THE BEAU OF 1762.
[PERIOD OF THE REVOLUTION.]
No. 3.
AN indulgence of those inborn habits of luxury and fondness for rich and expensive dress by the wealthy land owners, comprising the large majority of the population of the Southern colonies, encouraged a demand for articles more elaborate and costly than those produced within the colonial territory; hence imported fabrics were by them largely preferred to those of domestic make. The gay and festive social life, and the means easily acquired from their profitable crops of cotton and tobacco, permitted indulgence in lavish expenditures for articles of fashionable attire and household elegance.
The general customs of the people of the South had the effect of retarding the progress of ordinary trades by not affording sufficient patronage to encourage their successful undertaking; while, on the contrary, from the greater necessity with the Northern people of personal exertion and labor to provide the comforts of home life, sprung that support of manufactures which has so largely increased as to place the power and wealth of the country in their hands.
The event of the American Revolution, however, somewhat changed this aspect of affairs. The genuineness of Maryland's loyalty was certainly in one way nobly demonstrated, and by an act of patriotic self-sacrifice, gave to her an unlooked-for reward in a prosperous future. Her people quickly espousing the cause of liberty, at once rejected articles of foreign make and gave choice to those of home production, thus stimulating industries in their midst which had not before flourished from lack of encouragement and support.
Actuated by a feeling of sympathy for their fellow-citizens of Boston—whom the British Parliament in 1774 attempted to shut out from commercial intercourse with every part of the world—the citizens of Baltimore called a town meeting, unanimously recommending a general congress of delegates, to meet at Annapolis, to take action against this indignity on American liberties.