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THE PLANTATION DUTY

277

general, their securities accepted at the Exchequer, and their certificates issued out of the office of the King's Remembrancer.1 Bonds in the case of the corporate colonies were to be given in America, though the form of such bonds had not been drawn up even as late as 1722.2 From time to time special trade instructions were issued to the governors, which in the case of the proprietary colonies were sent to the proprietors. Thus in all the colonies-royal, proprietary, and corporate-the governors were made the sole responsible agents for carrying out the Acts of Trade in America.3

During the period from 1660 to 1673, experience showed that an effective administration of the Acts was going to be both difficult and slow. One obstacle was removed by the capture of New Netherland from the Dutch in 1664, but even that event was far from ending the Dutch trade with the colonies. Trouble also arose because of the exclusion of the Scots, while within a few years the place of Ireland in the commercial scheme was to prove so unsatisfactory as to become a matter of acute controversy. But for the moment the most pressing issue was not the problem of Holland, Scotland, or Ireland, but a defect which revealed itself in the Act of 1660 and which called for early attention because the colonials were taking advantage of it. The situation was as follows. Under the Act all persons wishing to trade in enumerated commodities had to furnish a bond in England, the value of which was determined by the tonnage of their ships, to carry the staple-sugar, tobacco, etc.-either directly to England or to one of the Plantations. This carrying of an enumerated commodity from one Plantation to another, without customs duty at either end, was permitted in order that a coastwise trade might be built up for the benefit of the colonists themselves. But in operation this privilege was abused and led to what was considered in England an evasion of the law. When once tobacco or sugar had been shipped from one colony to another, the shipper, who was generally a New Englander dealing in Maryland or North Carolina tobacco, believed that the letter of the law had been met and his security released from the penalty of the Act, and, disregarding the manifest intent of the law that such commodity should be set ashore for the use of the colonists, proceeded to reship all or a part of the cargo to some European port, Amsterdam or Hamburg.

This practice was clearly illegal, and, as the evidence in the case seemed ample, Parliament in 1672 took the matter in hand and passed the supplementary or explanatory Act of 1672-3. By this Act provision was made that all vessels arriving at the Plantations and

1 B.T. Journal, 1708-15, pp. 433, 437; 1715-8, pp. 199, 200 seqq.

Colonial Records of Connecticut, 1717-25, p. 364; Rhode Island Colonial Records, IV, 327; B.T. Journal, 1718-22, p. 353.

3 New York Colonial Documents, IV, 291-2; A.P.C., Colonial, III, 21; B.T. Journal, 1718–22, PP. 347-8, 353, 355.

4

Maryland Archives, v, 289 and elsewhere.

intending to take on a lading of enumerated commodities, the captains of which could not show to the governor (or later to the naval officer or the royal collector) a certificate that they had taken out bond in England to carry their cargo directly back to the mother country, should pay a duty at the colonial port of clearance. This payment, which came to be known as the "plantation duty", was a penny a pound in the case of tobacco and other amounts for other enumerated commodities. Even if the captain paid the duty, he was still obliged to deposit a bond with the governor, naval officer, or collector, binding himself, in case he did not unload the goods at another colony, to take them directly to England.

This Act of 1673 played a very important part in the commercial relations between England and her colonies and in the relations of the colonies with each other. Nearly all the chief ports of the mainland did an extensive re-exporting trade, sending either to England or to some other British continental or West Indian port enumerated products that were of the growth of other colonies. Under the law, this coastwise and West Indian trade, which employed almost entirely vessels that were colonial built and colonial owned, increased very rapidly. Tobacco was carried to the West Indies, and sugar and molasses in return were brought to Boston, Newport, New York, Philadelphia, Norfolk, Brunswick, and Charleston, either for local use or for reshipment. Hence the imposition of the duty affected many mercantile transactions and raised many questions as to its operation. The law created in colonial ports many royal customs officials, who were appointed by the Commissioners of the Customs in England under authority from the Treasury, and whose business it was to collect the duties, which were those of the English book of rates of 1660 and which had to be paid in silver or its equivalent at sterling values. 1

The object of the Act was not revenue but the regulation of trade, that is, its aim was to prevent evasions of the Act of 1660, by rendering unprofitable a direct trade in enumerated commodities with the European continent. Even if the captain took out bond in the colony and paid the duty, he would still have to carry the goods to England unless he unloaded them in the colony to which he was bound. There is reason to think that even after the Act was passed, the Boston merchants, inclined at this time to follow, if they could, their own bent in trade, believed that if they paid the duty they could still carry their goods to Europe. So uncertain was the phraseology of the law that in 1676 the Lords of Trade asked the Attorney-general, Sir William Jones, for an opinion. The latter replied that if bonds were taken out in England to bring the enumerated commodities thither, then no

1 12 Charles II, c. 4; Baldwin, British Customs (1770), p. 63; Beer, Old Colonial System, I, 83. 2 Maryland Archives, v, 448; Cal. St. Pap. Col. 1677-80, pp. 488-9.

