34 RELIGION, COLONISING AND TRADE 
increase of shipping and encouragement of the naviga- 
tion of this nation.” This, the first of the series of 
navigation acts, which so powerfully and in the end 
so disastrously affected the course of the Empire, 
provided that no article produced or manufactured in 
Asia, Africa, or America, whether the produce of 
English or of foreign colonies, should be imported into 
England, Ireland, or any English colony or possession 
except in English, including colonial, ships, in the 
crews of which Englishmen formed the majority, and 
that no article produced or manufactured in Europe 
should be imported into England, Ireland, or any 
English colony or possession, except either in English 
ships or in ships belonging to the country in which the 
articles were produced or manufactured. This was 
the main purport of the Act, but it contained various 
other provisions, one of which debarted foreigners 
from importing into or exporting from any English 
possession cod, herring, and other kinds of fish for 
salting. The Dutch had proved to demonstration 
what nurseries of ships and seamen wete the carrying 
and fishing trades, and the Long Patliament decided 
that these trades should, as far as possible, nourish 
English in preference to foreign shipping. But 
whether the act was effective and how far, to what 
extent it promoted English and damaged Dutch 
interests, and to what extent it contributed to the first 
Dutch war, has been much questioned by the best 
modern authorities.! 
There was nothing new in the terms of the Act. 
1 See History, January 1923. © Historical Revisions—The Naviga- 
tion Act of 1651,” by G. N. Clark.