George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent, Vol. 5, 13th edition.

[159] Otis had aroused in Boston, and which equally pre-

chap. IX.} 1763. Oct.

vailed among the descendants of the Dutch of New-York. The island of Manhattan lay convenient to the sea, sheltered by other islands from the ocean; having safe anchorage in deep water for many miles along its shores, inviting the commerce of continents, of the near tropical islands, and of the world. To-day its ships, fleet, safe, and beautiful in their forms, exceed in amount of tonnage nearly twice over all the commercial marine of Great Britain at the moment of Grenville's schemes. Between its wharfs and the British harbors, its packets run to and fro, swiftly and regularly, like the weaver's shuttle, weaving the band that joins nations together in friendship. Its imports of foreign produce are in value equal twice-told to all that was imported into the whole island of Great Britain in 1763. Nor does a narrow restrictive policy shut out the foreigner; its port is lively with the display at the mast-head of the flag of every civilized nation of the earth. People of all countries have free access, so that it seems the representative city of all Europe, in whose streets may be heard every language that is spoken from the steppes of the Ukraine to the Atlantic. Grenville would have interdicted direct foreign commerce and excluded every foreign vessel. American independence, like the great rivers of the country, had many sources; but the head-spring which colored all the stream was the Navigation Act.

Reverence for the colonial mercantile system was branded into Grenville's mind as deeply and ineffaceably as ever the superstition of witchcraft into a credulous and child-like nature. It was his ‘idol;’¹ and