Since 1642 the colonists had enjoyed political autonomy and an open trade with all the world; and so long as King and Parliament were at war that liberty was unassailable. But now that the Roundheads had won, their backers among the London merchants would be certain to demand a reimposition of restrictions; and the planters revolted, not against the Commonwealth as such, but against the overlordship of the English mercantile interest. Since, however, rebellion needs the spur of moral enthusiasm as well as of material advantage, the royalist standard floated over the movement. But had the King been victorious, it might well have fallen to him to despatch an expedition to reduce colonists resisting him in the name of the Bible and liberty. Virginia, Maryland and Bermuda all repudiated the Commonwealth in 1649. In the Caribbee Islands the revolt was limited to Barbados and Antigua and was delayed until the following year. In Barbados it was more determined than anywhere else, partly by reason of the density of population and the defensibility of the coast, partly because a really fanatical royalism actuated the leaders and lent moral strength to the economic calculations of the rest. The island had become the chosen home of royalist refugees from England. Its own preference hitherto had been for the neutral attitude it had formerly expressed, although it was quite ready to resist any attempt from home to curtail its liberty. But in the spring of 1650 the royalist faction overruled Philip Bell, the governor, and banished the known Puritans of the community, fining and confiscating to a merciless extent. In the midst of these proceedings there arrived Francis, Lord Willoughby of Parham, with a commission from Charles II and a lease of the Caribbean proprietorship from its nominal owner, the Earl of Carlisle. Willoughby took command and proclaimed the King, and afterwards went on to secure the Leeward Islands. He was successful at Antigua, which had been developed largely by Barbadians, but failed at St Christopher, Nevis and Montserrat. St Christopher, since the death of its founder Sir Thomas Warner in 1649, had been governed by Major Rowland Redge, who determined to maintain neutrality; Nevis and Montserrat, connected with it by personal ties, followed its example. Willoughby returned to Barbados to organise an active defence, by which he hoped at least to bring the Commonwealth to a compromise. Thus, with Prince Rupert still at large, the Civil War had entered upon an oceanic phase in which it was by no means certain that the Commonwealth would be able to bring its crushing military force to bear upon its opponents. During these events New England maintained essentially the same attitude, modified only in externals, as that of her southern fellowcolonies. The New Englanders were Puritans by religion and certainly not Royalists, and so lacked any ostensible cause of quarrel with the Puritans of England. But they had achieved as complete an autonomy as had the royalist planters of the south, and they had no MERCANTILE PRINCIPLES 213 more intention of surrendering it to their friends at home than had those royalist rebels to their enemies. Massachusetts had instantly perceived the implication of the Parliament's claim to be the paramount authority in the Empire. As early as 1642 she had declined an offer of favourable legislation by the Puritans at Westminster "lest in after times... hostile forces might be in control, and meantime a precedent would have been established". The New Englanders had felt quite competent to deal with a distant King, whose prerogative could be little more than a name in colonies which appointed all their own officers of state, but to be subject to the English House of Commons might mean the ultimate relinquishment of colonial rights of legislation. New England was therefore verbally cordial to the Commonwealth, whilst letting it be understood that she would submit to no interference with her liberties; and since she had no very valuable trade with Europe there was the less incentive for English statesmen to molest her. Such were the problems confronting the new CommonwealthEuropean disapproval, Scottish and Irish hostility, maritime war with Rupert and the privateers, and finally, the colonial revolt-and we have now to turn to the principles and methods of its statesmen in dealing with them. The principles, as has been said, were of no recent growth. On the economic side, they were directed to the increase of the national wealth and can be grouped under the designation of the mercantile system. But mercantilism, as the term is commonly employed, had a wider scope than the mere acquisition of wealth. Wealth needed defence, and thus the defensive power of the nation must also come within the purview of the economist. Foreign trade could never be secure without the shield of a powerful navy, but at the same time it seemed possible to arrange by suitable legislation that trade itself should produce some of the elements of which