Early in 1763 the Bute ministry, of which George Grenville and Charles Townshend were members, entered upon the new policy. To enforce the navigation laws, armed cutters cruised about the British coast and along the American shores; their officers, for the first time, and much to their disgust, being required to act as revenue officers. To give unity to their efforts, an admiral was stationed on the coast. To adjudicate upon seizures of contraband goods, and other offences against the revenue, a vice-admiralty court, with enlarged jurisdiction, and sitting without juries, was set up.[45] Royal governors, hitherto chiefly occupied with domestic administration, were now obliged to watch the commerce of an empire. It was seen long before this time that the successful administration of the new system would require some modification of the provincial charters; but the difficulties were so serious that the matter was deferred. Such was the new order of things. The student who reflects upon the complete and radical change effected or threatened by these new measures, so much at variance with the habits and customary rights of the colonists, breaking up without notice not only illicit but legitimate trade, and sweeping away their commercial prosperity, is no longer at loss to account for the outburst of wrath which followed the Stamp Act, a year later.[46] To avert these hostile proceedings, the colonists memorialized the king and Parliament. They employed resident agents to act in their behalf. They availed themselves of party divisions and animosities in England. They alarmed British merchants by non-importation and self-denying agreements. When these measures seemed likely to prove ineffectual, they aroused public sentiment through the press, by public gatherings and legislative resolutions, by committees of correspondence between towns and colonies, and finally by continental congresses. They did not scruple to avail themselves of popular violence, nor, in the last extremity, of armed resistance to British authority.