Page:Prerogatives of the Crown.djvu/187

Ch.X. SecL] Foreign Commerce, 167 treaties and alliances as are entered into by the Crown with foreign Princes ; and since the power of entering into such treaties is vested absohitely in the Crown, it necessarily fol- lows, that the management and direction <^ trade, must, in a great measure, belong to the King. " Things of this nature are not to be considered strictly according to those municipal laws, and those ordinary rules, by which the private property of subjects resident within the kingdom is determined ; but a regard must also be had to the laws of nations, to the policy and safety of the kingdom ; the particular interest and advantages of private men must, in such cases, give way to the general good ; and acting against that, though in a way of commerce, is an offence punishable at the common law. '" Foreign trades carried on by particular subjects, for their private advantage, which are really destructive unto, or else tending to the general disadvantage of the kingdom, are under the power of the Crown to be restrained or totally prohibited. There may be a prohibition of commerce without open enmity, as an actual declaration of war, and particular subjects, who, for private gain, carry on a trade abroad, which causes a gene- ral prejudice or loss to the kingdom, considered as an entire body ; in doing so, manifestly act against the public good, and ought not only to be prohibited, but punished. Carrying on such trades is in truth (w^hat some Acts of Parliament have declared some trades to be) being guilty of common nuisances, and if the Crown, which in its administration of government, is to regard the advantage of the whole realm, shoukl not be invested with sufficient power to repress and restrain such common mischiefs, it has not a power to do right to all its subjects. If the public mischiefs, from such a way of trading, be plain and evident, there is the same reason for restraining particular persons from carrying on a trade that di^ws such consequences after it (though it be a trade, that, of itself, is not prohibited by any particular law), as there is that a private subject shall not make such an use of his own house and land (in which he has an absolute propriety and a legal title to it) as will turn to the common annoyance and public detriment of the rest of the kingdom. " The general trade of the nation, and the maintaining of the customs and duties granted to the Crown for the support of