ough many times
renewed and now in 1763 once more about to expire, had never been
enforced, and had never, therefore, either benefited the British sugar
planters or brought any revenue into the treasury. It was to secure one
or both of these advantages that Grenville procured from Parliament the
passage in 1764 of the law known as the Sugar Act; a law which reduced
the duty upon foreign molasses imported into the continental colonies
from 6_d._ to 3_d._, and imposed new duties upon coffee, pimento, white
sugar, and indigo from the Spanish and French West Indies, and upon wine
from the Madeiras and the Azores. Even such men as Bernard, Hutchinson,
and Colden believed that the new duties would destroy a trade which they
asserted was indispensable to the Northern colonies and highly
beneficial to the commerce of the empire. But the sugar planters,
powerfully represented in Parliament, demanded protection, while to
Grenville's mind the systematic violation of a law was rather an
argument against its repeal than an evidence of its impracticability.
The measure, therefore, became a law; and for its better enforcement the
jurisdiction of the admiralty courts was extended, and naval officers
were empowered to act as collectors of the customs.

Less noticed at the time, but scarcely less important in its effects
upon trade and industry, was the law passed by Parliament in the same
year for regulating colonial currency. With the rapid development of
commerce in the eighteenth century, and on account of the steady flow of
specie to London, the colonies had commonly resorted to the use of paper
money as a legal tender in the payment of local debts. Such men as
Franklin and Colden defended the practice on the ground of necessity,
and it was undoubtedly true that without the issue of new bills of
credit the colonies could not have given the military assistance
required of them for the conquest of Canada. But it was equally true
that in most colonies, except Massachusetts where the issues had been
retired in 1749, and New York where their par value had been
consistently maintained, the evils of depreciated currency had long
existed and still went unremedied. Debtors profited at the expense of
creditors, while colonial assemblies often took advantage of the
situation to pass laws enabling the American trader to avoid meeting his
just obligations to English merchants. In response to the loud
complaints of the latter, and without adequat