182 PARLIAMENTARY COLBERTISM 
attracted to Newfoundland by the chance of supplying the 
mariners who visited the fishing grounds with provisions. 
Many of the vessels which were engaged in the fisheries were 
Dutch or French; and the New Englanders had no scruple 
in violating the trade laws. Wine, brandies, and other 
European goods were imported directly into the colonies 
md with from Newfoundland. In the instructions to Governor 
is Mgnt Andros (1686-7) this island is described as a magazine of 
Islands «g]) sorts of goods brought thither directly from France, 
Holland, Scotland, Ireland and other places’.” Intercourse 
with the French planters in the West Indies was even more 
tempting than trading with French mariners in the north. 
The northerners found an excellent market for fish and 
cereals in these regions. The French islands were able to 
supply them with rum, or the molasses from which rum was 
distilled, on easy terms, as the brandy growers of France 
were protected against the competition of colonial spirits? 
while the English planters could ship rum to Europe. 
Under these circumstances an active trade sprang up, 
which seemed specially objectionable from the fact that 
the northern colonists traded by preference with the French, 
rather than the English, West Indian islands. The returns 
which they received by this trade enabled the colonies to deal 
with the Indians for furs, which they exported to pay for the 
manufactures they imported from England. In 1733 this trade 
was discouraged by heavy duties®; but it seems to have con- 
tinued in full vigour in disregard of this Molasses Act. During 
the war of the Austrian Succession the northern traders added 
to the irritation, which was felt against them in England, by 
supplying the French colonists with victuals. If any attempt 
was to be made to regulate British commerce at all, there was 
ample reason for treating the trade between the northern 
colonies and the French islands as prejudicial to the realm. 
The rules of the English system, which were intended 
to render England the staple where all the trade of the de- 
pendencies centred and to prevent hostile competition with 
home industries, did not press nearly so heavily on any of 
A.D. 1689 
1776. 
i Beer, p. 136; C. Pedley, The History of Newfoundland, p. 101. 
2 Beer, p. 118. 8 6 (4, IT. c. 13. 4 Ashley. Surveys, 339.