THE NAVIGATION ACT AND THE COLONIES 473
to England only? It appears that the efforts to enforce this A.D. 1689
system after 1696 were more stringent than they had been —He.
before?, and so far as colonial exports are concerned, they
seem to have been fairly successful.
The West Indian islands were the most favoured of all Great at-
the colonial possessions of England, and great pains were jo Ba
taken, both on political and economic grounds, not only to J
restrain their trade to Englishmen but to secure the develop- islands
ment of these plantations. An immense amount of English
capital was engaged in the commerce which centred round
these islands’, The traffic with England was important, as
well as that with New England¢; but there was also much
money to be made in the lucrative commerce with Central
America, which the Spaniards® endeavoured to reserve for
112 C. IL c. 834. Rice and naval stores were not added to the list till 1706,
3 and 4 Anne, ¢. 8, § 14. On the whole subject compare the excellent monograph
by G. IL. Beer, Commercial Policy of England towards the American Colonies, in
Dolumbia College Studies, 11. 45.
1 See above, p. 211. Beer, op. cit. 131.
' Bryan Edwards is at pains to point out that the sugar planters generally
peaking are but so many agents or stewards for their creditors and annuitants in
the mother country; or if in some few instances they are independent pro-
prietors themselves, it is in Great Britain alone that their incomes are expended
and their fortunes ultimately vested” [History, Civil and Commercial of the
British West Indies (1819), 1x. 583]. He instituted a comparison between the
East India Trade and that with the West Indies (about 1790), which brings out
the importance of the latter. The capital employed in the East India Trade was
£18,000,000, as against £70,000,000 in the West. The exports to India and China
were valued at £1,500,000, while the corresponding figures for the West Indies
were £3,800,000. The imports by the East India Company were £5,000,000,
while importation from the West Indies was given as amounting to £7,200,000.
The duties paid to Government were in the one case £790,000, and in the other
£1,800,000; and only 80,000 tons of shipping were employed in East India trade,
1s compared with 150,000 tons in the West.
t+ On the English efforts to foster this trade in competition with the French,
see below, p. 482.
8 On the history of this dispute see Coxe's Memoirs of Sir R. Walpole, 1v. 3.
Mr Keene, the English representative at Madrid, thus summarised the matters in
lispute: “Upon the whole, the state of our dispute seems to be, that the com-
manders of our vessels always think they are unjustly taken, if they are not taken
in actual illicit commerce, even though the proofs of their having loaded in that
manner be found on board: and the Spaniards on the other hand presume, that
they have a right of seizing, not only the ships that are continually trading in
their ports, but likewise of examining and visiting them on the high seas, in
order to search for proofs of fraud, which they may have committed; and till a
medium be found out between these two nations, the government will always be
smbarrassed with complaints, and we shall be continually negotiating in this
sonntry for redress without ever being able to procure it.” Coxe’s Walpole. 1v. 9.
