Navigation files
The Navigation Acts (linguistically incorrect but common translation of English Navigation Acts , 'Navigation Laws' or 'Shipping Laws') were a series of legislative decisions of the English Parliament to regulate shipping and sea trade .
Content
The navigational files reserved all imports of non-European goods into England, as well as all coastal trade and fishing in the English waters of the British flag, and permitted the import of European goods only on English ships and those of the countries of origin. These provisions were aimed directly at eliminating the lucrative intermediate trade between the Netherlands and England and the English colonies , and replacing it with active trade with England. This was the British form of mercantilism .
The First Navigational Act, written under the direction of Oliver Cromwell , was passed on October 9, 1651 and came into force on December 1 of that year. Cromwell deliberately accepted the military conflict with the Netherlands. The regulations were a severe blow to Dutch trade and led directly to the first Dutch-English naval war . In the Treaty of Westminster in 1654, the Netherlands finally had to recognize the Navigation Act. For the first time , their supremacy in world trade was really threatened, and England was able to expand its position as an independent economic power in the period that followed.
For two centuries, the navigational files, often supplemented and partially softened, determined British trade policy. It was not until 1854 that they were finally repealed. They were of considerable importance in England's rise to become the first sea and trading power. The German historian Leopold von Ranke writes in his English history , "[...] that of all parliamentary acts it is the one which has had the most extensive consequences for England and the world." These laws were also called the magna charta maritima of Great Britain.
