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

[160] he adored it as ‘sacred.’¹ He held that Colonies are

chap IX.} 1763. Oct.

only settlements made in distant parts of the world for the improvement of trade; that they would be intolerable except on the conditions contained in the Act of Navigation; that those who, from the increase of contraband, had apprehensions that they may break off their connection with the mother country, saw not half the evil; that wherever the Acts of Navigation are disregarded, the connection is actually broken already.² Nor did this monopoly seem to him a wrong; he claimed for England the exclusive trade with its colonies as the exercise of an indisputable right which every state, in exclusion of all others, has to the services of its own subjects.³ His indefatigable zeal could never be satisfied. All officers of the customs in the colonies were ordered to their posts; their numbers were increased; they were provided with ‘new and ample instructions enforcing in the strongest manner the strictest attention to their duty;’ every officer that failed or faltered was instantly to be dismissed. Nor did Grenville fail to perceive that ‘the restraint and suppression of practices which had long prevailed, would certainly encounter great difficulties in such distant parts of the king's dominions;’ the whole force of the royal authority was therefore invoked in aid.⁴ The Governors were to make the suppression of the forbidden trade with foreign nations the constant and immediate object of their care. All officers, both civil, and military, and naval, in America and the West Indies, were to give their cooperation.