the sole importation of tobacco, which became involved with the political struggles of the time in England, the charter of the Virginia Company of London was revoked (1624). A royal commission was appointed to readjust the affairs of Virginia and to inaugurate its government as a royal province, and the king declared that he desired the government of all his dominions to be monarchical in form. Several commissions were later appointed to manage the tobacco trade. In 1634 a board of commissioners of plantations was created and it received very large powers over the colonies. Of this body Archbishop Laud was the moving spirit. The year following the New England Council resigned its charter, a writ of quo warranto was issued against the Massachusetts charter, and a plan was nearly perfected for sending out Sir Ferdinando Gorges as royal governor, or rather governor-general, to New England. But means were lacking, the suit against the Massachusetts patent failed to accomplish its purpose, and troubles at home soon absorbed the attention of the government.
30. During the Great Rebellion in England New England was left practically to itself. Strife broke out in Maryland, over which the home government was scarcely able to exercise even a moderating influence. The Dutch from New Netherland and Europe were able to monopolize a large part of the carrying trade in tobacco and European goods. Virginia, with Barbadoes and a few other island colonies, assumed an attitude of distrust or hostility toward the new government in England. In 1651 and 1652 parliament sent out a commission, with an armed force, which reduced the island colonies to submission and adjusted affairs in Virginia by suspending government under Sir William Berkeley, the royalist governor, and leaving control in the hands of the Assembly. By a stretch of power the commissioners also took control of affairs in Maryland, but there they intensified rather than allayed the strife. Baltimore, however, managed to save his interests from total wreck, and at the Restoration was able fully to re-establish his authority.
31. During this period of unstable government in England the seeds were planted of a colonial policy which was henceforth Commercial Influences; Administrative Changes; Navigation Acts and other Restrictive Legislation. to dominate imperial relations. It was then that England entered upon the period of commercial rivalries and wars. The Cromwellian government determined to wrest the control of the carrying trade from the Dutch, and the Navigation Act of 1651 and the first Dutch War were the result. General Robert Sedgwick was sent against New Netherland, but ended in attacking Acadia. At this time also the national hatred of Spain, which had so characterized the age of Elizabeth, reasserted itself and the Spanish seas were invaded, Hispaniola was attacked, and Jamaica was conquered. In connexion with these events plans were formed for a more systematic colonial administration, which Cromwell did not live to execute, but which were taken up by Clarendon, the duke of York, the earl of Shaftesbury and a large group of officials, lawyers and merchants who surrounded them. They took definite shape after the Restoration in the creation of a council for trade and a council for foreign plantations, in the passage of the acts of trade, in the conquest of New Netherland and the organization within it of three English provinces, in the settlement of the Carolinas, in a resolute attempt to remedy grievances and adjust disputes in New England. These events and their consequences give greater importance to the next three or four decades than to any later period until the colonial revolt.
32. The council for foreign plantations was continued, sometimes under a patent and sometimes as a committee of the privy council, until, in 1696, it was commissioned as the board of trade. As a board of inquiry and report, subordinate to the privy council, the most important business relating to the colonies was transacted before it. The acts of trade, in which the principles of the system were laid down, were passed in 1660, 1663, 1673 and 1696. They expanded and systematized the principles of mercantilism as they had long been accepted, and as in some particulars they had already been applied to the Virginia tobacco trade. The import and export trade of the colonies was required to be carried on in English and colonial built ships, manned and commanded by Englishmen. The policy of the staple was applied to the trade of the colonies by the enumeration of their chief products which could not be raised in England and the requirement that such of these as were exported should be brought to England and pay duties there, and that thence the supplies not needed for the English market should be sent to foreign countries. The same policy was applied to all colonial imports by the requirement that they should pass through English ports. In order to prevent intercolonial traffic in enumerated commodities, which might lead to smuggling, the act of 1673 provided for the levy of an export duty on them in the colonies in cases where a bond was not given to land them in the realm. In the 18th century severe restrictive measures were passed to prevent the growth of manufactures, especially of wool, hats and iron, in the colonies; but these acts proved mostly a dead letter, because the colonies had not reached the stage where such industries could be developed on any scale. Certain compensations, favourable to the colonies, also appear in the system, e.g. the measures to suppress the raising of tobacco in England and Ireland, in order that the colonists might have the monopoly of that market; the payment of bounties on the importation of naval stores and on the production of indigo by the colonists; the allowance, on the re-exportation of colonial products, of drawbacks of part or all of the duties paid on importation; the admission of colonial imports at lower rates of duty than were charged on the same products from foreign countries. In order to ensure the enforcement of these acts elaborate provisions became necessary for the issue of bonds, and this, with the collection of a duty in the colonies, led to the appointment of colonial customs officers who were immediately responsible to the commissioners of the customs and the treasury board in England. With them the governors were ordered to co-operate. Courts of vice-admiralty, with authority to try cases without a jury, were established in the colonies; and just before the close of the seventeenth century they were given jurisdiction over violations of the acts of trade, a power which they did not have in England. Naval officers were very generally provided for by colonial law, who were to co-operate with the customs officers in the entry and clearance of vessels; but in some cases their aim was rather to keep control over trade in colonial hands. It thus appears that the resolve to enforce the policy set forth in the acts of trade resulted in a noteworthy extension of imperial control over the colonies. How far it was successful in the immediate objects sought it is impossible to say. In some of the colonies and at some times the acts were practically nullified. Illegal trading was always carried on, especially in time of war. In such times it was closely allied with privateering and piracy. But in the large it is probable that the acts were effective, and their existence always furnished a standard to which officials were required by their instructions and oaths to conform. By the Act of Union of 1707 Scotland was admitted to the advantages of the English trade system. In 1733, in order to check the development of the French colonies and prevent the importation Molasses Act. of their products into English possessions, the Molasses Act was passed. This provided for high specific duties on rum, molasses and sugar, when imported from foreign colonies into those of Great Britain. So high were these rates that they could not be collected, and therefore no serious attempt was made to enforce the act.
33. Returning again to the 17th century, in order to trace in other connexions the notable advance which was then made in colonial administration, we are to note that the conquest of New Netherland by the British in 1664 was an event of great importance. Taken in connexion with the settlement of the Carolinas, it completed the hold which the English had upon the North American coast and gave them for the first time an extent of territory which could be profitably developed.
