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absentee control where actual control was not fully enforce- 

 able or even warranted. She put on the Molasses Act, which 

 restricted trade between New England and the West Indies 

 to British colonies alone, and cut off fishing in the Straits of 

 Belle Isle and Labrador from the New Englanders. This tax 

 on molasses cut into the profits of the three-cornered oceanic 

 trade on which New England's prosperity was founded; 

 molasses from the West Indies, turned into rum at a profit 

 in New England, which, mixed with some other export goods, 

 was taken to Africa and turned into a profit in exchange 

 for slaves, which were carried to the West Indies and sold — 

 at a profit. England found it difficult to get her hand deep 

 enough into this bulging Yankee pocket, since the colonial 

 vessels traversed the free ways of the Ocean River. Actually, 

 the commercial restrictions, though resented as such, were not 

 as important as the idea that England could reach out and tell 

 the Yankees how and where they could trade. 



These restrictive policies of the Government were not re- 

 flected in the feeling of the common Englishman, who was 

 at heart an individualist and a free trader like his Yankee 

 cousin. Adam Smith, writing at this time, said: ''In her present 

 condition. Great Britain resembles one of those unwholesome 

 bodies in which some of the vital parts are overgrown, and 

 which, upon that account are liable to many dangerous dis- 

 orders. . . . The expectation of a rupture with the colonies, 

 accordingly, had struck the people of Great Britain with 

 more terror than they ever felt for the Spanish Armada or a 

 French invasion. It was this terror, whether well- or ill- 

 grounded, which rendered the repeal of the Stamp Act, among 

 the merchants at least, a popular measure. In the total exclu- 

 sion from the colonial market, was it to last only for a few 

 years, the greater part of our merchants used to fancy that they 

 foresaw an entire stop to their trade; the greater part of our 

 master manufacturers, the entire ruin of their business; and 



