Besides, if the people of a colony did govern themselves, what
would become of the rights and interests of the mother country?
What would become of the Empire itself?
What was the use and object of the Empire? In brief, according to
the theory and practice then in force, the end of empire was the
profit which comes from trade; the means was the political
subordination of the colonies to prevent interference with this
profit; and the debit entry set against this profit was the cost
of the diplomacy, the armaments, and the wars required to hold
the overseas possessions against other powers. The policy was
still that which had been set forth in the preamble of the
Navigation Act of 1663, ensuring the mother country the sole
right to sell European wares in its colonies: "the maintaining a
greater correspondence and kindness between them [the subjects
at home and those in the plantations] and keeping them in a
firmer dependence upon it [the mother country], and rendering
them yet more beneficial and advantageous unto it in the further
Imployment and Encrease of English Shipping and Seamen, and vent
of English Woollen and other Manufactures and Commodities
rendering the Navigation to and from the same more safe and
cheape, and makeing this Kingdom a Staple not only of the
Commodities of those Plantations but also of the Commodities of
other countries and places for the supplying of them, and it
being the usage of other Nations to keep their [plantation] Trade
to themselves.
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