If it was a hardship to the tobacco growers of Maryland and Virginia to be compelled to send that product to England, they had this advantage, that no Englishman could use any other. He was forbidden by penal statutes to grow his own supply even in his own garden. As to those laws which restrained manufactures in the colonies, it was the opinion of Henry Brougham,[23] who cites Franklin as an authority, that they merely prohibited the colonist from making articles which could have been more cheaply purchased.[24] He could import a hat from England for less than it cost to make one, and he did so. But the best ground for nominal submission to the navigation laws and acts of trade was found in their easy evasion, and the fact that they never were, and never could have been, rigidly enforced. From the first, all attempts to enforce them led to dissatisfaction. Randolph's revenue seizures in the time of Charles II. and James II. had no small influence in overthrowing Andros's government in the revolution of 1689, and so had Charles Paxton's in bringing on the American Revolution. Before the new policy of enforcing these laws was entered upon, the colonies enjoyed British naval protection; they possessed the monopoly of the British market; they drew bounties from the British Exchequer; they purchased European goods more cheaply than the British people could do; and, stating the facts somewhat broadly, they manufactured whatever they found to be for their advantage, and sent their ships wherever they pleased, notwithstanding the navigation laws and acts of trade. The result was that the colonies, especially barren and frozen New England, engrossed most profitable commerce which England had attempted to monopolize, and increased in wealth beyond all colonial precedent.[25] But these halcyon days were destined to pass under clouds. British merchants had seen from the beginning the amassing of fortunes in the colonies by illicit trade, and the falling off of their own. They had striven to enforce the laws, and Parliament had lent its assistance,—but in vain. Under the first charter of Massachusetts, the collector of customs was the governor, whose annual election depended upon the good will of those who were evading the navigation laws; under the second charter, the governor was appointed by the king, and sworn to enforce those laws. But colonial juries generally checkmated the king's representative. Then followed admiralty courts without juries, which produced indignant protests. The new system was irritating rather than efficient on a long line of coast filled with bays, creeks, and ports not patrolled by revenue cutters. The British merchant was foiled, and anger was the result. The attempt to monopolize the commerce of the colonies was a failure; and so long as the navigation laws were a dead letter the advantages of the situation were with the colonists. They were content.