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tlipy dill not dearly perceive it, the war had welded
the thirteen colonies into one people. It was in this
era that there grew up the feeling that this conquered
territory did not belong to the Crown but to the
colonies collectively. So afterwards, when independ-
ence was achieved, it was contended that these
western lands did not belong to the respective states
but to the union collectively, because the domain had
been won by their joint exertions. By the proclama-
tion of 1763 a line was drawn around the head-waters
of all those rivers in the United States which flow into
the Atlantic Ocean, and west of that line the colonists
were forbidden to settle. AD the valley from the
Great Lakes to the Florida country and from the
proclamation line westward to the Mississippi was
set apart for the Indians. Out of the conquered terri-
tory England created three new provinces: in Canada,
the Province of Quebec; out of the country conquered
from Spain, two provinces, namely, East Florida and
West Florida. The Appalachicola separated the
Floridas. The land between the Altamaha and the
St. Mary's was annexed to the Province of Georgia.
In order to provide for the miUtary defence of the colonies, it was decided to enforce the Navigation Acts. These required : (1) that colonial trade should be carried on in vessels built and owned in England or in the colonies, these ships to be manned, to the extent of two-thirds of the crew, by Enghsh subjects; (2) that important colonial products should not be sent to ports other than those of England. Product.s or goods not named in a certain list might be sent to any other part of the world ; (3) if a product ex-ported from one colony to another was of a kind that might have been supplied by England, it must either go to the mother country and then to the purchasing colony, or pay an export duty at the port where it was shipped, equal to the import duty it would have to pay in England; (4) goods were not allowed to be carried from any place in Europe to America unless they were first landed at a port in England. Not unconnected with this measure, perhaps, was an intention of estab- lishing permanently in America a body of 10,000 Brit- ish troops, for whose maintenance it was decided to provide at least in part by a Parliamentary tax in the colonies. These were among the measures which led ultimately to a division of the empire.
While these measures of Grenville's administration were in contemplation, information of the design of the ministry was received in Boston from the colonial agent in England, who asked counsel in the emergency. In the spring of 1764 a Boston town-meeting gave the subject special consideration. For the guidance of newly-elected members a committee was appointed to prepare instructions. This important work was assigned to Samuel Adams. While motives of policy suggested the language of loyalty and dejiendence, it is not difficult to see behind these instructions of Adams the spirit of a determined patriot who had long and thoughtfully considered the whole question of the relation of the colonies to the mother country, for he furnished Americans with arguments that never ceased to be urged till the separation from Great Britain was complete.
By drawing into question the right of the Crown to put an absolute negative upon the act of a colonial legislature, the Virginian orator merely revived in another form that strviggle against prerogative which with varying success had long been maintained on both sides of the Atlantic. The resolutions of the Boston town-meeting, however, had a different pur- pose, marking, as they do, the first organized action against taxation.
Trade with the French and the Spanish West Indies not only stimulated the prosperity of the com- mercial centres in e\cry colony, but was a chief source of wealt h to all New England. For the abun- dant supply of timber standing in her forests, for her
fish, and for her cattle, these islands furnished a
convenient and profitable market. By the vessels
engaged in this extensive trade, cargoes of sugar and
molasses were unloaded at Boston and other New
England ports. A Parliamentary statute of 1733 had
imposed on both commodities a prohibitive duty,
which but for the connivance of revenue officers would
even then have accompUshed the ruin of a flourishing
commerce. When this law, after several renewals,
was about to expire in 1763, the colonists actively
oppo.sed its re-enactment, but Grenville was resolved
to improve the finances in his own way, and against
the successive remonstrances of colonial agents, of
merchants, and of even a royal governor, renewed
the act, says Bancroft, in a form "greatly to the dis-
advantage of America". Commissioners of customs,
regarding their places as sinecures, had hitherto
resided in England. Now they were ordered at once
to their posts; the number of revenue officers was
increased, and, to assist in executing the new regula-
tions, warships patrolled the harbours and the coast.
These were instructed to seize all vessels suspected
of smuggling. Army officers were commanded to
co-operate. The jurisdiction of admiralty courts, in
which cases were tried without juries, was greatly
extended. Both the promise of emolument from con-
fiscated property and the fear of dismissal for neglect
of duty sharpened the vigilance of those engaged in
enforcing the acts of navigation, and it was soon per-
ceived that their unusual activity and violence threat-
ened to destroy not only contraband, but menaced the
very existence of even legitimate, trade. At this time
£164,000 sterhng was the estimated annual value of
the Massachusetts fisheries; and to supply the provi-
sions, casks, and sundry articles yearly required in
the business, there was needed an additional capital of
£23,700. The importance of this industry may be
easily estimated from the extent to which it had
been carried by a single community. A rigorous
execution of the Act of April, 1764, meant to Americans
the annihilation of this natural and legal branch of
commerce, for if the planters in the French West
Indies could not sell their sugar and molasses, they
would not buy fish, and any deficiency or any great
irregularity in the supply of molasses would have
been fatal to the distilleries of Boston and other New
England towns. Ships would have been almost
worthless on the hands of their owners, and the 5000
seamen employed yearly in carrying fish to Portugal
and Spain would have been without an occupation.
The severity of the new regulations, by which prop-
erty amounting to £3000 was soon swept into prize
courts, coupled with the declared intention of raising
by imperial authority a revenue for the defence of
the colonies, created a constitutional question of the
gravest character.
Since 1763, when tlie war ended, the British Govern- ment had time to consider a system of revenue. The importunities of British merchants, who were cred- itors of American importers, as much at least as a feeling of tenderness for the colonists, influenced Gren- ville to suspend for almost a year his purpose of laying a stamp duty on America. An expectation of master- ing the subject was undoubtedly an additional cause of delay. His purpose, however, remained unchanged, and neither petitions nor remonstrances, nor even the solemn pledges of the colonies to honour as hitherto all royal requisitions, availed to overcome his obstinacy, and on 6 Feb., 17tw, in a carefully prepared speech, he introduced his fifty-five resolutions for a stamp act . In the colonies this aroused a bitter spirit; the stamp distributors were induced to abandon their offices by persuasion or intimidation, and delegates from nine colonies met in New York to express dis- approval.
Patrick Henry, of Virginia, led the opposition with the resolutions: that the first Virginia colonists
