commodities that furnished the economic basis of profitable colonization. America was practically the only source of supply of the first three articles and all Europe was eager to import them. There were other sources of supply for the rest of them either in the East or in Europe itself; but for various reasons the American product found a ready market. Thus furs and dyewoods were in demand almost everywhere, because they were scarce and difficult to get. The Mediterranean countries were compelled to import a portion of their food supply in the shape of fish and cereals, especially rice. Western Europe was dependent upon the Baltic for timber and naval stores, and, as the rivalry in sea power became more intense, the development of an American supply was a welcome relief. Directly or indirectly the Thirteen Colonies shared in the supply of all these products except the precious metals. By far the most important single product, which they sold directly to Europe, was tobacco. Rice and fish with some flour were sent to the Mediterrancan. Naval stores, fishery products, furs and indigo went to the mother-country. For all the colonies north of Maryland, however, this European market was very small and quite inadequate to support any considerable economic growth. Additional markets must be found elsewhere outside of Europe. They were found in the West Indies, and were created there by the development of the sugar industry with slave labor. With the increasing demand for that commodity in Europe its production became almost as profitable as that of the precious metals. The northern colonies were able to share in the production of this valuable commodity by providing the planters with food, timber and other supplies. It was the West India trade more than anything else, which enabled them to utilize their fisheries, forests and fertile soil; that built up their towns and cities, and supplied cargoes for their large merchant marine. There are two other features of colonial economic life which may be said to be characteristic of new countries. Since they have both played a great part in our later economic history, they deserve a word of comment here. The first has already been alluded to. It is the scarcity of labor for hire, and the consequent difficulty of securing what Wakefield called "combination and constancy of labor" in any industry. It is the difficulty of organizing labor, of inducing men to labor for hire, of establishing mastership in industry. This difficulty was the root of the system of negro slavery in this country, and was also responsible for a fully developed system of bond, or indentured, servants among the whites in some of the colonies. The facilities for emigration in our own time have partially solved this problem of new countries, but have not entirely removed it. It arises from the existence of unoccupied agricultural land, to which the emigrant has easy access, and so long as that continues in a new country, the relation between labor and capital will not be what is considered normal in older countries. The other characteristic feature of colonial life is the existence of currency difficulties, and the disposition to make use of some form of cheap money, usually inconvertible paper. This does not arise from any exceptional ignorance of monetary science on the part of the inhabitants, nor to a dishonest desire to defraud creditors, but is the natural result of their economic situation. Given a demand for their staple products from other communities, their most pressing need is for capital to aid in the production of those staples. It is natural and inevitable that they should resort to every means of economizing capital. The use of paper money, or commodities like furs, or ware-house receipts, such as the tobacco notes in Virginia, are all devices of this kind. Specie is no doubt the most perfect instrument to serve as a medium of exchange, but it is a very expensive one, and a new country may for some time be too poor to afford it. The same necessity, which induces the inhabitants to use inferior tools of husbandry, induces them to adopt a like policy with regard to their currency. It was not economic delusion simply that caused Franklin and Dickinson to regard colonial paper money with favor and its prohibition by the mother-country as an act of tyranny. Poor as the paper money was, in Pennsylvania, at least, it seemed to them more economical than specie. It is always a question how far the losses due to an inferior currency outweigh its economies and in a new country men are always prone to consider that question and test it by experience. I. POPULATION, PRODUCTS AND TRADE A. GENERAL ACCOUNT The 1 The soil of the New-England provinces scarcely furnishes provisions sufficient to support the inhabitants. Their industry has therefore been chiefly directed to the sea, to fishing, navigation, and the various branches of business subservient to them. cod, salmon, mackerel, sturgeon, and other species of fish, which frequent their coasts and their rivers in prodigious sholes, afforded employment to great numbers in taking, curing, and packing them. The New-Englanders also frequented the banks and coasts of Newfoundland and the fishing grounds in the Gulf of St. Lawrence as far as the coasts of Labrador. Besides their own fishing they procured from the Newfoundland fishermen a part of the fish taken by them in exchange for rum of their own manufacture, and other articles of American and West-Indian produce. The fish, after being sorted in their harbours, were shipped off to the countries, for which each quality was best adapted. The best were carried to the southern parts of Europe, and the proceeds were generally remitted to Great Britain in bills of exchange to pay for 1 Macpherson, Annals of Commerce, III, 567–569. the goods they had occasion for. A small quantity of the best fish was also brought to Britain: and the inferior sorts were destined to give a relish to the plantains and yams, which constitute the principal part of the food of the negro slaves in the West-Indies. After the peace of 1763 they increased their whale fishery in the seas between their own coasts and Labrador, in consequence of the encouragement given to it by the great reduction of the duties on their oil and whale fins (by the act 4 