Position of the colonists.
Fisheries.
While the territories subject to the Spanish Crown in America abounded with the precious metals, and the mines of gold and silver of Mexico and Peru poured a flood of mineral wealth over Europe,[215] the provinces colonised by Great Britain were destitute of these riches. The soil was, however, capable of affording the still more precious products of rice, corn, sugar, tobacco, indigo, and above all, of cotton. But the New Englanders could not boast of a fertile territory, their soil scarcely growing sufficient to feed its inhabitants. Accordingly they directed their attention to the sea as a source of subsistence, and the business of fishing and navigation afforded a boundless field for their unwearied industry. Thus they constructed vessels not only for their own convenience, but also for sale. These, though inferior to English-built vessels in quality of timber and workmanship, were low-priced and quickly put together. The New Englanders were, moreover, acute merchants, and carried on a considerable trade with Africa; so much so that from their general aptitude for commerce they were known as the “Dutchmen of America.”
The provinces of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, with a better soil than that of New England, produced in abundance corn and cattle of all kinds, together with hemp, flax, and lumber, iron, pot and pearl ashes. Their exports of corn and flour brought down from the interior were even then very considerable; they exported, also, live stock, boards, scantling, staves, shingles, and wooden houses framed and ready to set up. These and a multitude of other exports afforded large means of employment to the shipping of New England, while the harbour of New York, one of the finest in the world, presented great maritime facilities to their rising merchant navy. Though Virginia and Maryland had directed their chief attention to the cultivation of tobacco, large quantities of grain were raised in those provinces prior to the revolution. By law their tobacco hitherto could only be exported to Great Britain; but they were now allowed to ship it and their corn, flour, timber, and other produce to the West Indies and elsewhere. North Carolina also grew tobacco, though to a limited extent; but her annual export of pitch, tar, and turpentine, was not less than one hundred and thirty thousand barrels, the larger portion of which was shipped to England. In South Carolina and Georgia (the growth of silk proving unprofitable) rice and indigo became the staple products; but it was not until a later period that these two regions, especially Georgia,[216] became the seat of the vast produce of cotton now employing so large a portion of the merchant shipping of both the European and American States.
Shipping of the North American colonies, A.D. 1769.
That an idea may be formed of the actual state of the navigation and commerce of the North American Colonies when they declared their independence we furnish in the accompanying note an outline of the leading figures bearing on this subject from a report, issued shortly after the Declaration of Independence, by the Inspector General of the Customs, London, and presented to Parliament.[217]
Early registry of ships not always to be depended on.
Prior to the Registry Act of the 24th of George III. vessels were measured in a very loose manner, and in order to evade the payment of lighthouse dues, and various port charges collected on tonnage, they were usually registered far below their real burthen; indeed the difference between the measurements under the old Act of William and that of George III., being on the aggregate no less than one third, accounts in some measure for the apparently very small tonnage of the vessels given in the returns to which we have just referred. But the return, as a whole, furnishes pretty accurately the position of the merchant navy and of the oversea commerce of the United States when they separated from the mother-country. That important event in the history of the world produced a complete revolution in the relative positions of the great maritime nations; a merchant navy having arisen on the other side of the Atlantic which in three quarters of a century afterwards rivalled, and at one time surpassed in number, and especially in symmetry and speed, the finest merchantmen of any of the countries of the Old World.
In noting the progress of British merchant shipping during the earlier portion of the reign of George III., the dates at which the war with the colonies broke out, and when peace was finally concluded, must be remembered, as open hostilities did not actually commence until 1774, though for some years previously a state of non-intercourse had existed. The revolted colonies might possibly then have been retained as reluctant subjects for some years longer, had not the French, in 1778, espoused their cause with the object of striking a blow at the increasing maritime power of England. In the following year Spain also threw her weight into the scale against her, and finally the Dutch, in 1781, contributed to swell the number of her maritime foes. With three such nations in arms against her British shipping, clearing outwards and inwards from her ports, had fallen, in 1782, to 615,150 tons, while there were in that year 225,456 tons of foreign clearances; but, in 1785, such has ever been the elasticity of her commerce, the entries inwards and outwards reached 1,182,346 tons, of which only 107,484 tons were foreign vessels.[218]
Independence of the United States acknowledged, May 24, 1784.