584 PARLIAMENTARY COLBERTISM 
Country, a most important member of the body economic 
was lopped away. It was no longer possible to control this 
great branch of commerce so as to render it subservient to 
the promotion of English manufactures. The system had 
fallen to pieces and was at once discredited, since it seemed 
to have brought about a blow to British prestige. 
Economic The economic effects of the severance were far reaching; 
oy ances put the extent to which economic causes contributed to bring 
pinging about the revolt of the Americans has been exaggerated. 
Contemporary observers, and later historians, have been 
accustomed to insist on the commercial and industrial 
grievances of the colonists, as not only the occasion, but the 
principal reason of their determination to break with the 
Mother Country. There was no other obvious ground for 
their decision; they had no religious disabilities, and they 
had a large measure of political self-government; it seemed 
as if the secret of their dissatisfaction must have lain in the 
galling nature of the control exercised over their commerce 
and industry. That they had grievances is true, and for 
these the Parliamentary Colbertism of the Whigs is un- 
doubtedly to be blamed!; but Professor Ashley has shown 
that the pressure of these annoyances has been over-rated to 
some extent?. The colonists seem to have been not indisposed 
to accept the restrictions imposed on their trading out of 
regard to the economic welfare of the Mother Country; it 
is rather true that the increasing political cleavage rendered 
the economic situation strained. The colonists felt no duty 
to contribute from their meagre resources towards the main- 
tenance of any particular interest on the continent of Europe. 
Ltn The colonial sentiment of attachment to the Crown might 
the colonial Possibly have been stronger, if the English Revolution had 
lack of. failed ; for it certainly was not transferred to the Hanoverians 
Hano- and their belongings. There were many Englishmen who 
wolitics. regretted the fact that their country was so frequently em- 
broiled in continental struggles from which she had little to 
pain; the colonists were reluctant to sacrifice anything in 
A.D. 1689 
—17786. 
and dis- 
credited tts 
principles. 
1 See above, p. 481, and 586 below. 
2 The Commercial Legislation of England and the American Colonies, 1660— 
1760. in Surveys, 309—s35.