(§ 42), and both owned negroes; but at the South climate, soil, and productions fostered the growth of slavery, and made it more and more profitable, while at the North all these influences were against it.

The foreign slave-trade was active; it was to a great extent in the hands of New England men, and there were merchants in Salem, Boston, and Newport who regularly sent out cargoes of trinkets and rum to Africa to exchange for ship-loads of Guinea negroes to be sold at auction in the South.882

James I. sent at least a hundred convicts to Virginia; later, many political prisoners taken in the civil wars were shipped as slaves to America—most of them probably to the British West Indies. In 1718 Parliament enacted a law permitting convicts to be transported to this country; between that date and 1776 large numbers were sent over, chiefly it would seem to the Barbadoes. There were also voluntary white indented immigrants, or "Redemptioners," who sold themselves for a term of years to pay the cost of their passage over. As late as 1792 Washington urged buying a ship-load of them in Germany to work on the public grounds and public buildings of the national capital,388

The industrial differences between the North and the South were producing two different types of civilization, and were breeding not only antagonism of interests, but bitter sectional hatred. Thus the seeds of the great conflict (1861-1865) were sown, and were slowly maturing for the inevitable harvest.

Washington, Jefferson, and Franklin were among the first who denounced slavery as a blight and a curse (§ 45). The people of the South were gradually separated into two classes: the few who owned slaves, and the many-the "Poor Whites"- who did not own them. They could not compete with negro labor, and they were ashamed to try to compete with it.

But the rich Southern slave-holders had whatever high-bred virtues naturally belong to an aristocracy. When the day of need came, this class furnished leaders in the cause of inde

pendence who were every whit as ardent as those who sprang from New England or from the Middle colonies. The so-called "Poor Whites" showed too on the battlefields of the Revolution, as they did nearly a hundred years later on those of the Civil War, that they were not "poor" in courage, fortitude, or self-denial.

177. Colonial industries; commerce; manufactures; currency. Down to the beginning of the eighteenth century, wages were quite generally regulated by law, and two shillings seems to have been the usual pay for a day's work.

The great staples of the South were tobacco, rice, indigo, and the products of the pine forests of North Carolina. Pennsylvania exported iron; New York carried on a large trade in furs. New England was actively engaged in whaling and codfishing, and in distilling rum from West India molasses. A gilt figure of a codfish still hangs in the chamber of the House of Representatives in the State House in Boston. Like the sack of wool in the English House of Lords, it is an honorable emblem of what was once a chief source of the wealth of Massachusetts.

Ship-building had long been carried on in New England and Pennsylvania, and the English ship-builders complained with good reason that America was driving their vessels from the ocean. Early in the eighteenth century (1713), Captain Andrew Robinson of Gloucester, Massachusetts, launched the first schooner a type of vessel which has since come into use throughout the world."

384

The commerce of the colonies grew steadily. New England had a fleet of between five and six hundred sailing craft employed in the West Indian and other foreign trade.

Large as our exports were, our imports from Great Britain were nearly twice as great, and Lord Chatham said in Parliament, "America is the fountain of our wealth, the nerve of our strength." He declared that Great Britain made a profit of £2,000,000 a year out of her American trade.

385

Aside from the production of certain classes of coarse goods, there were few manufactures in the colonies. The first woolen mill was set up by John Pearson in 1643 in Rowley, Massachusetts. 386 England, acting on the protective principle, checked the growth of colonial manufactures by all sorts of vexatious legislation in order that she might keep the monopoly of supply for her own merchants. The House of Commons

resolved (1719) that "the erecting manufactories in the colonies tended to lessen their dependence "; 387 later (1750-1765), the erection of any new iron-furnaces and iron-mills in Pennsylvania or elsewhere was prohibited as a "nuisance.'

1388

Such goods as the colonists were permitted to produce were made largely by hand, although horse-power, wind-power, and water-power were used to some extent. Steam as a manufacturing agent was still unknown in the world, and the first steam-engine in America was not set up until about the beginning of the present century.389

The need of a sound currency was sorely felt in all of the colonies. In Virginia tobacco had served for money for a time, but unfortunately it was subject to sudden and violent fluctuations in value according as the price abroad rose and fell. In New England, and in some of the other colonies, wampum ($29) had long been in use, and did excellent service in trade with the Indians. Massachusetts, indeed, ventured to set up a mint and strike off debased silver coins, and coppers, but long before 1763 the mint had been suppressed. Most of the specie that came into the country consisted of Spanish dollars brought from the West Indies in exchange for exports, together with some English gold and silver; but this specie soon found its way into the pockets of the London merchants.

This constant drain of gold and silver out of the colonies naturally induced them to undertake the issue of paper money. Most of this proved utterly worthless. The English Board of Trade (§ 174) instructed the royal colonial Governors to veto the bills which the Legislatures enacted for the issue of this

irredeemable paper money, and the quarrels to which these vetoes gave rise were one cause leading to the Revolution.

178. Roads; travel; the post-office. - Owing to the very general lack of good roads the chief part of the transportation was, when practicable, by water. Large quantities of furs and freights of all kinds were carried in canoes on the rivers and lakes. New York in particular offered great facilities in this respect. Where rivers were not available for reaching the interior, pack-horses were employed. They carried the goods in long bags slung across their backs.

The roads were frequently simply Indian trails; in other cases there was no path at all, and the way through the trackless forests was indicated by "blazed" trees; bridges were almost unknown. Pennsylvania was one of the few colonies which had a number of fairly good roads; they radiated from Philadelphia. Thousands of huge wagons carried produce to that busy port, which had an export trade of more than £700,000 a year. Boston (1763) ranked next in this respect. There was but little passenger travel so little, in fact, that it was not very uncommon for a man to make his will when he ventured to go any distance from home. The usual mode of travel between the principal cities, such as Boston, Philadelphia, New York, and Charleston, was by sailing vessel. The time required for making such a journey was as uncertain as the wind. Not infrequently men preferred to go on horseback to avoid vexatious delays. If a wife went with her husband on one of these journeys, she usually rode behind him on a pillion. Toward the close of the colonial period, a line of rude stagewagons was put on the route (1756) between Philadelphia and New York. They made trips once a week. Their average speed was usually rather less than three miles an hour; but as the roads were rough, and the wagons had no springs, the passengers probably seldom begged to go faster. Later (1766), some enterprising individual put a new "stage new "stage" on the route. He advertised it as the "Flying-Machine "; under

To the PUBLIC.

HE FLYING MACHINE, kept by

THE
John Mercereau, at the New-Blazing-Star Ferry,

near New-York, fets off from Powles Hook every Mon-
day, Wednesday, and Friday Mornings, for Philadelphia,.
and performs the Journey in a Day and a Half, for the
Summer Seafon, till the ift of November; from that Time
to go twice a Week till the firft of May, when they
When the Stages
again perform it three Times a Week.
go only twice a Week, they fet off Mondays and Thurf
days. The Waggons in Philadelphia fet out from the
Sign of the George, in Second-street, the fame Morning.
The Passengers are defired to cross the Ferry the Evening
before, as the Stages mult let off early the next Morning.
The Price for each Paffenger is Twenty Shillings, Proc." and
Goods as ufual. Paffengers going Part of the Way to pay
in Proportion.

As the Proprietor has made fuch Improvements upon the Machines, one of which is in Imitation of a Coach, he hopes to merit the Favour of the Publick.

JOHN MERCEREAU.

FLYING MACHINE.

"Proc.": Proclamation-money or lawful money according to the proclamation

of Queen Anne in 1704.