to the honour of this state, that the inhuman traffic called the slave trade is here totally abolished. The merchants of Rhode Island, previously to the revolution, imported from Great Britain, dry goods; from Holland, money; from Africa, slaves; from the West Indies, coffee, sugar, and molasses; and from the neighbouring colonies, lumber and provisions. With the money which they procured from Holland they paid their English correspondents; their slaves they carried to. the West Indies, together with the lumber, and provisions obtained from their neighbours; the rum distilled from molasses was carried to Africa and exchanged for negroes; their sugars found a good market in Holland; and their dry goods from England enabled them to carry on an advantageous traffic with the neighbouring colonies. By this kind of circuitous commerce they subsisted and grew opulent; but the effects of the late war, together with the prohibition of the slave trade, and the destructive influence of paper money, have occasioned a great stagnation of trade in this state. The present exports are flax-seed, lumber, barley, horses, cattle, fish and poultry the imports consist of European and West India goods, and logwood from the Bay of Honduras. The trade of Connecticut is principally with the West India islands, and is carried on in vessels from sixty to a hundred and forty tons burden. The exports are horses, mules, oxen, Ine dia corn, fish, pork, timber, oak staves, hoops,' &c. Horses, live cattle, and lumber, are permitted in the Dutch, French, and Danish ports; but beef and fish are liable to such heavy duties in the French islands, that little profit arises to the merchant who sends them thither. It must also be observed, that the price of molasses and other articles has been so much enhanced by the English purchases for Canada and Nova-Scotia, that the trade of Connecticut with the West India islands is not very profitable. Cotton, cocoa, indigo, and sugar, are not permitted to be carried away by Americans; and the prohibitory laws are administered with such severity, that these articles cannot possiby be smuggled. Connecticut has a great number of coasting vessels employed in trafficking with the neighbouring states. To New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, they carry pork, wheat, and rye; and to the Carolinas, beef, butter, cheese, potatoes, hay, cyder, &c. and re. ceive in return rice, indigo, and money. But as New York is nearer, and the state of the markets always well known, much of the produce of Connecticut is carried there. Considerable quantities are also disposed of at Boston and Provi dence, The value of the whole exported produce and commodities from this state, before the revolution, was reckoned at two hundred thousand pounds per annum. But as no accurate estimate has been made under the republican form of go vernment, it is impossible to ascertain whether this amount has increased or diminished. New York has many local advantages greatly superior to any of the other states. It has at all seasons of the year, a short and easy access to the ocean, and commands the trade of a great proportion of the best settled and best cultivated parts of the United States. Indeed it has been supposed, that more wealth has been conveyed down Connecticut river, and through the Sound to New York, than down the Hudson. New York has availed herself of these advantages to their full extent; insomuch that some of her commercial regulations have been considered as oppressive and injurious to the interest of her neighbours. There is also such a secrecy in the commercial policy of this state, that an accurate account of the annual exports and imports has never been made public. The staple commodity of this state is wheat, of which six hundred and seventyseven thousand bushels were exported in the year 1775, besides two thousand five hundred tons of bread, and upwards of two thousand eight hundred tons of flour. Some The trade of New Jersey is principally carried on with and from New York and Philadelphia, though it wants not good ports of its own. attempts have been made by the legislature, to secure to the state its own natural advantages, by granting extraordinary privileges to mer chants who would settle at the ports of Amboy and Burlington: but the people having long been accustomed to send their produce to the markets of New York and Philadelphia, and consequently having their correspondencies established, they find it difficult to turn their trade from the old channel. Besides, in those large cities, where: are so many opulent merchants, and so many wants to be supplied, credit is more easily gaine ed, and a quicker market found for commodities than could be expected in towns less populous and flourishing. These causes, therefore, with others of a similar nature, have hitherto frustrated the attempts of the legislature. New York and Pennsylvania, 'not contented with the privileges of being factors and carriers for this state, charge it with the same duties they do their own citizens; which unreasonable tax upon the people, together with the loss they sustain in dealing with a depreciated paper currency, occasions the balance of trade to be against the state, in almost every respect. The principal articles exported are, wheat, flour, horses, cattle, lumber, flax-seed, iron, leather, and hams; the latter of which are celebrated as being the best in the world. Copper ore was formerly reckoned among their most valuable exports; but, the mines have not been worked since the com mencement of the revolution. The imports consist chiefly of dry and West India goods, and teas from the East Indies. The commerce of Pennsylvania is very consi derable, and her exports are too numerous for recapitulation. We shall, therefore, only subjoin the following remarks of a well informed citizen of Philadelphia. "Much of the provisions which were, in the period antecedent to the late war, shipped to foreign markets, is now consumed by the numerous hands employed in manufacturing those articles of raw materials which were formerly shipped to Europe, and returned to us in a manufactured state. Of these may be mentioned iron, leather, barley, tobacco, and furs; which we now manufacture into nails and steel, shoes, boots, and sadlery, porter and beer, snuff, and hats, in such quantities that they are not only sufficient for our own consumption, but form“ a respectable part of our exports: among these also may be enumerated, beef, pork, batter,' cheese, mustard, loaf-sugar, chocolate, soup, starch, hair-powder, household-furniture, paper, and pasteboard. From Europe we import,, among many other articles, wines, brandy, geneva, salt, drugs, fruit and dry goods of every description from the West Indies, rum, sugar, coffee, cotton, and salt; and from the East Indies, teas, spices, dry goods, and China-ware all of which articles are again exported to other parts of the American continent, and the West Indies, to a very considerable amount." Aude 12190 The trade of Maryland is principally carried on from Baltimore, with the neighbouring states, with the West Indies, and with some parts of Europe To these places they send annually about thirty thousand hogsheads of tobacco, besides flax-seed, wheat, flour, beans, lumber, iron, &c. and resi ceive in return clothing and other dry goods, wines, spirits, sugars, and other West India com modities. The trade of Virginia, consists chiefly in to bacco, in which, previously to the revolution, more than two hundred sail of ships were con-. stantly employed, which one with another were.. reckoned to carry at least three hundred hogsheads, in all sixty thousand and upwards. But let us suppose, as some do, the quantity exported to England to have been seventy thousand hogs heads yearly, each containing four hundred weight of tobacco; and that only one half of this quantity was consumed in England; then the duty of these thirty-five thousand hogsheads, at 81. each, will amount to 280,000l. The other half, which was exported from hence, could not bring above one fifth of that sum into the exche quer; but if we allow no more than 50,000l. for the duty of the thirty-five thousand hogsheads |