provisions, and an inconsiderable quantity of grain, with spermaceti candles, being the chief articles; they are obliged to Connecticut, and the neighbouring colonies, for most of their traffic; and by their means they carry on an extensive trade. Their mode of commerce is this; they trade to Great Britain, Holland, Africa, the West Indies, and the neighbouring colonies; from each of which places they import the following articles; from Great Britain, dry goods; from Holland, money; from Africa, slaves; from the West Indies, sugars, coffee, and molasses; and from the neighbouring colonies, lumber and provisions: and with what they purchase in one place they make their returns in another. Thus with the money they get in Holland, they pay their merchants in London; the sugars they procure in the West Indies, they carry to Holland ; the slaves they fetch from Africa they send to the West Indies, together with lumber and provisions, which they get from the neighbouring colonies: the rum that they distil they export to Africa; and with the dry goods, which they purchase in London, they traffick in the neighbouring colonies. By this kind of circular commerce they subsist and grow rich. They have besides these some other inconsiderable branches of trade, but nothing worth mentioning. They have very few manufactures; they distil rum and make spermaceti candles; but in the article of dry goods, they are far behind the people of New York and Pensylvania.

The number of souls in this province (Massachusetts) is supposed to amount to 200,000; and 40,000 of them to be capable of bearing arms. They carry on a considerable traffick, chiefly in the manner of the Rhode-Islanders; but have some material articles for exportation, which the Rhode-Islanders have not, except in a very trifling degree: these are salt fish, and vessels. Of the latter they build annually a great number, and send them, laden with cargoes of the former to Great Britain, where they sell them. They clear out from Boston, Salem, Marblehead, and the different ports in this province, yearly, about 70,284 ton of shipping. Exclusive of these articles, their manufactures are not large; those of spirits, fish-oil, and iron, are, I believe, the most considerable. They fabricate beaver-hats, which they sell for a moidore a-piece; and some years ago they erected a manufactory, with a design to

encourage the Irish settlers to make linens; but at the breaking out of the war the price of labour was inhanced so much, that it was impossible to carry it on. Like the rest of the colonies they also endeavour to make woollens; but they have not yet been able to bring them to any degree of perfection; indeed it is an article in which I think they will not easily succeed; for the American wool is not only coarse, but in comparison of the English, exceedingly short. Upon the best inquiry I could make, I was not able to discover that any one had ever seen a staple of American wool longer than seven inches; whereas in the counties of Lincoln and Leicester, they are frequently twenty-two inches long. In the southern colonies, at least in those parts where I travelled, there is scarcely any herbage; and whether it is owing to this, or to the excessive heats, I am ignorant, the wool is short and hairy. The northern colonies have indeed greater plenty of herbage, but are for some months covered with snow; and without a degree of attention and care in housing the sheep, and guarding them against accidents, and wild beasts, which would not easily be compensated, it would be very difficult to increase their numbers to any great amount. The Americans seem conscious of this fact, and, notwithstanding a very severe prohibition, contrive to procure from England, every year a considerable number of rams, in order to improve and multiply the breed. What the lands beyond the Alleghenny and upon the banks of the Ohio may be, I do not know; they are said to be very rich but the climate I believe is not less severe; and I think, upon collating different accounts, that the severity of heat and cold is not much abated by cultivation. The air becomes dryer and more wholesome, in proportion as the woods are cut down, and the ground is cleared and cultivated; but the cold is not less piercing, nor the snow less frequent. I think therefore upon the whole, that America, though it may with particular care and attention, produce small quantities of tolerably good wool, will yet never be able to produce it in such plenty and of such a quality as to serve for the necessary consumption of its inhabitants.

The capital of this province [New Hampshire] is Portsmouth, which is situated upon the river: it is an inconsiderable place, and chiefly built of wood. Very little can be said of the province of

