1910.] GENESIS OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE. 7 



with the Americans, ad mits its truth, although, at the same time, 

 he is of opinion that whenever his fellow-countrymen smuggle 

 they are qnite justified in doing so. In reality, the smuggling 

 vvas the expedient that the Americans were forced to adopt, when 

 they would not submit to the restrictions that the commercial 

 regulations put upon them. Merehants and customs offieers fra- 

 ternally divided the gain from the unlawful imports; it was cal- 

 culated that of such articles as sngar and molasses, wine, fruits, 

 and tea, nine tenths were smnggled into the North American 

 colonies. The smuggling of molasses especially was of great 

 importance to New England, because it constituted the real 

 basis of the greatest manufacture of the colony, the rhum distill- 

 ing; thus, the liquor interests, at all times very strong, were 

 among the foremost commercial interests that the Government 

 struck at in their fight against smuggling. 



It is true that the American opposition assumed the form 

 of a struggle against taxation without representation, and the 

 conflict about this principle is essentially associated with the 

 Stamp Act of 1765. But it is equally true that the revolutio- 

 nary contest had begun before that act was passed. 



The chapter of Bancroft's History 1 relating to the first 

 general rising of the colonies in the year 1764 is headed "How 

 America received the plan of a Stamp Act", and, actually, the 

 Government, as early as 1764, had announced that they intended 

 to propose such a duty. But the actual protests which, during 

 that year, poured in from the Colonies, scarcely contained a single 

 allusion to the stamp duty; in all of them, the commercial 

 regulations were the chief theme. 



It was the Sugar Act of 1764 that the Americans were 

 protesting against. This was, in reality, no new law; it was 

 nothing but the old Sugar Act of 1733 with some amendments, 

 none of them importing any radical change of principles, but 

 all of them aiming at the reduction of the gain drawn from the 

 smuggling of molasses. It was impossible for the Americans to 



History of the United States, Vol. V, Chapt. X. 



