Suffolk County, Massachusetts - The whole text, 1894 (part 1 of 17)

Trade, Commerce And Navigation

Thri-.k or foiu" years aj^o we chanced to see a learned and elaborate work, " Bruxelles a Travers les Ages," in which the history of Brussells was traced and illustrated from the vSilurian epoch, through all the geologic periods, to the time when mammals and then man appeared upon the scene, and so on to the present day. In writing of the trade and commerce of Boston, or of Suffolk county, we do not propose to go back to prehistoric times; although, for our narration to be exhaustive, it might well include some account of the fishes of the tertiary period. For the commerce of these shores had the fisheries as its basis, long before the arrival of Winthrop's fleet at Salem, or of the Mayflon'cr at Plymouth. " The settlement of Massachusetts, " saj's Sabine, "is to be traced directly to the fisheries. " A Boston newspaper writer in 1779 gave this judgment: "The Newfoundland fishery is a source of wealth as valuable to us, as the hills of Potosi to the Spaniards; " another writer in a Boston new.spaper, soon after the peace of 1783, in a series of articles on American commerce, .said that the mackerel fishery "was of more value to Massachusetts than would be the pearl fisheries of Ceylon; " and a writer in the North American Rcvirw in 185-4 expressed a similar opinion : "The Banks of Newfoundland are, have been, and ever will be, worth as much to the commercial world as the valley of the Sacramento, or the auriferous quartz ridges of the vSierra Nevada."

' ' The English resorted to Iceland for the cod previous to the year 1415, but there is no account of their fishing at Newfoundland prior to 1517." Long after this period the foreign trade of England was limited to the Flemish cities and the fishing grounds. In KiO'i Bartholomew Gosnold steered the first direct voyage across the Atlantic; he made his landfall near Salem, and, striking across to the opposite cape, he was surprised at a lari^rc catch of fish, and gave the nuw well-known name of Cape Cod to the headland. He was followed, in liiU, by the celebrated John Smith, who records that he took "forty thonsand " fish which he dried, and "seven thousand " which he "corned" or pickled, in the waters of Maine. Before Smith's visit, one or more French vessels are known to have come to Massachn.setts Bay to trade for furs; in his narrative, he says of these pre-PilgTim days : ' ' Thirty, forty, or fifty sail went yearly to America only to trade and fish, but nothinj^: would be done for a plantation till about seven hundred of your Brownists of Eng'land, Amsterdam, and Leyden went to New Plymouth; whose humourous ignorances caused them for more than a year to endure a wonderful deal of misery with an infinite patience."

When the Pilgrim company was preparing to remove from Holland, Thomas Weston advised them to go to that part of America with which he was acquainted, "as for other reasons, so chiefly for the hope of present [that is, immediate] profit to be made by fishing." Edward Winslow tells us of an interview between King James and certain agents, who had been sent from Leyden to obtain his consent to the removal to America. The monarch asked, "What profit might arise?" He was answered in a single word, " Fishing." Whereupon James replied, " So God have my soul, 'tis an honest trade; 'twas the apostles' own calling." The same purpo.se controlled the Afayflozc cr \'oya.^ers when they had arrived at Cape Cod. Some were disposed to settle at Cold Harbor, between Truro and Wcllfleet, because, with other considerations, "it seemed to ofifer some advantages both for the whale and cod fishery;" others " insisted that they should proceed about twenty leagues further, to a place called Agawam, a harbor which was known to fishermen who had been on the coast." We are all familiar with the circumstances which brought them at length to Plymouth. In the autumn of lfi-21, Miles Standish and a party, with Squanto as a guide, came into Boston harbor in a large open .sail boat or shallop, and bought 'furs from some Indian women. They have been called the Argonauts of Boston Bay. On their return to Plymouth they made report of the pleasant places they had visited, and could not help the expression of the wish that "they had been there seated." In 11)21 the Plymouth colonists sent a ship to England laden with fish, cured with salt of their own manufacture, and in the year next following, two others, with fish and furs.

