Ivory marked by the Royal African Company. International Slavery Museum, Liverpool. Wikimedia Commons.
In 1696 England created a standing board and a stricter customs law to make the trade rules bind.
A sailor on a colonial sloop could lose the cargo in a court that did not use a local jury.
A merchant who had treated the trade rules as flexible now faced bonds, searches, and an officer who reported to London.
English merchants who wanted the rules kept gained a Board of Trade that spent its time on colonial laws, land grants, and customs jobs.
The Navigation Act of 1696 required colonial governors to swear they would enforce the trade laws, widened customs searches, and steered revenue cases toward vice-admiralty courts.
The same year William III commissioned the Board of Trade to supervise colonial government and commerce.
The machinery of enforcement was in place long before any ministry chose to apply it with force.
Navigation Act, 7 and 8 William III c. 22 (1696); commission of the Board of Trade, 15 May 1696