Document 1 Navigation Acts Date:1660

Document 1

Navigation Acts Digital History ID 4102

Date:1660

Annotation: The Navigation Acts were laws designed to support English shipbuilding and restrict trade competition from England's commercial adversaries, especially the Dutch. The acts eventually contributed to growing colonial resentment with the imposition of additional duties on sugar, tobacco, and molasses.

Document: Excerpts from the Navigation Act

British Parliament

Navigation Act of September 13, 1660

For the increase of shipping and encouragement of the navigation of this nation wherein, under the good providence and protection of God, the wealth, safety, and strength of this kingdom is so much concerned; (2) be it enacted by the king’s most excellent Majesty, and by the Lords and Commons in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority thereof, that from and after the first day of December, one thousand six hundred and sixty, and from thence forward, no goods or commodities whatsoever shall be imported into or exported out of any lands, islands, plantations, or territories to his Majesty belonging or in his possession, or which may hereafter belong unto or be in the possession of his Majesty, his heirs, and successors, in Asia, Africa, or America, in any other ship or ships, vessel or vessels whatsoever, but in such ships or vessels as do truly and without fraud belong only to the people of England or Ireland, dominion of Wales or town of Berwick upon Tweed, or are of the built of and belonging to any the said lands, islands, plantations, or territories, as the proprietors and right owners thereof, and whereof the master and three fourths of the mariners at least are English; (3) under the penalty of the forfeiture and loss of all the goods and commodities which shall be imported into or exported out of any the aforesaid places in any other ship or vessel, as also of the ship or vessel, with all its guns, furniture, tackle, ammunition, and apparel; one third part thereof to his Majesty, his heirs and successors; one third part to the governor of such land, plantation, island, or territory where such default shall be committed, in case the said ship or goods be there seized, or otherwise that third part also to his Majesty, his heirs and successors; and the other third part to him or them who shall seize, inform, or sue for the same in any court of record, by bill, information, plaint, or other action, wherein no essoin, protection, or wager of law shall be allowed; (4) and all admirals and other commanders at sea of any the ships of war or other ship having commission from his Majesty or from his heirs or successors, are hereby authorized and strictly required to seize and bring in as prize all such ships or vessels as shall have offended contrary hereunto, and deliver them to the court of admiralty, there to be proceeded against; and in case of condemnation, one moiety of such forfeitures shall be to the use of such admirals or commanders and their companies, to be divided and proportioned amongst them according to the rules and orders of the sea in case of ships taken prize; and the other moiety to the use of his Majesty, his heirs and successors.

II. And be it enacted, that no alien or person not born within the allegiance of our sovereign lord the king, his heirs and successors, or naturalized, or made a free denizen, shall from and after the first day of February, which will be in the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred sixty-one, exercise the trade or occupation of a merchant or factor in any the said places; (2) upon pain of the forfeiture and loss of all his goods and chattels, or which are in his possession; one third to his Majesty, his heirs and successors; one third to the governor of the plantation where such person shall so offend; and the other third to him or them that shall inform or sue for the same in any of his Majesty’s courts in the plantation where such offence shall be committed; (3) and all governors of the said lands, islands, plantations, or territories, and every of them, are hereby strictly required and commanded, and all who hereafter shall be made governors of any such islands, plantations, or territories, by his Majesty, his heirs or successors, shall before their entrance into their government take a solemn oath to do their utmost, that every the afore- mentioned clauses, and all the matters and things therein contained, shall be punctually and bona fide observed according to the true intent and meaning thereof; (4) and upon complaint and proof made before his Majesty, his heirs or successors, or such as shall be by him or them thereunto authorized and appointed, that any the said governors have been willingly and wittingly negligent in doing their duty accordingly, that the said governor so offending shall be removed from his government.

III. And it is further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that no goods or commodities whatsoever, of the growth, production or manufacture of Africa, Asia, or America, or of any part thereof, or which are described or laid down in the usual maps or cards of those places, be imported into England, Ireland, or Wales, islands of Guernsey and Jersey, or town of Berwick upon Tweed, in any other ship or ships, vessel or vessels whatsoever, but in such as do truly and without fraud belong only to the people of England or Ireland, dominion of Wales, or town of Berwick upon Tweed, or of the lands, islands, plantations or territories in Asia, Africa, or America, to his Majesty belonging, as the proprietors and right owners thereof, and whereof the master, and three fourths at least of the mariners are English; (2) under the penalty of the forfeiture of all such goods and commodities, and of the ship or vessel in which they were imported, with all her guns, tackle, furniture, ammunition, and apparel; one moiety to his Majesty, his heirs and successors; and the other moiety to him or them who shall seize, inform or sue for the same in any court of record, by bill, information, plaint or other action wherein no essoin, protection or wager of law shall be allowed.

