Under the conditions of life in New England, the people became perforce farmers, growing their own food; loggers, cutting timber in the near-by forest for use in building houses, fishing smacks, and ships; fishermen, going afloat in the smacks and then curing the catch on the beach; seamen, who, blow high or blow low, carried the catch in their own ships direct to the consumer; traders, meeting the competition of the keenest merchants in the world; inventors, who, when unable to do their work by methods already in use, promptly improvised something new that would serve the purpose. CHAPTER III EVOLUTION OF THE SMUGGLER AND THE PIRATE Among the first acts of the English Parliament for the regulation of the commerce of the American colonies, notable here, was that passed in 1646, by which it was provided that no colonial produce should be carried away to foreign ports except in vessels under the British flag. Since the days of Raleigh, who had done his utmost to create the sea habit among his countrymen, the English people had been growing jealous of the enterprising Dutch, who then were carrying the commerce of the world. This act was a measure to restrain the freedom of the Dutch carrying trade and to give it to English (including colonial) ships. In 1650, although England was yet torn by civil war, Parliament prohibited all foreign ships from trading with the colonies without first obtaining a license. A year later came the culminating act of the Protector's Parliament, "the famous Act of Navigation," as McCulloch calls it (London edition, 1839, p. 817). It provided that no goods produced or manufactured in _Asia_, _Africa_, or _America_ should be imported into any part of the English domain except in ships belonging to English subjects whereof the master and more than half the crew were Englishmen. The importation of _European_ goods was prohibited except in English ships, or ships belonging to the country where the goods were produced, or those of the country from which they could only be or were most usually exported. As is well known, this act was intended as a final blow at the Dutch carrying trade. Consider, now, that "shipping" means one thing, "commerce" or "trade" another. While modern American "commerce" is increasing in a way that seems marvellous, American shipping has been almost entirely driven from the foreign "carrying trade." The English enactments relating to the colonies, from the settlement of Virginia down to and including the "famous Act of Navigation," were all designed to favor all colonial commerce as well as shipping.