e condition of British navigation in 1651 has been stated. The
experience of the remaining years of the Protectorate appears to have
confirmed national opinion as to the general policy of the Act, and to
have suggested the modifications of the Restoration. To trace the full
sequence of development, in legislation or in shipping, is not here
permissible; the present need being simply to give an account, and an
explanation, of the strength of a national prepossession, which in its
manifestation was a chief cause of the events that are the theme of
this book. A few scattered details, taken casually, seem strikingly to
sustain the claims of the advocates of the system, bearing always in
mind the depression of the British shipping industry before the
passage of the law. In 1728 there arrived in London from all parts
beyond sea 2052 ships, of which only 213 were under foreign flags;
less than one in nine. In Liverpool, in 1765, of 1533 entered and
cleared, but 135 were foreign; in Bristol, the same year, of 701 but
91 foreign. Of the entire import of that year only 28 per cent, in
money value, came from Europe; the carriage of the remaining 72 per
cent was confined to British ships. It may, of course, be maintained
that this restriction of shipping operated to the disadvantage of the
commerce of the kingdom; that there was direct pecuniary loss. This
would not be denied, for the object of the Act was less national gain
than the upbuilding of shipping as a resource for the navy.
Nevertheless, at this same period, in 1764, of 810 ships entering the
great North German commercial centre, Hamburg, 267--over
one-third--were British; the Dutch but 146, the Hamburgers themselves
157. A curious and suggestive comparison is afforded by the same port
in 1769. From the extensive, populous, and fruitful country of France,
the _entrepot_ of the richest West Indian colony, Santo Domingo, there
entered Hamburg 203 ships, of which not one was French; whereas from
Great Britain there came a slightly larger total, 216, of which 178
were British.

Such figures seem to substantiate the general contemporary opinion of
the efficacy of the Navigation Act, and to support the particular
claim of a British writer of the day, that the naval weakness of
Holland and France was due to the lack of similar measures. "The Dutch
have indeed pursued a different policy, but they have thereby fallen
to a state of weakness, which is now the object of pity, or of