,
Economic
and Social History of New England (Boston, 1890),
and Early Rhode Island (New York.
and Early Rhode Island (New York.
Arthur Schlesinger - Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution
ii, pp.
425-426.
Colonists' and Englishmen
at home widely appreciated that natural conditions in the colonies
were unfavorable to the development of manufacturing. E. g. , ride
"An Essay on the Trade of the Northern Colonies" in Bos. Eve. Post,
Jan. 30, Feb. 6, 1764; article by "A North American," copied into
N. Y. Merc. , June 10, 1765; article in Conn. Cour. , Aug. 17, 1767; the
pamphlet, The Int. of Merchants and Mfrs. , pp. 20-21; reports of
following governors to home government: Moore, of N. Y. , N. Y.
Col. Docs. , vol. vii, pp. 888-889; Wentworth, of N. H. , British Papers
("Sparks Mss. "), vol. i, p. 6; Sharpe, of Md. , Md. Arch. , vol. xiv, pp.
496-497; Franklin, of N. J. , / N. J. Arch. , vol. x, pp. 31-32; Macpherson,
D. , Annals of Commerce (London, 1805), vol. Hi, pp. 186-191; Franklin,
Benj. . Writings (Smyth, A. H. , ed. ), vol. v, p. 116.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-08-19 01:34 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015011480665 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 2l
or agriculture and refused_tp_ hazard their resources in
manufactur1ng enterprises of any size, even in later times
when non-1mportat1on agreements were creating an arti-
ficial demand for colonial wares. 1
An act. of Parliament of 1732 sought to safeguard
British investments in colonial businesses by protecting
creditors at home against discriminatory colonial legis-
lation designed to impede the collection of their debts.
The act was passed upon petition of some London mer-
chants. It provided that the affidavit of a British sub-
ject at home should have the same force as evidence
given in open court in the colonies and that the lands,
tenements and negroes owned by the colonists should
be liable for the payment of debts in much the same
manner as real estate was in England. The undoubted
effect of the law was that colonial merchants and planters
of substance were enabled to secure a more generous
credit; the chief hardship of the regulation fell on the
unthrifty and unfortunate in the colonies.
Another regulation of Parliament, aimed solely at New
England, prohibited the issue of legal-tender paper
money after 1751. Beginning in 1090, Massachusetts
had been beguiled into the use of paper currency through
the heavy expenses entailed by the successive French
and Indian wars. Merchants of substance and the royal
officials in the colony viewed this deluge of paper money
with dismay. Other colonies followed the example of
Massachusetts, with varying degrees of good faith. The
upshot was the act of 1751 directed against the New
England governments where the evil was worst. ' This
1" A. Z. " in Bos. Gas. , Feb. 20, 1769.
'Davis, A. McF. , Currency and Banking in Massachusetts Bay (3
Am. Econ. Assn. Pubs. ), vol. i, pp. 253-265; Russell, E. B. , The Re-
rieto of Amer1can Colonial Legislation by the King in Council (Col.
U. Studies, vol. Ixiv, no. 2), pp. 120-124.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-08-19 01:35 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015011480665 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? 22 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
law, though failing to meet the need which undoubtedly
existed for a more abundant circulating medium, insured
a safe currency and stabilized business conditions to the
satisfaction of the men of means and the creditor class
generally in New England.
It would appear, then, that the, frugi^pgg m^r) o{ the col-
onies north of Maryland had little
the_British commercial and f1nancial regulations as they
actually operated prior to the re1gn of George ill. In-
deed, under parliamentary supervision, the colomes had
made such progress in wealth and population as to at-
tract the attention of all Europe. There were besides, as
we shall see presently, other powerful ties of interest
that bound the colonial business and planting class to
the mother country. It was a perception of these facts
that prompted Franklin to say in 1754 of the restrictive
regulations of Parliament: "These kind of secondary
taxes, however, we do not complain of, though we have
no share in the laying or disposing of them;"1 and
caused James Otis to declare in 1764: "The act of navi-
gation is a good act, so are all that exclude foreign
manufactures from the plantations . anH pypry hnpest man
will readily subscribe to them. " *
From north to south, the colonial economy revealed
marked contrasts which were destined to have far-reach-
ing consequences. Fundamentally, the provinces fell
into two clearly differentiated groups. 3 North of Mary-
1 Franklin, Writings (Smyth), vol. iii, p. 236.
The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved (Boston,
1764), pp. 54-55-
? Viewing the matter from a somewhat different angle, Professor
C. M. Andrews has made this luminous remark: "The real difference
between the north and the south in colonial times lay not in politics,
law, religion, education, in manners, customs, or mental attitudes. It
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-08-19 01:35 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015011480665 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 23
land were the commercial provinces, regions in which
the economic life centered cmeny 1n marine activity, as
in New England, or else depended very largely upon
trading, with agriculture as an important local feeder, as
in the Middle Provinces. 1 In_the commercial provinces
the most influential men were merchants or lawyers
all1ed w1th them, and political life radiated from the
trading centers. South of this group lay the plantation
provinces, where the native economic interests were
almost exclusively agricultural along specialized lines
and the trading relations were managed by merchants
of the mother country or coastwise by northern mer-
chants. Here towns were small and for the most part
unimportant, and political leadership fell to the owners
of the great plantations.