Emerson wrote in ISO I: " How easy it is, after the city is built, to see. where it ought to stand ! In our beautiful bay, with its broad and deep waters covered witli sails from ever}' port; with its islands hospitably shining in the sun; with its waters bounded and marked by lighthouses, buoys, and sea-marks, every foot sounded and charted; with its shores trending- steadily from the two arms which the capes of Massachusetts stretch out to sea, down to the bottom of the bay where the city domes and spires sparkle through the haze, a good boatman can easily find his way for the first time to the State House, and wonder that Goverxior Carver had not better eyes than to stop on Plymouth sands. But it took ten years to find this out. The colony of icrio had landed at Plymouth. It was December, and the ground was covered with snow. Snow and moonlight make all places alike; and the weariness of the sea, the shrinking from cold weather, and pangs of htmger must justify them. But the next colony planted itself at Salem, and the next at Weymouth, another at Medford, before these men, instead of jumping on to the first land that offered, wisely judged that the best point for a city was at the bottom of a deep and islanded bay, where a copious river entered it, and where a bold shore was bounded by a country of rich undulating woodland."

Isaac Allerton, who gave his name to one of the most prominent points in Bo.ston Harbor, was the prototype of inany an active and intelligent merchant in later years, whose enterprise brought business to these shores and prosperity to our population. He owned vessels, conducted a fishery at Marblehead, made voyages to different parts of Maine, established a trading house far within territor}- claimed as Acadia, and in Connecticut received products of the sea for sale on a share of the profits. While devoted to trade, he was employed in arranging the most difficult concerns of the colony both at home and in England, To cross the ocean two and a half centuries ago was a matter of vast moment, but Allerton visited the country of his birth no less than five times in the brief space of four years.

Of the settlement of Boston in the autumn of KjTjO we shall not speak particularly. From the first it was a centre of life; there were no drones in the hive; every man as mechanic, agriculturist, mariner, tradesman or merchant, contributed to the welfare of the little community. In 1631 corn was constituted a legal tender at the market price, "except money or beaver be expressly nained." In 11132 Boston, following in the steps of its English namesake in Lincolnshire, became a market town ; it was " ordered that there should be a market kept at Boston upon every Thursday, the fifth day of the week." The market-place was at the head of what is now State street, and is covered in part by the Old vState House. The meeting-house - we cannot say that it overlooked the market-place, it was too lowly for that - lookc'd out upon it from the south side. The following restriction was thought to be necessary: " No planter within the limits of this jurisdiction, returning for England, shall carry either money or beaver with him, without leave from the governor, under pain of forfeiting the property." In September, 1033, John Oldham, with three companions, went by land to the Connecticut River, which, on his return, he reported to be about one hundred and sixty miles from the Bay. He and his party had "lodged at Indian towns all the way," and brought back some beaver, scmie hemp, which, they said, grew there in great abundance, and was much better than the EngHsh, and some black lead, "wiiereof the Indians told them there w^as a whole rock." In the mean time a vessel of thirty tons, the Blessing of the Bay, which Governor Winthrop had built at Mystic, w'here he had a farm. Ten Hills, "coasted Long Island, looked into the Connecticut River, and visited the Dutch settlement at the mouth of the Hudson, where her people found a courteous reception, and bartered their commodities for some beaver. " Thus early did the business men of the future port take pains to establish communication with places beyond the limits of the colony. In 1034 the freemen numbered about three hundred and fifty. The historian says: "They were settling into such employments as their situation dictated. They cultivated the ground, and took care of herds and flocks. They hunted and fished for a part of their food. They W'cre building houses, boats, mills; enclosing land with fences, and cutting roads throiigh the forest to connect their towns. Their exports of cured fish, furs and lumber bought them articles of convenience and luxury in England, and they were soon to build ships to be sold abroad." Ten thousand bushels of corn were imported this year from Virginia. The price of this commodity had advanced to four shillings and sixpence a bushel, and in the winter the currency rate was fixed at five shillings. In the summer of 1635 Governor Vane "invited all the masters (there were then fifteen great ships in the harbor) to dinner," and he arranged with them that thereafter vessels bound to Boston .should anchor below the castle until their friendly character could be ascertained ; that the magistrates should have the first offer of commodities which they brought; and that their men might not stay on shore, except upon necessary business, after sunset.

