Lumbering and ship-building.—The New England forests continued to be a source of wealth. Lumber was produced in large quantities and ship-building was carried on extensively in the coast and river towns, the craft being of a somewhat larger type than formerly, vessels of five hundred tons burden frequently leaving the ways. The English navy and merchant marine obtained large quantities of masts and spars from New England.
The fisheries.—The importance of the fisheries increased greatly after the War of the Spanish Succession. From the Newfoundland banks were derived the chief products for foreign trade. Almost every coast town had its fishing fleet, Gloucester alone boasting nearly a hundred vessels. The cod was the most important catch, but as the century progressed whaling became a more and more important industry.
Commerce.—With the West Indies the New Englanders carried on an extensive trade, lumber, fish, and rum being exchanged for sugar, molasses, and other tropical products. Rum was also an important factor in the slave trade, which was carried on mainly by the Rhode Islanders, who exchanged the products of the distilleries for negroes on the Guinea Coast and in the West Indies. These in turn were traded to the southern colonies for tobacco, rice, indigo, and naval stores. From the profits of southern commerce and from fish, lumber, and naval stores, the New Englanders were able to purchase English textiles, hardware, glass, and other manufactured articles. The chief port was Boston which contained about twenty thousand inhabitants.
THE MIDDLE COLONIES
Intensive farming was at its best in the middle colonies, which were the great producers of provisions. Live stock, cereals, fruit, and vegetables were raised in large quantities, the animal products and grain furnishing the chief products for exportation. Lumber and furs were also important items of commerce.
New York.—An observant English traveler who visited New York in 1760, gives the following excellent description of the colony: "The province in its cultivated state affords grain of all sorts, cattle, hogs, and great variety of English fruits.... The people ... export chiefly grain, flour, pork, skins, furs, pig-iron, lumber, and staves.... They make a small quantity of cloth, some linen, hats, shoes, and other articles of wearing apparel. They make glass also, and wampum; refine sugars, which they import from the West Indies; and distil considerable quantities of rum." He also noted that the New Yorkers were engaged in ship-building. The Indian traffic was mainly carried on through Albany. The foreign and coastwise trade was concentrated at New York, a city with a population of sixteen or seventeen thousand.
New Jersey.—New Jersey was fortunate in having an historian who has left us an excellent account of the province. Samuel Smith's history gives the following description: "Almost the whole extent of the province adjoining on the atlantick, is barrens, or nearly approaching it; yet there are scattering settlements all along the coast, the people subsisting in great part by raising cattle in the bog undrained meadows and marshes, and selling them to graziers, and cutting down the cedars.... Another means of subsistence along the coast, is the plenty of fish and oysters, these are carried to New-York and Philadelphia markets.... The lands in general, (perhaps something better than two thirds of the whole) are good, and bear wheat, barley, or anything else suitable to the climate, to perfection. As the province has very little foreign trade on bottoms of its own, the produce of all kinds for sale, goes chiefly to New-York and Philadelphia; much of it is there purchased for markets abroad; but some consumed among themselves."
Pennsylvania and Delaware.—Agriculture was the mainstay of the people of Pennsylvania and Delaware. The thrifty Quakers, Germans, Scotch-Irish, and Swedes who formed the bulk of the population, produced large quantities of grain and live-stock. The surplus was brought to Philadelphia, a well-built city of nearly twenty thousand inhabitants. Peter Calm has left the following picture of its industrial life: "Several ships are annually built of American oak in the docks.... The town carries on a great trade both with the inhabitants of the country and to other parts of the world, especially to the West Indies, South America, and the Antilles; to England, Ireland, Portugal, and to several English colonies in North America. Yet none but English ships are allowed to come into this port. Philadelphia reaps the greatest profits from its trade to the West Indies: for thither the inhabitants ship almost every day a quantity of flour, butter, flesh, and other victuals, timber, plank, and the like. In return they receive either sugar, molasses, rum, indigo, mahogany, and other goods, or ready money.... They send both West India goods and their own products to England; the latter are all sorts of woods, especially walnut, and oak planks for ships; ships ready built, iron, hides, and tar.... Ready money is likewise sent over to England; from whence in return they get all sorts of goods there manufactured, viz: fine and coarse cloth, linen, iron ware, and other wrought metals, and East India goods; for it is to be observed, that England supplies Philadelphia with almost all stuffs and manufactured goods which are wanted here. A great quantity of linseed goes annually to Ireland, together with many of the ships which are built here. Portugal gets wheat, flour, and maize which is not ground. Spain sometimes takes some corn. But all the money which is got in these several countries, must immediately be sent to England, in payment for the goods which are got from thence, and yet those sums are not sufficient to pay all the debts."
THE SOUTHERN COLONIES
The tobacco colonies.—Maryland, Virginia, and the northeastern part of North Carolina continued to be devoted largely to the raising of tobacco. Except on the frontiers the small farms had disappeared, having been, absorbed by great landholdings. Many of the plantations covered thousands of acres, but probably not more than a tenth of the land was under cultivation. The tobacco crop was extremely exhaustive to the soil, and when the land had been cropped until its productivity decreased, wheat or corn were usually planted, or it was turned into pasturage. The tangled thicket soon sprang up and in the wilderness ranged cattle and hogs. The breeding of horses was attended to with care, for horse-racing and fox-hunting were favorite diversions among the planters, but the cattle and hogs were of inferior quality. The great article of commerce was tobacco, but grain, pork, and lumber were also exported. From the Madeiras the planters received wines and from the West Indies rum, sugar, molasses, and slaves. Most of the manufactured articles came directly from England. In spite of the considerable trade, no large towns had sprung up, the plantation continuing to be the economic and social unit of the tobacco colonies.