Editing Navigation Acts (section)

===Navigation Act 1673===
{{Infobox UK legislation
| short_title           = Navigation Act 1673
| type                  = Act
| parliament            = Parliament of England
| long_title            = An Act for the {{Not a typo|incouragement}} of the Greeneland and Eastland Trades, and for the better {{Not a typo|secureing}} the Plantation Trade.
| year                  = 1673
| citation              = [[25 Cha. 2]]. c. 7
| territorial_extent    = [[England and Wales]]
| royal_assent          = 29 March 1673 
| commencement          = 4 February 1673{{efn|Start of session.}}
| expiry_date           =
| repeal_date           = 28 July 1863
| amends                = 
| replaces              = 
| amendments            = 
| repealing_legislation = [[Statute Law Revision Act 1863]]
| related_legislation   = 
| status                = Repealed
| original_text         = https://www.british-history.ac.uk/statutes-realm/vol5/pp792-793
}}

The so-called '''Navigation Act 1673''' ([[25 Cha. 2]]. c. 7), long-titled ''An Act for the {{Not a typo|incouragement}} of the Greeneland and Eastland Trades, and for the better {{Not a typo|secureing}} the Plantation Trade'' became enforceable at various dates in that year; the act is [[short title]]d the Trade Act 1672. The act was intended to increase English capability and production in the northern [[whaling|whale fishery]] (more accurately in [[Spitsbergen]]), as well as in the eastern Baltic and North Sea trade, where the Dutch and [[Hanseatic League|Hansa]] dominated commerce and trade.  The act also closed a significant loophole in the enumerated goods trade as a result of the active inter-colonial trade.{{citation needed|date=July 2020}}

To promote whaling and production of its [[Whale oil|oil]] and [[whalebone]] etc., the act relaxed the 1660 act's restrictions on foreigners, allowing up to half the crew, if on English ships, and dropped all duties on these products for the next ten years. It also allowed foreign residents and foreigners to participate in this trade if imported to England in English ships. Colonial ships and crews engaged in this trade had to pay a low duty, with foreign ships paying a high duty. To promote the eastern trade then monopolized by the chartered and poorly performing [[Eastland Company]], the act opened their trade with Sweden, Denmark, and Norway to foreigners and English alike. It also allowed any Englishman to be admitted into the Eastland Company on paying a minor fee. The act was a mortal blow to Eastland's [[royal charter]].<ref>Anderson 1787, [https://books.google.com/books?id=chpPAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA521 pp.&nbsp;521–522]</ref>

To better secure their own plantation trade from considerable illegal indirect trade in enumerated products to Europe, by way of legal inter-colonial trade, the act instituted that customs duties and charges should be paid on departure from the colonies, if traveling without first obtaining the bond required to carry the goods to England. The purpose of the act was to stop the carrying of plantation goods to another plantation with their subsequent shipment to a foreign country on the grounds that the 1660 act's requirements had been fulfilled. This change was a considerable advance toward the systematic execution of the previous acts, and increased much needed royal revenue<ref name="ComPolE"/> given the recent [[Stop of the Exchequer]].  To better collect the customs revenue the act established that these were now to be levied and collected by the Commissioners of Customs in England. 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.