The Rev. Hug'h Peter had come to New England with Harry Vane and John Winthrop, jr., and had been settled as minister at Salem. His keen eye was quick to see the commercial capabilities of the conntrv, and he set himself to work to develop them. He "went from place to place, laboring both publicly and privately to rai.se up men to a public frame of spirit, and so prevailed as he procured a good sum of money to be raised to set on foot the fishing business, and wrote into England to raise as much more." During his residence and ministry Salem took the lead in maritime affairs, and claimed to become the capital ; but, after his departure for England, Boston acquired the ascendency, and was inade the seat of government.

In l(j;5(i one of Mr. Cradock's vessels "came from Bermuda with thirty thousand weight of potatoes, and store of oranges and limes." In the spring of 1638 there were fourteen ships in the Thames loading for New England, among them the Desire, William Pierce master, launched at Marblehead two or three years before. In the month of November, l(i39, a post-office for foreign correspondence was set up in Bo.ston. It was on the site now occupied \>y the Boston Daily Advertiser. Richard Fairbanks, then the only inn-keeper in the town, was postmaster, and was authorized to collect one penny (two cents) on every letter delivered or received by him. It was "provided that no man be compelled to bring his letters thither except he please."

By an act passed in 1(339 for the encouragement of the fisheries, it was provided that all vessels and other property employed in taking, curing and transporting fish, according to the usual course of fishing voyages, should be exempt from duties and public taxes for seven years ; and that all fishermen during the season for their business, as well as shipbuilders, should be excused from the performance of military duty. The wisdom of this policy of promotion - not protection - for ocean commerce soon became apparent. Lechford, in his " News from New England " (printed in London in 1642), says that the people were " setting on the manufacture of linen and cotton cloth, and the fishing trade, " that they were "building of ships, and had a good store of barks, ketches, lighters, shallops and other vessels," and that "they had builded and planted to admiration for the time." In Ki-tl John Harrison, from Salisbury, England, began to make rope in Boston. Until then nearly every kind of rigging and tackle had been brought from England. The establishment of this industry had a very important bearing on the future shipbuilding and shipowning interests of the town. The Jnisiness went on increasing- for nearly a century, when fourteen extensive rope-walks were in operation. In December, 1043, as we learn from Winthrop, five ships, three of them built in Massachusetts, carried "many passengers and great store of beaver" to London, being followed on their way by '-many prayers of the churches." This return movement to England was one result of the success of the Puritan party there in its struggle with Charles I. At the same time the emigration to New England was suddenly and utterly suspended ; " the change made all men to stay in England in expectation of a new world," Parliament sought to promote the commercial as well as political freedom of the country, and New England was included in its legislative provisions to this end. A step still in advance was taken, says Palfrey, in the development of the trade of Massachusetts when a Boston vessel brought wines, pitch, sugar and ginger from Teneriffe in exchange for corn; and another yet, when the Trial, the first ship built in Boston, being about a hundred and sixty tons, Mr. Thomas Graves, " an able and a godly man, master of her," carried a freight of fi.sh to Bilboa, and came home from Malaga in the spring of 1644 "laden with wine, fruit, oil, iron and wool, which vi'as of great advantage to the country, and gave encouragement to trade." In 1G45 fishing vessels from Boston ventured as far as to the Banks of Newfoundland.