Each group of provinces displayed a wide diversity of
industry and trade within itself. ' A facetious member
of the South Carolina Assembly was heard to remark
when a proposal^for a Stamp Act Congress was under
consideration :\" If you agree to the proposition of com-
is to be found in the fact that the southern colonies from the beginning
to the end of the colonial period represented a purely agricultural
form of life without towns, trading communities, variety of industrial
interests and competition, and consequently without that ingenuity and
scientific skill which is essential to the spread of democratic ideas and
the increase of wealth. " The Colonial Period (New York, 1912), pp.
105-106.
1 One New England writer said: ""Tis not difficult to prove clearly,
the whole Product of the Lands to the Northward of Maryland is not
equal in Value to the fourth Part of our Imports from Great Britain. "
Bos. Post-Boy, Nov. 28, 1763.
1The subject of colonial economic conditions had been treated in
innumerable places. For excellent general discussions, vide Ford, W.
C, "Colonial America," Col. Soc. Mass. Pubs. , vol. vi, pp. 340-370;
and Johnson, E. 'R. , History of Domestic and Foreign Commerce of
the United States (Washington, 1915). vol. i, pp. 3-121-
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? 24 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
posing a Congress of deputies from the different British
colonies, what sort of a dish will you make? New-Eng-
land will throw in fish and onions. The middle states
flax-seed and flour. Maryland and Virginia will add
tobacco. North-Carolina, pitch, tar and turpentine.
South-Carolina, rice and indigo, and Georgia will sprinkle
the whole composition with saw-dust. Such an absurd
jumble will you make if you attempt to form a union
among such discordant materials as the thirteen British
provinces. "jj The ingredients of the continental dish
were even more variegated than the South Carolinian
asserted.
Of the commercial provinces, the enterprising mer-
chants of New England developed a network of trade
routes that covered well-nigh half the world. Possess-
ing within themselves no staple with which to make
returns for their vast consumption of English drygoods
and other wares, the main resources of trade of these
provinces were the fisheries, the molasses-rum trade, the
marketing of slaves and the coastwise traffic. " All these
sources were vigorously exploited in order to pile up a
favorable balance of specie to send as remittance to
England.
1 Ramsay, D. , History of the Revolution of South Carolina (Trenton,
1785), vol. i, pp. 12-13.
1 This statement of New England conditions is based largely upon the
following materials: representation of R. I. Assembly in R. I. Col.
Recs. . vol. vi, pp. 378-383; "Essay on Trade of Northern Colonies," in
Bos. Eve. Post, Jan. 30, Feb. 6, 1764; Postlethwayt, M. , The Universal
Dictionary of Trade and Commerce (London, 1751), vol. i, pp. 366-
367; Macpherson, Annals of Commerce, vol. iii, pp. 397-398, 570; Com-
merce of Rhode Island (7 M. H. S. Colls. , vols. ix and x); Weeden,
W. B.
, Economic and Social History of New England (Boston, 1890),
and Early Rhode Island (New York. 1910) ; statistics of fisheries. / Af.
H. S. Colls. , vol. viii. pp. 202-203; examination of merchants before
Parliament, 4 American Archives (Force, P. , ed. ), vol. i, pp. 1638-1632,
1663-1670.
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? THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 2$
In 1764 forty-five thousand tons of shipping and up-
wards of three thousand men were employed in the fish-
eries. After the fish had been caught and cured, the
merchants exported the "merchantable" variety to
Spain, Portugal and Italy, where it was sold for cash or
bills of exchange, save a small portion which was ex-
changed for salt, lemons and raisins for the return
voyage. Such fish as was unfit for the European market
was exported for slave consumption in the West Indies
in exchange for more cash and for molasses.
The circuit of trade based upon West Indian molasses
brought even more generous returns and indeed consti-
tuted the chief source of specie supply. The molasses
became marketable when it was distilled into rum, for
throughout British America it had great popularity as a
tipple and as an article in the Indian trade, and it also
played an important part in the African trade. Most of
the output of rum was carried by coasting vessels to
other provinces and exchanged for products which might
be used as remittances to England or as cargoes to the
West Indies. The remainder--about one-seventh in the
case of Rhode Island--was sent to Africa where it was
sold for slaves or for gold-dust and ivory. The last two
articles served directly as remittances to England; the
slaves were sold for hard money in the West Indies and
the proceeds used to pay English debts.
