Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/148

 Crown,—a mere transhipment, and certain formalities performed at the French Customs, not being "a landing in Europe,"—and the thirty-five casks of annatto were admitted at a profit to the partners of nearly 3000l.

In the second case, the rigour of the law led to the greatest absurdity. About the year 1839, the price of coffee was very high in the London market, while large quantities of the finest Java and Dutch colonial coffee were warehoused in store in Amsterdam. This produce was clearly inadmissible under the clause already quoted, having been, beyond all dispute, "landed in Europe." In what way could this coffee be brought into the London market in the teeth of the existing stringent Navigation Laws? The same agent, who represented one of the oldest Dutch houses, contracted to deliver a cargo of Dutch coffee at a given price at a distant period. He then chartered a British ship, which he sent to Amsterdam, took in a cargo of coffee, and the ship thus laden with Dutch colonial produce was sent to the Cape of Good Hope. At that colony the coffee was landed, or, at all events, was supposed to be landed, fresh papers were made out, and the coffee consigned to London as "naturalised" produce, and, coming direct from a British colony in a British ship, was, of course, admissible for home consumption. To despatch many thousand tons of coffee and other produce half across the globe from Europe, for no other purpose than to be brought back again, in order to comply with the rigorous provisions of the old Navigation Laws, which, in point