The attachment of the colonies to the mother country was never stronger than at the signature of the treaty of Paris.[178] The union of that tract of country which extends from the Atlantic to the Mississippi, and from the gulf of Mexico to the north pole, was deemed a certain guarantee of future peace, and an effectual security against the return of those bloody scenes from which no condition in life could afford an exemption. [Footnote 178: After the expulsion of the French from Canada, a considerable degree of ill humour was manifested in Massachusetts with respect to the manner in which the laws of trade were executed. A question was agitated in court, in which the colony took a very deep interest. A custom house officer applied for what was termed "a writ of assistance," which was an authority to search any house for dutiable articles suspected to be concealed in it. The right to grant special warrants was not contested; but this grant of a general warrant was deemed contrary to the principles of liberty, and an engine of oppression equally useless and vexatious, which would enable every petty officer of the customs to gratify his resentments by harassing the most respectable men in the province. The ill temper excited on this occasion was shown by a reduction of the salaries of the judges; but no diminution of attachment to the mother country appears to have been produced by it.] This state of things, long and anxiously wished for by British America, had, at length, been effected by the union of British and American arms. The soldiers of the parent state and her colonies had co-operated in the same service, their blood had mingled in the same plains, and the object pursued was common to both people. While the British nation was endeared to the Americans by this community of danger, and identity of interest, the brilliant achievements of the war had exalted to enthusiasm their admiration of British valour. They were proud of the land of their ancestors, and gloried in their descent from Englishmen. But this sentiment was not confined to the military character of the nation. While the excellence of the English constitution was a rich theme of declamation, every colonist believed himself entitled to its advantages; nor could he admit that, by crossing the Atlantic, his ancestors had relinquished the essential rights of British subjects. The degree of authority which might rightfully be exercised by the mother country over her colonies, had never been accurately defined. In Britain, it had always been asserted that Parliament possessed the power of binding them in all cases whatever. In America, at different times, and in different provinces, different opinions had been entertained on this subject.