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.