* * * * * CHAPTER VI. =CAUSES OF THE REVOLUTION.= GENERAL CAUSES. =117. Tendencies toward Separation.=—From the first there were certain conditions that tended to force the American colonies away from the mother country. The colonists, especially those of New England, had very generally left Great Britain for the purpose of escaping oppression; and, after the new settlements were made, the conduct of the home government was not such as to diminish the sense of wrong. It was less than thirty years after the landing at Plymouth when the first of the “Navigation Acts” marked the beginning of a policy designed to encourage British at the expense of colonial commerce (§ 43), and in 1672 this unwise course of action was carried still further. A law was passed which imposed the same duties on trade between one colony and another as on trade between America and foreign countries; and to enforce this law, custom-houses were established along the border lines between the different colonies. This naturally led to a constant and a growing friction between the royal governors who had to collect the revenue, and the colonists who had to pay it. The seventy-five years immediately before the Seven Years’ War are full of instances of the unfriendly relations between the people and the agents of the home government[57] (§94). [Illustration: GEORGE III.] =118. Influence of the Seven Years’ War.=—These unfriendly relations were happily interrupted by the war which resulted in the fall of Quebec and the transfer of Canada from the French to the English. The fact that the Americans were united with the English in a common cause against a common enemy drew them nearer and nearer together. In the prosecution of the war the colonists bore a prominent and honorable part, and at its close they everywhere shared in the general rejoicing. In this spirit old Fort Duquesne was given the name Pittsburg, in honor of the great statesman who had accomplished so much for the continent; and the legislature of Massachusetts voted for Westminster Abbey an elaborate monument to Lord Howe, who had fallen at Ticonderoga. It is certain that a new spirit of loyalty and devotion to the mother country had sprung up, when in 1760, one year after the fall of Quebec, George III., then a young man of twenty-two, ascended the throne. He had a great opportunity to conciliate the colonists and to increase their growing affection; but he defiantly took the opposite course.