Navigation Acts

British  

plural noun

1. a series of acts of Parliament, the first of which was passed in 1381, that attempted to restrict to English ships the right to carry goods to and from England and its colonies. The attempt to enforce the acts helped cause the War of American Independence

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Example Sentences

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Navigation Acts

Special vice-admiralty courts, which did not use juries, tried all violations of the Navigation Acts, so colonial lawbreakers could not count on sympathetic neighbors to protect them from convictions.

From Textbooks ● Jan. 18, 2018

Randolph was astonished to discover that officials in Boston, the largest port in North America, were completely ignoring the Navigation Acts on the grounds that their colony’s charter exempted it from acts of Parliament.

From Textbooks ● Jan. 18, 2018

Pinpointing their imperial purposes, one observer called the Navigation Acts “a true way to enlarge dominions throughout the world, the most easy for conquests, and the least costly for appropriating the property of others.”

From Textbooks ● Jan. 18, 2018

Despite the Navigation Acts, however, Great Britain exercised lax control over the English colonies during most of the eighteenth century because of the policies of Prime Minister Robert Walpole.

From Textbooks ● Dec. 30, 2014

If the repeal of the Navigation Acts constituted a measure of the highest commercial importance, the passage of the Ten Hours Bill in 1847 marked the first great advance in factory legislation.

From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 9, Slice 5 English History by Various