ST. LOUIS AND BALTIMORE. 412 years 1845 and 1846, in that city, we find, that of fifty leading articles, the receipts of the last year have fallen short on three or four only, viz., hemp, bagging, and rope, fruits, hides and sugar, and this in a minute degree, while every other article has increased, in some instances to two and three hundred per cent. For a few examples: The enterprises of Baltimore and Richmond toward the West, and their vigorous prosecution, exhibit great vitality in these cities. We learn, that in a short period, western merchants will have the choice of several routes to the eastern States. From Wheeling or Pittsburgh to Baltimore, from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia; from Beaver by canal to Cleveland, to Buffalo; from Cincinnati, by railroad to Sandusky city, or by canal to Toledo, thence to Buffalo; from St. Louis via the Illinois river and Illinois and Michigan canal to Chicago, thence round the lakes to Buffalo, or by railroad across Michigan to Detroit, connecting with the lake boats from the latter place to BaltiFrom Buffalo to Boston and Portland there is a continuous railroad. Travelers to New York city pass over the same road to Albany, at which point they take the Hudson river steamboats, but may soon take the railroad now in course of construction. Richmond is now devoting much of her energies to manufactures, and entertains strong hope of recovering much of that commerce which enriched her in other days. We have a few facts at hand upon Balti more. 196,560.... 235,169... 207,501.. 525,432.. 844,086.... 975,187.. ... 1846. $321,374 654,113 1,448,870 In coming to more southern cities, and as it were, immediately home, a much greater degree of particularity will be demanded at our hands, and, indeed, we have materials for it and every possible disposition to embody them. Our sympathies and regards, for the most part, are in this direction, and our work is devoted to its advance. The city of Charleston is one of the most ancient in the Union. Its foundations were laid in 1672,* and it very soon attracted an additional population, from the planters of Barbadoes and the chivalrous French Huguenots. "On the spot," says Bancroft, "where opulence now crowds the wharves of the most prosperous mart on our southern seaboard, among ancient groves that swept down to the In 1677 it was called Oyster Point Town; in 1680, New Charlestown; in 1682, New Charleston (Mills). It was chartered in 1783. 785 VOL. II.-50 river's banks and were covered with yellow jasmine, which burdened the vernal zephyrs with its perfumes, the city was begun." Two centuries nearly have passed away since then. Momentous have been the events and the changes of this period. In colonial dependence, in revolutionary conflicts, in republican advancement, it has mattered little, however, for Charleston-ever unchanged and unchanging; generous, hospitable, and refined; intelligent, patriotic, and enthusiastic; devoted to liberty, and appreciating its advantages: on her seat by the side of the Ashley and the Cooper, where the Pinckneys and the Rutledges, the Middletons, Lowndes, and Lawrences, and Elliots-men whose like we shall not soon look upon again-lived, labored, and died. Peace to their sacred manes. This city, venerated for associations we cannot smother, demands from every Southern heart, nay, even a far higher term, from every American heart, a tribute it will be proud to give. The location of Charleston is on a peninsula, washed by the waters of two beautiful streams. The harbor is spacious and secure, and defended by three fortifications-one the famed Moultrie of Revolutionary glory. The bar has some obstructions, but four channels with different degrees of depth; the ship channel being the greatest, and affording seventeen feet at high water and ten at low. The advantages of Charleston soon made it a place of considerable trade. Its first exports were staves, lumber, furs and peltries, considerable quantities of rice, first planted in 1693, to which were added in 1747 indigo, in 1782 tobacco-abundant and profitable products and in 1790 cotton. In 1723 the foreign import of Charleston was £120,000, over half the foreign import of 1815! The export of the same year was, in rice alone, 26,468 bbls.; and in 1744 two hundred vessels were laden at its wharves. The city was once a considerable ship owner and builder, but we learn from the late report of its chamber of commerce, that there are now very few ships owned there; and the vessels built annually also few, and of the smallest class. In the last seven years, the number of ships owned and sailing from Charleston has decreased from 14 to 6, the number of brigs from 16 to 4, with an increase of three only in schooners in the same time. The revenue collected on the imports of Charleston was very nearly as large under the light tariff of 1789, as under the high one of 1842. But of this again. "Commerce," said Dr. Ramsay, in 1808," is of noble origin in South Carolina. Its first merchants were the Lords Proprietors, and such are the superior advantages of trading with Britain, that the Carolinians have been commercially connected with her nearly as much since as before the Revolution. They have a right of trade with all the world, but find it to their interest to trade principally with Britain. The ingenuity of her manufactures, the long credits her merchants are in the habit of giving, the facility of making remittances to her, as the purchaser of the great part of