as they could. The royal officials responded to smuggling with open-ended search warrants (Writs of Assistance). In 1761, Boston lawyer James Otis argued that the writs violated the constitutional rights of the colonists. He lost the case, but John Adams later wrote, "Then and there the child Independence was born." However, the colonists took pains to argue that they did not oppose British regulation of their external trade; they only opposed legislation that affected them internally. Other British colonies Besides the grouping that became known as the "thirteen colonies", Britain in the late-18th century had another dozen colonial possessions in the New World. The British West Indies, Newfoundland, the Province of Quebec, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Bermuda, and East and West Florida remained loyal to the British crown throughout the war (although Spain reacquired Florida before the war was over, and in 1821 sold it to the United States). Several of the other colonies evinced a certain degree of sympathy with the Patriot cause, but their geographical isolation and the dominance of British naval power precluded any effective participation. The British crown had only recently acquired several of those lands, and many of the issues facing the Thirteen Colonies did not apply to them, especially in the case of Quebec and Florida. Sparsely-settled Rupert's Land, which King Charles II of England had chartered as "one of our Plantations or Colonies in America" in 1670, operated remotely from the rebellious colonies and had relatively little in common with them. Newfoundland, exempt from the Navigation Acts, shared none of the grievances of the continental colonies. Tightly bound to Britain and controlled by the Royal Navy, it had no assembly that could voice grievances. Nova Scotia (which at the time encompassed modern-day New Brunswick and Nova Scotia) had a large Yankee element recently arrived from New England that shared the sentiments of the Americans in the 13 colonies regarding the rights of the British men. The royal government in Halifax reluctantly allowed the Yankees of Nova Scotia a kind of "neutrality". In any case, the island-like geography and the presence of the major British naval base at Halifax made the thought of armed resistance impossible, although American militia did attempt some early incursions in the St. John River area and along the Bay of Fundy. Quebec was inhabited by French Catholic settlers who had come under British control by 1760. The Quebec