Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/454

 These may be briefly stated as follows:—First, no goods, the growth, produce, or manufacture of the colonies, were to be carried to any but a French market. Secondly, the colonial market was to be reserved for the commodities and produce of the mother-country. Thirdly, the carrying of all goods between the colonies and the mother-country was to be reserved for the shipping of France.

These rules, which embodied the spirit and policy of France with regard to her maritime dealings with her colonies, though undergoing from time to time various modifications necessitated by circumstances, have, as far as possible, been upheld and enforced, and in many cases with considerable severity. Thus, while the exclusion of alien shippers was jealously secured by the most stringent measures, as, for instance, by the law of 1727, Article 3, in which it was further ordained that no foreigners should land with their ships or other vessels in the ports, bays, or harbours, of the French colonies and islands, nor navigate within one league round the said colonies and islands, under penalty of confiscation of their vessels and cargoes, and a fine of 4000 livres, jointly and severally, upon the master and his crew. These rigorous prohibitions concerning sailing near the coast were, however, relaxed in favour of England, after the cession to this country by France in 1763 under the Treaty of Paris of various islands on the American coast, but with reference only to such as were in the vicinity of British possessions.

But these stringent laws, ere long proved most disadvantageous to France herself, and became a very great hardship to some of her colonies; for,