Under the stimulus of this ceaseless round of activity,
trading communities sprang up in many parts of New
England, with Boston and Newport as the chief centers.
Ship building leaped into prominence as a leading indus-
try, so that New England built annually twice as great
a tonnage of vessels as all the other continental prov-
inces. The rum industry grew apace, being represented
in Rhode Island in 1763 by nearly thirty distilleries
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-08-19 01:35 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015011480665 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? 26 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
"erected at vast expense," with hundreds of persons de-
pendent upon them for subsistence, and in Massachusetts
in 1774 by sixty distilleries producing two million seven
hundred thousand gallons annually. "In short," de-
clared Macpherson, " 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" Connecticut alone seemed
to stand apart, possessing no first-rate ports, having re-
sources of grain and stock more like the Middle Prov-
inces, and confining its trading activities chiefly to
coasting voyages and West Indian trade. Its trans-
Atlantic trade was for many years handled through
Boston, but after the parliamentary act of 1751 prohibit-
ing the emission of legal-tender money in New England,
the merchants diverted their trade to New York. 1
The provinces next to the southward had the advan-
tage of possessing both staples of export and a mercan-
tile population equal to the opportunity. 2 The great
ports of New York and Philadelphia possessed a hinter-
land of large and small farms producing a wealth of grain
and livestock. New York was the commercial capital
1 Referring to this dominant position of New York, "A Connecticut
Farmer" expressed the pious wish that "the plumes of that domineer-
ing city may yet feather the nests of those whom they have long
plucked. " New London 'Gas. , Aug. 17, 1770. Vide also Conn. Journ. ,
Jan. 19, 1770.
1 This statement of conditions in the Middle Provinces is based
largely upon the following materials: petition of the New York mer-
chants to House of Commons, in Weyler's N. Y. Gas. , May 4, 1767;
Tryon's report to Board of Trade, N. Y. Col. Docs. , vol. viii, pp. 434-
457; Postlethwayt, Diet, of Com. , vol. i, p. 366; Kalm, P. , Travels into
North America (Warrington and London, 1770-1771), vol. i, pp. 31,
49-So, 253-258; reports of Gov. Franklin, / N. J. Arch. , vol. ix, pp. 402-
404, 442-444.
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? THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 27
of Connecticut and old East Jersey, just as Philadelphia
was the entrepot of West Jersey and the Delaware
Counties. Less dependent than New England on circui-
tous trading for remittances to England, nevertheless
the West Indian trade was essential to the prosperity of
these provinces, also. The wheat, lumber and meat of
the farmers were sent by the merchants to the West
Indies, where they were, in part, bartered for sugar,
cotton and indigo, which served directly as remittances
to Great Britain, and, in part, for rum and molasses.
The last two commodities were converted into cash
through the triangular trade with Africa and the West
Indies, or, by being exchanged for New England fish or
South Carolina rice, served indirectly as a means of draw-
ing coin from Spain, Portugal and Italy. The fur trade
with the Indians produced a commodity acceptable to
English merchants, also. The exportation of colonial
flaxseed to Ireland brought a favorable balance of trade
with respect to that article; and the carrying to Europe
of logwood obtained from the Bay of Honduras proved
another means of procuring specie.
^Throughout New England and the Middle Provinces,
the merchants and their lawyer-allies constituted the
dominant element in colonial society, an ascendency
shared in the case of New York with the landed gentryTj
The chief trading communities of the commercial pro-
vinces were: Philadelphia, which by 1760 with a popu-
lation of almost nineteen thousand had usurped the place
of Boston as the greatest emporium of British America;
Boston, which ranked second with more than fifteen
thousand population; New York, a city somewhat smaller
than Boston but destined to outstrip her in a few years;
and Newport, the fifth city on the continent with more
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? 2g THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
than seven thousand people. ' In each center, wealthy
merchant families had come into existence. Who were
better or more favorably known than the Whartons,
Pembertons, Willings and Morrises of Philadelphia; the
Amorys and Faneuils, the Hancocks and Boylstons of
Boston; the Livingstons and Lows, Crugers and Wai-
tons of New York; the Wantons and Lopezes of New-
port, or the Browns,--"Nicky, Josey, John and Mosey,"
--of Providence?
