The colonists trembled.

It was feared that next there would be an importation of the nobility.
In those early days the colony was non-supporting.

All the necessaries of life--food, clothing, and all--were sent out from England, and kept in great government store-houses, and given to the convicts and sold to the settlers--sold at a trifling advance upon cost.

The Corps saw its opportunity.

Its officers went into commerce, and in a most lawless way.
They went to importing rum, and also to manufacturing it in private stills, in defiance of the government's commands and protests.