The Enumerated Commodities

⁴⁷ Only enumerated commodities from the British colonies are confined to the market of Great Britain.

These commodities are called such because they were enumerated in the act of navigation and other subsequent acts.

• The rest are called non-enumerated.

Non-enumerated commodities may be exported directly if:

• they are on British or Plantation ships, and
• their owners and 3/4 of the mariners are British.

⁴⁸ Some of the most important products of America and the West Indies are non-enumerated commodities:

• Grains
• Lumber
• Salt provisions
• Fish
• Sugar
• Rum

⁴⁹ “Grain is naturally the first and principal object of the culture of all new colonies.”

The law allows grain a very extensive market. This:

• encourages new colonies to extend this grain agriculture beyond the consumption of a country with a low population.
• provides an ample subsistence for a continually increasing population.

⁵⁰ In a country covered with wood, timber is of little value.

The cost of clearing the ground is the main obstacle to improvement.

The law allows the colonies a very extensive market for their lumber. This:

• facilitates improvement by raising its price, which would otherwise be very low

• enables the colonies to profit from something that would otherwise be a mere expence.

⁵¹ In a country neither half-peopled nor half-cultivated, cattle naturally multiply beyond the local consumption.

Such cattle are often of little value.

But cattle prices should be proportional to grain prices before most of the country’s lands reach an improved state.

The high price of cattle is very essential to improvement.

The law allows a very extensive market to American cattle. This raises its price and facilitates improvement.

The 4th of George III. c. 15 reduces the good effects of this liberty.

• It puts hides and skins among the enumerated commodities.
• It reduces the value of American cattle.

⁵² The legislature constantly aimed to increase British shipping and naval power by extending the fisheries of our colonies.

Those fisheries were given all the encouragement, and flourished accordingly.

Before the recent disturbances, the New England fishery was perhaps one of the most important in the world.

In Great Britain, the whale-fishery has an extravagant bounty and is carried on with so little purpose.

• Many people think (which I do not warrant) that the whole produce does not exceed the value of the bounties paid for it.

In New England, it is carried on without any great bounty.

Fish is one of the principal articles which North Americans trade to Spain, Portugal, and the Mediterranean.

⁵³ Sugar was originally an enumerated commodity which could be exported only to Great Britain.

In 1751, on a representation of the sugar-planters, its worldwide exportation was permitted with restrictions.

• These restrictions, along with high sugar prices in Great Britain, rendered it ineffective.

Great Britain and her colonies are still the sole market for all the sugar produced in the British plantations.

• The increasing improvement of Jamaica and the ceded islands increased sugar importation very greatly within 20 years.

British sugar consumption increases so fast that the exportation to foreign countries was not much greater than before.

⁵⁴ Rum is a very important article in the trade between the Americans and the coast of Africa which return negro slaves.

⁵⁵ If the whole surplus produce of America in grain, salt, and fish, were put into the enumeration and forced into the market of Great Britain, it would have interfered too much with British produce.

It was probably from this jealous interference that those commodities were:

• kept out of the enumeration, and
• prohibited from being imported, except rice.

⁵⁶ The non-enumerated commodities could originally be exported internationally.

Lumber and rice were once put into the enumeration but was taken out afterwards.

They were confined to the European market and to the countries south of Cape Finisterre.

By the 6th of George 3rd, Chapter 52, all non-enumerated commodities were subjected to the like restriction.

The parts of Europe south of Cape Finisterre are not manufacturing countries.

• We were less jealous of the colony ships carrying home any manufactures from them.

⁵⁷ The enumerated commodities are of 2 sorts:

The peculiar produce of America that cannot be produced or are not produced in Great Britain:

• Molasses
• Coffee
• Cacao-nuts
• Tobacco
• Pimento
• Ginger
• Whale-fins
• Raw silk
• Cotton-wool
• Beaver and other peltry of America
• Indigo
• Fustic and other dyeing woods

The produce of America which may be produced in Great Britain and principally supplied from foreign countries:

• All naval stores
• Masts
• Yards
• Bowsprits
• Tar
• Pitch
• Turpentine
• Pig and bar iron
• Copper ore
• Hides and skins
• Pot and pearl ashes

The importation of the first kind of commodities does not discourage the growth nor interfere with the sale of British produce.

By confining those commodities to the home market, our merchants expected:

• to be able buy them cheaper in the Plantations and sell them with more profit at home,
• to establish an advantageous carrying trade between the Plantations and foreign countries, and
• to establish Great Britain as the center or emporium where those commodities would be first imported.

They supposed that the importation of the second kind of commodities might be managed to interfere with imported foreign commodities.

By duties, those commodities from America might be dearer than those from Britain, but cheaper than those from foreign countries.

By confining such commodities to the home market, it proposed to discourage the produce of foreign countries which would create an unfavourable balance of trade to Great Britain.