Dependent upon the merchants for a livelihood were
great _numbers of petty shopkeepers 'frpgd11p-tT1astprg.
ropemakers, sailmakers, sailors, coopers, caulkers, smiths,
carpenters ana tne n1ce. TheSe men " were^rhat numer-
ous portion of the community in republics, styled the
People; in monarchies, The Populace, or still more irre-
verently The Rabble, or Canaille," as a contemporary
said; * and they were, for the most part, unenfranchised,
unorganized, and unaware that in their numerical super-
iority they possessed a vast potential power in the com-
munity.
At Philadelphia, the merchant-aristocracy ruled the
city with a rod of iron; their methods of harrying the
price-cutting vendue-masters and of discouraging coun-
iry peddling were similar in kind to those which modern
business integration has rendered familiar. 3 The same
was true, in lesser degree perhaps, at New York, Boston
and Newport.
In their business activities, the merchants showed a
capacity for joint undertakings that revealed their kin-
ship with the race that had built up the great East India
1 A Century of Population Growth (Washington, 1909), pp. 11-15.
1 Graydon, A. , Memoirs of His Own Time (Philadelphia, 1846), p. 122,
2 Lincoln, C. H. , Revolutionary Movement in Pennsylvania (U. of Pa.
Pubs, in Hist. , no. l), pp. 80-89.
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? THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 2g
Company and the Hudson's Bay Company. The New
York company "for Settling a Fishery in these parts,"
established in 1675, the Free Society of Traders, a Penn-
sylvania corporation founded in 1682, and the Philadelphia
Contributionship for the Insuring of Houses from Loss
by Fire were a few instances of their aptitude for organiz-
ation. 1 The New-London Society United for Trade and
Commerce, formed in 1732, was an example of a promis-
ing enterprise that was soon wrecked through the op-
position of a farmer-controlled legislature to its plan to
issue bills of credit. 3 Mercantile organizations some-
times crossed provincial boundaries and it is not alto-
gether improbable that the historian of the future will
cite such an enterprise as the spermaceti candle combine
of 1761-1769 as revealing an interprovincial solidarity of
interest perhaps as great as the more pretentious New
England Confederation of earlier times. 3
[Less intent on politics than business, the merchants
as a class did not ordinarily concern themselves with
political questions. But when their interests were jeop-
ardized, they entered politics with a vim, and might be
expected to carry things their own way. Thus, the
merchants of Boston contributed powerfully toward de-
feating the land bank project of Ifr46, which was being
pushed by the farmers aHfl aeotor class generally in the
province. 4
'Baldwin, S. E. , "American Business Corporations before 1789,"
Am. Hist. Assn. Reps. (1902), vol. i, pp. 253-274; Clark, V. S. , History
of Manufactures in United States (Washington, 1916), pp. 182-185.
1 Col. Soc. Mass. Pubs. , vol. v, pp. 96-111; vol. vi, pp. 6-11.
2 R. I. Commerce, vol. i, pp. 88-92, 97-100; Mason, G. C, "The
United Company of Spermaceti Chandlers, 1761," Mag. N. Engl. Hist. ,
vol. ii, pp. 165-169; Weeden, Early Rhode Island, pp. 328-329; Hunt's
Merchants' Magazine, vol. xxxii, pp. 386-387.
* Davis, Currency and Banking in Mass. Bay, vol. i, pp. 406-412; vol
.
ii, pp. 130-235.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-08-19 01:35 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015011480665 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
No one understood better than th>>> rpprrhanrg th^t the
rock of their prosper1ty was me maintenance of the
British empire. The system of parliamentary regulations
had yielded benefits without great corresponding disad-
vantages in actual practice. Furthermore, American
commerce had prospered under the protection of the
British flag and British navy,1 and colonial merchants
saw their potential world market widening with each
new conquest. These were advantages that the colonial
merchant received in common with his brother at home
and to an extent at the latter's expense. Of great im-
portance, also, were the liberal credits which the English
merchants extended to the colonial merchants. The
Americans could not have secured such favorable terms
from foreign houses; and without such indulgence they
would have found difficulty in financing their under-
takings. '
1 For example, there were the advantages which came to American
merchants from the presents of Great Britain to the Barbary States,
amounting to nearly $300,000 annually. At the outbreak of the War
for Independence, it was estimated that one-sixth of the wheat and
flour exported from British America, and one-fourth of the dried and
pickled fish, and a quantity of rice, found their best market in the ports
of the Mediterranean. In this commerce, there were employed eighty
to one hundred ships. Moore, J. B. , American Diplomacy (New York,
1905), p. 65.
1 The slow development of Canada and Grenada before they came
under British control was attributed to the short credits granted by the
merchants in France. The Int. of Merchants and Mfrs. , pp. 32-36.