Geo. III, c. 29) so much, that instead of 80 or 90 sloops, which had formerly gone upon the whale fishery, they employed 160 in that business before the year 1775; and the other branches of their fishery increased in the same proportion. In addition to the commerce supported by the produce of their fisheries, they drove a very profitable circuitous carrying trade, which greatly enriched them, and supplied most of the money, which circulated among them. Besides building vessels for the service of their own commerce, they built great numbers, but of no very good quality of wood or workmanship, for sale: and from the molasses, which they had brought in great quantities from the West-Indies (chiefly from the French islands) they distilled a kind of rum, which, though much inferior to that of the WestIndies, was very acceptable to the Indians, who joyfully received it in exchange for their furs and peltry. They also found a great vent for it among their own fishermen and others engaged in the Newfoundland fishery: and they carried considerable quantities of it to Africa where they exchanged it for slaves, or sold it to the resident European slave-merchants for gold dust, ivory, woods, wax, and gums. The candles made of spermaceti, furnished by their whale fishery, formed also an article of export to the amount of three or four hundred thousand pound weight in a year, besides what were consumed upon the continent. Their exports to Great Britain consisted chiefly of fish oil, whale bone (or fins), masts and other spars, to which were added several raw materials for manufactures collected in their circuitous trading voyages, and a balance paid-in foreign gold and silver coins. In short, their earnest application to fisheries and the carrying trade, together with their unremitting. attention to the most minute article which could be made to yield a profit, obtained them the appellation of the Dutchmen of America. New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, have a much better soil than that of the New-England provinces, and they produce corn and cattle of all kinds in great abundance, and also hemp, flax, and lumber; to which may be added iron, potashes, and pearl-ashes. Their exports were corn of all kinds, flour, and bread, in great quantities; salted provisions of all sorts; live stock, including horses, horned cattle, hogs, and sheep, and all kinds of poultry in great numbers; flax, and hemp; boards, scantling, staves, shingles, and wooden houses framed and ready to set up; iron in pigs and bars; and vessels, superior in workmanship to those of New-England. Their chief markets for these commodities were the British and foreign West-Indies, Spain, Portugal, the Western islands, Madeira, and the Canary islands, whence they carried home the produce of each country and bullion. Great Britain and Ireland received from them iron, hemp, flax-seed, some lumber, and skins and furs the produce of their trade with the Indians; together with some articles of their imports from other provinces and from foreign countries which were raw materials for British manufactures, and bullion. Maryland and Virginia almost from their first settlement made tobacco the principal object of their culture, and it long continued to constitute the most valuable export of British America. But the quantity of tobacco was diminishing in these provinces for many years before the Revolution, owing to the soil being exhausted by it; and the planters had turned much of their tobacco land to the cultivation of wheat and other grain. Their tobacco could by law be exported only to Great Britain but their corn, flour, lumber, &c., were carried to the West-Indies and elsewhere. North Carolina produced also some tobacco; and it furnished pitch, tar, and turpentine, of which about 130,000 barrels were annually exported, whereof the greatest part came to Britain. The exports to the West-Indies consisted mostly of salt pork, Indian corn, peas, &c. But the foreign trade of this province was very trifling in proportion to its great extent, and even to the quantity of its productions, and was mostly in the hands of the merchants of the adjacent provinces of Virginia and South Carolina, and of the New-Englanders. In South Carolina and Georgia rice and indigo were the staple articles. The former grows on the marshy grounds near the coast, and the latter on the dry soil of the inland country. The planters had for some time applied to the culture of tobacco; and they made considerable quantities of lumber. Their exports consisted of these articles; and the merchants of Charlestown also shipped some skins obtained by trade with the neighbouring Indians, and part of the produce of North Carolina. B. NEW ENGLAND 1 There is not one of our settlements which can be compared, in the abundance of people, the number of considerable and trading towns, and the manufactures that are carried on in them, to New England. The most populous and flourishing parts of the mother country hardly make a better appearance. Our provinces to the Southward on this continent are recommendable for the generous warmth of the climate, and a luxuriance of soil which naturally throws up a vast variety of beautiful and rich vegetable productions; but New England is the first in America, for cultivation, for the number of people, and for the order which results from both. Though there are in all the provinces of New England large towns which drive a considerable trade, the only one which can deserve to be much insisted upon in a design like ours, is Boston; the capital of Massachusetts bay, the first city of New England, and of all North America. 2 The province of Rhode Island is divided into counties and townships; of the former there are four or five, but they are exceedingly small; of the latter between twenty and thirty; the towns themselves are inconsiderable villages: however they send members to the assembly, in the whole about seventy. The number of inhabitants, with Negroes, and Indians, of which in this province there are several hundreds, amounts to 35,000. As the province affords but few commodities for exportation; horses, 1 Burke, European Settlements in America [1761] II, 171–172. 2 Burnaby, Travels through the Middle Settlements in North America [17591760], pp. 93-94, 104-106, 115-116. |