Document 2

Mercantilist Ideas Author: Thomas Mun Date:1664

Annotation:

In 1776 a Scottish professor named Adam Smith (1723-1790) published the most influential book on economics ever written. Entitled The Wealth of Nations, this book directed withering attack against earlier notions of how nations attain wealth and power. An advocate of free trade and laissez-faire, trusting in the "Invisible Hand" of unregulated market forces, Smith called this older viewpoint "mercantilism." Under mercantilism, every nation sought to sell more than it bought. To maximize the state's welfare, government tried to regulate and protect industry and commerce. Colonies existed to enhance national self-sufficiency, provide essential raw materials, and serve as a market for finished products.

In this selection, Thomas Mun (1571-1641), a seventeenth-century English economist, offers a succinct summary of the mercantilist ideas Smith later repudiated and explains how overseas colonies can contribute to the nation's wealth.

Document:

1. First, although this Realm be already exceedingly rich by nature, yet might it be much increased by laying the waste grounds (which are infinite) into such employments as should no way hinder the present revenues of other manured [cultivated] lands, but hereby to supply our selves and prevent the importations of Hemp, Flax, Cordage, Tobacco, and divers other things which now we fetch from strangers to our great impoverishing.

2. We may likewise diminish our importations, if we would soberly refrain from excessive consumption of forraign wares in our diet and rayment,...which vices at this present are more notorious amongst us than in former ages. Yet might they easily be amended by enforcing the observation of such good laws as are strictly practiced in other Countries against the said excesses; where likewise by commanding their own manufactures to be used, they prevent the coming in of others....

4. The value of our exportations likewise may be much advanced when we perform it ourselves in our own Ships, for then we get only not the price of our wares as they are worth here, but also the Merchants gains, the charges of insurance, and freight to carry them beyond the seas....

England's Treasure by Forraign Trade, New York, 1903 ed., 9-12

Document 3

The Quaker Ideal of Religious Tolerance Digital History ID 86

Author: William Penn Date:1675

Annotation:

The Quakers had remarkable success in attracting a number of socially prominent individuals to their cause. Among these, none was more important than William Penn (1644-1718). The son of an English naval officer and a friend of James II, Penn became a Quaker at the age of 22. He was imprisoned several times for writing and preaching about Quakerism, including an eight-month confinement in the Tower of London.

In 1680, Penn asked Charles II of England to repay an $80,000 debt owed to Penn's father with wilderness land in America. The next year, he was granted a charter. Penn viewed his new colony as a "Holy Experiment," which would provide colonists religious liberty and cheap land. He made a treaty of friendship with Indians shortly after he arrived in Pennsylvania in 1682, paying them for most of the land that King Charles had given him.

Compared to many other colonies, Pennsylvania, from the outset, was a remarkable success. It experienced no major Indian wars. Strong West Indian demand for grain generated prosperity and made Philadelphia a major port. Nevertheless, the colony did not live up to Penn's dream of a "peaceable kingdom." In 1685 he pleaded with the colonial legislature: "For the love of God, me, and the poor country, be not so governmentish; so noisy and open in your disaffection."

In this essay, written seven years before founding Pennsylvania, Penn offers arguments in favor of religious tolerance.

Document:

Certain it is, that there are few Kingdoms in the World more Divided within themselves [by religion than England]....

Your Endeavours for a [religious] Uniformity have been many; Your Acts not a few to Enforce it, but they Consequence, whether you intended it or not, through the Barbarous Practices of those that have had their Execution, hath been the Spoiling of several Thousands of the free inhabitants of this Kingdom of their Unforfeited Rights. Persons have been flung into Jails, Gates and Trunks broke open, Goods destroyed, till a stool hath not been left to sit down on, Flocks of Cattle driven, whole Barns full of Corn seized, Parents left with out Children, Children without their Parents, both without subsistence....

Finding then by Sad Experience, and a long Tract of Time, That the very Remedies applied to cure Dissension increase it; and that the more Vigorously a Uniformity is coercively prosecuted, the Wider Breaches grown, the more Inflamed Persons are, and fixt in their Resolutions to stand by their Principles; which, besides all other Inconveniences to those that give them Trouble, their very Sufferings beget that Compassion in the Multitude...and makes a Preparation for not a few Proselytes....