The British merchant usually granted twelve months' credit without
interest and thereafter made an annual charge of 5%.
at home widely appreciated that natural conditions in the colonies
were unfavorable to the development of manufacturing. E. g. , ride
"An Essay on the Trade of the Northern Colonies" in Bos. Eve. Post,
Jan. 30, Feb. 6, 1764; article by "A North American," copied into
N. Y. Merc. , June 10, 1765; article in Conn. Cour. , Aug. 17, 1767; the
pamphlet, The Int. of Merchants and Mfrs. , pp. 20-21; reports of
following governors to home government: Moore, of N. Y. , N. Y.
Col. Docs. , vol. vii, pp. 888-889; Wentworth, of N. H. , British Papers
("Sparks Mss. "), vol. i, p. 6; Sharpe, of Md. , Md. Arch. , vol. xiv, pp.
496-497; Franklin, of N. J. , / N. J. Arch. , vol. x, pp. 31-32; Macpherson,
D. , Annals of Commerce (London, 1805), vol. Hi, pp. 186-191; Franklin,
Benj. . Writings (Smyth, A. H. , ed. ), vol. v, p. 116.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-08-19 01:34 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015011480665 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 2l
or agriculture and refused_tp_ hazard their resources in
manufactur1ng enterprises of any size, even in later times
when non-1mportat1on agreements were creating an arti-
ficial demand for colonial wares. 1
An act. of Parliament of 1732 sought to safeguard
British investments in colonial businesses by protecting
creditors at home against discriminatory colonial legis-
lation designed to impede the collection of their debts.
The act was passed upon petition of some London mer-
chants. It provided that the affidavit of a British sub-
ject at home should have the same force as evidence
given in open court in the colonies and that the lands,
tenements and negroes owned by the colonists should
be liable for the payment of debts in much the same
manner as real estate was in England. The undoubted
effect of the law was that colonial merchants and planters
of substance were enabled to secure a more generous
credit; the chief hardship of the regulation fell on the
unthrifty and unfortunate in the colonies.
Another regulation of Parliament, aimed solely at New
England, prohibited the issue of legal-tender paper
money after 1751. Beginning in 1090, Massachusetts
had been beguiled into the use of paper currency through
the heavy expenses entailed by the successive French
and Indian wars. Merchants of substance and the royal
officials in the colony viewed this deluge of paper money
with dismay. Other colonies followed the example of
Massachusetts, with varying degrees of good faith. The
upshot was the act of 1751 directed against the New
England governments where the evil was worst. ' This
1" A. Z. " in Bos. Gas. , Feb. 20, 1769.
'Davis, A. McF. , Currency and Banking in Massachusetts Bay (3
Am. Econ. Assn. Pubs. ), vol. i, pp. 253-265; Russell, E. B. , The Re-
rieto of Amer1can Colonial Legislation by the King in Council (Col.
U. Studies, vol. Ixiv, no. 2), pp. 120-124.
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-08-19 01:35 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015011480665 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? 22 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
law, though failing to meet the need which undoubtedly
existed for a more abundant circulating medium, insured
a safe currency and stabilized business conditions to the
satisfaction of the men of means and the creditor class
generally in New England.
It would appear, then, that the, frugi^pgg m^r) o{ the col-
onies north of Maryland had little
the_British commercial and f1nancial regulations as they
actually operated prior to the re1gn of George ill. In-
deed, under parliamentary supervision, the colomes had
made such progress in wealth and population as to at-
tract the attention of all Europe. There were besides, as
we shall see presently, other powerful ties of interest
that bound the colonial business and planting class to
the mother country. It was a perception of these facts
that prompted Franklin to say in 1754 of the restrictive
regulations of Parliament: "These kind of secondary
taxes, however, we do not complain of, though we have
no share in the laying or disposing of them;"1 and
caused James Otis to declare in 1764: "The act of navi-
gation is a good act, so are all that exclude foreign
manufactures from the plantations . anH pypry hnpest man
will readily subscribe to them. " *
From north to south, the colonial economy revealed
marked contrasts which were destined to have far-reach-
ing consequences. Fundamentally, the provinces fell
into two clearly differentiated groups. 3 North of Mary-
1 Franklin, Writings (Smyth), vol. iii, p. 236.
The Rights of the British Colonies Asserted and Proved (Boston,
1764), pp. 54-55-
? Viewing the matter from a somewhat different angle, Professor
C. M. Andrews has made this luminous remark: "The real difference
between the north and the south in colonial times lay not in politics,
law, religion, education, in manners, customs, or mental attitudes. It
? ? Generated for (University of Chicago) on 2014-08-19 01:35 GMT / http://hdl. handle. net/2027/mdp. 39015011480665 Public Domain, Google-digitized / http://www. hathitrust. org/access_use#pd-google
? THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 23
land were the commercial provinces, regions in which
the economic life centered cmeny 1n marine activity, as
in New England, or else depended very largely upon
trading, with agriculture as an important local feeder, as
in the Middle Provinces. 1 In_the commercial provinces
the most influential men were merchants or lawyers
all1ed w1th them, and political life radiated from the
trading centers. South of this group lay the plantation
provinces, where the native economic interests were
almost exclusively agricultural along specialized lines
and the trading relations were managed by merchants
of the mother country or coastwise by northern mer-
chants. Here towns were small and for the most part
unimportant, and political leadership fell to the owners
of the great plantations.
