[173] The cargoes from England of the vessels of the Muscovy Company chiefly consisted of the cloths of Suffolk, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, and Coventry, dyed and dressed; kerseys of Hampshire and York; lead, tar, and a great quantity of Indian spices, indigo and calicoes; their return cargoes consisting of raw silks from Persia, Damascus and Tripoli; galls of Mosul and Tocat; camlets, grograins, and mohairs of Angola; cotton and cotton yarns of Cyprus and Smyrna, and sometimes the gums of India and drugs of Egypt and Arabia, with the currants and dried fruits of Zante, Cephalonia, and the Morea. The recital of cotton among these imports indicates that already the English had commenced the important business of weaving calicoes; and indeed, in a work published in 1641, Manchester is pointed out as the place where the raw material was made up, and when manufactured into “fustians, dimities and vermilions,” became an article of export for her merchantmen, a branch of business which has since reached an extent altogether unexampled in the history of commerce and navigation. [174] Mons. Huet, in his celebrated ‘History of the Dutch Trade,’ claims for the Dutch the honour of having enjoyed their trade and navigation for a thousand years. CHAPTER V. English Navigation Laws—First Prohibitory Act, 1646—Further Acts, 1650-1651—Their object and effect—War declared between Great Britain and Holland, July 1652—The English capture prizes—Peace of 1654—Alleged complaints against the Navigation Acts of Cromwell—Navigation Act of Charles II.—The Maritime Charter of England—Its main provisions recited—Trade with the Dutch prohibited—The Dutch navigation seriously injured—Fresh war with the Dutch, 1664—Its naval results—Action off Harwich, 1665—Dutch Smyrna fleet—Coalition between French and Dutch, 1666—Battle of June 1 and of July 24, 1666—Renewed negotiations for peace, 1667—Dutch fleet burn ships at Chatham, threaten London, and proceed to Portsmouth—Peace concluded—Its effects—The Colonial system—Partial anomalies—Capital created—Economical theories the prelude to final free trade—Eventual separation from the mother country considered—Views of Sir Josiah Child on the Navigation Laws—Relative value of British and Foreign ships, 1666—British clearances, 1688, and value of exports—War with France—Peace of Ryswick, 1697—Trade of the Colonies—African trade—Newfoundland—Usages at the Fishery—Greenland Fishery—Russian trade—Peter the Great—Effect of legislative union with Scotland, 1707—The maritime Commerce of Scotland—Buccaneers in the West Indies—State of British shipping, temp. George I.—South Sea Company, 1710. [Sidenote: A.D. 1640-1650.] [Sidenote: English Navigation Laws.] [Sidenote: First Prohibitory Act, A.D. 1646.]