The freedom which they enjoyed did not extend to commerce and manufactures. In those matters the policy of Great Britain was founded on the "mercantile theory," then universally accepted, and was directed towards securing a monopoly of trade. Other countries pursued a like policy towards their colonies, though they treated them with far less liberality. The restrictions placed by Great Britain on colonial trade were based on the Navigation acts of 1660 and later years, which were originally aimed at the maritime power of the Dutch. Briefly, they confined trade with the colonies to English or colonial ships; the Americans were debarred from exporting a number of the most important products of their country, their tobacco, grain, sugar, hides, and timber for masts, except to Great Britain; no foreign ship might enter their harbours, nor, with certain exceptions, could they import foreign merchandise, except in ships sailing directly from England. Various acts debarred them from manufactures which would have entered into competition with English goods; they depended on the mother-country for the commonest and most necessary things, for their cloth, hardware, and a host of manufactured articles. Port duties were imposed by England, and were collected by officers of the customs, whose business it was to prevent contraband trading. These duties were not imposed for the sake of revenue, but for the regulation of trade; and the whole system of restrictions was founded on the idea that colonies should be made to serve the interest of the mother-country by giving its merchants and manufacturers the monopoly of the colonial market.
The colonies received some compensations for the restrictions placed upon their industry and commerce. With certain exceptions their trade was free. While some of their products were confined to the British market, they had the monopoly of that market; no Englishman, for example, might buy tobacco which did not come from America or Bermuda. Their export trade to England was encouraged by bounties, and, though their foreign imports generally had to come to them through England, a system of drawbacks, by which the duties were remitted on exportation to America, enabled them to buy continental goods more cheaply than they could be bought in England. Nothing indeed can be further from the truth than the idea that England's treatment of her colonies was harsh or illiberal. Unfortunately the mercantile theory set up an opposition between the interests of a mother-country and her colonies. A far more important mitigation of the restrictions imposed on the colonies than any that came from English liberality, was derived from the constant violation of them. Few English statesmen knew or cared to know anything about colonial affairs. Left to themselves the American colonies grew rich. Their merchants, especially in New England, carried on a brisk and extremely profitable contraband trade. In exchange for lumber, fish, and cattle the New England merchants obtained sugar and molasses, and bullion from the French and Spanish colonies; and vast quantities of rum were distilled in Boston and exported to Africa to be used in the slave trade.
England was not altogether a loser by these transactions. The richer a Boston merchant became, the more British goods did he import, and as he had to pay for them in bullion, his contraband trade enabled him to meet his obligations. These advantages were indirect, the loss to the English West India merchants was obvious and heavy. In order to protect them an attempt was made in 1733 to stop this contraband trade by the imposition of heavy duties; but the profits of the trade were so large that the revenue officers found it to their interest to be careless or actually conniving, and scarcely any duties were paid. On an average the American customs cost England from £7,000 to £8,000 a year and did not bring in quite £2,000. During the war the contraband trade afforded the French useful supplies, and in 1760 Pitt ordered the colonial governors to punish those who traded with the enemy. More power was placed in the hands of the revenue officers by the issue of writs of assistance enabling them to search for dutiable articles in any place without alleging specific information. These writs were lawful and were specially justifiable in time of war. Their lawfulness was unsuccessfully disputed before the superior court of Massachusetts by a lawyer named Otis, an eloquent speaker, singularly devoid of moderation. His speech, in which rhetoric is more conspicuous than a knowledge of law, attacked the commercial legislation of parliament generally; it was much admired, and has been regarded by some Americans as the first step towards revolution.
ENGLAND AND HER COLONIES.
A system which cramped the trade and industry of a self-reliant people, growing in wealth and intent on gain, for the benefit of a country separated from them by 3,000 miles of ocean, then only crossed by sailing ships, must sooner or later have led to revolt. The Americans were impatient of control and apt to quarrel with their governors, who often found their office an unenviable one. "Such wrong-headed people," said one of them, "I thank God I had never to do with before." They were not a people patiently to submit to restrictions. Two causes had contributed to bind them to Great Britain. One of these was their fear of the French in Canada. So long as the French and their Indian allies threatened their homes, even the most turbulent of them knew that they gained by being subjects of the English king. The war with France called forth a feeling of loyalty. The triumph of England freed them from the fear of French aggression and their protestations of gratitude were exuberant. Yet there were many who saw that the conquest of Canada loosened the tie which bound the American colonies to the mother-country and would probably lead to an assertion of independence. Separation would, however, have been impossible without union. The jealousies between the colonies were so strong that revolt seemed improbable. Were they left to themselves, Otis declared in 1765, "America would be a mere shambles of blood and confusion". A common cause alone could bring about union, and such a cause was soon to be found. The termination of the war enabled the ministers to direct their attention to the contraband trade which had assisted the common enemy, defrauded the government, and annoyed the commercial class. During Bute's administration, in 1763, revenue cutters were sent to cruise off the American coast, the officers of the king's ships were sworn to act as revenue officers, and revenue cases were heard in the admiralty courts. Smuggling was more effectually checked, and the irritation caused by the loss of trade was aggravated by the roughness with which the seamen enforced the law.
