British America Author:John Macgregor Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAP. III. CAUSES OP DISCONTENT IN AMERICA. RESTRICTIONS OH TRADE PROHIBITION OF THE ILLICIT TRADE WITH SPANISH AMERICA. LICENTIOUSNESS OF THE GUARDA COSTA... more »S. FAILURE OF REMITTANCES FOR BRITISH MANUFACTURES IN CONSEQUENCE. PEACE OF 1763.— MEASURES WHICH LED TO THE STAMP ACT. COMPLAINTS OF THE COLONISTS. THEIR EXTRAORDINARY PROCEEDINGS. RESIST THE TEA ACT, AND THROW OVERBOARD THE CARGOES OF THE COMPANY'S SHIPS. REPEAL OF THE STAMP ACT. — CONDUCT OF THE MINISTRY. Among the first causes of discontent and complaint in the British colonies, were the restrictions which discouraged manufactures, by confining every province to the use of its own, and prohibiting the reciprocal importation of their respective, fabrics. To prevent a whole people from following any branch of industry, is assuredly a measure which human nature cannot bear with tame submission: nor can the severity of the regulation be denied, even on the ground that the articles prohibited could be imported cheaper from England. The injury felt by the prohibition was not, at the time, of much consequence; but the regulation was in itself considered a kind of insult to the understanding, more intolerable than pecuniary oppression. The discontent arising from this restriction would, in all probability, have passed away, had it not been succeeded by a deprivation of a more serious nature Vol. i. c to the colonies, and equally injurious to the interests of England. For more than a century, a very lucrative branch of trade had been carried on between the British West Indies and the Spanish settlements in South America. For many years the North American colonies possessed a great share of this advantageous commerce. To the British, it was a pursuit of clear gain, and prodigious value. It consis...« less