In 1(144 Winthrop had been succeeded in the governorship by John Endicott, partly from local considerations, a marked jealousy of the growing town of Boston manifesting itself in Essex county, and partly because of serious dissatisfaction outside Boston with Winthrop's course in negotiating with and as.sisting La Tour, one of the governors of Acadia, who occupied a fortified position at the mouth of the St. John River, and who obtained large sums of money and supplies from the Boston merchants, to their subsequent heavy loss. Edv\-ard Gibbons and Thomas Hawkins furnished four .ships to him, the Scahridgc, the Philip and Mary, the Increase and the Greyhoiiiul. We refer to La Tour and his negotiations with the authorities of Massachusetts Bay for the purpose of noticing a proposal made by him for free trade between his ports and the ports of New England, and for an arrangement by which he might import through New England commodities from Europe. The recjucst for free trade was complied with; the other was refu.sed. After the lapse of two centuries, the adjacent colonies were allowed to transport merchandise from and to Europe through New England ports, and for a few years, under what is known as the Rec- iprocity Treaty of 185-1, there was absolute free trade between the adjacent colonies and this country in the products of the soil, the mine and the sea.

In the summer of 1 (UT, Governor Peter Stuyvesant, havini;- arrived at New York and assumed the government there, sent his secretary to Boston with letters to the governor, ' ' with a tender of all courtesy and good correspondence."

A few years after this and when, as Palfrey says, England had as much business on her hands as could easily be managed, and when, if she should become rigorous to her distant children, they were sure of being welcomed to the protection of another great Protestant power - the Dutch - now preparing to contest with her the empire of the seas, "the Massachusetts people ventured on what was liable to be interpreted as a pretension of independent sovereignty. They imdertook to coin money. The brisk trade with the West Indies introduced a quantity of Spanish silver, and along with it there was much counterfeit coin brought into the country, and much loss accruing in that respect." By the act of June 10, 1<),52, the General Court established a mint, and appointed as mintmaster John Hull, one of the richest and most thoroughly trusted men in the colony, an excellent man of business, and an extensive shipowner at the time, but who had laid the foundation of his fortune as a worker in the precious metals.

With !Mr. Hull was associated Robert Sanderson, afterward a deacon in the First Church, Boston. They were to receive "bullion, plate, or Spanish coin," and convert it " into twelve-penny, si.x-penny, and threepenny pieces, which should be for form flat, and square on the sides, and stamped on the one side with N. E. and on the other side with XII*, VI"^, and III'', according to the value of each piece, together with a privy mark, which should be appointed every three months by the governor and known only to him and the sworn officers of the mint." The mintmasters took an oath that all money coined by them should be "of the just alloy of the English coin, that every shilling should be of due-weight, namely, three penny troy weight, and all other pieces proportionately, so near as they could." The charge for melting, refining and coining was fixed at fifteen pence for every twenty .shillings. John Hull made a large sum of money otit of the business, but he put it to a good use, and it was generally felt that his prosperity was well deserved.

It would seem that no pieces " square on the sides" were ever coined. Within a few days after the passage of the order, a committee appointed to oversee its execution "determined and dechired that the officers for the minting of money should coin all the money that they minted in a round form." It is said that the earliest pieces were called in New England North-Easters. By a second vote adopted in the autumn of the same year, "for the prevention of washing or clipping," it was ordered "that henceforth all pieces of money coined as aforesaid, should have a double ring on either side, with this inscription, Massachusetts, and a tree in the centre, on the one side; and New England, and the year of our Lord, on the other side." There were as many as sixteen different dies of the second form of the shilling piece; the coins are commonly known as pine-tree shillings, but there is no legal authority for this, and the rude form of a tree on the obverse, taken from the design entered on the journals of the Court, bears no special resemblance to a pine. A singular deviation in the legend should be mentioned: Masathusets is the uniform spelling on the face of the coins. We have seen this form of spelling in documents of the same period. All the coins of the various issues preserved the date of the year when the mint was established, 1052. This money and sterling money were declared to be the only legal tender, after three months from the date of the original act.

