setts "the inhabitants worked up their wool
and flax, and made an ordinary coarse cloth for their own use, but did
not export any." In Pennsylvania the "chief trade lay in the
exportation of provisions and lumber," and there were {311} "no
manufactures established, their clothing and utensils for their houses
being all imported from Great Britain." For the object of the whole
report was not to discover how far the energy of the colonists was
developing the resources of the colonies, in order that the Government
and the people of England might be gratified with a knowledge of the
progress made, and give their best encouragement to further progress.
The inquiry was set on foot in order to find out whether the colonists
were presuming to manufacture for themselves any goods which they ought
by right to buy from English makers, and to recommend steps by which
such audacious enterprises might be rebuked and prevented. This is the
avowed object of the report, and we find governor after governor
assuring the Commissioners earnestly and plaintively that the
population of his province really manufacture nothing, or at all events
nothing that could possibly interfere with the sacred privileges of the
English monopolists. The report significantly recommends the House of
Commons to take into consideration the question "whether it might not
be expedient to give these colonies proper encouragements for turning
their industry to such manufactures and products as might be of service
to Great Britain, and more particularly to the production of all kinds
of naval stores." The proper encouragement given to this sort of
productiveness would imply, of course, proper discouragement given to
anything else. The colonies were to exist merely for the convenience
and benefit of the so-called mother country, a phrase surely of
sardonic impressiveness. Such, however, was the common feeling of that
day in England. It was so with regard to India; it was so with regard
to Ireland. The story of the pelican was reversed. The pelican did
not in this case feed her young with her blood; the young were expected
to give their blood to feed the pelican.

The real strain was to come when Walpole should introduce his famous
and long-expected scheme for a reform in the customs and excise laws.
Walpole's scheme {312} was inspired by two central ideas. One of these
was to diminish the amount of taxation imposed on the land of the
country, and make up th