naval power was composed. In earlier times the warship had been simply a merchantman adapted for the purpose, and the idea still held force that the possession of large merchant ships was a national asset; for the dockyards which could build them could also build warships. There was thus an incentive for mercantilists to promote those trades which employed large ships-that is, the long-distance colonial trades. Still more strongly did this motive work with respect to the men. The man who could sail a merchantman could sail a warship, and gunnery was a craft whose rudiments were easily acquired. The State needed thousands of seamen in time of war, but could not afford to pay them in time of peace. Therefore it was essential to promote the employment of seamen in commerce, and the commerce of long voyages was the best for the purpose, since it occupied more men than that of short voyages for the transportation of a given quantity of stuff. In another aspect considerations of defence required that the country should be self-sufficing and not dependent upon foreigners for certain indispensable wares. Naval stores-masts, pitch, cables and cordage -were in Europe, as has been stated in earlier chapters, the monopoly of the Powers controlling the Baltic coasts, and so mercantilist statesmen were never weary of planning the acquisition of colonies wherein these goods should be produced under the national flag. So also dependence upon foreigners for any other class of goods which the national colonies could be made to supply was held to be an avoidable weakness.1 The interpretation of an agreed body of doctrine is influenced by the special desires of those who stand at the statesman's elbow. After 1649 the predominant voice in Government councils was that of the City interest-not only of the investors who had constituted the great chartered companies, but also of the individualist merchants in unincorporated or interloping trades, a class which had never before been so numerous and influential. Under James I and Charles I there had been a strong court interest in commercial and colonial affairs-the owners of proprietary grants and trading monopolies, the farmers of the customs, and the stockholders in certain chartered companies, such as that for the Amazon and Guiana, but this was now entirely eclipsed, and the Commonwealth leaders had ears only for the views of the City. Hence a body of opinion found expression which was hostile to colonial proprietorships and even to the chartered companies, such as the East Indian and African, although these had derived much of their support from the City. Particular monopolies of all sorts were attacked in the name of fair play for all, and the individuals who during the Civil War had infringed them with impunity hoped to continue to do so. But the tendency was only to seek freedom of enterprise as between Englishmen, and the monopolist spirit demanded all the more strongly that restrictions should be placed upon the enterprise of foreigners within the English sphere of control. Stuart rule, in short, had favoured particular monopolies; Commonwealth rule was to favour national monopolies. Before considering the extent to which these ideas were put into practice, it is necessary to pause for a moment to observe the administrative mechanism employed. Until the outbreak of the Civil War, oceanic trade and colonisation had been matters under the royal prerogative, and Parliament had never clearly established its right to intervene in them. In 1643 Parliament had appointed a strong Commission, under the presidency of the Earl of Warwick, to take charge of the colonies and their trade, but circumstances had prevented its power from being effective. Warwick's Commission ceased to function after the execution of the King, when the Council of State became the executive authority for all branches of the administration, the colonies being expressly placed under its care by an Act of 13 February 1649. The 1 See Beer, passim. THE NAVIGATION ACT OF 1650 215 Council of State acted through committees of its own members, sometimes assisted by outside experts in the various branches of business. At first the colonial committees were indiscriminately manned, but in December 1651 the Council appointed a standing committee for trade and foreign affairs, whose members included Cromwell, Vane and Haslerig, old members of Warwick's Commission. This body transacted most of the colonial business until the fall of the Long Parliament in April 1653. Another committee which also had dealings with oceanic matters was the Committee of the Admiralty, the successor to the duties of the Lord High Admiral of the old administrative system. In addition to these authorities, Parliament made in August 1650 an attempt to create a permanent department by appointing a Council of Trade (and, in practice, of Plantations) under the presidency of Sir Henry Vane. This body had in theory complete powers over all branches of trade, fisheries and colonies, and also