Fortunately for the colonists, their nominal rulers beyond the sea were too far away, and too much occupied with their own more immediate and pressing concerns, to follow them very closely in all their proceedings, and to hold them steadily and persistently to a strict account. As one consecjuence of this state of things, the coinage of money in Massachusetts went on for many years without any serious protest from England. Cromw^ell took no notice of it during the period of the Coinmonwealth, and for some time after the restoration of the monarchy no very pronounced objection was made to it. To smooth matters over with Charles II, the General Court, in KmT, ordered the shipment of a present to him, consisting of "ten barrels of cranberries, two hogsheads of samp, and three thousand codfish." (Hume says that the usual oath of Charles was "Cod's fish.") During the administration of Sir Edmund Andros endeavors were used to obtain the sanction of the crown for the continued coinage of silver here, in view of the imdoubted advantage it had brought to colonial interests. Finally the (piestion was referred to the master of the mint in London, who, on prudential considerations, and not as an encroachment upon the royal prerogative, reported against the local mint, and its operations were brought to a close.

After the conquest of Ireland by Cromwell, the extraordinary proposition was made by him to the people of Massachusetts to recross the ocean, and to plant Protestant civilization in the sister island. Writing to the Protector upon this proposition, in behalf of the General Court, Endicott said that they would not "hinder any families or persons to remove to any parts of the world where God called them," but that they were enjoying health, plenty, peace, the liberty and ordinances of the gospel, and an opportimity for spreading the knowledge of it among savages, and that, content with these blessings, they had no desire to change their abode. A few years later, in lGo5, the Protector advanced another plan for their emigration to Jamaica, which then had only fifteen hundred white population. He offered tempting inducements to this end, and instructed Daniel Gookin, then in London, to return home and urge them upon the people. In an audience which he gave to John Leverett, Cromwell manifested a very strong desire for the execution of this scheme, and said that "he did apprehend the people of New England had as clear a call to transport themselves from thence to Jamaica, as they had from England to New England, in order to their bettering their outward condition, God having promised his people should be the head, and not the tail." But the Massachusetts settlers could not be persuaded or tempted to change their lot again. As the historian says: " The)- might well be satisfied with their condition and their pro.spects. Everything was prospering with them. They had established comfortable homes, which they felt strong enough to defend against any power but the power of the mother country; and that was friendly. They had always the good will of Cromwell. In relation to them he allowed the navigation law, which pressed hard on the Southern colonies, to become a dead letter, and they received the commodities of all nations free of duty, and sent their ships at will to the ports of continental Europe." To the navigation act, and to the extension of the principle on which it was based, we shall have occasion to refer again and again.

The mai-ket place was the centre of the town life. Everybody resorted to it for business and for gossip, and there the rude pdnishments of the time were inflicted upon recalcitrant offenders. The whipping-post and the stocks occvipied prominent positions in the open space, and danger- ous and heretical books had been burned there in the presence of awestricken spectators. In 1 (;:T a cage was set up there for the confinement and exposure of tliose who had violated the laws relating- to the observance of the Sabbath. In lUoT it was determined to build a town house and exchange on a part of the market place. Robert Keaync had by his will Icftiuoney for the purpose, but the amount was not sufficient, and a subscription paper was opened, which has been preserved to the present day. The amount raised was ;^135.4, but most of the subscriptions were payable in merchandise. Hezekiah Usher subscribed £'l(\ payable in English goods, William Payne, ^15 in goods and provisions, Richard Bellingham, ^10 in country pay, Edward Tyng, ;^10 in corn, jdlm Evered, ^^10 in goods and corn, Peter Oliver, £\0 in goods and provisions, Theodore Atkinson, £o in hats, John Hull, £?> in English goods, Samuel Hutchinson, ^5 in wethers. Thomas Little showed his public spirit by putting his name down for three days' work. Only two cash .subscriptions appear on the list: William Paddy, £\i, and Henry Shrimpton, ,-^10. The former had just moved from Plymouth, where he had been a deacon of the church, and died before the completion of the building. Under a contract with a committee of the town, dated August 1, IGO;, Thomas Joy and Bartholomew Bernard agreed to erect "a very substantial and comely building " of wood, sixty-six feet long by thirty-six feet wide, " set upon twenty-one pillars of full ten foot high between pedestal and capital, and well braced all four ways, placed upon foundation of stones in the bottom. The whole building to jetty over three foot without the pillars every way: the height of the said house to be ten foot betwixt joints above the pillars, and a half story above that with three gable ends over it upon each side." John Josselyn mentions the "town-house, built upon pillars, where the merchants may confer. In the chambers above they keep their monthly courts." The exchange was open to the weather, but it may have been more or less enclosed during the winter season. Judge Sewall, in his diary, describes the funeral of a sea captain, Thomas Smith, which took place there, November 10, 1088, and very appropriately, as it would seem, in the presence of the merchants and of his seafaring friends: " Where the corpse was set was the room where first my father [in law] Hull had me to see the manner of the merchants, I suppo.se now about twelve years ago. Bearers, Captain Prout, Fayerweather, William Clarke, Foye, Tanner, Legg. " The first building was burned in I'll; the second, erected in \',\-l, was badly

