With these facts in mind,--remembering especially that in the state of civilization then prevailing, some forms of piracy were justified by expediency,--recall the feeling with which an influential part of the people of England were coming to regard the colonies. "How much I despise them!" wrote Lord Bellomont, in 1700, when some New England merchants objected to his seizure, confessedly contrary to law, of a cargo of timber. In 1724 the master ship-builders of the Thames united in a formal complaint to the king, in which they said, truthfully, that their trade was depressed and their workmen were emigrating because of the competition of the New England yards. Nor were the ship-builders the only ones in England who were depressed by American competition. The books of Sir Josiah Child were, perhaps, no longer read, but his warnings were coming to be heeded more and more, and the contempt which Lord Bellomont had expressed was well-nigh universal among the nobility. As the reader remembers, the petition of the Thames ship-builders was not granted. As late as 1739 Walpole said:-- "It has been a maxim with me to _encourage_ the trade of the American colonies _in the utmost latitude_. Nay, it has been necessary to pass over some irregularities." That was a most important statement. In 1739 Walpole encouraged the trade of the Americans in the utmost latitude. With inconsiderable exceptions as to time and conditions, the Americans had been, in fact, encouraged in the utmost latitude during nearly 100 years. Even a tax laid on foreign molasses, at the request of the English West Indies, in 1733, had been as dead as the navigation laws of Charles II. But when the privateers of England were loosed to prey upon neutral ships as well as on those of the enemy, the navigation laws were suddenly revived. The privateers found, in the colonial evasions of these laws, golden opportunities to secure plunder, for colonial ships were constantly evading the laws, and the penalty for doing so was confiscation in favor of the informer. Naturally the English privateers seized the colony ships all the more eagerly because of England's growing jealousy of American shipping. The rôle of these piratical privateers as guardians of the law was supported by courts of admiralty which were composed of judges who received fees that were increased by every condemnation. For the sake of emphasis let the facts be repeated. After a period of nearly 100 years, during which such leaders as Walpole had "encouraged" American ship-owners "in the utmost latitude," a horde of pirates and corrupt judges resurrected the law; and when a valuable prize was in question, they even disregarded the law they pleaded, as well as justice, to condemn her. And there was no redress.