The Question. What is most Fit, Easie and Safe at this Juncture of Affairs to be done, for Composing, at least Quieting Differences; for Allaying the Heat of Contrary Interests, and making them Subservient to the Interest of the Government, and Consistent with the Prosperity of the Kingdom?

The Answer. I. An Inviolable and Impartial Maintenance of English Rights.

II. Our Superiours governing themselves upon a Balance, as near as may be, towards the several Religious Interests.

III. A sincere Promotion of General and Practical Religion....

I shall not at this time make it my Business to manifest the Inconsistency that there is between the Christian Religion, and a forced Uniformity; not only because it hath been so often and excellently done by Men of Wit, Learning and Conscience, and that I have elsewhere largely deliver'd my Sense about it; but because Every free and impartial Temper hath of a long time observ'd, that such Barbarous Attempts were so far from being indulged, that they were most severely prohibited by Christ himself....

Instead of Peace, Love and good Neighborhood, behold Animosity and contest! One Neighbour watcheth another...; this divides them, their Families and Acquaintance....

Nor is this Severity only Injurious to the Affairs of England, but the whole Protestant World: For besides that it calls the Sincerity of their Proceedings against the Papists into Question, it furnisheth them with this sort of unanswerable Interrogatory: "The Protestants exclaim against us for Persecutor, and are they now the very men themselves?..."

But there are...objections that some make against what I have urged, not unfit to be consider'd. The first is this: If the Liberty desired be granted, what know we but Dissenters may employ their Meetings to insinuate against the Government, inflame the People into a Dislike of their Superiours, and thereby prepare them for Mischief....Answer....What Dissenter can be so destitute of Reason and Love to common Safety, as to expose himself and Family; by plotting against a Government that is kind to him, and gives him the Liberty he desire....<

Document 4

Robert Beverley on Bacon's Rebellion Digital History ID 3998

Author: Robert Beverly Date:1704

Annotation: An account of Bacon's Rebellion.

Document: The occasion of this rebellion is not easy to be discovered: but `tis certain there were many things that concurred towards it. For it cannot be imagined, that upon the instigation of two or three traders only, who aimed at a monopoly of the Indian trade, as some pretend to say, the whole country would have fallen into so much distraction; in which people did not only hazard their necks by rebellion, but endeavored to ruin a governor, whom they all entirely loved, and had unanimously chosen; a gentleman who had devoted his whole life and estate to the service of the country, and against whom in thirty- five years experience there had never been one single complaint. Neither can it be supposed, that upon so slight grounds, they would make choice of a leader they hardly knew, to oppose a gentleman that had been so long and so deservedly the darling of the people. So that in all probability there was something else in the wind, without which the body of the country had never been engaged in that insurrection.

Four things may be reckoned to have been the main ingredients towards this intestine commotion, viz., First, The extreme low price of tobacco, and the ill usage of the planters in the exchange of goods for it, which the country, with all their earnest endeavors, could not remedy. Secondly, The splitting the colony into proprieties, contrary to the original charters; and the extravagant taxes they were forced to undergo, to relieve themselves from those grants. Thirdly, The heavy restraints and burdens laid upon their trade by act of Parliament in England. Fourthly, The disturbance given by the Indians. Of all which in their order.

First, Of the low price of tobacco, and the disappointment of all sort of remedy, I have spoken sufficiently before. Secondly, Of splitting the country into proprieties.

King Charles the Second, to gratify some nobles about him, made two great grants out of that country. These grants were not of the uncultivated wood land only, but also of plantations, which for many years had been seated and improved, under the encouragement of several charters granted by his royal ancestors to that colony. Those grants were distinguished by the names of the Northern and Southern grants of Virginia, and the same men were concerned in both. They were kept dormant some years after they were made, and in the year 1674 begun to be put in execution. As soon as ever the country came to know this, they remonstrated against them; and the assembly drew up an humble address to his majesty, complaining of the said grants, as derogatory to the previous charters and privileges granted to that colony, by his majesty and his royal progenitors. They sent to England Mr. Secretary Ludwell and Colonel Park, as their agents to address the king, to vacate those grants. And the better to defray that charge, they laid a tax of fifty pounds of tobacco per poll, for two years together, over and above all other taxes, which was an excessive burden. They likewise laid amercements of seventy, fifty, or thirty pounds of tobacco, as the cause was on every law case tried throughout the country. Besides all this, they applied the balance, remaining due upon accOunt Of the two shilling per hogshead, and fort duties, to this use. Which taxes and amercements fell heaviest on the poor people, the effect of whose labor would not clothe their wives and children. This made them desperately uneasy, especially when, after a whole year's patience under all these pressures, they had no encouragement from their agents in England, to hope for remedy; nor any certainty when they should be eased of those heavy impositions.

