This view, however, overlooks several facts. If we disregard the chronic quarrels in all the colonies, growing out of the exercise of the royal prerogatives, Virginia and Massachusetts especially had been aroused on the abstract questions concerning the relations of the colonies to Great Britain, and in them the earliest demonstrations of hostility to the Stamp Act were manifested. In the famous "Parsons Case" argued by Patrick Henry in December, 1763, in words which rang through Virginia because they affected every man in that colony, he drew the prerogative into question, not only in regard to the ecclesiastical supremacy of the Anglican hierarchy, but also on the right of the king to negative the "Two-penny Act" of the colonial assembly. In Massachusetts, James Otis, in 1761, arguing the writs of assistance, assumed the natural rights of the colonists to absolute independence. But the promulgation of none of these theories of abstract rights accounts for the general outbreak in 1765. Its most potent influence was the enforcement of the navigation acts in the great commercial centres, and the ruin threatening New England through the breaking up of her trade with the French West Indies and the Spanish Main[47] by the modification of the Sugar Act in 1764. The staples of New England were fish, cattle, and lumber. The better quality of fish found a market in Europe, but this trade was subject to competition. For the poorer quality the chief market was in the French West Indies, where by the French law it could be exchanged only for molasses. This was shipped to New England, and used not only in its raw state, but distilled into rum, which, besides supplying home consumption, was to some extent exported to Africa in exchange for slaves. This trade and commerce with the Spanish Main was the chief source of the wealth of New England. But in 1733, to protect the sugar industry of the English West India islands, a duty amounting to prohibition was laid on all sugar and molasses imported into the American colonies from the French islands. So long as this act was not enforced, it did little harm; but if enforced, it would not only ruin the trade in rum and lumber, but injure the fisheries also, for the English islands were limited in population and had no liking for poor fish. The French, besides being more numerous, were less particular as to their diet; but if they could not sell molasses, they would not buy fish. It was proposed to modify and enforce this act. Minot[48] says: "The business of the fishery, which, it was alleged, would be broken up by the act, was at this time estimated in Massachusetts at £164,000 sterling per annum; the vessels employed in it, which would be nearly useless, at £100,000; the provisions used in it, the casks for packing fish, and other articles, at £22,700 and upwards; to all which there was to be added the loss of the advantage of sending lumber, horses, provisions, and other commodities to the foreign plantations