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prohibitive, and there was only a limited amount of molasses from British possessions, not nearly enough to satisfy demand. Enforcement of the tax on foreign molasses, then, threatened Rhode Island’s financial health and prosperity. A Rhode Island merchant soon reported that “all business seems to wear a gloom not before seen in America.”
    Inspired by their merchant colleagues in Boston, who were prepared to resist enforcement of the molasses tax, Rhode Island’s politicians and businessmen drew up a written protest and dispatched it to London. The document emphasized the importance of molasses to Rhode Island’s economy: rum, the Rhode Islanders said, was “the main hinge upon which the trade of the colony turns, and many hundreds of persons depend immediately upon it for a subsistence.” The merchants painted a picture of desperation: “Two-thirds of our vessels will becomeuseless. . . . Our mechanics and those who depend upon the merchant for employment must seek for subsistence elsewhere. . . . An end will be put to our commerce.” The Rhode Islanders and other American protesters knew that the Sugar Act was due for renewal (or expiration) in early 1764, and they hoped their arguments would carry some weight with Parliament. New legislation in 1764 lowered the tax to three pence per gallon, but it was hardly a victory for colonial merchants. Parliament made the molasses tax permanent, and it increased taxes on sugar from foreign colonies as well as adding taxes on other, non-British goods.
    What made the Sugar Act of 1764 historic, and even more threatening, was Parliament’s assertion that it had a right to levy taxes to raise revenues, especially to pay for the thousands of British soldiers in America. Previously, taxes were considered a means by which Parliament regulated trade. The government of George Grenville warned that colonists could expect further taxes in the future, including the possibility of “certain Stamp Duties.”
    A few months after the
Squirrel
arrived to remind Rhode Island of its new obligations, sailors aboard another Royal Navy vessel, the
St. John,
were accused of stealing goods from Newport’s merchants. As an indication of just how tense affairs had become in Newport by the spring of 1764, residents gained access to a fort and opened fire on the
St. John,
but dispersed before the
Squirrel’s
guns could be brought to bear. When the
Squirrel’s
commander, Captain Richard Smith, discovered that the man who had fired the first shots actually acted on orders from local officials, he condemned Rhode Island as a “licentious republic” in need of drastic change. Smith demanded apologies; local officials were equally angry. They wanted to know why the gunners hadn’t sunk the
St. John.
    The following spring, angry Newporters again took action against the Royal Navy when the captain and crew of the
Maidstone
virtually shut down the port by seizing merchant sailors and fishermen coming in and out of the port and putting them to work on His Majesty’s ships. This practice, known as impressment, was common on the seas (and would become one of the flashpoints in the War of 1812) and in seaports, butthe
Maidstone’s
captain was particularly ruthless. Newport struck back in early June 1765. A group of about five hundred citizens made off with one of the
Maidstone’s
boats and burned it, to the delight of all.
    This was a shocking act of defiance, but only one manifestation of Rhode Island’s anger. In late 1764, Governor Hopkins published a treatise titled
The Rights of the Colonies Examined,
which argued vehemently against the Sugar Act. He also complained against the latest outrage: the Stamp Act. Parliament, he argued, had no right to collect taxes without the consent of the colonists themselves. Furthermore, he wrote, the American colonies were “entitled to equal liberty and freedom with their fellow subjects in