=258. The Navigation Acts; victory of English over Dutch shipping.=—“The first nail in the coffin of Dutch greatness,” says an English historian, was the Navigation Act passed under Cromwell in 1651. This was but one of a series of measures extending before and afterward, designed to further the English carrying trade at the expense of rivals. Briefly, goods from a European country could be brought to England only in English ships or in ships of the country, so that, for instance, the Dutch could not carry Baltic wares to England; while the products of other continents could be imported or exported only in English ships; and some wares that were enumerated (sugar, tobacco, etc.) must be brought to England before they could be exported to any other European country. To maintain this policy the English engaged in a long contest with smugglers in America, and fought several great naval wars with the Dutch. The result was, as we have seen, a victory for English commerce over the Dutch, though it is hard to say how much credit should be given the government policy, and how much was due to the energy of the individuals who were building up English business at this period. The effect of the new oceanic trade was to build up the ports in the West; Liverpool came into prominence in the eighteenth century, and Bristol also grew. The distribution of trade among the ports did not, however, change greatly. An estimate of the eighteenth century gave to London still two thirds of the total, while the remaining third was divided in equal parts among the ports of the east, the south, and the west coasts. =259. (7) Government policy. Commerce and war.=—Just as in shipping, so in other commercial interests, the efforts of individuals to make money for themselves were restrained or furthered by government regulations aiming to advance the English people as a whole. Every matter of commerce was at the same time a matter of politics. Mention was made in an introductory chapter of the part played by England in the great wars of the period. It will be remembered that English policy in general was characterized by a shrewd recognition of the commercial advantages to be gained in war, either by territorial acquisitions or by trading privileges, and every war in which England engaged ended, as a rule, with a treaty that gave her some new colonial market or some advantages in trade with a European country. England fought France consistently, not because of old traditions of enmity, but because France was a commercial rival, refusing English manufactures and attempting to market her own in England, and because France had possessions in America and India that England desired. England allied herself with Portugal, on the other hand, because the trade of the two countries was complementary rather than competitive.