Other laws, hostile to the industries of Scotland, were enacted. On some Scottish goods duties were paid equal to, or above, their value. On others a duty was charged very much greater than the duty levied on the same articles when they came from abroad. For instance, the duty on Scottish salt was sixteen times that imposed on foreign salt. Linen imported from Scotland was now so heavily taxed that it hardly paid the producer to bring it into England. In Northumberland and Cumberland heavy customs were levied on horses which came from Scotland; and, on the plea that a great part of the richest pasture land in England would fall in value if the graziers of Scotland were allowed to find a free market in England, Parliament was induced to cripple one of the most important branches of Scottish industry by imposing a fine of two pounds for every head of cattle which crossed the border between the 24th of August and the 20th of December.[95] And there were many other enactments framed for the purpose of excluding Scottish merchants, whose operations were further embarrassed by a law under which all goods sent from Scotland to England must pass through either Berwick or Carlisle.[96] The commercial freedom which had been enjoyed during the period of the Commonwealth had quickened the commercial instincts of the Scottish people, and had given them some idea of what their country might become if they were permitted to extend their traffic to the colonies, those highly-favoured regions of the earth from which so large a portion of the wealth of England came. The recent Union had been attended by circumstances which were humiliating; but for many of these compensation had been found in the prosperity which the Union had brought along with it. The sudden change which the Restoration had produced was, therefore, bitterly resented; and the Scottish merchants persuaded the Estates to retaliate by passing a Navigation Act for Scotland, similar to the English Act, and by imposing heavy duties on English goods.[97] But retaliation could not put Scotland in the same position as England; and at length, after repeated complaints and demands, an Act was passed under which commissioners from the two countries were to meet and confer on the subject of a commercial treaty.[98] In January 1668 the commissioners met. The Scotsmen demanded that Scotland should enjoy the privilege of trading to the English colonies which was granted, by the Act of Navigation, to the Irish and to the Welsh, and that they should be allowed to bring in goods as freely as the English, with no other restrictions than those laid on Ireland and Wales. They were willing to give assurances that goods transported from English colonies would be brought to England, except the small quantities which were consumed in Scotland. A number of papers, containing these and other demands, were presented by the Scottish commissioners, and to these the English commissioners returned written answers.