The Navigation Acts, as they stood at the period of his accession, had been framed in the illiberal and selfish spirit which characterized the legislation of the age. But though they had proved injurious to the trade of the colonies, and humiliating to the colonial merchants, in consequence of the extent to which they made their interests subservient to those of the mother country, yet their prejudicial effects had in neither respect been fully developed, in consequence of the remissness which had prevailed in their execution. This had in a great degree been occasioned by illicit contrivances between the colonists engaged in trade and navigation and the officers of government stationed in the colonies. A vigorous execution of the existing laws not only was determined upon, but new acts were passed imposing additional restrictions, and superadding cumulative penalties upon those who disregarded them. To enforce this vindictive policy the Government resorted to a measure at once the most arbitrary and odious of any that had ever been known to the public service,--that of "Writs of Assistance,"--and converted the army and navy into a police establishment to aid in the detection and punishment of the colonial offenders. By thus giving vent to his persecuting spirit--a spirit always blind to its own interests--this infatuated Prince drove into the front rank of the Revolution two classes of the colonists who were, from the nature of their pursuits, least likely to embark in popular outbreaks, and most inclined to favor a strong government,--classes which are usually caressed by more sagacious rulers, and which had been so here before the reign of George III. All orders of the colonists, save a few favorites, were by these and similar means united, as a band of brothers, in a movement such as the world had never before, and has never since seen, for the overthrow of a government by which they were so sorely oppressed.