New Hampshire, materially different from what has been said of Massachusetts Bay. The climate, produce, trade, government, religion, and manners of it are much the same. There are supposed to be about 40,000 inhabitants, 8,000 militia, and 6 or 700 provincial troops. There are only two missionaries of the church of England, and one of these has lately applied to be removed to Rhode Island. The chief articles for exportation are fish, cattle, ships, of which they annually build near 200, and masts for the royal navy. These are made of the white pine, and are, I believe, the finest in the world, many of them being forty yards long, and as many inches in diameter. They never cut them down but in times of deep snow, as it would be impossible in any other season to get them down to the river. When the trees are fallen, they yoke seventy or eighty pair of oxen, and drag them along the snow. It is exceedingly difficult to put them first into motion, which they call raising them; and when they have once effected this, they never stop upon any account whatsoever till they arrive at the waters side. Frequently some of the oxen are taken ill; upon which they immediately cut them out of the gears; and are sometimes obliged, I was told, to destroy five or six pair of them. The forests, where these masts grow, are reserved to the crown, which appoints a surveyor of them; who is commonly the governor of this province. This is not the only expedient employed by government for the preservation of such trees as may be of use for the royal navy; for there is an act of parliament, I believe, which prohibits, under pain of certain fines and penalties, the cutting down, or destroying of any white pine-tree, of specified dimensions, not growing within the boundaries of any township, without his majesty's licence, in any of the provinces of New England, New York, or New Jersey: a restriction absolutely necessary, whether considered as securing a provision for the navy, or as a check upon that very destructive practice, taken from the Indians, of fire-hunting. .

C. MIDDLE COLONIES

1 New York probably carries on a more extensive commerce, than any town in the English North American provinces; at least it may be said to equal them: Boston and Philadelphia however come very near up to it. The trade of New York extends to many places, and it is said they send more ships from thence to London, than they do from Philadelphia. They export to that capital all the various sorts of skins which they buy of the Indians, sugar, logwood, and other dying woods, rum, mahogany, and many other goods which are the produce of the West Indies; together with all the specie which they get in the course of trade. Every year they build several ships here, which are sent to London, and there sold; and of late years they have shipped a quantity of iron to England. In return for these, they import from London stuffs and every other article of English growth or manufacture, together with all sorts of foreign goods. England, and especially London, profits immensely by its trade with the American colonies; for not only New York, but likewise all the other English towns on the continent, import so many articles from England, that all their specie, together with the goods which they get in other countries, must altogether go to Old England, in order to pay the amount, to which they are however insufficient. From hence it appears how much a well regulated colony contributes to the increase and welfare of its mother country.

New York sends many ships to the West Indies, with flour, corn, biscuit, timber, tuns, boards, flesh, fish, butter, and other provisions; together with some of the few fruits that grow here. Many ships go to Boston in New England, with corn and flour, and take in exchange, flesh, butter, timber, different sorts of fish, and other articles, which they carry further to the West Indies. They now and then take rum from thence, which is distilled there in great quantities, and sell it here with a considerable advantage. Sometimes they send yachts with goods from New York to Philadelphia, and at other times yachts are sent from Philadelphia to

1 Kalm, Travels into North America [1749], I, 253-258, 237, 238, 240, 243-245, 31, 49-50.

New York; which is only done, as appears from the gazettes, because certain articles are cheaper at one place than at the other. They send ships to Ireland every year, laden with all kinds of West India goods; but especially with linseed, which is reaped in this province. I have been assured, that in some years no less than ten ships have been sent to Ireland, laden with nothing but linseed; because it is said the flax in Ireland does not afford good seed. But probably the true reason is this: the people of Ireland, in order to have the better flax, make use of the plant before the seed is ripe, and therefore are obliged to send for foreign seed; and hence it becomes one of the chief articles in trade.

At this time a bushel of linseed is sold for eight shillings of New York currency, or exactly a piece of eight.

The goods which are shipped to the West Indies, are sometimes paid for with ready money, and sometimes with West India goods, which are either first brought to New York, or immediately sent to England or Holland. If a ship does not chuse to take in West India goods in its return to New York, or if no body will freight it, it often goes to Newcastle in England, to take in coals for ballast, which when brought home sell for a pretty good price. In many parts of the town coals are made use of, both for kitchen fires, and in rooms, because they are reckoned cheaper than wood, which at present costs thirty shillings of New York currency per fathom; of which measure I have before made mention. New York has likewise some intercourse with South Carolina; to which it sends corn, flour, sugar, rum, and other goods, and takes rice in return, which is almost the only commodity exported from South Carolina.

The goods with which the province of New York trades are not very numerous. They chiefly export the skins of animals, which are bought of the Indians about Oswego; great quantities of boards, coming for the most part from Albany; timber and ready made lumber, from that part of the country which lies about the river Hudson; and lastly wheat, flour, barley, oats and other kinds of corn, which are brought from New Jersey and the cultivated parts of this province. I have seen yachts from New Brunswick, laden with wheat which lay loose on board, and with flour packed