me to
be hanged or starved or died untimely of those miserable diseases that
proceed from want and vice, or have sold themselves as soldiers to be
knocked on the head, or at best, by begging or stealing two shillings and
sixpence, have made their way to Holland to become servants to the Dutch,
who refuse none," he goes on to describe "a people whose frugality,
industry and temperance and the happiness of whose laws and institutions,
do promise to themselves long life, with a wonderful increase of people,
riches and power." But, after paying this probably reluctant tribute to
New England virtue and industry, he frankly avows his full sympathy with
the restrictive system, and adds that "there is nothing more prejudicial
and in prospect more dangerous to any mother kingdom than the increase of
shipping in her colonies, plantations and provinces." It is no wonder
that John Adams said that he never read these authors without being set
on fire, and that at last the same fire spread to every patriotic breast.

The Acts of Navigation and of Trade were not the dead letters that some
superficial writers and readers have seen fit to term them. It is true
that obedience was reluctant and slow, and that evasion was extensive,
and it is also true, that colonial commerce flourished in spite of the
restrictions; but it should be remembered that the prolonged wars in
which England was engaged gave lucrative opportunities for privateering,
and that even the customs duties, though intended to be virtually
prohibitory, were not heavy enough to overcome the advantages which the
colonists enjoyed. In Rhode Island the General Assembly asserted and
maintained the right to regulate the fees of the customs officers, and,
as far as was possible, the collection of the dues. The shipping of the
colony rapidly increased, and in 1731 included two vessels from England,
as many from Holland and the Mediterranean, and ten or twelve from the
West Indies, and ten years later numbered one hundred and twenty vessels
engaged in the West Indian, African, European and coasting trade. The
period preceding the Revolution witnessed New England's greatest
commercial prosperity, and it was in that age that Moses Brown and other
enterprising merchants and shipowners laid the foundation of fortunes, a
liberal share of which has been expended with illustrious munificence in
monuments of learning, of art and of charity. As for the restrictions
upon domestic industry, th