The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 78, April, 1864: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
History
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 78, April, 1864: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
It was her fixed policy, as is well known, to keep her skilled artisans
at home, and to discourage as far as possible all manufactures in the
Colonies. By different statutes, passed in successive reigns, persons
enticing artificers into foreign countries incur the penalty of five
hundred pounds and twelve months' imprisonment for the first offence,
and of one thousand pounds and two years' imprisonment for the second
offence. If the workmen did not return within six months after warning,
they were to be deemed aliens, forfeit all their lands and goods, and be
incapable of receiving any legacy or gift. A similar penalty was laid so
late as the reign of George III. upon any person contracting with or
endeavoring to persuade any artificer concerned in printing calicoes,
cottons, muslins, or linens, or preparing any tools for such
manufacture, to go out of the kingdom.
The same jealousy of the Colonies, lest they should by their success in
the different branches of industry interfere with the home monopoly,
shows itself in various other forms. There was, naturally enough, a
special sensitiveness to the practice of the art of printing. Sir Edmund
Andros, when he came out as Governor of the Northern Colonies, was
instructed "to allow of no printing-press"; and Lord Effingham, on his
appointment to the government of Virginia, was directed "to allow no
person to use a printing-press on any occasion whatever."
The Board of Trade and Plantations made a report, in 1731, to the
British Parliament concerning the "trades carried on, and manufactures
set up, in the Colonies," in which it is recommended that "some
expedient be fallen upon to direct the thoughts of the Colonists from
undertakings of this kind; so much the rather, because these
manufactures in process of time may be carried on in a greater degree,
unless an early stop be put to their progress."
In one of Franklin's papers, published in London in 1768, are enumerated
some instances of the way in which the Colonists were actually
interfered with by legislation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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