IRELAND AND THE NAVIGATION ACTS

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Plantation duty was to be paid, but if the vessel had furnished no such bond or had come from another place than England, then the captain must give bond in the colony and pay the duty.1 The obscurity was not entirely cleared up until 1696, when in the Navigation Act of that year the Attorney-general's opinion was given statutory form. That the captain, in case he took his cargo to England, would have to pay the duty a second time is clearly stated;2 but that he would have to do so each time he went on from colony to colony, as in the case of a New England captain peddling Maryland tobacco in the West Indies, is not so evident. It is more than likely that no such instance ever occurred. Oddly enough, an Act of 1699, which forbade the importation of bulk tobacco from the colonies into England, said nothing about such importation into another colony, in consequence of which, wrote Edward Randolph, "great quantities are yearly carried from the tobacco plantations in bulk and from thence to Scotland to the discouragement and damage of fair traders and to the great diminution of her Majesty's revenue".4 Randolph never missed an opportunity of showing his animosity towards a Scot.

The relations of Scotland and Ireland to the Navigation Acts require a brief consideration. By the Acts of 1660 and 1662 Scotland was construed as a foreign country, Scotsmen were barred from the Plantation trade, Scottish shipping could not carry goods to America, and Scottish seamen were not classed as "English" under the meaning of the Acts. A slight concession was allowed in the Act of 1663, which permitted the transportation of servants, horses, and provisions, and a few licences were issued, but even these were not continued. When their efforts to obtain a modification of the Act were unsuccessful, Scotsmen entered upon an illicit trade that attained very considerable proportions. They carried their own coarse cloth, linen, stockings, and hats and Irish beef to the British Plantations and brought back tobacco, sugar, furs and skins,5 a trade that was countenanced by the Scottish authorities. The presence of many a Scot in the colonies, particularly in the middle continental section about New York and the Jerseys, aroused a good deal of suspicion that Scot was in league with Scot for the nullification of the Acts, and this suspicion, coupled with evidences of illegal commerce, became a conspicuous feature of the history of the period until 1707.

The Irish situation is somewhat more complicated, for at first it was intended that Ireland should be deemed a Plantation and included within the privileged area to which the Acts applied, as regards both ships and seamen and the carrying trade. But in 1663 the latter privilege was revoked, and Ireland, construed as a commercial

1 Cal. St. Pap. Col. 1675-6, nos. 798, 814.

• Maryland Archives, v, 448, §4; Cal. St. Pap. Col. 1677-80, p. 530.

3

10-11 William III, c. 21, § xxix.

C.O. 388/8, E. 9, p. 3.

Keith, Commercial Relations of England and Scotland, 1603-1707, p. 118; House of Lords MSS, N.S. п1, 462, 464.

rival, was forbidden after that date to send to the Plantations any exports, except those named, or to receive directly any of the enumerated commodities. Henceforth Ireland's communication with the colonies had to be by way of England. But the situation was rendered legally ambiguous by the continued issuing of bonds in the form provided for by the Act of 1660. The ambiguity was removed by an Act of 1671, which ordered the omission of the word "Ireland" from the bonds, but as the Act expired in 1680 and was not immediately renewed-probably more because of the distractions of the times than by deliberate intent--the former conditions recurred and it was again possible legally to ship enumerated commodities directly to Ireland. Though the commissioners of revenue in Ireland said that during the years from 1671 to 1680 Plantation goods were imported directly into Ireland as freely as when the trade was open, the trials of ships seized for illegal trade with Ireland during those years number nearly twenty-five, showing that while the Act was in force the importing of tobacco from Maryland or Virginia to Ireland was attended with no little risk of seizure.1 After the expiration of the Act in 1680 an attempt was made to control the situation by the issue of an Order in Council, 16 February 1681, confining shipment to England only, but it is doubtful if the order was ever obeyed.2

