Conceived in Liberty Volume 2 - Ludwig von Mises Institute

purchasers or English shippers. Tobacco was the major commodity in the
enumerated list, which also included sugar and indigo.
The next Navigation Act, the Staple Act of 1663, assured a monopoly of
colonial trade to English merchants by prohibiting any import of European
goods into the colonies that did not pass through England and pay English
duties, and were not carried on English-built ships. (There were a few
specified exemptions.) The extra tax also constituted a subsidy to English
manufacturers in the colonial market by artificially burdening their foreign
competitors.
From the beginning, the Crown had great difficulty in enforcing these
acts, and the American colonists happily participated in the ancient English
tradition of extensive smuggling. The later blocks of the Navigation Act
structure consisted of attempts to counteract these evasions and enforce the
regulations. The Plantation Duty Act of 1673 tried to crack down on the
practice of one colony shipping tobacco to another (for instance, Virginia
to Maryland, or North Carolina to Boston), the second colony then freely
reexporting the staple to Europe. The new act provided that the colony
must pay the English import duty on all shipments of enumerated goods
from one colony to another, and also prohibited their reexport. The act also
provided for colonial royal customs collectors, of whom the redoubtable
Edward Randolph was an outstanding early example.
The climactic Navigation Act came in 1696. It provided for tightened
enforcement of previous acts, including giving customs officials the right
of forcible entry in search for violations, and the creation of vice admiralty
courts without jury trials for violators, thus trying to circumvent the tendency
of American juries not to convict smugglers. Furthermore, in 1705,
the list of enumerated articles was lengthened to include rice, molasses,
timber, and naval stores, plus many other items. Copper and fur were added
in 1722.
To supervise the workings of the imperial structure and to administer the
colonies, the Crown established several important agencies. The continuing
operating head was the Board of Trade, newly revivified in 1696, with eight
paid and active members and allied to the English merchants. During its
first twenty years, the board pursued an energetic course, but by the early
1720s, it had succumbed to the happy and deliberate indolence of the Walpole
administration in England. In 1714, Queen Anne, a high Tory possessed
of reactionary instincts, died and was succeeded to the throne by George I.
With King George, the Whigs came securely to power, and in 1722 Robert
Walpole entered upon a long tenure as the king's chief minister. Walpole,
moderately liberal and pacific, headed a centrist Whig oligarchy. Walpole
wanted only to govern in peace and quiet, to keep government meddling
low-key, and to let natural social forces bring prosperity to England. He was
206