sh America. To restore the balance
of the French trade, and to contest with Holland and Spain for the
lucrative commerce of the East and the West Indies was the underlying
economic motive of the wars and diplomacy, as well as of the colonial
policy of the Restoration period; it was for this that the Royal African
and Hudson Bay Companies were organized; for this the Dutch and French
wars were waged; for this regulations were enacted for trade and
plantations. And to contemporaries the wisdom of such measures was
evident in the result: at the close of the century, although imports
remained approximately the same as in 1660, exports had reached the
unprecedented figure of seven millions sterling.

In achieving this result, the plantations were expected to play an
important part; and no one doubted that they had done so. During the
decade after the Restoration, the commerce between England and her
American possessions was about one tenth of her total foreign trade; in
1700 it was about one seventh. Imports from the colonies rose from
L500,000 to more than L1,000,000, and exports to the colonies from
L105,910 to L750,000. But the mere increase of trade was no perfect
index of the importance of the plantations; for the colonial trade built
up the merchant marine far more, in proportion to its volume, than any
other. The American voyages were long; plantation commodities bulked
large in proportion to their value; and whereas much of the commerce
between England and Europe was carried in foreign ships, colonial trade
was confined to British vessels. If, therefore, the merchant marine more
than doubled during the Restoration, that happy result was thought to be
largely due to the colonies. "The Plantacion trade is one of the
greatest nurseries of the Shipping and Seamen of this Kingdome, and one
of the greatest branches of its trade," said the customs commissioners
in 1678; "the Plantacions, New Castle trade, and the fisheries, make 3/4
of all the seamen in ye Nation."

The colonies which enlisted the enthusiasm of the commissioners were
the plantations proper. There were men, such as Charles Davenant, who
thought New England might have its uses; but the high value of Maryland
and Virginia, of Barbados and Jamaica, was obvious to all. Maryland and
Virginia, it is true, were not quite ideal colonies, since it was found
necessary, in their interest, to prohibit the raising of tobacco in
England. But the sugar islands were withou