Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 2).djvu/306

 Thus they contended, with redoubled force, that if, in the infancy of commerce, the navigation laws had been wise and salutary, their rigorous enforcement now was more than ever imperative, not only from the amazing increase of foreign shipping, but from the heavy duties to which British shipping was liable. British ships, they said, stood charged with duties not merely on every article necessary for their equipment, amounting to upwards of seven per cent. on their whole value, but double duty was levied on their gross tonnage, denominated a war tax, though really the offspring of what was termed "a profound peace." The ships of Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Prussia, they went on to state, could be built and navigated at much lower rates than those of Britain, while many naval stores were the original produce of countries whose ships were not burthened with heavy duties, and where, too, provisions were cheap and wages low. Hence foreigners, it was alleged, "were able to take freight at a lower rate; and, as the smallest difference in that respect determined the preference of the merchant, the carrying-trade of Europe was almost entirely wrested from us."

Whatever may have been the cause that led to this result, it was stated publicly at the end of March 1804, that there was then scarcely a single offer of trade for a British bottom, except such as were employed in the coasting or colonial trades, which were held secure by the strict enforcement of the Navigation Act. The shipowners pointed with dismay to the mooring places in the river Thames,