Editing Thirteen Colonies (section)

===Economic policy===
{{Main|Economic history of the United States#Political environment}}
The British Empire at the time was operated under the [[Mercantilism|mercantile system]], where all trade was concentrated inside the Empire, and trade with other empires was forbidden. The goal was to enrich Britain—its merchants and its government. Whether the policy was good for the colonists was not an issue in London, but Americans became increasingly restive with mercantilist policies.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Savelle |first=Max |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hIgl_HNozQsC&pg=PA204 |title=Seeds of Liberty: The Genesis of the American Mind |date=2005 |publisher=Kessinger Publishing Legacy Reprint |isbn=9781419107078 |location=Whitefish, Montana |pages=204–211 |oclc=309336967 |orig-date=1948}}</ref>

Mercantilism meant that the government and the merchants became partners with the goal of increasing political power and private wealth, to the exclusion of other empires. The government protected its merchants—and kept others out—by trade barriers, regulations, and subsidies to domestic industries in order to maximize exports from and minimize imports to the realm. The government had to fight smuggling—which became a favorite American technique in the 18th century to circumvent the restrictions on trading with the French, Spanish or Dutch.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Trevelyan |first=George Otto |url=https://archive.org/details/americanrevolut14trevgoog/page/n13 |title=The American Revolution |date=1899 |volume=1 |page=128 |quote=smuggling american revolution}}</ref> The tactic used by mercantilism was to run trade surpluses, so that gold and silver would pour into London. The government took its share through duties and taxes, with the remainder going to merchants in Britain. The government spent much of its revenue on a superb [[History of the Royal Navy#Expansion of the fighting force, 1642–1689|Royal Navy]], which not only protected the British colonies but threatened the colonies of the other empires, and sometimes seized them. Thus the British Navy captured [[New Amsterdam]] (New York) in 1664. The colonies were captive markets for British industry, and the goal was to enrich the mother country.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Nester |first=William R. |title=The Great Frontier War: Britain, France, and the Imperial Struggle for North America, 1607–1755 |date=2000 |publisher=Praeger |page=54}}</ref> Colonial commodities were shipped on British ships to the mother country where Britain sold them to Europe reaping the benefits of the export trade. Finished goods were manufactured in Britain and sold in the colonies, or imported by Britain for retail to the colonies, profiting the mother country. Like other New World colonial empires, the British empire's commodity production was dependent on slave labor; as observed in 1720s Britain, "all this great increase in our treasure proceeds chiefly from the labour of negroes" in Britain's colonies.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gillis |first=John R. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/8928527 |title=The development of European society, 1770–1870 |publisher=University Press of America |year=1983 |isbn=0-8191-2898-8 |location=Washington, D.C. |page=14 |oclc=8928527}}</ref>

Britain implemented mercantilism by trying to block American trade with the French, Spanish, or Dutch empires using the [[Navigation Acts]], which Americans avoided as often as they could. The royal officials responded to smuggling with open-ended search warrants ([[Writ of assistance|Writs of Assistance]]). In 1761, Boston lawyer [[James Otis, Jr.|James Otis]] argued that the writs violated the [[Constitution of the United Kingdom|constitutional rights]] of the colonists. He lost the case, but John Adams later wrote, "Then and there the child Independence was born."<ref name="Stephens2006">{{Cite book |last=Stephens |title=Unreasonable Searches and Seizures |date=2006 |page=306}}</ref>

However, the colonists took pains to argue that they did not oppose British regulation of their external trade; they only opposed legislation that affected them internally.

==== Transportation ====
Transportation was primarily done by water; although a road network did exist in the colonies. As transportation was often done by water, a sizable shipbuilding industry developed; especially in New England. Rivers were utilized for transportation purposes.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=United States National Park Servie |url=https://npshistory.com/publications/nhl/theme-studies/travel-communication.pdf |title=The National Survey of Historic Sites and Buildings: Theme XVIII - Travel and Communication |year=1963 |chapter=Travel and Communication in the Colonial Era (1600-1783)}}</ref>

Most roads existed along the Atlantic Coast and connected other cities to each other. Some individual colonies built their own road networks. By 1764 a stagecoach route existed between Philadelphia and New York City; and by 1773 the stagecoach network extended to Providence and Boston.<ref name=":0" />