During the Civil War in England a parliamentary cominission had been intrusted with the superintendence of colonial affairs. In the first year of the Restoration, this con^mission was succeeded by a Council of Foreign Plantations, which \\as invested with similar powers. We have here the origin of the English Board of Trade, which, for more than two hundred years, has been one of the most influential departments of the imperial government.

In 1060 the Navigation Act of the Commonwealth was made the basis of stricter and more exclusive legislation. This act had been conceived in a spirit of hostility to the Dutch, particularly because of their refusal to enter into a close alliance with England which might have led to their political tmion with that country. It provided that all imports into England from Asia, Africa and America, should be brought in English ships, and from Europe, onh' in vessels of the countries respectively of which the goods imported were the growth or manufacture. No salt fish could be imported, except such as had been caught and cured by the people of England ; nor exported, except in English bottoms. These provisions would have worked most injuriously against the commercial interests of New England, if they had been adhered to rigidly, but, as we have said, Cromwell had allowed the law to be a dead letter, so far as they were concerned. But the new parliament forbade the importation of merchandise into any English colony, except in English vessels, with English crews, and, specifying various colonial staples, it prohibited their exportation from the place of production. The penalty in botli cases was forfeiture of the vessel and cargo. But, as Palfrey shows, there were articles of New England production which the demand in England, whether for consumption or for commerce, could not exhaust; while it concerned the English merchants that the colonists should somehow obtain money to pay for English manufactures. Accordingly, New England vessels were permitted to carry freights of lumber, fish, etc., to "Spain and other ports," and to bring to England only the proceeds of the sales. By further legislation in 16G3, the import trade of the colonists was confined to a direct commerce with the mother country, and they were forbidden to bring from any other country, or in any but English ships, the products not only of England, but of any European soil. There were certain exceptions, however ; salt might be imported direct for the

The prevalent thought in the mother country was that the colonists should live and labor with supreme and constant reference to its commercial interests rather than to tlieir own. New England was regarded as a most important source of supply for shipbuilding materials, and to some extent for ships, and, through its fisheries, as a valuable nursery for seamen. But the people of New England - we mean, of course, those living on the coast and at the seaports, of whom the business men of Boston were the representatives and factors - had altogether different ideas. They were already under the influence of the commercial instinct, which was to develop so wonderfully in the eighteenth, and during the first half of the nineteenth centuries, and they became, inevitably, a shipowning and commercial community. They not only chafed against, but, in effect, they nullified, the oppressive legislation which was intended to restrain and restrict thbir enterprise ; and they refused to content thein.selves with the function of supplying the merchants of England with the implements of ocean commerce, and to forego, on their own part, all right or opportunity of sharing in the profits of trading voyages. They understood perfectly, that to own and employ tonnage is vastly more remunerative than merely to construct it, and they persisted in using for their own benefit a con.siderable portion of the shipping built here. It was this that led Sir Josiah Child, a great London merchant, to write: "New England is the most prejudicial plantation to this kingdom. " And why? Because, he said, "of all the American plantations, his Majesty has none so apt for building of shipping as New England, nor any comparably so qualified for the breeding of seamen, not only by reason of the natitral industry of that pecjple, but principally by reason of their cod and mackerel fishcries; and in my poor opinion, there is nothing more prejudicial, and in prospect more dangerous, to any mother kingdom, than the increase of shipping in her colonies, ^plantations or provinces. " Bacon, in one of his Essays, had taken a more just and liberal view, but he wrote these some time before the settlement of Boston, vSalem or Plymouth. His judgment was: " Let there be freedom from custom, till the plantation be of strength ; and not only freedom from cu.stom, but freedom to carry their commodities where they may make the best of them, except there be some special catise of caution."