Each group of provinces displayed a wide diversity of
industry and trade within itself. ' A facetious member
of the South Carolina Assembly was heard to remark
when a proposal^for a Stamp Act Congress was under
consideration :\" If you agree to the proposition of com-
is to be found in the fact that the southern colonies from the beginning
to the end of the colonial period represented a purely agricultural
form of life without towns, trading communities, variety of industrial
interests and competition, and consequently without that ingenuity and
scientific skill which is essential to the spread of democratic ideas and
the increase of wealth. " The Colonial Period (New York, 1912), pp.
105-106.
1 One New England writer said: ""Tis not difficult to prove clearly,
the whole Product of the Lands to the Northward of Maryland is not
equal in Value to the fourth Part of our Imports from Great Britain. "
Bos. Post-Boy, Nov. 28, 1763.
1The subject of colonial economic conditions had been treated in
innumerable places. For excellent general discussions, vide Ford, W.
C, "Colonial America," Col. Soc. Mass. Pubs. , vol. vi, pp. 340-370;
and Johnson, E. 'R. , History of Domestic and Foreign Commerce of
the United States (Washington, 1915). vol. i, pp. 3-121-
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? 24 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
posing a Congress of deputies from the different British
colonies, what sort of a dish will you make? New-Eng-
land will throw in fish and onions. The middle states
flax-seed and flour. Maryland and Virginia will add
tobacco. North-Carolina, pitch, tar and turpentine.
South-Carolina, rice and indigo, and Georgia will sprinkle
the whole composition with saw-dust. Such an absurd
jumble will you make if you attempt to form a union
among such discordant materials as the thirteen British
provinces. "jj The ingredients of the continental dish
were even more variegated than the South Carolinian
asserted.
Of the commercial provinces, the enterprising mer-
chants of New England developed a network of trade
routes that covered well-nigh half the world. Possess-
ing within themselves no staple with which to make
returns for their vast consumption of English drygoods
and other wares, the main resources of trade of these
provinces were the fisheries, the molasses-rum trade, the
marketing of slaves and the coastwise traffic. " All these
sources were vigorously exploited in order to pile up a
favorable balance of specie to send as remittance to
England.
1 Ramsay, D. , History of the Revolution of South Carolina (Trenton,
1785), vol. i, pp. 12-13.
1 This statement of New England conditions is based largely upon the
following materials: representation of R. I. Assembly in R. I. Col.
Recs. . vol. vi, pp. 378-383; "Essay on Trade of Northern Colonies," in
Bos. Eve. Post, Jan. 30, Feb. 6, 1764; Postlethwayt, M. , The Universal
Dictionary of Trade and Commerce (London, 1751), vol. i, pp. 366-
367; Macpherson, Annals of Commerce, vol. iii, pp. 397-398, 570; Com-
merce of Rhode Island (7 M. H. S. Colls. , vols. ix and x); Weeden,
W. B.
, Economic and Social History of New England (Boston, 1890),
and Early Rhode Island (New York. 1910) ; statistics of fisheries. / Af.
H. S. Colls. , vol. viii. pp. 202-203; examination of merchants before
Parliament, 4 American Archives (Force, P. , ed. ), vol. i, pp. 1638-1632,
1663-1670.
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? THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 2$
In 1764 forty-five thousand tons of shipping and up-
wards of three thousand men were employed in the fish-
eries. After the fish had been caught and cured, the
merchants exported the "merchantable" variety to
Spain, Portugal and Italy, where it was sold for cash or
bills of exchange, save a small portion which was ex-
changed for salt, lemons and raisins for the return
voyage. Such fish as was unfit for the European market
was exported for slave consumption in the West Indies
in exchange for more cash and for molasses.
The circuit of trade based upon West Indian molasses
brought even more generous returns and indeed consti-
tuted the chief source of specie supply. The molasses
became marketable when it was distilled into rum, for
throughout British America it had great popularity as a
tipple and as an article in the Indian trade, and it also
played an important part in the African trade. Most of
the output of rum was carried by coasting vessels to
other provinces and exchanged for products which might
be used as remittances to England or as cargoes to the
West Indies. The remainder--about one-seventh in the
case of Rhode Island--was sent to Africa where it was
sold for slaves or for gold-dust and ivory. The last two
articles served directly as remittances to England; the
slaves were sold for hard money in the West Indies and
the proceeds used to pay English debts.
