CONSOLIDATION OF THE COLONIAL SYSTEM 569 undertake and of the place that colonies should occupy in a national scheme. The Committee was to enquire what trades were advantageous and what disadvantageous to the country, and it was to explore means of fostering the former and of correcting the latter. It was to consider the "setting on work and employing the poor" of the country. Special attention had to be paid to the colonies, for in the successful development of these new areas might well be found the solution of some of the mother country's more difficult problems. Commodities for which she had hitherto been dependent on foreign countries might be secured from the colonies if the proper steps were taken. This might involve the giving of special encouragement to certain activities in the colonies and the definite discouragement of others. The Committee was in fact expected to work out a complete mercantilist programme; and throughout the period of its existence it certainly attempted to do so, though not with uniform persistency. Its functions were limited to enquiry and report, a fact which largely explains its later ineffectiveness; for the compilation of reports and recommendations, which were either completely ignored or only accepted with serious modifications, did not supply a sufficient stimulus for continuous activity.

The main principles of the colonial system had been defined in the laws of trade and navigation, but it was already quite clear that the enforcement of this code presented considerable difficulties. Evasion was undoubtedly common enough when it offered any advantage. It was impossible to supervise all the shipping along the miles of coast of the mainland of North America and among the intricacies of the West Indies. The war with France made the task more arduous than it would otherwise have been. Further, the Customs officers found that the privileges enjoyed by the charter and proprietary colonies hampered them at every turn. As has been mentioned, Edward Randolph, who had already had much experience as an official in the colonies, was in 1691 appointed surveyor-general of the customs in America. After an extensive tour of inspection he drew up a long indictment against the colonists for breaches of the trade laws. He declared that it was practically impossible to get the juries in the common law courts to return a verdict against those charged with breaking the law. In some cases advantage was taken of omissions from or ambiguities in the existing legislation. Many of these difficulties were removed by the comprehensive Navigation Act of 1696, the main purpose of which was to define so precisely the application of principles already enunciated that evasion would be

2

more difficult.

The establishment of the new Committee for Trade and Plantations and the passing of the comprehensive Navigation Act coincided with 1 St. Pap. Col., Board of Trade, Plantations Genl., IV, 57; cf. Toppan, R. N., Edward Randolph, v, 2 7 and 8 Will. III, cap. 22.

117-24.

the making of definite provision for the assessing of the volume of trade. In 1696 William Culliford was appointed Inspector-General of Exports and Imports in order that he "might make a balance of the trade between this kingdom and the other parts of the world". He was required to submit regular returns to the House of Commons. From the year of his appointment there is a continuous series of these returns which gave the mercantilists in general and the Board of Trade in particular an indication of the state of trade and guidance as to the policy it was necessary to pursue to correct adverse balances. It is easy to criticise the general idea underlying these compilations and the form in which the figures are presented. The values expressed, for instance, are based on official values as given in the current book of rates and consequently they bear no definite relation to real values. Strictly speaking they are not values at all but quantitative terms (tons, cwts., lbs., yards, feet, etc.) multiplied by the official monetary value for the time being attached to the unit of weight or measure in the case of each commodity. Since the balance of trade was to be found by setting the real value of exports against the real value of imports these figures are not a true means of measuring it. These criticisms, however, are beside the point. The mercantilists had no other statistical method of judging whether commercial policy was or was not achieving the ends at which they aimed. The returns were generally regarded as an "abundant source of parliamentary information". The significance of the figures is, not that they accurately represented the true state of affairs, but that they were generally supposed to be reliable enough for practical purposes.

If the figures for a series of years be taken, a fairly clear conception can be formed of the relative importance contemporaries would attach to trade with the various colonies. The favourite distinction made by mercantilist writers was between Plantations which produced commodities of a different nature from those of the mother country and those which did not; a distinction which was ultimately based on climatic conditions. Tropical and sub-tropical colonies were highly valued. The original system of enumeration was designed to secure the fullest possible benefit from them. In the first place in order of importance according to this theory were Barbados and Jamaica, together with Antigua, Montserrat, Nevis and St Christopher. These Plantations mainly exported sugar and other enumerated articles such as indigo and ginger.

Since sugar cultivation was carried on by means of slave labour, it was intimately connected with the African trade. It is, therefore, necessary to consider the exports from England to Africa as related to and consequent upon the development of the West Indies. The heavy exports to Africa were largely paid for by the purchasers of slaves in the West Indies, and in the circumstances the contention 1 Burke, Edmund, Speeches in the House of Commons, 1, 280.

MERCANTILIST EVALUATION OF THE COLONIES 571

that the institution of slavery was essential to the maintenance of the colonial system could hardly be challenged. Eighteenth-century mercantilists, such as William Wood, Joshua Gee and Malachy Postlethwayt, quite frankly state that the most profitable Plantation trade-that of the West Indies-could not be carried on without slave labour.

Of the continental colonies Virginia and Maryland were regarded as the most valuable because they supplied tobacco. In the earlier part of the seventeenth century attempts had been made to diversify the products of the southern colonies, but the tobacco crop had established itself. By the end of the century it was generally raised on large holdings worked by slave labour. Tobacco was the only important product of the mainland which was included in the original list of enumerated articles. It was not quite in the same category as sugar and other exotics. Alone of the enumerated articles it could be grown in England, but it was felt that the advantages of getting the supply from America-the amount of shipping employed, the market for English manufactures in the colonies, and the heavy yield of the customs duties levied on its importation— justified the step of forbidding the cultivation of the plant in England. The Government took drastic measures to enforce this prohibition, and though English farmers made persistent efforts to evade the regulation, a virtual monopoly for colonial tobacco in the English market was ultimately secured.

