[203] An Account of the European Settlements in America (1760).
CHAPTER VIII
THE SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY OF NEW ENGLAND
"God sifted a whole nation that he might send choice grain over into this wilderness."[204] With regard to New England this statement was in part true, for the people of those northern colonies exhibited a remarkable homogeneity, and their leaders were men of a peculiarly lofty character. That this population grew with leaps and bounds during the first century of settlement is well attested by records. As early as 1643, Massachusetts had a population of 20,000; while Plymouth, Connecticut, and Newhaven, taken together, must have numbered between eleven and twelve thousand. At the Restoration the total population is placed at 80,000, of which two-thirds dwelt in Massachusetts. The eighteenth century statistics show a steady increase, 100,000 whites and 4000 negroes being a rough computation for the year 1714.
The people dwelt for the most part in little towns, each one of which was a separate commonwealth possessing representative government. The corporations were the chief landholders and watched with the greatest jealousy any increase of individual possession which might trespass upon their rights. The system was one of antiquity and carries our thoughts back to mediæval methods where police, finance, justice, and agriculture were all concentrated in one manorial district. Just as in England in Plantagenet days there were the division of the land into strips, the rights of common pasture, and the tilling on a communal principle, so in the New England of the seventeenth century these systems were employed with partial success. The houses in which the settlers dwelt were for the most part built of wood, and stretched in orderly rows along trim streets. Each homestead was detached, and like the houses of our Teutonic forefathers, "was surrounded with a clearing," which in America was usually allotted to fruit trees.
The comfort of the houses was of a very doubtful character, log huts were extremely draughty, so that houses of brick and stone were most coveted, but only obtainable by the rich. Although in Plymouth as early as 1645 glass seems to have been common in the windows, yet the houses were mainly of wood, which was also the case at Newport as late as 1686. Governor Bradstreet six years before this had recorded that Boston had suffered severely by fire and that the houses were therefore to be rebuilt with brick or stone, "yet hardily to be obtained by reason of the inhabitants' poverty."[205] Wooden houses continued to be built, and in fact in a few instances exist to this day. In Boston they were still common in 1750, if we are to believe Captain Francis Goelet. "Boston," he writes, "the Metropolis of North America, Is Accounted The Largest Town upon the Continent, Haveing about Three Thousand Houses in it, about two Thirds them Wooden Framed Clap Boarded, &c."[206]
The men of Boston, and of New England in general, were, owing to natural circumstances, traders. They had found themselves in a land of splendid harbours, and so they went down to the sea in ships and trafficked upon its waters. It has of course been urged that this trade of the colonies was sadly restricted by the English people, who as a nation of shopkeepers were determined that "the cultivators of America might be confined to their shop."[207] For this reason the Navigation Act of 1660, on the lines of the famous Act of 1651, insisted on certain enumerated articles being landed in British ports only; and this was still further extended by two later enactments. But even Adam Smith allows that "though the policy of Great Britain with regard to the trade of her colonies has been dictated by the same mercantile spirit as that of other nations, it has, however, upon the whole, been less illiberal and oppressive than that of any of them."[208] The colonial system was in truth a mistake, but it never undermined the trade of the British settlements, as was the case in French Canada, owing to the corrupt and negligent methods of Bigot and his gang. The result was that the New England trader flourished. The trade had of course small beginnings; at first merely fish and fur were exported to Virginia. Then corn, cattle, and butter were sent to the West Indies, and exchanged for cotton and fruits. More distant voyages followed, and in 1643, wine, iron, and wool were imported from Spain. In the meantime iron had been discovered in Massachusetts by the younger Winthrop at Lynn and Braintree; and the Commissioners in 1665 certified that there was "good store of iron made in this province."[209] The Commissioners were, however, too optimistic, for the iron raised proved to be of inferior quality; partly because of this inferiority, but chiefly owing to trade regulations, scarcity of labour, and high wages, all cutlery and farm implements were imported from England well into the eighteenth century. The reported discovery of silver in Rhode Island in 1648 caused a nine days' wonder, and then the excitement subsided for nothing came of it. Lead was also found as early as 1650 in Lynn, but these mineral industries never rose to great importance under British rule.
Minor commercial industries seem to have flourished, as there are frequent references to masons, bricklayers, ropemakers, powder and pitch-makers, and in 1650 Boston had its own goldsmith. Clothmaking was not altogether unknown, as certain clothiers from Yorkshire settled at Rowley in 1639 and established weaving and spinning. The venture was, however, unsatisfactory, and although New England encouraged by bounties the textile industry, yet it took long to mature, and as late as 1700 there was only one small cloth mill in Connecticut. At the same time it is evident that the different colonies varied very much in their prosperity. Plymouth is reported to the Committee of Trade and Plantations to have no trade beyond the sea. About the same time Governor Bradstreet complains of the poverty of Boston, and says "the country in general is very poor, and it is hard for the people to clothe themselves and families."[210] The general trade of New England, however, in the eighteenth century seems to have been good. Daniel Neale, a very careful writer of the day, records in 1720 that the imports from England were "all sorts of Woollen Drapery, Silks, Stuffs, and Hats; all Sorts of Linnen and printed Callicoes, all sorts of Iron Manufacture ... to the value of 100,000 l. annually and upwards. In Return for these Goods, our Merchants export from thence about 100,000 Quintals of dried Cod-fish Yearly, which they send to Portugal, Spain, and several Ports of Italy, the returns for which are made to London out of the Products of those Countries, and may amount to the value of about 80,000 l. annually."[211]