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 dependencies
 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 intention
 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.