To the Act of Navigation, passed in 1651 (see NAVIGATION LAWS) is due a change in the relations of the colonies to the mother-country. "Henceforth they were regarded mainly as feeders to its carrying-trade, as consumers of its manufactures, as factories for the distribution of its capital, and, in a word, as mere commercial appendages of what was now the great commercial power. Dominion became subordinate to trade. … Beginning … with the re-enactment of the Navigation Act after the Restoration, we find that the new system which is to regulate colonial trade and define the relations of the colonies to the parent, is contained in three Acts of Parliament. {3171} First, in the re-enactment itself of the Act of Navigation in 1660; secondly, in an act, passed in 1663, entitled 'an Act for the encouragement of trade'; and, thirdly, in an act, passed in 1672, and entitled 'an Act for the encouragement of the Greenland and Eastland fisheries, and for the better securing the plantation trade.' … The three acts which created the system, were all passed in the reign of Charles II.; the others followed rapidly, and in great numbers, for a century, until the failure of the attempt to transform this system of trade into one of trade and revenue, by means of what is known as the Stamp Act. St. John's Navigation Act was reenacted in 1660, under Charles II., as the first-fruits of the Restoration. This act forbade importation into or exportation out of the colonies, save what came and went in English ships, and its object was, to shut the doors of the colonies against foreign trade. In 1663 another step was taken, and an act was passed with the object, openly avowed in its fifth section, of keeping the colonies in 'a firmer dependence' upon England, and of making that kingdom the staple, or place of distribution, not only of colonial produce, 'but also of the commodities of other countries and places, for the supplying of them.' To effect this, the Act of 1663 went beyond that of 1660, and exacted, that no European products or manufactures should be imported into any colony, except what had been actually laden and shipped in an English port, and carried 'directly thence' to the importing colony. This act forced the colonists to get such supplies as they could not themselves furnish in England only, and thus not only could none but mariners of whom three fourths were English transport merchandise to and from the colonies, but the colonists themselves were not suffered to go anywhere but to England for that which they could not get at home. … This position of factor between the colonies and foreign markets was a lucrative one. But the spirit of trade is such, that it regards much as only a stepping-stone to more, and the next enactment concerning colonial trade, or that of 1672, betrays this characteristic.