Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 2.djvu/95

Rh brandy, linen, cloth, silks, salt, grapes, or other product or manufacture of the dominions of the king of France should be imported in any sort of vessel whatsoever into any part of England, and that the importation or vending of any such French goods should be adjudged "to be a common nuisance to this kingdom in general, and to all his majesty's subjects thereof." The adherents of the balance-of-trade theory at the time, and long afterwards, all looked upon this prohibition as a most wise and salutary act of national policy, and were in the habit of referring with much triumph to its effects in proof of the correctness of their views. Indeed they had long been clamouring for something of the kind before the measure was adopted by the legislature. The House of Commons which met in the latter part of the year 1675 had, upon an examination of the trade between England and France, come to a resolution that the former country was annually a loser in the said trade to the amount of a million sterling, and had thereupon ordered a bill to be brought in to put a stop to it, as was actually done two years after. The following are the terms in which Anderson, writing nearly a century after 1678, speaks of the act then passed against commerce with France: "The immense importation into England of French wares of various kinds gave just umbrage to all wise people, as occasioning a vast annual loss in point of the general balance of England's trade; some say, to at least one million sterling, others to considerably more; because, whilst we were wantonly and without measure importing and using the produce and manufactures of France, the wiser French ministry were from time to time laying heavier duties upon the English manufactures and produce....Hereby the English foreign trade in general languished, rents fell, and all ranks began sensibly to feel its bad effects. Yet they at first imputed this misfortune to a wrong cause, which made the merchants and traders petition the parliament against the East India and Levant Companies. In conclusion, they discovered the true cause; whereupon they made such earnest application to the parliament as influenced the House of Commons to come to a vote, that the trade