were expressly disallowed by the commissioners of the customs on the ground that they diminished the correspondence between the mother country and the Colony; weakened the dependence of the colonial population upon England; curtailed the freight which was furnished to English shipping, and thus obstructed an increase in the number of English seamen; seriously narrowed the market for English woollen and other manufactures; advanced the cost of tobacco to the English consumer by raising the charges of navigation; and finally, reduced the volume of the customs.[1] It has been pointed out that the statute to encourage the growth of linen and woollen manufactures was repealed in 1684, but for reasons which did not include the opposition of the English Government to its continuation. In spite of the adverse report of the commissioners, this law was revived in 1686, to continue in force for four years, and was again reenacted at the end of that time, to remain in operation until the close of 1694.[2] In the famous Act for Ports, a duty of six pence was placed on exported wool. The determination of the local authorities to establish woollen manufactures was shown in 1693 in the valuable privileges extended to all persons who proposed to erect fulling mills; if such persons owned land on but one side of a stream, they could have condemned an acre on the other side for the convenience of carrying on the work of their mills, provided that there were no housings or orchards on the tracts thus appropriated.[3]
- ↑ Report of the Commissioners of Customs, 1683, British State Papers, Colonial, No. 82; McDonald Papers, vol. VI, p. 269, Va. State Library.
- ↑ Hening’s Statutes, vol. III, p. 50.
- ↑ Ibid., p. 110. It was in this year that the Act for reviving the “Act for the Advancement of the Manufactures of the Growth of this Country” was suspended by proclamation of Governor Andros. See Records of Middlesex County, original vol. 1679-1694, p. 606.