Trade with Carolina was as yet of slight importance. The settlements in this area had been promoted with very definite ends in view. They were to produce commodities for which England was then dependent on the countries of southern Europe. For seven years they were to be exempt from the payment of English customs duties on silks, wines, currants, raisins, capers, wax, almonds and olives. If the settlers produced these commodities, they would not find themselves in competition with the existing Plantations, either West Indian or continental, and they would contribute to correct the adverse balance of trade between England and the Mediterranean countries. But the idea that they could fit themselves into such a preconceived scheme is typical of the crude notions which were entertained about the possibilities of colonisation. It is scarcely necessary to say that Carolina fulfilled none of these high expectations, but mercantilists continued to draw attention to her supposed potentialities. In 1729 Joshua Gee is still calling for special measures to induce the colonists to supply what the mother country counted desirable.1 Carolina, however, found a staple crop by a mere accident. A captain of a ship from Madagascar happened to give a settler a bag of seed-rice, and experiment proved that the climate and soil were suitable for its cultivation. It was soon grown in large 1 Gee, Joshua, Trade and Navigation of Great Britain considered (1729), pp. 21–2.

quantities and found a ready market in Spain and Portugal. It was added to the list of enumerated articles in 1706,1 with the result that the freight charges involved in first shipping it to England so increased the price that it could not compete with Egyptian and Italian rice. But this grievance of Carolina was removed in 1730 when the colony was allowed to export rice direct to any country in Europe south of Cape Finisterre.2

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The mercantilists were much exercised by the question whether the mother country derived any real advantage from the northern continental colonies. They had most serious doubts about New England. None of its products had been enumerated because its climate was such that what could be grown there would enter into direct competition with English agriculture if imported to this country. "New England", Josiah Child asserted, "is the most prejudicial Plantation to this kingdom." The trouble was that New England was a replica of Old England and not its complement. It sold corn and cattle to the West Indies and the southern colonies, thus depriving the mother country of possible markets for these goods. Part of the sugar, tobacco and other commodities it secured in payment it shipped to England in order to purchase manufactured articles. But the difficulty of finding sufficient means to make exchanges with the mother country was so great that the colonists had a strong inducement to endeavour to supply their own requirements. The mercantilists were suspicious of incipient industries, the development of which would in their opinion be of serious consequence to the mother country. So they were anxious to discover some commodities that New England could produce which would enable her to be of service. The most hopeful suggestion seemed to be that she should concentrate on the production of naval stores, for these were required in England. Dependence on the supplies from the Baltic countries was a matter of much concern, and to eliminate the consequent adverse balances was highly desirable. But, although New England did produce the articles included under the head of naval stores and they were used by the local shipbuilders, they could not gain a footing in the English market in competition with the Baltic supplies owing to higher cost of production and heavy freight charges. At the end of the seventeenth century the exports of New England included few products of the region except train-oil and furs, and the problem of making the settlements beneficial to the mother country remained unsolved. But Child's description of New England as “the most prejudicial Plantation" was not accepted without qualification by subsequent writers. William Wood stressed the fact that in peace time the northern colonies could sell provisions in the other Plantations at a lower rate than the mother country could, and that in time of war the interdependence of the colonies was of first importance. 4 Anne, cap. 5. 3 Geo. II, cap. 28. Child, p. 204.

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1 and

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OPPOSITION TO COLONIAL MANUFACTURES 573

He counted the general result advantageous to the mother country; for, if the northern colonies found markets for their provisions, they would not be tempted to set up manufactures but would expend the profits of their trade in buying from England. His general conclusion was that the northern colonies were a benefit so long as the country possessed the sugar islands. If by any chance the islands in the West Indies were lost they would become "prejudicial colonies to their mother country". He carried the discussion a step further than Child did; but he still gave to the northern colonies a secondary place in the colonial system.

The attempt to prescribe what the colonies should produce, based as it was on what was considered desirable rather than on an enquiry as to what was possible, was bound to meet with disappointments. Natural development of the resources which the colonists found to hand did not fit in with what the mercantilists conceived to be the interests of the mother country. Nor was it possible to restrict them to the extractive industries. Their needs as pioneers opening up a new country, their knowledge of industrial processes as emigrants from an old country, the potentialities of their new environment, were all factors likely to create opposing interests, which could not be reconciled within the narrow limits of any preconceived system. To clothe themselves the colonists were forced to make homespuns; but the transition from supplying the wants of the household to those of a local market was easy when production, even in the mother country, still depended on the use of the spinningwheel and the hand-loom. It is true that England could hold her own in quality. For rough use, however, colonial woollens had the advantage of immediate access to the purchasers with the economies that involved.

In view of the importance attached to the woollen industry as the staple industry of England it is not remarkable that the Board of Trade should have made an enquiry into its position one of its first tasks. That it apprehended a danger from Irish competition and recommended the restrictions which were imposed in 1699 is well known. The Board of Trade had represented to the House of Commons at the same time that "Notwithstanding it was the intent in settling our Plantations in America that the people there should be only employed in such things as are not the product of this kingdom... yet New England and other Northern Colonies have applied themselves too much, besides other things, to the improvement of woollen manufactures amongst themselves, which in its proportion is as prejudicial to this kingdom as the working of those manufactures in Ireland; wherefore it is submitted the like prohibition be made with relation to them". Powers were accordingly taken to prevent the

1 Wood, pp. 145-9 (cf. Davenant, II, 24).

2 Cal. St. Pap. Col., Addenda, 1621-98, pp. 17-18.