Relations of England and the Colonies with each other and with Foreign Countries.

I. The position of England in respect to the other European Powers after the Peace of Paris, 1763.

Mr. Bancroft remarks: "At the peace of 1763, the fame of England was exalted throughout Europe above that of all other nations. She had triumphed over those whom she called her hereditary enemies, and retained half a continent as the monument of her victories. Her American dominions stretched without dispute from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, from the Gulf of Mexico to Hudson\'s Bay; and in her older possessions that dominion was rooted firmly in the affections of the colonists as in their institutions and laws."

The envy and fears of Europe were excited at this vast extension of British territory and power, which they regarded as the foundation of her still more formidable future greatness. "Her navy, her commerce, and her manufactures had greatly increased when she held but a part of the continent, and when she was bounded by the formidable powers of France and Spain. Her probable future greatness, when without a rival, with a growing vent for her manufactures and increasing employment for her marine, threatened to destroy that balance of power which European sovereigns have for a long time endeavoured to preserve. Kings are republicans with respect to each other, and behold with democratic jealousy any one of their order towering above the rest. The aggrandizement of one tends to excite a combination, or at least the wishes of many, to reduce him to the common level. From motives of this kind, the naval superiority of Great Britain was received with jealousy by her neighbours. They were in general disposed to favour any convulsion which promised a diminution of her overgrown power."

This great increase of the naval and territorial power of Great Britain excited apprehension at home as well as jealousies abroad. Some of her own statesmen and philanthropists entertained doubts as to whether the extent and diversity of her vast territorial acquisitions would add to the strength or happiness of the mother country; and the policy of centralization and uniformity decided upon, created the discord and hastened the disintegration which reflective minds had apprehended.

II. The position of the American Colonies in regard to England and other nations clearly signalized a system of government which the English statesmen of the times failed to appreciate. The maxim of the King was not merely to reign, but to rule; and the policy of his Ministers, of successive Administrations, was to enfeeble what was colonial and to strengthen what was imperial; whereas the extension of colonial territory had brought a large accession of colonial experience and intelligence, which required to be entwined around the throne by the silken cords of kindness and interest, instead of being bandaged to England by 29 Acts of Parliament, every one of which indicated the loss of some sacred birthright or privilege of Englishmen and their posterity as soon as they emigrated from the eastern to the western shores of the Atlantic. Those who emigrated to or were born in America were no less Englishmen than those who remained or were born in England, and were entitled to all the rights and privileges of Englishmen; among which is the election of representatives who make laws and provide means for their government. The original  design of colonization by the British Government was doubtless the extension of its power; the design of English merchants and manufacturers in promoting colonization was obviously the extension of their trade, and therefore their own enrichment; while the design of the colonists themselves, in leaving their native land and becoming adventurers and settlers in new countries, was as manifestly the improvement of their own condition and that of their posterity. As long as the threefold design of these three parties to colonization harmonized, there could be no cause or occasion of collision between them, and they would cordially co-operate in advancing the one great object of growing national greatness by enlarging the commerce and dominions of Great Britain. This was the case in the earlier stages of American colonization. The colonists needed the naval and diplomatic protection of England against foreign invasion, and the manufactures of England for their own wants and conveniences, while England needed the productions of the colonial forests and waters. The colonial trade became a monopoly of England, and its transportation to and from the colonies was confined to English ships and sailors. Even manufactures in the colonies were forbidden, or restricted, as well as their trade with foreign countries, except by way of England; so that the colonies became so many trading ports for English merchandise, and the American traders were little other than factors of English merchants.

However this system of monopoly and restriction might answer the purposes of English merchants and manufacturers, might contribute to build up the mercantile navy of England, and even be politic on the part of Government in colonial infancy, it could not fail ere long to cause friction with the colonies, and was utterly unsuitable to their circumstances as they advanced to manhood. As the colonies increased in  wealth and population, their commerce increased with each other and with the mother country, and overflowed to the French and Spanish colonies in the West Indies. Even before the termination of the war of 1755, a considerable commerce had been carried on between the British and Spanish colonies; the latter needed many of the productions and importations of the former, and the former needed the gold and silver, molasses and sugar, of the latter. The British colonies sent lumber, fish, and large quantities of goods imported from England, to the Spanish colonies, and received chiefly in payment gold and silver, with which they made remittances to England for the goods purchased there. Such was the position of the colonies in respect to Great Britain and other European Powers at the peace of Paris in 1763; and such the friendly and affectionate feelings of the colonies towards the mother country down to that period.