Grenville adopted a new policy apparently contemplated by Bute's ministry. Hitherto parliament had imposed customs duties on the colonies solely for the purpose of regulating trade; he designed to raise revenue from them. The idea was suggested to Walpole as a means of obtaining money on the failure of his excise scheme, and that wary statesman promptly rejected it. The money, however, which Grenville hoped to raise from the colonies was not to swell the revenues of England; it was to be applied to their own defence. His design was reasonable. The war had enormously increased the public debt. It is true that it was not undertaken only for the defence of the colonies; it is not less true that it was not a merely insular war. The war concerned the empire at large, and Great Britain's lavish sacrifices of blood and treasure delivered her children across the ocean from the fear of French conquest. Her expenditure on their defence could not end with the war; a small standing army had to be maintained for their protection. It seemed not unlikely that France would attempt to regain her lost dominions; it would have been fatal to leave the American colonies undefended. And another foe was always at hand, for the Indians regretted the overthrow of the French and were exasperated by the ill-treatment they received from the British colonists. In 1763 Pontiac, head-chief of the Ottawas, formed a confederation against the English. Along the borders of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Maryland the Indians massacred outlying settlers, surprised many forts and slew their garrisons. Three provinces might have been overrun before the inhabitants had organised any defence, had not Sir Jeffrey (later Lord) Amherst, the commander-in-chief, had a small British force at his disposal, consisting mainly of companies of the 7th, 42nd, and 77th regiments of the line, and of the Royal American regiment (later the 60th Rifles), formed in 1755 for service in America. A little army composed largely of men of the 42nd Highlanders, and commanded by Colonel Bouquet, defeated the Indians at Bushy Run on August 5. Fort Pitt was relieved and, the victory having encouraged the provincials to make a stand, the war virtually ended in November, 1764.
THE STAMP ACT PROPOSED.
The provincials disliked the idea of a standing army, and would have preferred that their defence should have been left to themselves. That was impossible. They were largely farmers and traders, peaceful folk unwilling to leave their profitable pursuits. There was no central authority to dictate the proportion of troops which each of the colonies should contribute to a common force, and their selfishness and jealousies made them grudge help one to another. The Americans behaved shabbily to the troops sent to defend them, but Pontiac's war proved that in times of pressing danger their safety might depend upon the presence of a British force. Was it right or just that the colonies should be defended by England and should contribute nothing towards the cost of their defence? Grenville thought that it was not. On March 10, 1764, he laid before parliament a list of port dues; some of them were higher than before, and to counterbalance the increase he proposed to give several new advantages to colonial trade. Payment was no longer to be evaded so easily as in past times, and smuggling would be attended with greater risk. The money was to be paid into the English treasury and was to be used only for colonial defence. More would be wanted for that purpose, and he proposed to raise it by an act requiring that all legal documents should bear stamps. This measure he deferred for a year in order to ascertain the feeling of the colonies and to give them an opportunity of raising the money in some other way if they preferred it. The force to be kept in America was twenty regiments, or about 10,000 men, which, with the maintenance of fortifications, would cost £350,000 a year. Of this sum the proposed stamp act would, it was calculated, bring in about £100,000. The bill passed without remark.
In an interview with the agents of the colonies Grenville pointed out that the tax was reasonable, and was an easy and equitable way of raising the required money, but promised that if the colonies disliked it, and would raise the money themselves in some other way, he would be content. Before the year was out they met him again and, acting on instructions from their colonies, tried to dissuade him from his purpose. Chief among them was Benjamin Franklin, then agent for Pennsylvania, a New Englander by birth, not a puritan either in religion or morals, a wise politician, shrewd, public-spirited, inventive, and full of schemes of practical usefulness. He proposed that the money should be voted by the provincial assemblies, but could not say that the colonies would agree as to the amount which each should contribute. On that of course the whole matter depended. When Grenville brought in his stamp bill the debate, Burke says, was extremely languid. Parliament had no idea that the act would lead to serious consequences. Nor were the American agents much better informed, for Franklin, who considered that a small standing army might be useful, believed that the colonies had no choice but to submit to the tax. Pitt was absent from parliament, suffering from gout. Conway and Barré opposed the bill, and Barré, in a speech of fervid eloquence, described the Americans as "sons of liberty," driven from their country by tyranny and treated by her with neglect. In the commons the bill was carried with only forty dissentients, and in the lords apparently without a division. It received the royal assent on March 22, 1765, and was to come into operation on November 1. In April the mutiny act was extended to America, binding the colonies to provide the king's troops with quarters and certain necessaries, such as fuel and candles.
AMERICAN RESISTANCE.