rd its colonies had been governed by mercantilism, which Ver Steeg defined as based on the assumption that "nation-states should regulate their economic life to strengthen themselves in competition with other nation-states." The American colonists were required to export a long list of agricultural staples only to the British Empire and to import only from Great Britain textiles and other manufactured goods. All intra-imperial trade was to be carried in British ships. Customs duties were imposed on other imports. The net effect of these and other restrictive laws was to discourage American industry and to bind its economy to the support of the Empire.
However, Ver Steeg said "the Lords of Trade were unable to curtail the most flagrant violation of the mercantilist spirit and policy --the semi-independence of the corporate colonies of New England from England." By the third quarter of the 18th century, Johnson said that the American economy had begun to outgrow its imperial straitjacket. American output, five percent of Britain's in 1700, reached 40 percent in 1775, "one of the highest growth rates the world has ever experienced." And, "though America's was largely an agricultural economy . . . it was steadily catching up in manufactures . . ." According to Stokesbury, the population of the colonies had also rapidly risen, from 250,000 in 1700 to 2,500,000 in 1775, as compared with 11 million in Great Britain.
Politically, also, the colonies were maturing. According to Countryman, they were "vastly different: in their economic lives, in their politics, in their cultures." They were largely self-governing, except for periodic attempts by the crown to curtail the prerogatives of local assemblies. According to Christie,
All through the eighteenth century the colonists,
cushioned by immense distances from intermeddling by
the central government, had been developing a lively sense of their own political self-suffici...