the native commodities of South Carolina, have all concurred to cement a commercial connection between the two countries. From the increased demand for the manufactures of Britain, by the increased inhabitants of Carolina, as a State, the latter is more profitable to the former, than she ever was when a province. Though the trade from South Carolina to Germany has greatly increased, that to the Mediterranean, to France, Netherlands, Spain, Madeira, and Russia, has also increased in the order in which these countries are respectively mentioned. Yet the surplus that remains for Great Britain, far exceeds all she ever derived from the same country, as her colony. It may be confidently as serted that the trade between the two countries for one single year of general peace, free from all interruption, would now be of greater value to Great Britain than all she derived from Carolina for the first half of her colonial existence. The merchants of Charleston do not seem fond of exploring new channels of commerce. There never was but one vessel fitted out for the East Indies; no voyages round the world, to North-west America, to new or remote countries, have originated there." In 1844 R. F. W. Allston held the following language to the Secretary of the Treasury: "The average annual imports of the State for ten years, from 1832 to 1842, were $2,989,463, average annual exports for the same time, $10,291,735. The average annual imports for two years, 1843 and 1844, were $1,213,112; average annual exports same time, $7,597,045. In the year 1800 the produce of the State was exported from her own ports, at which were also received the return cargoes which paid for it. Then trade was brisk. All the interests of the State nourished in a high degree. Then the imports at the port of Charleston yielded a revenue of $2,203,812; now the duties collected at the same port are $158,405. The great portion of our import business is done in the Northern ports where the chief revenue is collected on them. REVENUES ON IMPORTS INTO SOUTH CAROLINA. 1800....$2,203,812 1830. $497,397 1815.... $1,400,886 1816.... 1,474,474 1817... 1,145,677 1,308,104 The imports of Charleston, from being nearly half the exports in 1820, are now about one-eighth. The great exports of Charleston, and products of South Carolina, are cotton and rice. The State produces of the latter article threefourths of the whole crop of the country. The amount of cotton produced is declining, the whole receipts of Charleston and Georgetown from all places in 1845, being 426,361, and in 1846, 251,405 bales, though this last was an unfavorable season. The following table, for which we are indebted to the Evening News. will exhibit the exports of sea island and upland cotton, and clean and rough rice from Charleston, for the past three years, in bags, barrels and bushels: 2,918.... .... 7,324 141... 423....111,698.... 1,148. 123,023 .20,003....248,077....21,328....400,568.... 16,191....289,313 Total.........83,712....355,139....84,308....561,409...103,686....483,595 For 1847 an increased export is anticipated. The crops of the State have been abundant. Those of cotton and rice are stated at thirty-three per cent. above previous years, being $10,050,000 against $7,500,000. During the year ending 1st September, 1846, there arrived in Charleston 161 American and 27 foreign ships, 91 American and 38 foreign barques, 248 American and 18 foreign brigs, 552 American and 15 foreign schooners. Total vessels, 1,150. Charleston is reviving her former schemes of railroad connection with the mountains of her State, and across the country to the prolific valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. She originated these movements many years ago, and our hearty well-wishes are, that she will now carry them out. A committee of her citizens made a report the other day upon the subject, from which the following is an extract: Steam in the locomotive, and on railroads, is destined to achieve a no less extraordinary triumph for the States of the Atlantic, whose interior, fertile and abundantly producing soils, embosomed in mountains, remain almost in their natural state, from their hitherto inaccessibility. To open avenues to these interior regions of fertility; to accomplish connections by railways to the more remote valleys of the great father of rivers, South Carolina and Georgia have been for years most harmoniously co-operating, and while the attainment of these great objects are so near consummation; while your Committee see in one direction but 85 miles of railroad to be provided for, to perfect a connection with the navigable waters of the Alabama at Montgomery, but 17 to bring us to the Coosa at Rome, and which is navigable for 150 miles to the head of the ten islands; but one hundred and twenty miles to connect the Coosa with the Warrior at Tuscaloosa, and but 36 to extend the communication in that quarter to Gunter's Landing on the Tennessee river. While in another direction they see the State of Georgia nobly pressing forward to the terminus of the Western and Atlantic road at Chattanooga, and about to advance within 40 miles of that place, by January next, and thus stimulate the citizens of Nashville on the Cumberland to a union with the Atlantic. While within their own State they perceive efforts now making to build up a railway to Greenville, with the ulterior object of a terminus in the heart of the mountain elevations of Buncombe, productive in hemp, wheat, rye, corn, potatoes, hogs, horses