Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/451

 freight foreign vessels in the ports of his realm. Nor would he allow such vessels to carry from his ports any kind of merchandise: but, like most other laws of a similarly rigorous character, they were very imperfectly carried out, and so seldom enforced that, by degrees, they fell into desuetude.

It was not, however, until the reign of Louis XIV. ( 1643) that anything like a regular system of Navigation Laws was adopted; and this would seem to have been copied from the laws of England of that period, inasmuch as it had for its object that which England had proposed with regard to her own ships—the protection and the development of the French mercantile marine. But Colbert, the celebrated finance minister, in 1661, appears to have devoted considerable attention to this question, and, though he framed a law, at first as protective in its character as any of the maritime laws promulgated in England, it was, soon afterwards, moderately relaxed by his wisdom, in favour of the ships of other nations.

In the reign of Louis XIV., as also in that of Louis XV., various ordinances and regulations were likewise issued for the purpose of determining the conditions necessary to entitle a vessel to the privileges of a French ship. Thus in the regulation bearing date 24th October, 1681, and, in several letters as well as in various ordinances, it was provided that no vessel should be allowed the privilege of hoisting the French flag, unless she were entirely owned by the subjects of that country, and unless the names of all the owners were duly registered. For every offence, or any deviation from this law, a fine of 1000 livres was inflicted; and, in case of any