Navigation Act

The Navigation Act appears as an example of the substantive political questions debated by the English House of Lords. Its brief mention contrasts parliamentary business concerned with maritime power and the state with the elaborate questions of rank and precedence associated with the peers of France.

The Act in Parliamentary Business

The novel lists the Navigation Act among matters treated as grave by the Lords, alongside the Test Act, command of the sea, the expulsion of the Stuarts, and war with France. The list places the Act within a field of legislation and policy connected to England’s political and maritime authority, though the passage does not specify its provisions or describe a particular debate or vote.

Contrast with French Peerage

The reference forms part of a wider comparison between the two aristocratic orders. The peers of France are presented as preoccupied with precedence, titles, ceremonial distinctions, and display; the Lords, by contrast, are associated with questions of government and power. In this opposition, the Navigation Act belongs to the practical business attributed to the English chamber, rather than to the ceremonial concerns attributed to its French counterpart.

Significance in the Novel

The Act’s importance here is rhetorical and institutional: its name helps distinguish the Lords’ political role from a peerage defined chiefly by etiquette. The passage groups maritime legislation with the command of the sea and other matters of national policy, but offers no account of the Act’s rules or consequences. Its significance rests on that contrast between legislative substance and aristocratic ceremony.