Indeed, as Edmund Burke has said, she
made 'an attempt to keep as a lair of wild beasts that
earth which God, by an express charter, had given to the
children of men.' She forbade settlement in the hinterland.
She did this ostensibly for the Indians, but in reality
for the merchants in the mother country. In a report of
the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations in 1772
are words which show that it was the intention of the
government to confine 'the western extent of settlements
to such a distance from the seaboard as that those
settlements should lie within easy reach of the trade
and commerce of this kingdom,... and also of the exercise
of that authority and jurisdiction... necessary for the
preservation of the colonies in a due subordination to,
and dependence upon, the mother country... It does appear
to us that the extension of the fur trade depends entirely
upon the Indians being undisturbed in the possession of
their hunting-grounds... Let the savages enjoy their
deserts in quiet. Were they driven from their forests
the peltry trade would decrease, and it is not impossible
that worse savages would take refuge in them.'
Much has been written about the stamp tax and the tea
tax as causes of the American revolution, but this
determination to confine the colonies to the Atlantic
seaboard 'rendered the revolution inevitable.
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