<P> The English were well aware of their inferior competitive trading position . Three acts of the Rump parliament in 1650 and 1651 are notable in the historical development of England's commercial and colonial programs . These include the first Commission of Trade to be established by an Act of Parliament on 1 August 1650, to advance and regulate national trade . The instructions to the named commissioners included consideration of both domestic and foreign trade, the trading companies, manufactures, free ports, customs, excise, statistics, coinage and exchange, and fisheries, but also the plantations and the best means of promoting their welfare and rendering them useful to England . This act's statesmanlike and comprehensive instructions, was followed by the October act prohibiting trade with pro-royalist colonies and the first Navigation Act of the following October . These acts formed the first definitive expression of England's commercial policy . 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 . The 1650 act prohibiting trade with royalist colonies was more encompassing however, because it included that all foreign ships were prohibited from trading with any English Plantations, without license, and it was made lawful to seize and make prizes of any ships violating the act . While this act, sometimes referred to as the Navigation Act of 1650, was hastily passed as a war measure during the English Civil Wars, it would be followed by a carefully conceived act in the following year . </P> <P> The Navigation Act was passed on 9 October 1651 by the Rump Parliament led by Oliver Cromwell . It authorised the Commonwealth to regulate trade within the colonies . It reinforced a long - standing principle of government policy that English trade should be carried in English vessels . It 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 . The stadtholder had suddenly died, however, and the States were now embarrassed by Cromwell taking the idea too seriously . The English proposed the joint conquest of all remaining Spanish and Portuguese possessions . England would take America and the Dutch would take Africa and Asia . 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 . This again was unacceptable to the British, who would be unable to compete on such a level playing field, and was seen by them as a deliberate affront . </P> <P> The Act banned foreign ships from transporting goods from outside Europe to England or its colonies, and banned third - party countries' ships from transporting goods from a country elsewhere in Europe to England . These rules specifically targeted the Dutch, who controlled much of Europe's international trade and even much of England's coastal shipping . It excluded the Dutch from essentially all trade with England, as the Dutch economy was competitive with, not complementary to the English, and the two countries therefore exchanged few commodities . This Anglo - Dutch trade, however, constituted only a small fraction of total Dutch trade flows . The Act is often mentioned as a major cause of the First Anglo - Dutch War, though it was only part of a larger British policy to engage in war after the negotiations had failed . The English naval victories in 1653 (the Battles of Portland, the Gabbard and the Scheveningen) showed the supremacy of the Commonwealth navy in home waters . However, farther afield the Dutch predominated and were able to close down English commerce in the Baltic and the Mediterranean . Both countries held each other in a stifling embrace . </P> <P> The Treaty of Westminster (1654) ended the impasse . The Dutch failed to have the Act repealed or amended, but it seems to have had relatively little influence on their trade . The Act offered England only limited solace . It could not limit the deterioration of England's overseas trading position, except in the cases where England herself was the principal consumer, such as the Canaries wine trade and the trade in Puglian olive oil . In the trade with the West Indies, the Dutch kept up a flourishing "smuggling" trade, thanks to the preference of English planters for Dutch import goods and the better deal the Dutch offered in the sugar trade . The Dutch colony of New Netherlands offered a loophole (through intercolonial trade) wide enough to drive a shipload of Virginian tobacco through . </P>

What were the four parts of the navigation acts