SEVENTEENTH CENTURY TO 1660 35 
apart from the width of its scope. For instance, the 
act of Queen Elizabeth, which in 1566 incorporated 
the Russia Company, contained a similar provision, 
¢ for the better maintenance of the navy and mariners 
of this realm.’ But it was memorable as making 
a beginning which, after the Restoration, blossomed 
into the mercantile system. Under that system trade 
dictated policy; the Empire was looked upon as a 
single unit; the colonies were regarded as depend- 
encies of the Mother Country ; free trade and cheap 
Dutch carriage were barred, though greatly valued by 
the colonies; and baneful uniformity became the 
standard colonial policy of England. Dr. Rawson 
Gardiner found in this law of 1651 the beginning 
of an inevitable reaction against Puritan idealism. 
‘The new commercial policy,” he wrote, ‘did not 
profess to have other than material aims. The inten- 
tion of its framers by the nature of the case was not 
to make England better or nobler, but to make her 
richer.’ 1 
1 Samuel Rawson Gardiner, History of the Commonwealth and 
Protectorate (1894), vol. i, 1649-51, p. 83.