Governor Wentworth reports in 1730 that New Hampshire manufactured timber "into beams, planks, knees, boards ... and sometimes into house-frames."[212] But long before this it had been exported to England for naval purposes, and on two occasions at least the Massachusetts Government bought the goodwill of the home authorities by a timely present of masts. In particular, however, this timber was used by the colonies for shipbuilding, which became an industry of importance, and in later years those employed in it actually excelled the English shipwrights. In 1631 Winthrop built a thirty-ton vessel, soon to be followed by others of a hundred and even three hundred tons; and seven years later the first New England vessel sailed safely across the Atlantic into the Thames. Although in 1643 Massachusetts could only boast five ships ranging from one hundred to five hundred tons, yet in 1665 the colony had one hundred and ninety-two ships of all sizes; and in 1708 possessed two hundred, twenty of which were over one hundred tons burthen. Rhode Island ran Massachusetts very close in this shipbuilding race. Between 1690 and 1710 her vessels are said to have increased six-fold, and in 1740 the inhabitants could proudly boast that they owned no fewer than one hundred and twenty ships. Connecticut never competed in this form of industry, and in 1708 she is reported to have had only thirty vessels. New Hampshire too carried on her over-sea traffic by means of strange vessels, possessing only five ships of her own. In 1748, although trade was supposed to be in a very depressed state, five hundred and forty ships sailed from Boston, a fact which showed a considerable export and import commerce.
It would be erroneous to imagine that the colonies in the eighteenth century were in any way struggling, poverty-stricken communities. Their trade had grown with leaps and bounds, and they carried on a profitable commerce with England which Sir Robert Walpole had encouraged on the grounds that "the greater the prosperity of the colonies, the greater would be their demand for English goods."[213] That this proved true is shown by William Pitt saying in 1766, "the profits to Great Britain from the trade of the colonies are two millions a year. That was the fund that carried you triumphantly through the last war.... And shall a miserable financier come with a boast that he can filch a peppercorn into the exchequer to the loss of millions to the nation?"[214] For the same reason Adam Smith has given a conspicuous place to colonial trade in his Wealth of Nations. "Though the wealth of Great Britain," he writes, "has increased very much since the establishment of the Act of Navigation, it certainly has not increased in the same proportion as that of the colonies.... The industry of Great Britain, instead of being accommodated to a great number of small markets, has been principally suited to one great market.... The expectation of a rupture with the colonies accordingly has struck the people of Great Britain with more terror than they ever felt for a Spanish Armada or a French invasion."[215]
The colonists did not, however, simply depend upon trade for their means of livelihood; many of them engaged in agriculture. During the winter months their beasts suffered as much as those in England, for until the eighteenth century there were no winter roots. In the same way the rotation of crops was much restricted, as the settlers were totally ignorant of artificial grasses. They had still to wait for Lord Townshend to make his agricultural experiments at home before they could grow turnips, cereals, and grasses on scientific principles. On the other hand they seem to have anticipated the discoveries of Mr Jethro Tull of Mount Prosperous, and some years previous to his work on husbandry they had inaugurated deep tillage. Tobacco, the principal commodity of the southern colonies, was not introduced into New England until 1660, but its place as a staple was taken by the cultivation of large quantities of rape, hemp, and flax. The colonists also, after many disappointments, came to be enthusiastic breeders of sheep, horses, goats, and cattle. At first the sheep fared very badly; the wool crop was short, and the climate proved unsuitable to the English stock. By 1642, however, there were one thousand sheep in Massachusetts, and these increased very rapidly. The authorities were most anxious to encourage sheep-farming, and in 1654 the exportation of sheep was forbidden. In Rhode Island and Connecticut they flourished upon the public lands, and by 1670 the latter colony was able to export a fairly large quantity of wool.
During the whole period there was a great lack of specie, which in the early years had not been a very serious drawback, as barter was the ordinary method of exchange, but as the colonies advanced in importance it was a decided check upon foreign commerce. In 1631, Massachusetts declared corn to be legal tender, and four years later it was ordained that public dues were to be paid in this commodity at the rate of 6s. per bushel. This system was employed in the next decade by both Connecticut and Newhaven, with decidedly disadvantageous results, for it brought about the inconvenience of a double price; the monetary payment being about half the actual value of the payment in kind. For many years in the Indian trade the settlers had used Indian shell money or wampum. This medium of exchange was first applied in New Plymouth in 1627, and was afterwards employed by Coddington when he bought Aquedneck. In 1641, wampum was declared legal tender under £10, but within eight years the Massachusetts Assembly refused to accept it for taxes. The fact was that it depended solely upon Indian trade, and when this began to decline, wampum was valueless. Rhode Island was the last colony to discontinue its use for taxes, which it did in 1662; though it acted as small change in Newhaven well into the eighteenth century.
As early as 1642, Massachusetts, by means of its foreign trade, began to obtain coined money in the shape of Dutch ducats and rix-dollars. But the extraordinary mixture of coins was very awkward, so that in 1652 a mint was established in the colony. John Hall, the goldsmith of Boston, was made its master. The coins had stamped upon them the word Massachusetts encircling a tree, which was in early years a willow, later an oak, and finally a pine. Charles II. was furious at this attack upon his coinage, and the story goes that to appease his wrath he was told that the emblem of the oak was in grateful memory of his glorious escape at Boscobel.
