charged with the oversight of the plantations,
devoted its energies to suggesting devices which should aid the
colonists, benefit the British consumer and producer, and increase
"navigation."

It does not appear that the Acts of Trade were, in general, a source of
loss to the colonies. Their vessels shared in the privileges reserved
for British-built ships. The compulsory sending of the enumerated
commodities to England may have damaged the tobacco-growers; but in
other respects it did little harm. The articles would have gone to
England in any case. The restriction of importation to goods from
England was no {24} great grievance, since British products would, in
any case, have supplied the American market. Even the effort, by an
Act of 1672, to check intercolonial trade in enumerated commodities was
not oppressive, for, with one exception noted below, there was no great
development of such a trade. By 1763, according to the best evidence,
the thirteen colonies seem to have adjusted their habits to the
Navigation Acts, and to have been carrying on their flourishing
commerce within these restrictions.

To this general condition, however, there were some slight exceptions,
and one serious one. The colonists undoubtedly resented the necessity
of purchasing European products from English middlemen, and were
especially desirous of importing Spanish and Portuguese wines and
French brandies directly. Smuggling in these articles seems to have
been steadily carried on. Much more important--and to the American
ship-owners the kernel of the whole matter--was the problem of the West
India trade. It was proved, as the eighteenth century progressed, that
the North American colonies could balance their heavy indebtedness to
the mother country for excess of imports over exports only by selling
to the French, as well as the British West Indies, barrel staves,
clapboards, fish and food products. In {25} return, they took sugar
and molasses, developing in New England a flourishing rum manufacture,
which in turn was used in the African slave trade. By these means the
people of the New England and Middle colonies built up an active
commerce, using their profits to balance their indebtedness to England.
This "triangular trade" disturbed the British West India planters, who,
being largely non-residents and very influential in London, induced
Parliament, in 1733, to pass an Act imposing prohibitory duties on all
sugar and molasse