and mules; and in a more eastern section preparations in progress to extend the Camden Branch road to Charlotte, in North Carolina, bringing the fertile valleys of the Catawba, and the mountain recesses of Virginia, under the influences of a reciprocal and mutually beneficial trade with our city. There have been some movements made for the introduction of domestic manufactures into South Carolina, and many causes exist for their success. Governor Hammond declared two years ago, in his agricultural address: In water power, our State may safely challenge comparison with any part of the world. From the mountains almost to tide water, the whole country is veined with streams of sufficient size, with ample fall; and innumerable sites for erecting machinery of every kind. Experience has proved that our slaves can be made as SOUTH CAROLINA AND CHARLESTON. 417 expert as any other class, in all, or nearly all, the operations of a cotton factory. With such abundant water power, and such cheap labor, if the effort be made, we can speedily supply our entire home consumption of goods of ordinary qualities, and in due time we may expect to be able to compete with the rest of the world in every other quality, both at home and abroad. Already, a considerable amount of capital has been adventured in manufacturing, not only cotton, but cloths of wool and cotton mixed, which can be sold as cheaply as any in the market, and pay a handsome profit. Our citizens, and especially our planters, ought to encourage such investments, by making it a point to give the preference, where the price and quality are the same, to our own manufacturers. And this, I believe, is all they require, to be firmly established, and to become of vast importance in the approaching distribution of the capital and industry of the State. Col. Allston replied to the circular of the Treasury Department: "There are several cotton factories in the State operating on a small scale: In Pendleton, in Greenville (one here of paper also), in Spartanburg (one here of iron also), in Darlington, one owned by Col. J. W. Williams, in which he employs from 40 to 50 operatives. There was one in Marlborough, with superior water power; but I believe it has been abandoned or converted to some other use. In Barnwell the "Vaucluse" is very successful; in Lexington, near Columbia, the "Saluda" divided 5 per cent. the last half year. Limited as is the number of these factories, it is believed they are not dependent for their profits on the present duties; but it cannot be doubted that a number of them were brought into existence by the patronizing countenance of government." The population of Charleston in 1790 was 16,000; in 1800, 18,000; in 1810, 24,000; in 1820, 24,000; in 1830, 30,000; in 1840, 29,261, including 14,673 slaves. The whole population of the city, however, at this last period, including what is called the neck, was 41,137. We regret that the facts are not within our reach for a sketch such as we should like of SAVANNAH, Georgia. If any of her citizens would furnish them to us we should be but too happy to embody them in our Review. This city has also been noted for liberality, and the Historical Association there has distinguished itself by its collections, and its addresses from such men as William Law, Prof. *We might have introduced appropriately in a previous page, some account of the immense extension of the British trade in cotton manufactures. An intelligent American correspondent in Europe has lately furnished some interesting particulars, the most striking of which is this, that as an importer of cotton goods from England, the United States was exceeded last year by Russia, the Hanse towns, Holland, Italian States, Turkey, the East Indies and Brazil. The figures will exhibit this, and the question may be asked, when shall we compete successfully with this great power in all these important markets? "The total quantity of cotton manufactures exported, to say nothing of domestic consumption, of white or plain cottons, was 678,415,780 yards, and the value £9,661,014; of printed or dyed cottons, 415,270,289 yards, and the value £8,368,794; and of hosiery, lace, and other small articles to the amount of £1,127,286. The quantity of twist and yarn exported, was 135,144,365 pounds, and the declared value £6,963,235. The total exports of cotton goods and yarn, of British and Irish manufacture, reached, at the declared value, the round sum of £26,110,331, or in American currency, to $130,551,635! And where were markets found for this immense yield of manufacturing industry from our staples? You shall see. In Russia, to the amount of £1,073,599; in the Hanseatic towns, to £3,100,834; in Holland, to £1,342,266; in Belgium, to £576,579; in Portugal proper, to £618,682; in Gibraltar-chiefly for Spain, while Spain imported directly £11,787-to £529,857; in Italy and the Italian islands, to £1,435,506; in Turkey, to £1,821,282; in Syria and Palestine, to £609,918; in Egypt, to £137,032; in western coast of Africa, to £223,930; in Cape of Good Hope, to £174.526; in Mauritius, to £135,065; in British East Indies, to £4,210,423; in Sumatra, Java, &c., to £409,224; in China, to £1,735, 141; in Australia, to £224,774; in Brazil, to £1,429,509; in Chili, to £602,285; in Peru and Bolivia, to £419,776; in British North American colonies, to £742,225; in do. West Indies, to £601,025; in Cuba and foreign West Indies, to £601,025; in Mexico, to £244,845; and in the U. S. of America, to £1,056,240." |