ТОП просматриваемых книг сайта:
History of the United States. Charles A. Beard
Читать онлайн.Название History of the United States
Год выпуска 0
isbn 4064066405472
Автор произведения Charles A. Beard
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
Parliamentary Control over Colonial Affairs.—As soon as Parliament gained in power at the expense of the king, it reached out to bring the American colonies under its sway as well. Between the execution of Charles I and the accession of George III, there was enacted an immense body of legislation regulating the shipping, trade, and manufactures of America. All of it, based on the "mercantile" theory then prevalent in all countries of Europe, was designed to control the overseas plantations in such a way as to foster the commercial and business interests of the mother country, where merchants and men of finance had got the upper hand. According to this theory, the colonies of the British empire should be confined to agriculture and the production of raw materials, and forced to buy their manufactured goods of England.
The Navigation Acts.—In the first rank among these measures of British colonial policy must be placed the navigation laws framed for the purpose of building up the British merchant marine and navy—arms so essential in defending the colonies against the Spanish, Dutch, and French. The beginning of this type of legislation was made in 1651 and it was worked out into a system early in the reign of Charles II (1660–85).
The Navigation Acts, in effect, gave a monopoly of colonial commerce to British ships. No trade could be carried on between Great Britain and her dominions save in vessels built and manned by British subjects. No European goods could be brought to America save in the ships of the country that produced them or in English ships. These laws, which were almost fatal to Dutch shipping in America, fell with severity upon the colonists, compelling them to pay higher freight rates. The adverse effect, however, was short-lived, for the measures stimulated shipbuilding in the colonies, where the abundance of raw materials gave the master builders of America an advantage over those of the mother country. Thus the colonists in the end profited from the restrictive policy written into the Navigation Acts.
The Acts against Manufactures.—The second group of laws was deliberately aimed to prevent colonial industries from competing too sharply with those of England. Among the earliest of these measures may be counted the Woolen Act of 1699, forbidding the exportation of woolen goods from the colonies and even the woolen trade between towns and colonies. When Parliament learned, as the result of an inquiry, that New England and New York were making thousands of hats a year and sending large numbers annually to the Southern colonies and to Ireland, Spain, and Portugal, it enacted in 1732 a law declaring that "no hats or felts, dyed or undyed, finished or unfinished" should be "put upon any vessel or laden upon any horse or cart with intent to export to any place whatever." The effect of this measure upon the hat industry was almost ruinous. A few years later a similar blow was given to the iron industry. By an act of 1750, pig and bar iron from the colonies were given free entry to England to encourage the production of the raw material; but at the same time the law provided that "no mill or other engine for slitting or rolling of iron, no plating forge to work with a tilt hammer, and no furnace for making steel" should be built in the colonies. As for those already built, they were declared public nuisances and ordered closed. Thus three important economic interests of the colonists, the woolen, hat, and iron industries, were laid under the ban.
The Trade Laws.—The third group of restrictive measures passed by the British Parliament related to the sale of colonial produce. An act of 1663 required the colonies to export certain articles to Great Britain or to her dominions alone; while sugar, tobacco, and ginger consigned to the continent of Europe had to pass through a British port paying custom duties and through a British merchant's hands paying the usual commission. At first tobacco was the only one of the "enumerated articles" which seriously concerned the American colonies, the rest coming mainly from the British West Indies. In the course of time, however, other commodities were added to the list of enumerated articles, until by 1764 it embraced rice, naval stores, copper, furs, hides, iron, lumber, and pearl ashes. This was not all. The colonies were compelled to bring their European purchases back through English ports, paying duties to the government and commissions to merchants again.
The Molasses Act.—Not content with laws enacted in the interest of English merchants and manufacturers, Parliament sought to protect the British West Indies against competition from their French and Dutch neighbors. New England merchants had long carried on a lucrative trade with the French islands in the West Indies and Dutch Guiana, where sugar and molasses could be obtained in large quantities at low prices. Acting on the protests of English planters in the Barbadoes and Jamaica, Parliament, in 1733, passed the famous Molasses Act imposing duties on sugar and molasses imported into the colonies from foreign countries—rates which would have destroyed the American trade with the French and Dutch if the law had been enforced. The duties, however, were not collected. The molasses and sugar trade with the foreigners went on merrily, smuggling taking the place of lawful traffic.
Effect of the Laws in America.—As compared with the strict monopoly of her colonial trade which Spain consistently sought to maintain, the policy of England was both moderate and liberal. Furthermore, the restrictive laws were supplemented by many measures intended to be favorable to colonial prosperity. The Navigation Acts, for example, redounded to the advantage of American shipbuilders and the producers of hemp, tar, lumber, and ship stores in general. Favors in British ports were granted to colonial producers as against foreign competitors and in some instances bounties were paid by England to encourage colonial enterprise. Taken all in all, there is much justification in the argument advanced by some modern scholars to the effect that the colonists gained more than they lost by British trade and industrial legislation. Certainly after the establishment of independence, when free from these old restrictions, the Americans found themselves handicapped by being treated as foreigners rather than favored traders and the recipients of bounties in English markets.
Be that as it may, it appears that the colonists felt little irritation against the mother country on account of the trade and navigation laws enacted previous to the close of the French and Indian war. Relatively few were engaged in the hat and iron industries as compared with those in farming and planting, so that England's policy of restricting America to agriculture did not conflict with the interests of the majority of the inhabitants. The woolen industry was largely in the hands of women and carried on in connection with their domestic duties, so that it was not the sole support of any considerable number of people.
As a matter of fact, moreover, the restrictive laws, especially those relating to trade, were not rigidly enforced. Cargoes of tobacco were boldly sent to continental ports without even so much as a bow to the English government, to which duties should have been paid. Sugar and molasses from the French and Dutch colonies were shipped into New England in spite of the law. Royal officers sometimes protested against smuggling and sometimes connived at it; but at no time did they succeed in stopping it. Taken all in all, very little was heard of "the galling restraints of trade" until after the French war, when the British government suddenly entered upon a new course.
Summary of the Colonial Period
In the period between the landing of the English at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, and the close of the French and Indian war in 1763—a period of a century and a half—a new nation was being prepared on this continent to take its place among the powers of the earth. It was an epoch of migration. Western Europe contributed emigrants of many races and nationalities. The English led the way. Next to them in numerical importance were the Scotch-Irish and the Germans. Into the melting pot were also cast Dutch, Swedes, French, Jews, Welsh, and Irish. Thousands of negroes were brought from Africa to till Southern fields or labor as domestic servants in the North.
Why did they come? The reasons are various. Some of them, the Pilgrims and Puritans of New England, the French Huguenots, Scotch-Irish and Irish, and the Catholics of Maryland, fled from intolerant governments that denied them the right to worship God according to the dictates of their consciences. Thousands came to escape the bondage of poverty in the Old World and to find free homes in America. Thousands,