utch service. In this way
seamen for the navy disappeared, just as, at a later day, they did
into the merchant shipping of the United States.

The one great maritime rival of England, Holland, had thus engrossed,
not only the carrying trade of Europe at large, most of which, from
port to port, was done by her seamen, but that of England as well.
Even of the English coasting trade much was done by Dutch ships. Under
this competition, the English merchant marine was dwindling, and had
become so inadequate that, when the exclusion of foreigners was
enforced by the Act, the cry at once arose in the land that the
English shipping was not sufficient for the work thus thrust upon it.
"Although our own people have not shipping enough to import from all
parts what they want, they are needlessly debarred from receiving new
supplies of merchandise from other nations, who alone can, and until
now did, import it."[16] The effect of this decadence of shipping upon
the resources of men for the navy is apparent.

The existence of strained relations between England and Holland
facilitated the adoption of the first Navigation Act, which, as things
were, struck the Dutch only; they being the one great carrying
community in Europe. Although both the letter and the purpose of the
new law included in its prohibitions all foreign countries, the
commercial interests of other states were too slight, and their
commercial spirit too dull, to take note of the future effect upon
themselves; whether absolutely, or in relation to the maritime power
of Great Britain, the cornerstone of which was then laid. This first
Act directed that no merchandise from Asia, Africa, or America,
including therein English "plantations," as the colonies were then
styled,[17] should be imported into England in other than
English-built ships, belonging to English subjects, and of which "the
master and mariners are also, for the most part of them, of the people
of this commonwealth." This at once reserved a large part of the
external trade to English ships; and also, by the regulation of the
latter, constituted them a nursery for English seamen. To the general
tenor of this clause, confining importation wholly to English vessels,
an exception was made for Europe only; importations from any part of
which was permitted to "such foreign ships and vessels as do truly and
properly belong to the people of that country or place of which the
said goods are the growth, productio