seemed to be some fear that Scotland might be a staple for all Plantation commodities. They may carry by this admittance all the Growth of these Plantacons into forreigne Parts which must lessen his Majesties duties. . . . They may serve all forreigne Parts as Germany and Holland with the fruits of our Labours and make Scotland the Magazine and leave us to our home consumption.' But perhaps the most important point in the case against Scotland, at the time when the first Acts were passed, was the dread that Scotland's ancient commercial allies, the Dutch, might, under cover of the Scots, intrude into England's plantation trade. plantation trade. When the Scotch shall trade at large with mixture of other Nacons especially the Dutch to whome they are most contiguous and who no doubt will worke into them as well in shipping as Mariners, against which the Act principally aymes at.'1 The Scots were not long in realising the disadvantages and losses which the passing of the Navigation Act brought upon them; and their remonstrances were voiced by the Convention of the Burghs and the Privy Council, also by a petition from the Earls of Glencairne and Rothes, Chancellor and President of the Council in Scotland. They declared the Act to be 'totallie destructive to the tread and navigatione of this Kingdome.' They also asserted that their poverty, and the fact that the whole schippis now belonging to Scotland ar of ane verie inconsiderable value and number,' would prevent them from having any great share in the trade in any case; while 'a great pairt of our stockis which wee most send abroad... consistis of Inglisch manufactures which we most buy for our money.' 2

The Scots threatened retaliation if they were not excepted from the Act, and accordingly passed in June, 1661, an Act for encourageing of Shiping and Navigation'; which forbade the import of any goods into Scotland, except from the country of their production, and in ships belonging to that country or in Scotch ships. This was not to be enforced for English or Irish merchants, if the like exception were made there in favour of Scotsmen. In August, 1663, in return for an English Act laying heavy duties on Scots cattle and salt, prohibitive duties were laid on English merchandise, especially on cloth and tobacco. This proved disastrous to many English mer

1S.P. Dom. C. II. xliv. 12.

2 Royal Burghs, vol. iii. p. 555.

3 Acts of Parliament of Scotland, vol. vii. p. 257.
4 Acts, Scotland, vol. vii. p. 465.

chants, who petitioned that the Scots should be admitted to some share in English trade. English imports to Scotland had far exceeded those of Scotland to England, and, instead of this profitable trade, thousands of families who got a comfortable subsistence in ye management of that trade are now exposed to want and beggary.' Great prejudice was done to the kingdom of England, in the decay of English manufactures which in great quantities were yearly carried out besides what goods came from your Majesties Plantations abroad, the lessening of your Majesties Revenue and the giving up that Trade wholly into the hands of the Dutch and French.'1

What Scottish trade there was to the Plantations had been chiefly to Barbadoes, to which cargoes of servants had been taken. Many remonstrances and petitions came in from the Governor and planters there, begging that the hindrance to the supply of servants might be removed. The Scots were highly valued both as settlers and as soldiers. Heretofore the Colonyis were plentifully supplyed with . . . Christian servants... the most of which they had from Scotland who being excellent Planters and Soldjers and considerable numbers of them coming every year to the Plantations kept the Colonists in soe formidable a position that they neither feared the Insurrection of their negroes nor any invasion of a foreigne enemy, but are now by the Act of Navigation forbidden to have trade with Scotland whereby they can have no servants from thence. The remonstrances of Scottish, English, and West Indian merchants were of no avail, and, though during the negotiations for union of 1667-1670 the question was discussed again, no agreement could be made. The Scots, therefore, continued to be excluded from all lawful share in the English Plantation trade, and, consequently, from all trade with North America. Scotland, prohibited from trading with the English Colonies, had forthwith put prohibitive duties on English manufactures and Colonial products imported from England. But there was a considerable amount of tobacco consumed in Scotland, and sugar was also required for the 'sugyaries,' which were set up in 1667, 1669, 1696, 1700,

1 East India Entry Book, i. p. 79, 1664.

2 An Account of the English Sugar Plantations, Brit. Mus. Egerton MSS. 2395, 629.

3 Acts, Scotland, vol. vii. p. 465.

and for the works for distilling strong waters and molasses from sugar. There was also some trade in furs. In 1683 an Edinburgh merchant, who, having a considerable trade to some of the plantations in America he doeth export severall quantities of the native product of this Kingdome. The returns whereof are Beavers and Racoone skins,' asked and received permission from the Privy Council to set up a hat manufactory.

There was, therefore, a demand in Scotland for plantation. products, and, though a few special licenses were given by the King to Scotsmen for trade with America, they were by no means sufficient to supply the demand; so from about 1675 onwards, a lively illicit trade seems to have been carried on both by Scottish and Colonial ships. The loss of the English supply of manufactured goods seems to have given an impulse to Scotch manufactures. An Act for encouraging manufactures was passed in 1661,' and in the following years a good many were set up for making sugar, cloth, linen, glass, etc. England, therefore, suffered by her efforts to exclude the Scots from the Plantation trade. She did not supply Scotland as largely as before with manufactured goods, the deficit being made up by imports of Dutch manufactures and by the development of Scottish industries. These, instead of English goods, were sent out to supply the Plantations when Scotland succeeded in forcing herself into an illegal share in the trade with America.