Thirdly, Upon the back of all these misfortunes came out the act of 25 Car. II. for better securing the plantation trade. By this act several duties were laid on the trade from one plantation to another. This was a new hardship, and the rather, because the revenue arising by this act was not applied to the use of the plantations wherein it was raised: but given clear away; nay, in that country it seemed to be of no other use, but to burden the trade, or create a good income to the officers; for the collector had half, the comptroller a quarter, and the remaining quarter was subdivided into salaries; till it was lost.

Document 5

English Liberties Digital History ID 60

Author: Henry Care Date:1721

Annotation:

In 1556, John Ponet (1516-1556), an English writer, pointedly warned Mary, Queen of Scots, that she ruled over "a bodie of free men and not of bondemen" and that she could not "give or sell them as slaves and bondemen." The idea that the English, unlike their counterparts on the European continent, had more rights, greater security of property, and a higher standard of living than those who wore "wooden shoes" was already a common viewpoint in the sixteenth century. But the concept of "English liberties" took on added resonances as a result of the English Civil War of the mid-seventeenth century.

During the seventeenth century, members of Parliament drew upon the Magna Carta--a charter signed by King John in 1215 that granted many rights to the English aristocracy--to rally support in their struggle against the autocratic rule of the Stuart kings. Members of Parliament viewed the charter as a constitutional check on royal power. They cited it as a legal support for their argument that there could be no laws or taxation without the consent of Parliament. And members of Parliament used the charter to demand guarantees of trial by jury and safeguards against unfair imprisonment.

In 1628, the English Parliament presented to King Charles I the Petition of Right, which declared unconstitutional certain actions of the king, such as levying taxes without the consent of Parliament, billeting soldiers in private homes, imposing martial law, and imprisoning citizens illegally. A repudiation of the divine right of kings, the Petition of Right asserted the supremacy of law over the personal wishes of the King. Charles I failed to obey the Petition of Right, and his autocratic rule led to his execution in 1649.

In 1689, seven years after the publication of a volume on English liberties by Henry Care (1646-1688), Parliament presented King William III and Queen Mary a declaration that became known as the Bill of Rights. The 1689 English Bill of Rights listed certain rights that were "true, ancient, and indubitable rights and liberties of the people" of England. It limited the powers of the king in such matters as taxation and keeping a standing army. In the colonies, as in England itself, Americans would celebrate English liberties as their birthright.

Document:

The Constitution of our English Government (the best in the World) is no Arbitrary Tyranny like the Turkish Grand Seignior's, or the French Kings, whose Wills (or rather Lusts) dispose of the Lives and Fortunes of their unhappy Subjects; Nor an Oligarchy where the great men (like Fish in the Ocean) prey upon, and live by devouring the lesser at their pleasure. Nor yet a Democracy or popular State, much less an Anarchy, where all confusedly are hail fellows well met, but a most excellently mixt or qualified Monarchy, where the King is vested with large Prerogatives sufficient to support Majesty; and restrained only from power of doing himself and his people harm, which would be contrary to the very end of all Government, and is properly rather weakness than power.... The Commonality too, so Guarded in their Persons and Properties by the fence of Law, and renders them Freemen, not Slaves.

In France and other Nations the mere Will of the Prince is Law, his Word takes off any...Head, imposes Taxes, or seizes any man's Estate, when, how, and as often as he wishes, and if one is Accused or but so much as suspected of any Crime, he may either presently Execute him, or Banish or Imprison him at pleasure.... Nay if there be no Witnesses, yet he may be put to the Rack, the Tortures whereof make many an Innocent Person confess himself guilty....

But in England, the Law is both the Measure and the Bond of every Subject's Duty and Allegiance, each man having a fixed Fundamental Right born with him as to the Freedom of his Person and Property in his Estate, which he cannot be deprived of, but either by his consent, or some Crime for which the Law has Imposed such a Penalty as Forfeiture.