110. NAVIGATION ACT (1651)
An act for increase of shipping and encouragement of the navigation of this nation. For the increase of the shipping and the encouragement of the navigation of this nation, which under the good providence and protection of God is so great a means of the welfare and safety of this commonwealth, be it enacted by this present parliament and the authority thereof that, from and after the first day of December, 1651 ... , no goods or commodities whatsoever of the growth, production, or manufacture of Asia, Africa, or America, or of any part thereof, or of any islands belonging to them ... , as well of the English plantations as others, shall be imported or brought into this commonwealth of England, or into Ireland, or any other lands, islands, plantations, or territories to this commonwealth belonging ... in any other ship or ships ... but only in such as do ... belong only to the people of this commonwealth or the plantations thereof ... , and whereof the master and mariners are also for the most part of them of the people of this commonwealth, under the penalty of the forfeiture and loss of all the goods that shall be imported contrary to this act, as also of the ship ... in which the said goods or commodities shall be so brought in and imported — the one moiety to the use of the commonwealth, and the other moiety to the use and behoof of any person or persons who shall seize the said goods or commodities and shall prosecute the same in any court of record within this commonwealth.
And it is further enacted ... that no goods or commodities of the growth, production, or manufacture of Europe, or of any part thereof, shall after the first day of December, 1651, be imported or brought into this commonwealth of England, or into Ireland, or any other lands, islands, plantations, or territories to this commonwealth belonging or in their possession, in any ship or ships, vessel or vessels whatsoever, but in such as do truly and without fraud belong only to the people of this commonwealth ...; and in no other, except only such foreign ships and vessels as do truly and properly belong to the people of that country or place of which the said goods are the growth, production, or manufacture, or to such ports where the said goods can only be or most usually are first shipped for transportation....[1]
Ibid., II, 559 f.
[1] The following articles provide that fish imported into English lands must have been caught from English-owned ships and cured by Englishmen; and that fish oil (including whale oil) thus imported must have been extracted by Englishmen from fish similarly caught. Furthermore, after 1 February 1653, no fish were to be exported from English lands except in English-owned ships.
