ew colony of Carolina
to the south of Virginia, while out of their Dutch conquests they
organised the colonies of New York, New Jersey, and Delaware; and the
end of the reign saw the establishment of the interesting and admirably
managed Quaker colony of Pennsylvania. They started the Hudson Bay
Company, which engaged in the trade in furs to the north of the French
colonies. They systematically encouraged the East India Company, which
now began to be more prosperous than at any earlier period, and
obtained in Bombay its first territorial possession in India.

[4] It was not till 1696, however, that this Board became permanent.

More important, they worked out a new colonial policy, which was to
remain, in its main features, the accepted British policy down to the
loss of the American colonies in 1782. The theory at the base of this
policy was that while the mother-country must be responsible for the
defence of all the scattered settlements, which in their weakness were
exposed to attack from many sides, in she might reasonably expect to be
put in possession of definite trade advantages. Hence the Navigation
Act of 1660 provided not only that inter-imperial trade should be
carried in English or colonial vessels, but that certain 'enumerated
articles,' including some of the most important colonial products,
should be sent only to England, so that English merchants should have
the profits of selling them to other countries, and the English
government the proceeds of duties upon them; and another Act provided
that imports to the colonies should only come from, or through,
England. In other words, England was to be the commercial entrepot of
the whole empire; and the regulation of imperial trade as a whole was
to belong to the English government and parliament. To the English
government also must necessarily fall the conduct of the relations of
the empire as a whole with other powers. This commercial system was
not, however, purely one-sided. If the colonies were to send their
chief products only to England, they were at the same time to have a
monopoly, or a marked advantage, in English markets. Tobacco-growing
had been for a time a promising industry in England; it was prohibited
in order that it might not compete with the colonial product; and
differential duties were levied on the competing products of other
countries and their colonies. In short, the new policy was one of
Imperial Preference; it aimed at turning th