Under the stimulus of this ceaseless round of activity,
trading communities sprang up in many parts of New
England, with Boston and Newport as the chief centers.
Ship building leaped into prominence as a leading indus-
try, so that New England built annually twice as great
a tonnage of vessels as all the other continental prov-
inces. The rum industry grew apace, being represented
in Rhode Island in 1763 by nearly thirty distilleries
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? 26 THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
"erected at vast expense," with hundreds of persons de-
pendent upon them for subsistence, and in Massachusetts
in 1774 by sixty distilleries producing two million seven
hundred thousand gallons annually. "In short," de-
clared Macpherson, " 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" Connecticut alone seemed
to stand apart, possessing no first-rate ports, having re-
sources of grain and stock more like the Middle Prov-
inces, and confining its trading activities chiefly to
coasting voyages and West Indian trade. Its trans-
Atlantic trade was for many years handled through
Boston, but after the parliamentary act of 1751 prohibit-
ing the emission of legal-tender money in New England,
the merchants diverted their trade to New York. 1
The provinces next to the southward had the advan-
tage of possessing both staples of export and a mercan-
tile population equal to the opportunity. 2 The great
ports of New York and Philadelphia possessed a hinter-
land of large and small farms producing a wealth of grain
and livestock. New York was the commercial capital
1 Referring to this dominant position of New York, "A Connecticut
Farmer" expressed the pious wish that "the plumes of that domineer-
ing city may yet feather the nests of those whom they have long
plucked. " New London 'Gas. , Aug. 17, 1770. Vide also Conn. Journ. ,
Jan. 19, 1770.
1 This statement of conditions in the Middle Provinces is based
largely upon the following materials: petition of the New York mer-
chants to House of Commons, in Weyler's N. Y. Gas. , May 4, 1767;
Tryon's report to Board of Trade, N. Y. Col. Docs. , vol. viii, pp. 434-
457; Postlethwayt, Diet, of Com. , vol. i, p. 366; Kalm, P. , Travels into
North America (Warrington and London, 1770-1771), vol. i, pp. 31,
49-So, 253-258; reports of Gov. Franklin, / N. J. Arch. , vol. ix, pp. 402-
404, 442-444.
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? THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 27
of Connecticut and old East Jersey, just as Philadelphia
was the entrepot of West Jersey and the Delaware
Counties. Less dependent than New England on circui-
tous trading for remittances to England, nevertheless
the West Indian trade was essential to the prosperity of
these provinces, also. The wheat, lumber and meat of
the farmers were sent by the merchants to the West
Indies, where they were, in part, bartered for sugar,
cotton and indigo, which served directly as remittances
to Great Britain, and, in part, for rum and molasses.
The last two commodities were converted into cash
through the triangular trade with Africa and the West
Indies, or, by being exchanged for New England fish or
South Carolina rice, served indirectly as a means of draw-
ing coin from Spain, Portugal and Italy. The fur trade
with the Indians produced a commodity acceptable to
English merchants, also. The exportation of colonial
flaxseed to Ireland brought a favorable balance of trade
with respect to that article; and the carrying to Europe
of logwood obtained from the Bay of Honduras proved
another means of procuring specie.
^Throughout New England and the Middle Provinces,
the merchants and their lawyer-allies constituted the
dominant element in colonial society, an ascendency
shared in the case of New York with the landed gentryTj
The chief trading communities of the commercial pro-
vinces were: Philadelphia, which by 1760 with a popu-
lation of almost nineteen thousand had usurped the place
of Boston as the greatest emporium of British America;
Boston, which ranked second with more than fifteen
thousand population; New York, a city somewhat smaller
than Boston but destined to outstrip her in a few years;
and Newport, the fifth city on the continent with more
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? 2g THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
than seven thousand people. ' In each center, wealthy
merchant families had come into existence. Who were
better or more favorably known than the Whartons,
Pembertons, Willings and Morrises of Philadelphia; the
Amorys and Faneuils, the Hancocks and Boylstons of
Boston; the Livingstons and Lows, Crugers and Wai-
tons of New York; the Wantons and Lopezes of New-
port, or the Browns,--"Nicky, Josey, John and Mosey,"
--of Providence?
