urately, to searching for British subjects liable to
impressment. This right the United States denied. The "right of
search" to determine the nationality of the vessel, and the character
of the voyage, was admitted to belligerents then, as it is now, by all
neutrals.

[8] King John, Act II. Scene 1.

[9] King Richard II., Act II. Scene 1.

[10] Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.
Edited by J.E. Thorold Rogers. Oxford, 1880, pp. 35-38. In a
subsequent passage (p. 178), Smith seems disposed somewhat to qualify
the positive assertion here quoted, on the ground that the Navigation
Act had not had time to exert much effect, at the period when some of
the most decisive successes over the Dutch were won. It is to be
observed, however, that a vigorous military government, such as
Cromwell's was, can assert itself in the fleet as well as in the army,
creating an effective organization out of scanty materials, especially
when at war with a commercial state of weak military constitution,
like Holland. It was the story of Rome and Carthage repeated. Louis
XIV. for a while accomplished the same. But under the laxity of a
liberal popular government, which England increasingly enjoyed after
the Restoration, naval power could be based securely only upon a
strong, available, and permanent maritime element in the civil body
politic; that is, on a mercantile marine.

As regards the working of the Navigation Act to this end, whatever may
be argued as to the economical expediency of protecting a particular
industry, there is no possible doubt that such an industry can be
built up, to huge proportions, by sagacious protection consistently
enforced. The whole history of protection demonstrates this, and the
Navigation Act did in its day. It created the British carrying trade,
and in it provided for the Royal Navy an abundant and accessible
reserve of raw material, capable of being rapidly manufactured into
naval seamen in an hour of emergency.

[11] Works of John Adams, vol. viii. pp. 389-390.

[12] This primary meaning of the word "staple" seems to have
disappeared from common use, in which it is now applied to the
commercial articles, the concentration of which at a particular port
made that port a "staple."

[13] Bryan Edwards, West Indies, vol. ii. p. 448.

[14] Macpherson, Annals of Commerce, vol. ii. p. 443.

[15] Reeves, History of the Law of Navigation, Dublin, 1792, p. 37.

[16] Macpherson, vol.