ces 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