raries of the Navigation Act, to whom it was known under
the name _entrepot_. This term was applied to those commercial
centres--in this connection maritime centres--where goods accumulate
on their way to market; where they are handled, stored, or
transshipped. All these processes involve expenditure, which inures to
the profit of the port, and of the nation; the effect being the exact
equivalent of the local gains of a railroad centre of the present day.
It was a dominant object with statesmen of the earlier period to draw
such accumulations of traffic to their own ports, or nations; to force
trade, by ingenious legislation, or even by direct coercion, to bring
its materials to their own shores, and there to yield to them the
advantages of the _entrepot_. Thus the preamble to one of the series
of Navigation Acts states, as a direct object, the "making this
Kingdom a staple[12] [emporium], not only of the commodities of our
plantations, but also of the commodities of other countries, and
places, for the supply of the plantations."[13] An instructive example
of such indirect effort was the institution of free ports; ports
which, by exemption from heavy customary tolls, or by the admission of
foreign ships or goods, not permitted entrance to other national
harbors, invited the merchant to collect in them, from surrounding
regions, the constituents of his cargoes. On the other hand, the
Colonial System, which began to assume importance at the time of the
Navigation Act, afforded abundant opportunity for the compulsion of
trade. Colonies being part of the mother country, and yet transoceanic
with reference to her, maritime commerce between them and foreign
communities could by direct legislation be obliged first to seek the
parent state, which thus was made the distributing centre for both
their exports and imports.

For nearly three centuries before the decisive measures taken by the
Parliament of the Commonwealth, the development and increase of
English shipping, by regulation of English trade, had been recognized
as a desirable object by many English rulers. The impulse had taken
shape in various enactments, giving to English vessels privileges,
exclusive or qualified, in the import or export carriage of the
kingdom; and it will readily be understood that the matter appeared of
even more pressing importance, when the Navy depended upon the
merchant service for ships, as well as for men; when the war fleets of
the nation