Towards the end of the seventeenth century the amount of coin in the country had very largely increased, but in the commercially backward Connecticut, barter was still common. As late as 1698, gold was very scarce, and taxes continued to be paid entirely in silver. The colonists firmly believed in the enriching powers of paper money, which in New England was issued in particularly large quantities by Rhode Island. The real disadvantage was intercolonial, and not internal, so that most of the colonists failed to understand the interference of the home authorities, either in 1740, when the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations forbade the governors to sanction the issue of bills of credit, or again in 1744, when an Act of Parliament was passed forbidding paper money altogether. The fact was that the settlers believed, like Governor Burnet, "that this manner of compulsive credit does in fact keep up its value here, and that it occasions much more trade and business than would be without it, and that more specie is exported to England by reason of these Paper Bills than could be if there was no circulation but of specie."[216]
It is not surprising that the colonists should also labour under the economic delusion that it was necessary to regulate wages and prices. At first Massachusetts left them both free, but after three years, wages were found to have risen to what was then regarded as the monstrous rate of 3s. a day for carpenters and 2s. 6d. a day for common workmen. In 1633, therefore, a scale of wages was proposed by the General Court, and "they made an order that carpenters, masons, etc., should take but two shillings the day, and labourers but eighteenpence, and that no commodity should be sold at above fourpence in the shilling more than it cost for ready money in England."[217] The enactment, however, proved fruitless, and was repealed two years later. The enormous rise in wages and the extortionate prices still exercised the minds of those in authority, and a committee was appointed in 1637. The outcome of their deliberations was that about 1643 the wages of farm labourers were fixed at 1s. 6d. a day. This remuneration appears to have been ample, and it has been calculated that a careful man could save enough in five years to become the tenant of a small farm. This was not so difficult as it might seem, for small holdings were common, and as succession was by gavelkind and not through primogeniture, holdings tended to be kept limited in extent. The accumulation of land was rather the exception than the rule, though there are occasional examples, as in Newhaven, where some estates contained as many as three thousand acres.
The thriftless man could not, of course, save very much out of such a wage, and there were therefore many paupers. The burden of their support fell upon the towns, and in the case of New Plymouth, it was not long before the township became "the poor law unit."[218] The decision as to a man's settlement caused as much difficulty in the Puritan colonies as it was doing in England at the time. In 1639, Massachusetts ordained that two magistrates should decide this momentous question. Six years later the power of decision was put in the hands of a committee; while immediately before the Restoration a three months' residence was selected as the period of settlement necessary to denote a man's parish.
The richer inhabitants of the Puritan colonies no doubt had slaves, but throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries negro slavery in New England was never a very flourishing institution. The tenets of Calvinism naturally warred against such a practice, while "the main influence ... was no doubt the unfitness of the climate and soil for servile industry."[219] The Rhode Island authorities were from the first against perpetual bondage, and in 1646, Massachusetts also raised its voice against slavery. As late as 1680 there were, according to Governor Brodstreet, only one hundred and twenty negro slaves in the colony, and they sold for £10, £15, and £20 apiece. The methods of employment do not seem to have been harsh, and according to Mrs Knight in 1704, the slaves and masters in Connecticut had their meals together: "into the dish goes the black hoof as freely as the white hand."[220] Towards the end of the seventeenth century slavery slightly increased in New England, and it was found necessary to pass several laws for the better regulation of the negro. In 1703, in Massachusetts, slaves were not to be set free unless their masters guaranteed that they would not become a burden on the poor rate. Two years later the marriage between slaves and whites was forbidden, and a £4 duty was placed upon every imported negro. In 1708 the blacks in Rhode Island numbered only four hundred and twenty-six, but within twelve years they had risen to one thousand, three hundred. At the same time Connecticut had eight hundred, while Massachusetts was the worst offender with three thousand.
The actions and protestations of the New Englanders were somewhat contradictory. Although negro slavery was preached against, it was nevertheless practised. So too with regard to the Indians. The New Englander treated the savage with contempt, yet several efforts were made, not without some success, to convert the Redskin to the Christian faith. Thomas Mayhew has earned for himself historic fame by being the first who really made definite attempts to bring the natives into touch with the doctrines of Christianity. In 1643, with the ready assistance of his Indian colleague Hiacoomes, he did what he could, and at least succeeded in founding schools in some of the Indian villages. Massachusetts made state efforts in 1646, but they were surpassed by the individual enterprise of John Eliot of Roxbury, who had laboriously learnt the Indian tongue to accomplish this great work. Excellent as the work was, it compares but feebly with the self-denial of the Jesuits in Canada, whose missionary labours far surpassed in deeds of heroism and suffering anything that was ever undertaken by the English settlers. A progressive move was made in 1649, when Parliament incorporated the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England. The work then spread more rapidly, so that in two years a convert settlement of four hundred "praying Indians" was established at Natich. The Society for the Propagation of the Gospel was encouraged to still further action when in 1662 it was granted a Royal Charter. For this reason it may be said that the Restoration stimulated missionary effort, the partial success of which is to be found in the issue of an Indian Bible and the creation of converted Indian villages in Massachusetts, New Plymouth, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket.