law which Grenville now made up his mind to revive and enforce. The commercial wealth of the New England colonies depended largely upon their trade with the fish which their fishermen caught along the coast and as far out as the banks of Newfoundland. The finest fish could be sold in Europe, but the poorer sort found their chief market in the French West Indies. {3182} The French government, in order to ensure a market for the molasses raised in these islands, would not allow the planters to give any thing else in exchange for fish. Great quantities of molasses were therefore carried to New England, and what was not needed there for domestic use was distilled into rum, part of which was consumed at home, and the rest carried chiefly to Africa wherewith to buy slaves to be sold to the southern colonies. All this trade required many ships, and thus kept up a lively demand for New England lumber, besides finding employment for thousands of sailors and shipwrights. Now in 1733 the British government took it into its head to 'protect' its sugar planters in the English West Indies by compelling the New England merchants to buy all their molasses from them; and with this end in view it forthwith laid upon all sugar and molasses imported into North America from the French islands a duty so heavy that, if it had been enforced, it would have stopped all such importation. … It proved to be impossible to enforce the act without causing more disturbance than the government felt prepared to encounter. Now in 1764 Grenville announced that the act was to be enforced, and of course the machinery of writs of assistance was to be employed for that purpose. Henceforth all molasses from the French islands must either pay the prohibitory duty or be seized without ceremony. Loud and fierce was the indignation of New England over this revival of the Molasses Act. Even without the Stamp Act, it might very likely have led that part of the country to make armed resistance, but in such case it is not so sure that the southern and middle colonies would have come to the aid of New England. But in the Stamp Act, Grenville provided the colonies with an issue which concerned one as much as another." _J. Fiske, The War of Independence, chapter 4._ ALSO IN: _J. G. Palfrey, History of New England, book 6, chapters 2-3 (volume 5)._ _W. B. Weeden, Economic and Social History of New England, chapter 19 (volume 2)._ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1764. The climax of the mercantile colonial policy of England, and its consequences.