The goods which were exported were principally coarse cloth and linen, stockings, hats, salted meat and fish, Dutch manufactures, etc. Mr. George Muschamp, Collector of duties in Carolina, writes in 1687, that the Scotch are evidently able to undersell ye English, their Goods being either much coarser or slighter, which will serve for servants weare and will be sure to go off, they being cheap so that an Englishman must go away unfreighted or sell to vast Disadvantage.'

2

One commodity was very plentiful in Scotland and could easily be had for exportation: notorious vagabonds.' For over twenty years the Privy Council continued to grant licenses to masters of ships sailing to Virginia, Barbadoes, New York, or New England, to transport idle and sturdie beggars and loose and masterless men and women who have no visible way of livelihood bot by stouth and robbery to the great 1 Acts, Scotland, vol. vii. p. 255. 2 Colonial Entry Book, 100, p. 1.

oppression and trouble of the country.' It was hoped that it might much contribut to the peace and quyet yrof and the good of those persons themselves if they were sent to work for their livelihood abroad.' It was said that 'severall other persones so sent away . . . have become very active and virtuous persones, their idleness and poverty having formerly corrupted them.' During the Killing Times' numbers of 'obstinat phanaticks' and 'absenters from the Church' were transported, along with the vagabonds, not, one would think, particularly congenial fellow-travellers. Many of these persons received their freedom in a few years and settled down as merchants and factors. Altogether quite a number of Scots settled in the Plantations during the last quarter of the seventeenth and first few years of the eighteenth centuries. Settlements were made in East New Jersey and Carolina, the former becoming a prosperous Colony and a centre for trade with Scotland. There were also Scottish merchants in Maryland: They send tobacco to Scotland (having many Scotchmen living and trading among them)': in New Hampshire There are several Scotsmen that inhabit here and are great interlopers and bring in quantities of goods underhand': and also in Pennsylvania, New York, and in other parts of New England. There was far more illicit trade in the northern than in the southern Colonies, as they had more difficulty in finding a market for their products in England, and so were forced into trading with other countries. Scottish trade took some time to recover from the exhaustion caused by the Civil Wars, and for several years after the Restoration there seems to have been little connection with America. The first mention of Scotsmen trading illegally does not occur till 1676, in a paper sent by Mr. Edward Randolph (appointed in 1675 Collector, Surveyor, and Searcher for all New England) about the state of New England. Here, he says, 'the trade and navigation is carried on by a general traffick to most parts of Europe, as England, Scotland, Ireland, France. . . . In 1678 the

1 Scottish Privy Council Register, 31 July, 1673.

2 Privy Council, 10 August, 1680.

3 S.P. Col.: America and West Indies, 556. 18, 1695.

4 S.P. Col. Col. Papers, 50, 3, 1683.

96

5 Commercial Policy of England towards the Am. Colonies, G. L. Beer, p. 135. 6 Hutchinson Papers, ii. p. 231.

2

in

Commissioners of the Customs in London, writing to Randolph, commission him to take measures for preventing ships laden with enumerated plantation produce from sailing to Scotland or Ireland. There were many methods of evading the Customs authorities. Robert Holden, Collector of the Customs Carolina, said that the tobacco grown there was collected in a certain place where the Collector of Customs was in the interest of the merchants, and thence carried to Boston, where it was shipped, without examination or payment of dues, to Ireland, Scotland, Holland, etc., under the notion of fish and such-like goods.' Tobacco from Maryland was also taken over from the east shore to the Delaware River, where there were numbers of creeks and inlets into which ships could enter unnoticed, unload their goods, and get a return. cargo of tobacco. The inhabitants of the Eastern shore of Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware River, Scotchmen and others have great stocks lying by them, to purchase tobacco and to prepare a loading ready to be put on board upon the Arrivall of any Vessell from New England etc., who assist with boats and sloops and get the goods ashoar befor the Vessell is entered, which they dispose of amongst their goods in the Store, the Vessell lying in some obscure creek 40 or 50 miles distante from the Collectors office and in a short time loaded. and sailes out of the Capes undiscovered.' 3

With such a long coast-line it would of course have been almost impossible to prevent smuggling entirely, even if the officials had been more numerous, and incorruptible, which they were not. This province' (Pennsylvania) 'having many very large and navigable Rivers in it, and at great distance from one another many ships goe out singly and many false Traders from Scotland and Holland . . . escape unpunished. escape unpunished.' 'Which illegal Trade so carryed on . . . is connived at and encouraged by divers of their Majesties Collectors of ye Customs in Virginia etc. who are (Underhand) interested and Concerned therein.'5 But besides the vessels which engaged in the regular smuggling trade, entering and departing unobserved; there were many ships which, under pretext of trading in a lawful manner, went to 1 Massachusetts Hist. Soc. Collections, 3rd Series, vols. vii. and viii. p. 129. 2 S.P. Col.: Records of North Carolina, i. p. 245, 1679.

3 S.P. Col.: Entry Book, 100, p. 359, 1694.

4 Maryland Archives, viii. p. 358, 1692. 5 Treasury Papers, xxvi. 53, 1694.