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History of the United States from the Discovery of the Continent (Classic.American Historians)
History of the United States from the Discovery of the Continent - Classic.American Historians Author:George Bancroft Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 42 THE NAVIGATION ACT OF CHARLES K. Chap. whether the power of parliament was co-extensive witn —v the English empire, but what territories the terms of ... more » 166 the act included, they were interpreted to exclude " the dominions not of the crown of England." 1 The tax was, also, never levied in the colonies; nor was it understood that the colonies were bound by a statute, unless they were expressly named.2 That distinctness was not wanting, when it was required by the interests of English merchants. The Navigation Act of the commonwealth had not been designed to trammel the commerce of the colonies, the convention parliament, the same body which betrayed the liberties of England, by restoring the Stuarts without conditions, now, by the most memorable statute3 in the English maritime code, connected in one act the protection of English shipping, and a monopoly to the English merchant of the trade with the colonies. Ir the reign of Richard II.,4 the commerce of English ports had been secured to English shipping: the act of navigation of 1651 had done no more; and against it the colonists made no serious objection. The present act renewed the same provisions, and further avowed the design of sacrificing the natural rights of the colonists to English interests. " No merchandise shall be imported into the plantations but in English vessels, navigated by Englishmen, under penalty of forfeiture." The harbors of the colonies were shut against the Dutch, and every foreign vessel.—America, as the asylum of the oppressed, invited emigrants from the most varied climes. It was now enacted, that none but native or naturalized subjects should become a mer- 1 Vaughan'a Reports, 170. Com- 2 Blackstone, i. 107,108; ChittT pare Tyrwhit and Tyndale'a Digest, on Prerogative, 3...« less