lished, and for the time fully exercised; and the right thus achieved by the representatives of the people of participating in the levy of indirect or customs taxation, also necessarily drew with it the right to participate in general legislation, or upon all subjects which Parliament might deem proper.
It is also interesting to recall in connection with this subject, that when the old English kings began to levy tolls on ships entering into harbors, in common with tolls on transportation by roads and navigable streams, the tax was on the ship directly, and not specifically upon its contents. And in early charters instances occur of grants to individuals or monasteries of an exemption from toll for one ship of burden; and in the event of the destruction of the particular ship, the privilege was extended to another ship. But with such tolls or taxes once established, the idea soon developed that like forms of exaction might be made to serve a commercial purpose as well as produce revenue; and, as might have been expected, they therefore early became instrumentalities for fiscal oppression; and, with a view of advancing the interests of English merchants, or of protecting native industries, they were especially directed against the commerce of foreigners. And while the crown, as early as 1275, was deprived of much of its arbitrary power of levying customs for revenue, its prerogative of restraining trade and imposing onerous burdens on exchanges with foreigners remained not only undisturbed but undisputed. Foreign merchants, or trading companies, frequently purchased immunity from such exactions; but yet, according to Mr. Hall, in his History of the English "Customs," to the 'custos' of the ports, to the riverside baron, to the wayside outlaw and the town apprentice, the Lombard or Flemish peddler or merchant appeared as fair game for violence and extortion of every kind." And in the earlier records of England's customs experience, their oppressive features are of higher interest than their revenue or fiscal characteristics. English producers and traders, furthermore, having secured immunity from arbitrary taxation themselves, were quite willing to see this instrument of restraint and oppression turned against their foreign competitors; and, accordingly, during the whole of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, and the first quarter of the nineteenth century, the whole commercial policy of England was based on the theory of the so-called "mercantile system"; the fundamental principle of which was that commerce could benefit one country only to the extent that it injured another; and that it was the part of wisdom always to secure a favorable balance of trade by selling as much and buying as little as possible, and receiving pay for what was sold, not in other useful products, but in gold.