with regard to them had always in view to secure to herself the monopoly of their commerce; to confine their market, and to enlarge her own at their expense ; and consequently rather to damp and discourage than to quicken and forward the course of their prosperity." This policy he calls " one of the mean and malignant expedients of the ' mercantile system,' "

John Hull records in his diary that in 1G64 one hundred sail of ships came into Boston Harbor, "our own and strangers, and all loaded home." In the same year commissioners arrived from England, with large powers, who were instructed to inform themselves " of the true and whole state " of the several colonies, and to bring the colonists into more direct and dependent relations to the crown. Among other information they were to send home a report of the amount and methods of taxation, and of the amount of the tonnage ; and they were to take care that such orders were established "that the Act of Navigation should be punctually observed. " We need not relate at this time the long- stor}' of the negotiations between the royal commissioners and the authorities here, or show how the former were baffled and defeated at every stage. After two years of ineffectual endeavor, the commissioners took leave of the General Court of Massachusetts in a communication in which they said: " Since you will needs misconstrue all these letters and endeavors, and that you will make use of that authority which he hath given you to oppose that sovereignty which he hath over you, we shall not lose more of our labors upon you, but refer it to his Majesty's wisdom, who is of power enough to make himself to be obeyed in all his dominions." The Court saw an opportunity, however, of which it availed itself, to pacify' the king, whom it was in the habit of treating as a petted child. Palfrey well says of Charles, that " Massachusetts desired no favor of him but neglect, and had received no favor from him to attach her b}^ ties of gratitude." Hull records the arrival, Ai-igu.st 7, 1G66, "of Captain Peirce with several .ships for masts for the king." There was a mast fleet, whose regular movement back and forth across the Atlantic is mentioned by Judge Sewall and others during a period of fifty years and more. At this juncture, as Palfrey points out, the Court was disposed to lighten in any proper way the difficult task it had assumed, and it took measures for sending to the king a present of masts for the use of the royal navy. "It cost the colony nearly two thousand pounds, and was very gratefully received in England, being so seasonable that it was afterwards thoui.-ht to have materially contributed to the favorable issue of the existTng- war with France." Pepys writes, December 3, 1060: "There is also the very good news of four New England ships coine home safe to Falmouth with masts for the king; which is a blessing mighty unexpected, and without which, if for nothing else, we must have failed the next year."

On tlie 8th of May, 1074, an Order in Council cancelled the order adopted thirteen years before, by which vessels from New England were permitted to carry cargoes to continental ports and bring the proceeds of their sale to England. The Rev. John Collins wrote to Governor Leverett at this time: " I hear that the king is offended that some of your ships take in their lading from Virginia, and go to France and defraud his customs, as also from other plantations." During the next few years the business men of Boston suffered not only from the restrictions which the home government sought to place upon their foreign commerce, but from two destructive fires, and from the severe struggle known in our history as Philip's War. For this war Massachusetts showed an outlay of ;^4(i,-2'.)-2, and the assessment on property in one year was one shilling and four pence in the pound, or nearly .seven per cent, on the vahtation.