III. The treaty of Paris was ratified in February, 1763; and on the 17th of March following, the Chancellor of the Exchequer submitted among the estimates the following item, which was adopted by the Commons:

"Upon account, to enable his Majesty to give a proper compensation to the respective provinces in North America, for the expenses incurred by them in the levying, clothing, and paying of the troops raised by the same, according to the active vigour and strenuous efforts of the respective provinces shall be thought by his Majesty to merit, ￡133,333 6s. 8d."

The several provinces gratefully acknowledged the compensation granted them; of which Massachusetts received the largest share.

This was the last practical recognition on the part of the British Government of the loyal co-operation of the colonies in the war which established the supremacy of Great Britain in North America. From that time forward the instructions, regulations, and measures of the British Government seem to have been dictated by a jealousy of the growing wealth and power of the colonies, and to have been designed to weaken the colonies in order to strengthen the parent state. The policy of the British Administration was undoubtedly to extinguish all military spirit in the colonies, by creating a standing army which the colonies were to support, but wholly independent of them; to discountenance and forbid colonial manufactures, so as to render the colonies entirely dependent upon Great Britain for manufactured goods, hardware, and tools of every description; to destroy their trade with foreign countries by virtually prohibitory duties, so as to compel the colonies to go to the English market for every article of grocery or luxury, in whatever climate or country produced; to restrict the colonial shipping, as well as productions, to British ports alone, and even to tax the trade of the colonies with each other. All the monies arising from the various duties thus imposed were to be paid, not into the provincial treasuries, as heretofore, but into the English exchequer, and to be at the disposal of the British Parliament.

Had the British Government regarded the colonists as Englishmen in their rights and privileges as well as in their duties and obligations; had the British policy been to develop the manufactures and resources of the American colonies equally with those of England, and to leave to their local Legislatures (the only Parliaments in which the colonists had representation by their own election) to legislate on all purely domestic matters, to dispose of all colonial revenues, and to provide for their own protection, as before the war with France, and as is done in the provinces and Dominion of Canada, I doubt not but the American colonies would have remained in  heart and policy an integral portion of the British empire, and become the strong right arm of Great Britain in regard to both national resources and national strength. I cannot, therefore, but regard the mistaken policy of the King and his Ministers as the primary cause of the alienation and severance of the American colonies from the mother country.

IV. The proceedings after the peace of Paris, 1763, which caused the alienation of the colonies from Great Britain, commenced on the part of the mother country, towards which, at that time, the language of the colonies was most affectionate and grateful. The first act of the British Government which caused disquiet in the colonies was the rigorous enforcement of the Navigation Act—an Act first passed by the Commonwealth Parliament more than a century before, which had been amended and extended by successive Acts under Charles the Second, which had been beneficial both to the mother country and the colonies, which had given to the naval and mercantile marine of Great Britain their superiority, but which had, in the application of its provisions to the trade between the English, Spanish, and French colonies of America, become almost obsolete by the common consent and practice of colonial governors, custom-house officers, and merchants. But shortly after the treaty of Paris instructions were sent to the colonies, directing the strict enforcement of the Navigation Act. "On the 10th of March, 1764, the House of Commons agreed to a number of resolutions respecting the American trade; upon which a Bill was brought in, and passed into a law, laying heavy duties on the articles imported into the colonies from the French and other islands of the West Indies, and ordered these duties to be paid in specie into the exchequer of Great Britain. The Americans complained much of this new law, and of the unexampled hardship of being first deprived of obtaining specie, and next being ordered to pay the new duties in specie into the treasury at London, which they said must speedily drain them of all the specie they had. But what seemed particularly hard upon them was a Bill brought in the same session, and passed into a law, \'to restrain the currency of paper money in the colonies.\'

"At the end of the session the King thanked the House of Commons for the \'wise regulations which had been established  to augment the public revenues, to unite the interests of the most distant possessions of his Crown, and to encourage and secure their commerce with Great Britain.\'"

Though the Bill and regulations referred to legalized in a manner the heretofore illicit trade between the colonies and the French and Spanish West India islands, they practically ruined the trade by the burden of duties imposed, and thus distressed and ruined many who were engaged in it. It is not surprising that such a policy of restricting both the import and export trade of the colonies to England, apart from the methods of enforcing it, should produce general dissatisfaction in the colonies, and prompt to combinations against such extortion, and for the supply of their own wants, as far as possible independent of English manufactures. Popular meetings were held, and associations w............