ew had become so
decided that in 1848 the Parliament even abolished the navigation laws,
which had subsisted so long, the first act on the subject dating from
the reign of Richard II., that the adherence to the principle contained
in them of confining both the export and the import trade of the
kingdom, with but few exceptions, to British shipping, seemed almost an
essential article of the constitution. It was the dearer, too, to the
national prejudices, from the sense universally entertained of the
paramount importance of maintaining the pre-eminence of our navy, and
from the belief that the commercial marine was a nursery for the royal
fleets, with which they could not dispense. But latterly the laws had
become unpopular even with some of those who had formerly been supposed
to derive the greatest benefit from them. Many of our colonies had
complained of their operation, and several of the ablest of our colonial
governors had recommended their repeal. They had been found, too, to
present frequent and considerable difficulties in our commercial
negotiations with other countries, and many naval officers of large
experience and sound judgment expressed a decided belief that they were
of no practical use to the naval service. The result of a long and able
debate was that the laws were repealed, with the exception of that
portion of them which preserved the monopoly of the coasting trade to
our own seamen and vessels, that exception being chiefly dictated by
considerations connected with the prevention of smuggling.

The ground on which the ministers relied in proposing this repeal of
laws so ancient was that, when protection had been removed from every
other trade, those concerned in these different trades had an
irresistible claim for its removal from the shipping. And on general
principles, both of commerce and statesmanship, the claim was, as they
urged, irresistible, unless some object of greater importance still than
uniformity of legislation--namely, the national safety, bound up as it
unquestionably was in the perpetual pre-eminence of the national
navy--required an exception to be made. But for the maintenance of our
maritime supremacy it was, as Burke had preached three-quarters of a
century before, better to trust to the spirit of the people, to their
attachment to their government, and to their innate aptitude for
seamanship, which they seem to have inherited from the hardy rovers of
the dark ages, and which no