America in 1776: London and Connecticut

The commerce of the colonies flourished equally with their agriculture. It was chiefly in the Northern colonies that ships were built, and that hardy race of sailors formed whose courage became renowned in every sea. But the English navigation laws weighed heavily upon American trade. Its ships were, with a few exceptions, only allowed to sail to the ports of Great Britain. No foreign ship was suffered to enter the American harbors. . [Yet] the colonists contrived to build large numbers of ships, and even to sell yearly more than a hundred of them in England. The ship-yards of New England were already renowned. Boston, New York, and Philadelphia were seats of an important trade. On the island of Nantucket the whalefishery had been established that was to prove for a brief period a source of great profit and a school of accomplished seamen. The spermaceti-whale was still seen along the American coast, but the New England whaler had already penetrated Hudson Bay, and even pierced the Antarctic. . In consequence of the rigid navigation laws, smuggling prevailed all along the American coast, and swift vessels and daring sailors made their way to the ports of France and Spain to bring back valuable cargoes of wine and silks. Boston was the chief seat of ship-building, and its fast-sailing vessels were sent to the West Indies to be exchanged for rum and sugar. In 1743 it was estimated that New England employed one thousand ships in its trade, besides its fishing-barks. .

The rise of American commerce had seemed wonderful to Burke, Barre, and all those Englishmen who were capable of looking beyond the politics of their own narrow island; but no sooner had America become free than its trade doubled, and soon rose to what in 1775 would have-seemed incredible proportions. New York, Boston, and Philadelphia became at once large cities, and England was enriched by American freedom. .

In manufactures the colonists can be said to have made but little progress. The English government had vigorously forbidden them to attempt to make their own wares. A keen watch had been kept over them, and it was resolved that they should never be suffered to compete with the artisans of England. The governors of the different colonies were directed to make a careful report to the home government of the condition of the colonial manufactures, in order that they might be effectually destroyed. From their authentic but perhaps not always accurate survey it is possible to form a general conception of the slow advance of this branch of labor. South of Connecticut, we are told, there were scarcely any manufactures: the people imported everything that they required from Great Britain. Kalm, indeed, found leather made at Bethlehem, in Pennsylvania, as good as the English, and much cheaper. He praises the American mechanics; but, in general, we may accept the reports of the governors that all manufactured articles employed in the family or in trade were made abroad. Linens and fine cloths, silks, implements of iron and steel, furniture, arms, powder, were purchased of the London merchants. But this was not always the case in busy New England. Here the jealous London traders discovered that iron-foundries and even slitting-mills were already in operation; that fur hats were manufactured for exportation in Connecticut and Boston; that the people were beginning to supply their own wants, and even to threaten the factories of England with a dangerous rivalry. The English traders petitioned the government for relief from this colonial insubordination, and Parliament hastened to suppress the poor slitting-mills and hat-manufactories of our ancestors by an express law. The hatters, who seem to have especially excited the jealousy of their London brethren, were forbidden to export hats even to the next colony, and were allowed to take only two apprentices at a time. Iron and steel works were also prohibited. Wool and flax manufactures were suppressed by stringent provisions. American factories were declared "nuisances." No wool or manufacture of wool could be carried from one colony to another; and, what was a more extraordinary instance of oppression, no Bible was suffered to be printed in America.

Pig-iron was produced to some extent in Pennsylvania and some other colonies, but for export only, not for manufacture. Coal was mined in Virginia. No conception, however, was yet attained of the vast stores of mineral wealth which slept beneath the ground, and which were destined to make the new nation immensely rich within a few generations.