over the customs, excise and exchanges. For a year it was very active, and then it gradually resigned its functions to those committees of the Council of State which it had never entirely superseded. Thus it may be seen that, although there was multiplicity and overlapping of authorities, there was as well a full opportunity for questions of policy to be aired and developed; and the fact that active individuals served on more than one body simultaneously may have lessened the inevitable confusion. Among the outsiders called in to assist may be noted the names of Martin Noell and William Pennoyer, merchants doing large business with the western colonies, and of Maurice Thompson, whose interests extended to the East Indies as well as to the Caribbean. With the establishment of the Protectorate in 1653, the Protector's Council superseded the Council of State, and the colonial administration was carried on with very little change.1 The outcome of the attention devoted to maritime affairs may be seen in the Navigation Acts of 1650 and 1651. The former has not until recent times received the consideration its importance demands, chiefly because its true intention is not apparent on a cursory reading. On 3 October 1650, some two months after it was known that Barbados had defied the Commonwealth, Parliament passed an Act to meet the situation. The preamble is worth quoting, for it states an imperial doctrine: whereas, it runs, there are in divers places in America2 colonies "which were planted at the cost and settled by the people, and by authority of this nation, which are and ought to be subordinate to and dependent upon England; and hath ever since the planting thereof been, and ought to be, subject to such laws, orders and regulations as are or shall be made by the Parliament of 1 See Andrews, C. M., British Committees, etc., of Trade and Plantations, 1622-75, PP: 23-35. 2 By contemporary usage, "America" included the West Indies. England,...be it enacted", etc. The enacting clauses may be summarised as follows: (1) prohibition of all trade, by foreigners and others, with the rebels in Barbados, Bermuda, Virginia and Antigua; (2) prohibition to the ships of any foreign nation to trade without licence with any of the English Plantations in America, the object being "to hinder the carrying over of any such persons as are enemies to this Commonwealth"; (3) power to the Council of State to settle governors and make other political arrangements in the Plantations, any letters patents, or other authority formerly granted or given to the contrary notwithstanding". Seldom has so much revolutionary matter been compacted into a document so small and of so innocent an appearance. Ostensibly, the Act is an ephemeral measure of emergency against a set of rebels; and as such it was accepted at the time of passing, for it seems to have drawn no protest except from the rebels in question. Yet it embodies an affirmation of three separate doctrines or policies, all novel or hitherto unaccepted, and it contains no provision that its validity shall come to an end with the rebellion which has evoked it. The three principles are: the doctrine, countered eight years before by Massachusetts, that Parliament has supreme legislative power over the colonies; the absolute prohibition to foreign shipping to trade, not merely in the rebellious, but in all the colonies; and the nullification of all proprietary or chartered company rights at the discretion of the Council of State. All this is hung upon the peg of a rebellion in four colonies, and the artifice of implying one thing whilst saying another is the better appreciated on a study of the text, in which the clauses of permanent effect are expressed in a few words and placed in subordinate positions. Surely there was never a thinner excuse for permanently closing the colonial trade of a substantial empire than that it was done to hinder the transit of disaffected persons. This Act remained in force until the Restoration. Encouraged, no doubt, by the absence of any protest from the foreigners affected (for the first seizures of ships contravening the Act seem not to have been made until the close of 1651), the Commonwealth statesmen proceeded after a year to a further measure, the Navigation Act of 1651. The preamble is short, but again is worth quoting, for some waste of ink would have been avoided had all commentators weighed it. It says simply: "For the increase of the shipping and encouragement of the navigation of this nation, which under the good providence and protection of God, is so great a means of the welfare and safety of this Commonwealth, be it enacted", etc. The provisions are: no goods from Asia, Africa or America to be brought into England, Ireland or the Plantations, save in English (including Irish and colonial) ships, the majority of the members of each crew being English; no goods from Europe to be brought into 1 Acts and Ordinances of the Interregnum, ed. Firth and Rait, II, 425-9. 2 Vide supra, p. 179. |