But commercial jealousy had already seized the English colonists in the West Indies, and had led them to claim an exclusive monopoly of the trade with the colonies on the continent; while, at the same time, the contraband traffic carried on by the French and the Dutch was pressed on the consideration of parliament. Hence it was that a Bill received the sanction of the House of Commons prohibiting, under forfeiture of ship and cargo, the importation into any part of English America of sugar, rum, or molasses grown in plantations not of English origin. Although this bill failed in the House of Lords, an Act was passed in 1733[211] for encouraging the sugar trade, the effect of which was to grant drawbacks on re-exportations from Great Britain of West India sugar, and to impose duties on the importation into America of the produce of foreign plantations. From the preamble of this Act foreign rivals appear to have surpassed the English colonists in the quality of their sugar, and to have supplanted their shipping in the carrying trade: so that the English professed they were unable to carry it on without relief from the parliament of Great Britain. Following this example, all classes, as a matter of course, appealed for protection, and an artificial system grew up which, even if justifiable at the beginning, proved, when the separation of the colonies took place, to be altogether impracticable. The shipowners at home were equally ready to find pretexts for parliamentary interference in their favour. Thus, in 1749-50, they held a meeting in the city of London, “to promote British shipping and British navigation,” at which sixty gentlemen were present, and “the Case” then drawn up was signed by fifty-nine of them.[212] Their object seems to have been to prevent foreign ships taking away, as back-freight, goods entitled to drawback or bounty; the system of bounties practised by other nations operating against English shipping, though the policy of retaliation then adopted did not always remedy the evil complained of. Hence it is that we find incessant remonstrances by shipowners that foreigners came to English ports with freights and cargoes of small value, and loaded tin, lead, and other goods only to be obtained in England, and their assertion that, by the help of drawbacks and of bounties freely conceded abroad, the foreigners gained, on the whole, a larger freight than English vessels could do in the same time. English shipowners sought, therefore, to obtain fresh limitations on the foreigner, so as to raise their freights to an equality with those earned in the general market of the world. In the statements thus set forth, the shipowners, however, were compelled to admit that “at all foreign ports which had no shipping of their own, ours (English) are always chosen preferable to the ships of any other nation.” [Sidenote: Seven Years’ War, 1756-1763.] [Sidenote: Its effect on the colonies.]