THE NAVIGATION ACT AND THE COLONIES 479 
serve as a basis for attacking Spanish America; they were AD, Ys 
also specially favoured during the eighteenth, since they ’ 
entered into direct competition with the French sugar 
colonies, and no effort was spared to outdo these rivals. 
So much English capital was invested in this trade, or in 
sugar plantations, that a powerful section of London mer- 
chants was always eager to obtain new protective measures. 
But the result does not reflect much credit on the wisdom Dad 
of the Navigation Acts. The planters in the West India were in- 
islands were never able to hold their own against their the folands. 
French antagonists. The effort to confine the sugar trade 
to England was often complained of as prejudicial, and the 
attempts to force the northern colonies to trade with English 
rather than French islands, were fraught with disaster. 
By a curious irony the only colony which directly profited 
from the Navigation Acts was the province of New England, 
in which English statesmen felt no special interest. The 
ostensible object of these Acts had been the fostering of 
English shipping. There is room for doubt whether the 
legislation did much to secure this result within the realm, 
but it seems to have had a considerable effect in stimulating but i 
shipbuilding and seamanship in the New England planta- late ship- 
tions, There were many ways in which these colonies building 
suffered from the pressure of the English commercial 
system, but in this respect they were decided gainers. As 
Englishmen residing in America, the colonists were able all 
along to have their share of shipping® from which both 
Scotchmen and Irishmen had been excluded; the facilities, 
along the Atlantic sea-board, for shipbuilding were so great 
that there was some anxiety lest the business should be 
transferred from the old country altogether. The state of 
the trade at the out-ports was most unsatisfactory, in the 
time of James II¢; and in 1724, the Thames shipbuilders 
1 On the Molasses Act, see below, p. 482. 
t Weeden, op. cit. 11. 574—576. A. B. Hart, Formation of the Union, p. 46. 
$8 This is explicitly provided by 13 and 14 C. IL ¢. 11, § 6. 
+ 1J.1I1. c. 18 (Stat. Realm) * Whereas for some yeares past, and more especially 
since the laying a Duty upon Coals brought into the river of Thames, there hath 
been observed & more than ordinary Decay in Building Shipps in England, and 
particularly in NewCastle, Hull, Yarmouth, Ipswich, Alborough, Dunwich, 
Walderswick. Woodbridge, and Harwich, where many stout shipps were vearely