Navigation Acts
The
English Navigation Acts were a series of
laws which, beginning in
1651, restricted
foreign shipping. Resentment against the Navigation Acts was a cause of the
Anglo-Dutch Wars and the
American Revolutionary War.
The first Navigation Act was passed in October 1651 by the parliament of the
Commonwealth of England led by
Oliver Cromwell. It was reaction to the failure of a British diplomatic mission to
The Hague seeking a joining of the Commonwealth by the
Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, after the
States of Holland had made some cautious overtures to Cromwell to counter the monarchal aspirations of
stadtholder William II of Orange. The stadtholder had suddenly died however and the States were now embarrassed by Cromwell taking the idea quite too seriously. The British proposed the joint conquest of all remaining Spanish and Portuguese possessions. England would take America and the Dutch Africa and Asia. As the Dutch, however, had already taken over most Asian Portuguese colonies, they saw little advantage in this grandiose scheme and proposed a free trade agreement as an alternative to a full political union. This again was unacceptable to the British, who would be unable to compete, and was seen by them as a deliberate affront.
The 1651 Act banned foreign ships from transporting goods from outside
Europe to England, and banned ships from third countries from transporting goods from a country in Europe to England. These rules specifically targeted the
Dutch who controlled a large section of Europe's international trade and even much of England's coastal shipping. It excluded the Dutch from essentially all trade with England, since the Netherlands produced very few goods itself. This trade, however, constituted only a small fraction of total Dutch transportation. It's common to mention the Act as a major cause of the
First Anglo-Dutch War, though it was only part of a larger British policy to engage in war after the negotiations had failed. The British naval victories in 1653 (the
Battle of Portland, the
Battle of the Gabbard and the
Battle of Scheveningen) forced the Dutch to acknowledge the Act in the
Treaty of Westminster (1654). The Act seems to have had very little influence on actual Dutch trade practices.
After the
Restoration of
Charles II in
1660 a second Navigation Act was passed, with the rules expanded to cover exports as well as imports. The Act also imposed severe restrictions on the colonial trade. All foreign shipping was banned from this trade and the colonies themselves were forbidden from directly exporting certain goods, including tobacco, sugar and cotton, to non-English consumers. The Colonists were only allowed to trade with England and were only allowed to sell English goods.
This was part of a general English policy to take over Dutch trade, which culminated in the
Second Anglo-Dutch War. As the Dutch successfully beat off this attempt, the
Treaty of Breda allowed the Dutch to transport German goods also.
A series of four acts, passed between 1662 and 1773, imposed further taxes and restrictions on trade with England's, and after 1707, Britain's colonies.
The 1733
Molasses Act levied heavy duties on the trade of sugar from the
French West Indies to the American colonies, forcing the colonists to buy the more expensive sugar from the
British West Indies instead. The law was widely flouted, but efforts by the British to prevent smuggling created hostility and contributed to the
American Revolution.
The Navigation Acts were repealed in
1849 by which point Britain's utter domination of world shipping allowed them to pursue a more
laissez-faire philosophy.
The Navigation Acts were passed under the economic theory of
mercantilism under which wealth was to be increased by restricting trade to colonies rather than with
free trade. Many scholars, including
Adam Smith, have viewed the Navigation Acts as a very beneficial example of state intervention. The introduction of the legislation allowed Britain's shipping industry to develop in isolation and become the best in the world. The increase in merchant shipping also led to a rapid increase in the size and quality of the
British Navy, which led to Britain becoming a global
superpower.
*
An annotated version of the original text of the 1651 Navigation Act.
