BY THE KING. A PROCLAMATION FOR PROHIBITING THE IMPORTATION OF COMMODITIES OF EUROPE INTO ANY OF HIS MAJESTIES PLANTATIONS IN AFRICA, ASIA, OR AMERICA, WHICH WERE NOT LADEN IN ENGLAND, AND FOR PUTTING ALL OTHER LAWS RELATING TO THE TRADE OF THE PLANTATIONS, IN EFFECTUAL EXECUTION [caption title]

London: Printed by the Assigns of John Bill and Christopher Barker, 1675. Broadside, 22 x 14 1/2 inches, printed on two sheets. Old fold lines. Repaired with tissue on verso along vertical fold. A few other small tears or tissue repairs. Very good. A rare broadside announcing the decree of the English government that all foreign goods destined for British colonies must first pass through England, a policy of mercantilism later termed the "triangle trade." "This program permitted the profits from colonial trade and commerce to center in England, promoted British shipping, and enabled the British government to support itself by taxing this trade as it flowed through England" - DAH.

The English government began its mercantilist policies under the Commonwealth government, in a series of "navigation acts" which regulated English trade. The first Navigation Act, passed in 1651, targeted Dutch commerce. It stipulated that only English ships could carry freight into English territories, and that if a ship was not English, it could only carry goods from the country from whence it hailed (i.e. Dutch ships could only import Dutch goods, etc.). Acts passed in 1660 and 1663, under the Restoration government of Charles II, isolated trade even further, mandating that British colonial goods only be imported to England and forbidding English trade on anything other than English vessels. This policy of trade, which was continued for the next two hundred years, marked the ascent of British colonial mercantilism and planted the seeds of discontent which resulted in the American Revolution one hundred years later.

The present proclamation is an enforcement of the Navigation Act of 1663 (An Act for the Encouragement of Trade), under which "no commodities of the growth, production or manufacture of Europe, shall be imported into any land, island, plantation, colony, territory or place to his Majesty belonging." In other words, all European trade to the American and East Indian colonies of the English had to pass through English ports en route. As the law is being disobeyed, to the detriment of trade and tax revenue, the proclamation extends power for enforcement to the officials of the realm. It states:

"whereas his Majesty is well informed, that notwithstanding the said Act of Parliament, great quantities of other commodities...have been, and are daily imported into several of his colonies, plantations, and territories, in Asia, Africa and America...and that his Majesties subjects of some of his colonies, and plantations, have not onely [sic] supplied themselves with such commodities not shipped in England...but have conveyed them by land and water, to other of his Majesties colonies and plantations, to the great prejudice of his Majesties customs, and of the trade and navigation of this kingdom."

An important proclamation which illustrates the difficulty in maintaining and enforcing the laws central to the first British Empire. ESTC R25339. WING C3378. GOLDSMITHS' 2112. STEELE I:3619. KRESS S1421. DAH III, p.374