Dependent upon the merchants for a livelihood were
great _numbers of petty shopkeepers 'frpgd11p-tT1astprg.
ropemakers, sailmakers, sailors, coopers, caulkers, smiths,
carpenters ana tne n1ce. TheSe men " were^rhat numer-
ous portion of the community in republics, styled the
People; in monarchies, The Populace, or still more irre-
verently The Rabble, or Canaille," as a contemporary
said; * and they were, for the most part, unenfranchised,
unorganized, and unaware that in their numerical super-
iority they possessed a vast potential power in the com-
munity.
At Philadelphia, the merchant-aristocracy ruled the
city with a rod of iron; their methods of harrying the
price-cutting vendue-masters and of discouraging coun-
iry peddling were similar in kind to those which modern
business integration has rendered familiar. 3 The same
was true, in lesser degree perhaps, at New York, Boston
and Newport.
In their business activities, the merchants showed a
capacity for joint undertakings that revealed their kin-
ship with the race that had built up the great East India
1 A Century of Population Growth (Washington, 1909), pp. 11-15.
1 Graydon, A. , Memoirs of His Own Time (Philadelphia, 1846), p. 122,
2 Lincoln, C. H. , Revolutionary Movement in Pennsylvania (U. of Pa.
Pubs, in Hist. , no. l), pp. 80-89.
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? THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH 2g
Company and the Hudson's Bay Company. The New
York company "for Settling a Fishery in these parts,"
established in 1675, the Free Society of Traders, a Penn-
sylvania corporation founded in 1682, and the Philadelphia
Contributionship for the Insuring of Houses from Loss
by Fire were a few instances of their aptitude for organiz-
ation. 1 The New-London Society United for Trade and
Commerce, formed in 1732, was an example of a promis-
ing enterprise that was soon wrecked through the op-
position of a farmer-controlled legislature to its plan to
issue bills of credit. 3 Mercantile organizations some-
times crossed provincial boundaries and it is not alto-
gether improbable that the historian of the future will
cite such an enterprise as the spermaceti candle combine
of 1761-1769 as revealing an interprovincial solidarity of
interest perhaps as great as the more pretentious New
England Confederation of earlier times. 3
[Less intent on politics than business, the merchants
as a class did not ordinarily concern themselves with
political questions. But when their interests were jeop-
ardized, they entered politics with a vim, and might be
expected to carry things their own way. Thus, the
merchants of Boston contributed powerfully toward de-
feating the land bank project of Ifr46, which was being
pushed by the farmers aHfl aeotor class generally in the
province. 4
'Baldwin, S. E. , "American Business Corporations before 1789,"
Am. Hist. Assn. Reps. (1902), vol. i, pp. 253-274; Clark, V. S. , History
of Manufactures in United States (Washington, 1916), pp. 182-185.
1 Col. Soc. Mass. Pubs. , vol. v, pp. 96-111; vol. vi, pp. 6-11.
2 R. I. Commerce, vol. i, pp. 88-92, 97-100; Mason, G. C, "The
United Company of Spermaceti Chandlers, 1761," Mag. N. Engl. Hist. ,
vol. ii, pp. 165-169; Weeden, Early Rhode Island, pp. 328-329; Hunt's
Merchants' Magazine, vol. xxxii, pp. 386-387.
* Davis, Currency and Banking in Mass. Bay, vol. i, pp. 406-412; vol
.
ii, pp. 130-235.
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? THE COLONIAL MERCHANTS: 1763-1776
No one understood better than th>>> rpprrhanrg th^t the
rock of their prosper1ty was me maintenance of the
British empire. The system of parliamentary regulations
had yielded benefits without great corresponding disad-
vantages in actual practice. Furthermore, American
commerce had prospered under the protection of the
British flag and British navy,1 and colonial merchants
saw their potential world market widening with each
new conquest. These were advantages that the colonial
merchant received in common with his brother at home
and to an extent at the latter's expense. Of great im-
portance, also, were the liberal credits which the English
merchants extended to the colonial merchants. The
Americans could not have secured such favorable terms
from foreign houses; and without such indulgence they
would have found difficulty in financing their under-
takings. '
1 For example, there were the advantages which came to American
merchants from the presents of Great Britain to the Barbary States,
amounting to nearly $300,000 annually. At the outbreak of the War
for Independence, it was estimated that one-sixth of the wheat and
flour exported from British America, and one-fourth of the dried and
pickled fish, and a quantity of rice, found their best market in the ports
of the Mediterranean. In this commerce, there were employed eighty
to one hundred ships. Moore, J. B. , American Diplomacy (New York,
1905), p. 65.
1 The slow development of Canada and Grenada before they came
under British control was attributed to the short credits granted by the
merchants in France. The Int. of Merchants and Mfrs. , pp. 32-36.
The British merchant usually granted twelve months' credit without
interest and thereafter made an annual charge of 5%.
