]}); the fact being, that the act of 1651 demands very nearly the same thing,—it requires that the majority of the crew shall be English.—See the act in Scobell, II. 176.

[1] Some modern accounts of the Navigation Act state that the goods thus forbidden to be brought from any part of Europe except in English ships, or ships of the country, were those that came to he known in commerce by the name of enumerated articles. But this is a mistake: what were formerly called enumerated goods, an expression used in many subsequent acts of parliament, were certain articles, the produce of the English plantations, with regard to which it was provided by the act (sec. 18) that they should not be conveyed to any part of the world whatsoever without first being shipped to England, and brought on shore there.

[2] This important extension of the first Navigation Act has not usually been noticed. But it is common to speak of a provision in the act of the 12 Car. II., making it necessary that, in addition to the ship being English property, the master and at least three-fourths of the sailors should be Englishmen, as a new regulation and a very material improvement upon the old law (see Blackstone, Com. i. 419^{[deeplink needed]}); the fact being, that the act of 1651 demands very nearly the same thing,—it requires that the majority of the crew shall be English.—See the act in Scobell, II. 176.

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