Some time before 1849, British sea-captains must have seen the American clipper ships in the ports of China; or perhaps an Indiaman in the lone southern ocean may have been lying almost becalmed on the long heaving swell, lurching and slatting the wind out of her baggy hemp sails, while her officers and crew watched an American clipper as she swept past, under a cloud of canvas, curling the foam along her keen, slender bow. But when these mariners returned home and related what they had seen, their yarns were doubtless greeted with a jolly, good-humored smile of British incredulity. With the Navigation Laws to protect them, British ship-owners cared little about American ships and their exploits. These Navigation Laws, first enacted in 1651 by the Parliament of Cromwell, and affirmed by Charles II. soon after his restoration to the throne, were intended to check the increasing power of Holland upon the sea, but they had quite the contrary effect. With a few slight changes, however, they were passed along from generation to generation, until Adam Smith exposed the fallacy of Protection in his _Wealth of Nations_, which appeared in 1776. From that time on, British statesmen, few in number at first, adopted his teachings, and under the pressure of popular clamor some concessions were made, especially in the way of reciprocity treaties, but it was nearly three quarters of a century before these barbaric old laws, a legacy from the thieving barons, were finally swept away. It may be well briefly to enumerate these laws as they stood previous to their repeal, for it is seldom that one comes across so much ingenious stupidity in so compact a form; also mainly because through their repeal the ships of Great Britain eventually became the greatest ocean carriers of the world. (I.) Certain enumerated articles of European produce could only be imported to the United Kingdom for consumption, in British ships or in ships of the country of which the goods were the produce, or in ships of that country from which they were usually imported. (II.) No produce of Asia, Africa, or America could be imported for consumption in the United Kingdom from Europe in any ships; and such produce could only be imported from any other place in British ships or in ships of the country of which they were the produce. (III.) No goods could be carried coastwise from one part of the United Kingdom to another in any but British ships. (IV.) No goods could be exported from the United Kingdom to any of the British possessions in Asia, Africa, or America (with some exceptions in regard to India) in any but British ships. (V.) No goods could be carried from one British possession in Asia, Africa, or America to another, nor from one part of such possession to another part of the same, in any but British ships.