282 THE OCEAN RIVER 



the passage of the seventeenth century. John Locke in Eng- 

 land carried forward the plea for freedom of mind provided 

 property was well protected, and others spoke of the natural 

 law and hence the natural rights of man. Given ideas with a 

 wider and more material horizon, in a world of endless 

 opportunity for the exercise of individual initiative, and a 

 vigorous racial stock to people the newly opened lands, the 

 political independence of the American shore from Europe 

 was inevitable. It came a little earlier than it might have, 

 because England was caught in the control of a stupid and 

 nearsighted political policy that involved her with France 

 and the colonies at the same time. While the British Govern- 

 ment dragged its feet, history picked up speed: the speed of 

 new invention, fresh opportunity in a world of endless 

 resource, and better and quicker ways of transacting commer- 

 cial operations. The aggressive commercialism of New Eng- 

 land, according to Innis, which contributed to the breakup 

 of the French empire, pushed relentlessly on to the breakup 

 of the first empire established by Britain. New England took 

 all the molasses obtainable from the British West Indies and 

 even then only half met her wants. This close contact with 

 the Caribbean colonies likewise bred in that quarter a new 

 spirit, which Bryan Edwards described thus: 'The leading 

 feature is an independent spirit and a display of conscious 

 equality throughout all ranks and conditions. The poorest 

 white person seems to consider himself nearly on a level with 

 the richest, and emboldened by this idea, approaches his 

 employer with an extended hand and a freedom, which, in 

 the countries of Europe, is seldom displayed by men of the 

 lower orders of life towards their superiors.'' 



The British Government, feeling that the western men 

 beyond the Ocean River were getting ahead too fast for 

 England's good, by 1763 fell into the error that had hurt the 

 colonial enterprise of both Spain and France — a too severe 



