lonists benefited from Britain. The colonists of the north smuggled goods and manufactured items for profit. They avoided the British laws. The southern colonists had a guaranteed market from the British because they had a monopoly. The colonies also benefited because they had the British army troops to guard them, and they have low taxes, and the British navy shielded them. The colonists were generally more prosperous than the English, so their crime paid off.
             The colonists however saw it in a different light. They thought that Britain was all bad, and although they appreciated the benefits of Britain, they somehow felt that the bad part of Britain outweighed the good. Their perception of Britain was not the greatest. They seemed to believe that they were being held back by Britain economically, and therefore in strength by Britain. The British set the prices and made all of the rules for American trade. The people of the New England colonies felt that the British Navy was stifling their entrepreneurial pursuits in the free market. So the navy was not in fact helping them by protecting them, but hindering them. The people of the middle colonies, who were producers of a vast amount of grain, felt that they too were being stifled. If they could only trade with Britain then they hadn't much of a market, and little opportunity to make mor
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