day. Further compounding the problem was that unlike other areas where the British had a trade deficit, such as India, the Baltic trade could not be justified on the grounds that Great Britain gained in the end from re-export to the continent, Baltic goods were overwhelmingly used in Britain. Most during the later half of the seventeenth century regarded the Baltic trade as a regrettable, but necessary expenditure for the defence of the land. Some consolation was, however, provided to the mercantilists by the employment of the timber in the merchant fleet that would later assist in bringing bullion into the land. Also of concern was the foreign domination of the Baltic timber trade. This problem was only partially solved by the inclusion of timber in the Navigation Acts of 1651 and 1660. While the acts successfully excluded the Dutch from Britain's trade with the Baltic, it still allowed the Baltic countries the right to import their own timber. It was mostly the Danes, Swedes, and Germans who replaced the Dutch in this trade as British merchants did not see it as profitable enough. This was because the Baltic trade was a difficult one to profit from as one load of British manufactured goods could buy seventy loads of timber, most ships entering the Baltic were thus empty, a great inefficiency. Most British merchants could employ their ships in more profitable colonial and manufactured goods trades, an option that the Baltic merchants did not have. These commercial problems of Baltic timber imports were compounded by a military and strategic problem. The dependency on Baltic timber was paramount in the minds of British statesmen in the late seventeenth century mostly because of the strategic dangers. There were no trades as militarily important as the Baltic lumber trade, but there were also few more fragile. Besides the trade coming from Norway, the timber ships had to come through the Sound – the narrow straits separating Denmark from Sweden- a passage easily blocked by enemy navies, especially the Dutch who were geographically well placed to impede trade through the North Sea, as could, to a lesser extent, the French. Also threatening was the rise of Sweden who by 1690 was at the height of its brief period of being a global power. Sweden also was a strong trade protectionist and had imposed high duties of British imports. Sweden's empire was also expanding having