Manufactures.—The inhabitants manufacture coarse and fine flannels, linen, cotton and woollen cloths, woollen stockings, mittens, and gloves, for their own
use; they spin much cotton and flax, and make common and the best kind of beaver hats. Ship-building is a great branch of business in Connecticut, which is carried on much cheaper than in Europe, by means of saw-mills worked by water. The planks are cut by a gang of ten or twelve saws, more or less, as occasion requires, while the carriage is backed but once. Great part of the ship-timber is also cut by water. Anchor-making is done by water and trip-hammers, without much fatigue to the workmen. Distilling and paper-making increase every year. Here are many rope-walks, which want neither hemp nor flax; and formerly here were rolling and slitting works, but they have been suppressed by an act of Parliament, to the ruin of many families.
Commerce.—The exports of Connecticut consist chiefly of all sorts of provisions, pig and bar iron, pot and pearl ashes, staves, lumber, boards, iron pots and kettles, anchors, planks, hoops, shingles, live cattle, horses, &c. &c. To what amount these articles are annually exported, may be judged from the following very low estimate:
| Pork | 98,750 | l. |
| Beef | 100,000 | |
| Mutton | 5,000 | |
| Horses | 40,000 | |
| Wheat | 340,000 | |
| Butter, cheese, rye, oats, onions, tobacco, cider, maize, beans, fowls, eggs, tallow, and hides | 90,000 | |
| Ships’ anchors, cables, cordage, pig and bar iron, pots, kettles, pot and pearl ashes, boards, and lumber | 250,000 | |
| 918,750 | l. |
besides hay, fish, &c. &c. The salmon, large and small, are exported both pickled and dried.
In the above statement of exports I have allowed only for horses bred in the colony, and not for those brought for exportation from Canada and other northern parts, which are very numerous. The calculation of the wheat, the common price of which is three shillings sterling per bushel, is founded upon the allowed circumstance of the exportation being equal to the consumption, viz. 2,600,000 bushels among 200,000 persons, according to the acknowledged necessary portion of thirteen bushels to one person. The pork is estimated according to the reputed number of houses in the province, viz. 30,000, allowing one and a quarter barrels for each house, at 2l. 10s. per barrel.
The imports in 1680, when the number of inhabitants was 20,000, amounted to 10,000l., i. e. at the rate of 10s. for each individual. Supposing the increase of imports only to keep pace with that of the people, they would, in 1770, when the province contained 200,000 souls, amount to 100,000l.; but I believe that to be not above one-quarter of their value.
Boston, New-York, and Newport, have the greatest share of the exports of Connecticut, and pay for them in English or Dutch goods at cent. per cent. profit to themselves, upon a moderate computation. What few of them are sent from the colony to the West Indies, are paid for honourably in rum, molasses, sugar, salt, brandy, cotton, and money.
Consequences very prejudicial attend the commerce of Connecticut, thus principally carried on through the medium of the neighbouring colonies. I will here
point out one material instance: Connecticut pork, a considerable article of exportation, excels all others in America, and fetches a halfpenny per pound more. Of this difference in the price the merchants in New-York, Boston, &c. have taken care to avail themselves, by mixing their own inferior pork with that of Connecticut, and then selling the whole at the full price of the latter. This fair dealing was managed thus: The pork of Connecticut was packed up in barrels, each of which, according to statute regulations, must weigh 220 lbs. and contain not more than six legs and three half heads. The packer is to mark the barrel before it is shipped, and is liable to a heavy punishment if there should be found four half heads and seven legs in the barrel when it is delivered for exportation. But of large pork, two legs and half a head will be a sufficient proportion of those parts in a barrel. This gives the New-York and Bostonian merchants an opportunity of taking out the best part of the Connecticut pork, and substituting in its place an equal weight of their own, whereby it often happens that four legs and two half heads are found in a barrel of reputed Connecticut pork. Though it then remains a barrel according to the statute, it cannot but be supposed that the practice must greatly hurt the credit of Connecticut pork with all who are not apprised that it passes through the renounded provinces of Massachusets-Bay and New-York.