What was the change by the British government in enforcing colonial rules called?

King George III portrait, Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation

George III succeeded his grandfather, George II, to the throne of Great Britain on October 25, 1760. When he ascended the throne, Great Britain had been at war with France for a number of years. The new king was the first of the Hanoverian line to be born in England. Though mindful of the restraints on his powers as a constitutional monarch, George III desired to be a strong ruler and wanted to influence government policy. The king used patronage (his personal power to appoint individuals to key positions in the government and the military) and his immense, personal prestige to influence government policy. When George III came to the throne, the Prime Minister of Great Britain was the Duke of Newcastle, and William Pitt served as the Secretary of State in Newcastle’s cabinet. Newcastle’s government soon began to unravel due to differences within the British cabinet on an expansion of the war with France. When it was learned that the kings of France and Spain had entered into a compact of mutual aid, Pitt proposed declaring war on Spain. George III, on the other hand, wanted to avoid an escalation of the conflict with France. When Pitt was outvoted in the cabinet on the expansion of the war, he left his position as Secretary of State on October 5, 1761. Within the year, Newcastle’s government would fall. By May 1762, Lord Bute, a close personal friend and former tutor of the King, replaced the Duke of Newcastle as Prime Minister.

Tobacco Card, Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation

The king’s new advisors re-evaluated Britain’s trade policies with the colonies. For over one hundred years, Great Britain had regulated colonial trade with a number of navigation and trade laws. These laws, stemming from the economic theory of mercantilism, generally promoted British shipping and commercial interests. Over the years, these trade laws had been essentially negated by the unofficial British practice of salutary neglect, which was the avoidance of strict enforcement of the laws. Lord Bute, and the Prime Ministers who followed him, ended the practice of salutary neglect and moved to aggressively enforce Britain’s trade laws with the American colonies. The substantial increase in the size of the British Navy during the war with France gave the British government the strength to choke colonial smuggling and enforce trade laws more effectively after 1760.

To crack down on smuggling in the American colonies, the British government also increasingly began to use Writs of Assistance. A type of search warrant, the writs authorized government officials to look for contraband, such as smuggled goods, in private homes and businesses. The writs also placed no limits on the time, place or manner of a search. In 1761, sixty-three Boston merchants challenged the legality of the process. James Otis, Jr., an attorney who had formerly represented the royal government, argued the case for the merchants. Though they lost their case, the surrounding publicity fueled anger within the merchant classes of Boston against the British government.

The Declaration of Independence

Key questions

1. What is the concept of mercantilism?
2. Why were the Navigation Acts so important to the British and why did they generally alienate the colonists?
3. What is meant by the term “salutary neglect” and what did it mean for the colonies?

Rhode Island Colonists led by John Brown burn the British revenue cutter Gaspee

The British had an empire to run. The way that they kept their economy healthy was through a system called mercantilism. Mercantilism was a popular economic philosophy in the 17th and 18th centuries. In this system, the British colonies were moneymakers for the mother country. The British put restrictions on how their colonies spent their money so that they could control their economies. They put limits on what goods the colonies could produce, whose ships they could use, and most importantly, with whom they could trade. The British even put taxes called duties on imported goods to discourage this practice. This pushed the colonists to buy only British goods, instead of goods from other European countries.

The distance from Britain and the size of the British Empire was an advantage for the colonies. It was expensive to send British troops to the colonies. For many years, the British government’s philosophy was one of “salutary neglect.” This meant that they would pass laws to regulate trade in the colonies, but they did not do much to enforce them. The British knew that the colonies were benefiting from goods from the Dutch, French, and Spanish, however. Eventually, in 1763, they began to enforce many of the trade restrictions and even passed new ones.

The Navigation Acts and the Sugar Act were two of the laws enacted to restrict colonial trade. Acts like these led to rebellion and corruption in the colonies. Colonists, particularly in New England, rebelled against these acts by illegally smuggling goods in and out of the colonies. Ships from the colonies often loaded their holds with illegal goods from the French, Dutch, and Spanish West Indies. The smugglers would pay bribes to British customs officials who were hired to regulate trade in the colonies. These officials also made a modest salary from the British, so they were benefitting from all sides. The American juries that tried smugglers, in times when they were actually caught, rarely found them guilty. Because they were gaining so much power, smugglers increased their secret trade to almost every port in the colonies. It is estimated that over 700,000 British pounds were brought into the American colonies each year at this time.

Trade and Taxation

Boston Harbor, circa 1746, was home to a successful colonial merchant fleet.

England continued to tax the colonies. But since trade and taxation were difficult to control from far away, England made an agreement with the colonies. They would continue to regulate trade but allow colonists the right to levy their own taxes.

You are marching in protest against having to buy goods imported only from Britain, regardless of where they originated. What does your poster say?

The French and Indian War put this delicate agreement to the test. Because the war was expensive, the British believed that colonists should help pay for it. They argued that they had protected the colonists from French and Indian threats. As a result, new taxes were levied by the British, which horrified the colonists.

Between the taxes they imposed and the measures the British Navy took to arrest smugglers, colonists were becoming increasingly angry. American shippers became more and more rebellious against trade restrictions with other countries. All of these actions served as stepping stones to the Revolution.

1. What is the concept of mercantilism?
2. Why were the Navigation Acts so important to the British and why did they generally alienate the colonists?
3. What is meant by the term “salutary neglect” and what did it mean for the colonies?

What was the policy of loose control by Britain called?

Why did the British government relaxed rules regulating trade?

What was a result of British salutary neglect?