In the meantime, the Act of 1673 had been passed, imposing the Plantation duty. Consequently after 1680 the question arose as to whether tobacco and sugar, which after the expiration of the Act of 1671 could be legally carried to Ireland, should pay the duty as if taken to another Plantation or should be exempt from it as if trading directly with England. This was the difficulty that underlay the Badcock and Rousby cases in Maryland and the dispute between Lord Baltimore and the Commissioners of the Customs in 1681,3 the latter insisting that tobacco ships loading in Maryland for Ireland should pay the Plantation duty, required by the Act of 1673, upon goods shipped to another colony. Baltimore was right as to the facts of the case, for the shippers had been evading the payment, but he was wrong as to the law and so was penalised for his ignorance. The murder of the collector, Rousby, caused considerable excitement in England and led to the omission of the word "Ireland" from the instructions to the collectors in 1685 and to the decision in the same year to revive the Act of 1671.5 This decision evoked a heated protest from the Irish commissioners of revenue, who declared that the Act ought not to be renewed as it brought in no revenue, while the commissioners in England, knowing that the Acts of 1671 and 1673 were designed not to produce a revenue but to preserve England's monopoly of the Plantation trade, declared that to recognise the Irish 1 Beer, Old Colonial System, 1, 96.

Maryland Archives, v, 289, 293, 294, 306, 345.

4 Cal. St. Pap. Col. 1681-5, no. 403; 1685-8, no. 567.

2 A.P.C., Colonial, 11, no. 26.

5 Maryland Archives, v, 448.

PROTESTS FROM THE COLONIES

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claim would "rob this kingdom in great measure of this flourishing trade".1 The Treasury refused to redress Ireland's grievances and with the renewal of the Act in 1685, confirmed by further legislation in 1696, Ireland's relations with the Plantations were defined for a century. This incident had been of no little importance in shaping England's commercial policy during this formative period.

Serious objections to the Acts on the part of the colonists were mainly confined to the years immediately following their passage, when so far-reaching an interference with the freedom of trade that all had enjoyed during the Civil War and the Interregnum was found to lead to strenuous protests. Barbados almost at once petitioned to be released from the operation of the Acts, on the ground that free trade was the life of all colonies and that such restrictive measures would ruin them.2 It declared that "whosoever he be that advised his Majesty to restrain and tie up his colonies in point of trade is more a merchant than a good subject", one who "would have his Majesty's islands but nursed up to work for him and such men".3 The Home Government replied that all such petitions were contrary to "the nation's best interests at home"; and despite further expostulation, which continued for a decade, refused to make any concessions, on the ground that the whole frame of trade and navigation would be destroyed if the requests of the colony should be granted. Virginia and Bermuda were in a situation similar to that of Barbados, in that they too had enjoyed freedom of trade, chiefly with the Dutch, during the Interregnum. Their tobacco, it is true, had been enumerated as early as 1621, and from that time forward they had been enjoined to send what they produced for export only to England. In 1641 a mandatory clause to that effect was inserted in Berkeley's instructions. But there is reason to believe that this requirement was not strictly enforced, if enforced at all, from 1642 to 1660.6 Consequently, after 1660 complaints inevitably arose, e.g. one from John Bland, a local planter, who had doubtless enjoyed much trading with the Dutch merchant vessels, and another from Governor Berkeley, who, himself interested in tobacco planting, was not willing, as he said, to enrich some forty English merchants to the impoverishment of a whole people. The Acts, he further complained, gave a restricted market, kept the price of tobacco low, prevented the population from growing, and brought poverty and distress to the colony.8

5

1 Cal. St. Pap. Col. 1685-8, nos. 613, 638, 670, 932; Historical MSS Comm., Ormonde MSS, N.S. vi, 128, 242, 244; House of Lords MSS, N.S. 11, 485; Beer, Old Colonial System, 1, 96-109. 3 Ibid. pp. 382-3.

2 Cal. St. Pap. Col. 1661-8, nos. 129, 578, p. 205; no. 1679.

Ibid. no. 561; 1675-6, nos. 526, 707, 714 ; for the Leeward Islands, 1661-8, no. 792.

Virginia Historical Magazine, 11, 280, § 30; vп, 267; XVI, 124.

• New York Colonial Documents, III, 43-4.

* Virginia Historical Magazine, 1, 141–51; Beer, 1, 108–12. 8 "A Perfect View of Virginia", Force's Tracts, II.

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