For decades, London had been watching. The East India Company complained of lost revenue. The Whitehaven merchants lobbied for seizure. Treasury intelligence operations leaked the Manx Book of Rates. Earlier legislative attempts — the acts of 1720 and 1726 — had failed because Parliament was attempting to enforce its authority where its authority did not extend.

The Duke of Atholl told his man on the island, John Quayle, that he would not sell. Quayle reassured the Manx people publicly. Merchants committed capital on the strength of those assurances. But Lord Mansfield, the Lord Chief Justice, had already told the Duke the truth: “They don’t mean to treat, much less to contract or agree.”

The ordinary business of the island carried on through the autumn of 1764, every transaction an act of faith in a future that had already been sold.

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