Each one of these ideas was reflected in
the actual policy which the British government in the eighteenth
century adopted and enforced in respect of the American colonies.
[Sidenote: Regulation of Colonial Industry. Bounties]
(1) Various expedients were employed to encourage the production of
particular colonial commodities which the British Parliament thought
desirable. The commodity might be exempted from customs duties, or
Parliament might forbid the importation into Great Britain of similar
products from foreign countries, or might even bestow outright upon the
colonial producer "bounties," or sums of money, as an incentive to
persevere in the industry. Thus the cultivation of indigo in Carolina,
of coffee in Jamaica, of tobacco in Virginia, was encouraged, so that
the British would not have to buy these desirable commodities from
Spain. Similarly, bounties were given for tar, pitch, hemp, masts, and
spars imported from America rather than from Sweden.
[Sidenote: Restrictions on Colonial Industry]
(2) The chief concern of the mercantilist was the framing of such
governmental regulations of trade as would deter colonial commerce or
industry from taking a turn which conceivably might lessen the
prosperity of the British manufacturers or shippers, on whom Parliament
depended for taxes.
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