The end of the embargoes in 1647 unleashed the full power of the Amsterdam Entrepôt and other Dutch competitive advantages in European and world trade.

Stricter enforcement under the Sugar Act 1764 became one source of resentment among merchants in the American colonies towards Great Britain.

"[10] Some principles of English mercantile legislation pre-date both the passage of the Navigation Act 1651 and the settlement of England's early foreign possessions.

The letters patent granted to the Cabots by Henry VII in 1498 stipulated that the commerce resulting from their discoveries must be with England (specifically Bristol).

[13] Soon after actual settlements had been made in America, these early requirements illustrate the English theory then held regarding the governmental control of maritime commerce.

[15] The London Company lost its charter in 1624; the same year a proclamation, followed by Orders in Council, prohibited the use of foreign ships for the Virginia tobacco trade.

The Crown's purpose was to restrict to England the future commerce with America; it is well shown in the patent granted by Charles I to William Berkeley in 1639, by which the patentee was "to oblige the masters of vessels, freighted with productions of the colony, to give bond before their departure to bring same into England ... and to forbid all trade with foreign vessels, except upon necessity.

[17] More generally and significantly on 23 January 1647, they passed the Ordinance granting privileges for the encouragement of Adventurers to plantations in Virginia, Bermudas, Barbados, and other places of America; it enacted that for three years no export duty be levied on goods intended for the colonies, provided they were forwarded in English vessels.

They represent the first attempt to establish a legitimate control of commercial and colonial affairs, and the instructions indicate the beginnings of a policy which had the prosperity and wealth of England exclusively at heart.

Passage of the act was a reaction to the failure of the English diplomatic mission (led by Oliver St John and Walter Strickland) to The Hague seeking a political union of the Commonwealth with the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands, after the States of Holland had made some cautious overtures to Cromwell to counter the monarchical aspirations of stadtholder William II of Orange.

But the Dutch had just ended their war with Spain and already taken over most Portuguese colonies in Asia, so they saw little advantage in this grandiose scheme and proposed a free trade agreement as an alternative to a full political union.

The English naval victories in 1653 (the Battles of Portland, the Gabbard and Scheveningen) showed the supremacy of the Commonwealth navy in home waters.

The Dutch colony of New Netherlands offered a loophole (through intercolonial trade) wide enough to drive a shipload of Virginian tobacco through.

There were no restrictions put in the way of English colonists who might wish to build or trade in their own ships to foreign plantations or other European countries besides England, provided they did not violate the enumerated commodity clause.

Additional enumerated items would be included in subsequent navigation acts, for example the cocoa bean was added in 1672, after drinking chocolate became the fashion.

[citation needed] In a significant bow to English merchants and to the detriment of numerous foreign colonists, section two of the act declared that "no alien or person not born within the allegiance of our sovereign lord the King, his heirs and successors, or naturalized or made a free denizen, shall... exercise the trade or occupation of a merchant or factor in any of the said places" (i.e. lands, islands, plantations, or territories belonging to the King in Asia, Africa, or America), upon pain of forfeiting all goods and chattels.

Due to these increases, some exemptions were allowed; these included salt intended for the New England and Newfoundland fisheries, wine from Madeira and the Azores, and provisions, servants and horses from Scotland and Ireland.

This more or less gave the Dutch freedom to conduct their "smuggling" unhindered as long as they were not caught red-handed in territorial waters controlled by England.

This change was a considerable advance toward the systematic execution of the previous acts, and increased much needed royal revenue[14] given the recent Stop of the Exchequer.

Also, if a ship arrived with insufficient funds to pay the duties, customs official could accept an equivalent proportion of the goods as payment instead.

It contains new restrictions on colonial trade, and several different administrative provisions to strengthen enforcement and consolidate the earlier acts.

[46] In tightening the wording of the 1660 act, and after noting the daily "great abuses [being] committed ... by the artifice and cunning of ill disposed persons", this act now required that no goods or merchandise could be imported, exported, or carried between English possessions in Africa, Asia and America, or shipped to England, Wales, or Berwick upon Tweed, except in "what is or shall bee of the Built of England or of the Built of Ireland or the said Colonies or Plantations and wholly owned by the People thereof ... and navigated with the Masters and Three-Fourths of the Mariners of the said Places onely".

The deadline for the registration of ships was extended by the Registering of Ships Act 1697 (9 Will 3 c. 42)[47] In a significant tightening of the navigation enforcement system, section 6 of the act establishes that violations are to be tried in any of His Majesties Courts att Westminster or [in the Kingdome of Ireland or in the Court of Admiralty held in His Majesties Plantations respectively where such Offence shall bee committed att the Pleasure of the Officer or Informer or in any other Plantation belonging to any Subject of England]...[48] Revenue generated was to be split in thirds between the King, the Governor, and the one who informed and sued.

[49] The act was followed by a special instruction about the oaths and proprietary governors who weren't directly under royal control to post a bond to comply; this was considered by the Board of Trade and issued on 26 May 1697.

It also enacted that all laws, bylaws, usages or customs in current or future use in the plantations, which are found to be repugnant to the navigation acts in any way, are to be declared illegal, null and void.

The act additionally declared that all persons or their heirs claiming any right or property "in any Islands or Tracts of Land upon the Continent of America by Charter or Letters Patent shall not in the future alienate, sell or dispose of any of the Islands, Tracts of Land, or Proprieties other than to the Natural Born Subjects of England, Ireland, Dominion of Wales or Town of Berwick upon Tweed without the License and Consent of His Majesty".

However, it had the advantage to British shippers of severely limiting the ability of Dutch ships to participate in the carrying trade to Britain.

In the 1772 Gaspee affair, colonists attacked and burned a British navy ship enforcing the Navigation Acts off the coast of Rhode Island.

Historian Robert Thomas (1965) argues that the impact of the Acts on the economies of the Thirteen Colonies was minimal; the cost was about £4 per £1,000 of income per year.

[58] In 1995, a random survey of 178 members of the Economic History Association found that 89 percent of economists and historians would generally agree that the "costs imposed on [American] colonists by the trade restrictions of the Navigation Acts were small.