The Royal Naval Squadron in North America Was Made Responsible for Enforcing Trade Legislation Including the Molasses Act; the Navy Treated Their Orders "As Declarations of Commercial Martial Law"

West Indian and North American interests continued to clash when Britain began in earnest to enforce the Molasses Act during the closing years of the Seven Years' War (1754-63). The North American trade with the French West Indies had continued during the war with France. Insurance rates on shipping with the French Caribbean were openly quoted in North America. In 1759 the Board of the Commissioners of Customs reviewed the service in North America and prepared a report for the Board of Trade. In 1760 William Pitt the Elder launched an inquiry into the French trade and issued a circular letter to colonial governors to carry out the commissioners' instructions against the trade. Customs officers in North America began to enforce the letter of the Molasses Act. The navy prosecuted seizures in West Indian vice-admiralty courts, especially in Jamaica where condemnations were easy. British and British West Indian privateers were even more effective than colonial officials in capturing North American ships trading with the French Caribbean. In July 1763, the Treasury ordered absentee customs officers to return within a month to their posts in North America and it proceeded to dismiss officers for noncompliance. It threatened prosecution of officers practicing "compounding" and "composition" and offered rewards to informants who exposed disobedient officers. "The publication of orders for strict execution of the Molasses Act," wrote Governor Bernard of Massachusetts to a Treasury official, "has caused a greater alarm in this Country than the taking of Fort William Henry did in 1757."

The colonial customs service was reorganized and its size increased. New instructions were sent to royal governors to be more active in enforcing the duties. The Royal Naval Squadron in North America was given a larger peacetime fleet and made responsible for enforcing trade legislation including the Molasses Act. The navy treated their orders "as declarations of commercial martial law, with themselves replacing, rather than aiding, the regular enforcement agencies." North Americans associated these changes with the lobbying activity of West Indians.

--Andrew Jackson O'Shaughnessy, An Empire Divided: The American Revolution and the British Caribbean, Early American Studies (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 64-65.