American colonists, and sowed the seeds of future rebellion.
Unwise legislative measures. But unfortunately these impolitic stipulations were only the commencement of a series of unwise, if not unjust measures, carried out with extreme rigour, with the object of preserving for the British shipowner and manufacturer the exclusive monopoly of the trade with the colonies. No doubt an extensive illicit trade had already been established between the continental North American colonies and the foreign West India settlements, carried on in American ships and in defiance of British law. Indeed, the people of the New England States, of New York, Carolina, and Pennsylvania built numerous small vessels, expressly for the purpose of supplying these islands with various articles of their own production, especially lumber, provisions, horses, live stock, tobacco, corn, flour, and vegetables; and even made voyages to Europe, selling both ships and cargo in European ports in spite of the fiscal laws of the mother-country. But though this trade was ruined by the regulations for the suppression of smuggling, and by the collection of the King's duties in hard silver, which drained the colonies of the bullion they received in exchange for the sale of their ships and cargoes, these measures, which were carried into effect with great vigour, operated with an equally injurious severity on the West Indian colonies, especially on Jamaica, in spite of a very lucrative traffic still carried on between that island and the Spanish Main.
Unfortunately, the English government had viewed without compunction the infraction of the Spanish
