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396 General History oj Europe their independence. By the end of the Seven Years' War the colonists numbered over two millions. Their rapidly increasing wealth and strength, their free life in a new land, the confidence they had gained in their successful conflict with the French, all combined to render interference of the British government intolerable to them. 680. Navigation Laws. England had, like Spain, France, and other colonizing countries, enacted a number of navigation and trade laws by which she tried to keep all the benefits of colonial trade and industry to herself. Early navigation laws were passed under Cromwell and Charles II which were specially directed against the enterprising Dutch traders. They provided that all products grown or manufactured in Asia, Africa, or America should be imported into England or her colonies only in English ships. Thus, if a Dutch merchant vessel laden with cloves, cinna- mon, teas, and silks from the Far East anchored in the harbor of New York, the inhabitants could not lawfully buy of the ship's master, no matter how much lower his prices were than those offered by English shippers. Furthermore, another act provided that no commodity of European production or manufacture should be imported into any of the colonies without being shipped through England and carried in ships built in England or the colonies. So if a colonial merchant wished to buy French wines or Dutch watches, he would have to order through English merchants. Again, if a colonist desired to sell to a European merchant such products as the law permitted him to sell to foreigners, he had to export them in English ships and even send them by way of England. 681. Trade Laws. Certain articles in which the colonists were interested, such as sugar, tobacco, cotton, and indigo, could be sold only in England. Other things they were forbidden to export at all, or even to produce. For instance, though they possessed the finest furs in abundance, they could not export any caps or hats to England or to any foreign country. The colonists had built up a lucrative lumber and provision trade with the French West Indies, from which they imported large quantities of rum,