Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/130

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of particular European States in ships built in countries incorporated into those States subsequent to the passing of the Navigation Act, as, for instance, the question whether Prussian produce might be imported in ships built in East Friesland, it was enacted, 22 Geo. III., cap. 78, that the enumerated articles might be imported in ships, the property of subjects under the same sovereign as the country of which goods were the produce, although the country or place where such ship was built or to which it belonged, was not under the dominion of such sovereign at the time of the passing of the Navigation Act. It will be observed that this statute not only effected its immediate purpose of putting the dominions and sovereign of any one country on the same footing in respect to the Navigation Law, but also extended the right of importing, originally confined to ships "built in" the country of export, to ships "belonging to" such country. Several alterations of an unimportant character were made, bearing upon these points; but, in the consolidation of 1825, the proviso was introduced into the Navigation Act, and still retained in 1847, "that the country of every ship shall be deemed to include all places which are under the same dominion as the place to which such ship belongs."

In the meantime, however, the Act of 1822 (3 Geo. IV., cap. 43, sect. 6) had made an important alteration in the law, by allowing importations of the enumerated goods, either in ships of the country of which the goods were the produce, or in ships of the country whence these goods were usually imported. At the same time, the prohibitions against the im-