By midcentury roughly half of all British shipping was engaged in trade with the American colonies, and the colonies were buying nine hundred thousand pounds’ worth of British products annually—around 25 percent of all Britain’s exports and 50 percent of all manufactures other than woolens. By the early 1760s that figure had soared to over two million pounds. (Because the Navigation Acts prohibited direct imports from other European countries, 80 percent of the finished wares shipped to New York from British ports were of British origin.)