Early in the summer of 1070, Edward Randolph for the first time appeared upon the scene, as an agent of the crown to inquire into and report upon the various complaints which had been brought against the colonists. We have to do only with those which related to their commerce. After having been officially received at the Council Chamber, Randolph called on the governor at his house and formally complained of the infractions of the Act of Navigation,, which, during the few days which had passed since his arrival, had come under his notice. He had seen "several ships that were arrived at Boston, some since his being there, from Spain, France, Straits, Canaries, and other parts of Europe." He obtained little satisfaction from the authorities, and after a stay of two months he returned to England and made a report of what he had seen and heard. From this report we gather information, approximately correct, no doubt, relating to the shipping and shipbuilding enterprise of the people at the time of which he wrote. He gave his attention almost entirely to the colony " commonh* called the corporation of l-!oston," which at the present time, he said, "gives laws to a great part of this country. " According to his statement, the people of Massachusetts (represented largely by the people of Boston) imported the products of other colonies, both for home consumption and for shipment "to other parts." They had commerce with "most parts of Europe, as England, Scotland, Ireland, .Spain, Portugal, France, Holland, Canaries and the Hanse Towns, carrying to each place such commodities as were vendible, either of their own growth and manufacture or those of the other plantations, and making their returns in stxch goods as were necessary and vendible either in New England or in an)' other of his Majesty's dominions in America; as brand)', Canary, Spanish and French wines, bullion, salt, fruits, oils, silks, laces, linen of all sorts, cloths, serges, bays, kerseys, stockings, and many other commodities." Some vessels had been sent as far as "to Guinea, Madagascar, and those coasts, and .some to Scanderoon, laden with masts and yards for ships." Boston was " the mart town of the West Indies." There was "no notice taken of the Act of Navigation, plantation, or any other laws made in England for the regulation of trade." Of vessels "built in and belonging to that jurisdiction," there were thirty mea.suring between one hundred and two hundred and fifty tons, besides seven hundred of smaller size. There were also " several vessels yearly built there and sold in England and other parts." "Good ships were built for four pounds the ton."

The importance of the royal navy, and of New England as producing timber and naval stores for its use, is brought out in this report: " The commodities of the production, growth and manufacture of New England are all things necessary for shipping and naval furniture in great abundance, as excellent oak, elm, "beech, fir, pine for masts the best in the world, pitch, tar, hemp, and iron not inferior to that of Bilboa, clapboards, pipe-staves, planks, and deal boards, so that his Majesty need not be beholding to other nations for naval stores."

From an account of New England, written at about the same time by William Harris, of Rhode Island, we obtain some further information: " They build every year, about Boston, .Salem, and in that jurisdiction, twelve ships between forty and eighty tons. . . . The merchants seem to be rich men, and their houses as handsomely furnished as most in London. . . . Their wool they carry to France and bring thence linen. Fish, pipe-staves, wool and tobacco they exchange in Spain and Portugal for wines and other commodities ; beaver, moose and deer skins, sugar and logwood, in England, for cloths and manufactures of iron; horses, beef, pork, butter, cheese, flour, pease, biscuit, etc., in Barbadoes, for sugar and indigo; provisions in Jamaica for pieces of eight, Spanish plate, and pigs of silver."

In l(u7 the first regular post-office in Boston was established in response to the following petition of prominent merchants to the General Court : "We whose names are under written hearing many complaints made by merchants and others (and severall of us being sensible) of the loss of letters: whereby merchants especially with their friends and imployers in forraigne parts are greatly damnified : Many times the letters imposted are thrown upon the Exchange so that who will may take them up; no person (without some .satisfaction) being willing to trouble their houses therewith: so that Letters of Great moment are frequently lost -

"Our humble request therefore to this Honored Court is: that they will please to depute some meet person, to take in, and convey Letters according to direction: and if this Honored Court please, we suppose Lt. Richard Way may be a fitt person for that service." The petition .was signed by Thomas Brattle, Thomas Deane, Hezekiah U.sher, John U.sher, Charles Lidget, Benjamin Davis, John Fayerweather, John Frost, Richard Crisp, Sampson Sheafe, Edward Shippen, Richard Knight, John Hubbard, Edward Drinker, Henry Dering, John Clarke, John Pynchon, jr. In granting the desire of the petitioners, the deputies made a nomination of their own: " and in Richard Ways rome [theyj doe make choice of Mr. John Hay ward the scrivener to be the man, the Honored Magistrates consenting." The magistrates concurred.

The rate of postage to and from England was fixed at a .shilling for a single letter, and this rate was maintained until after the middle of the present century. In the same year, at the same (May) session of the Court, the " Handycraftsmen, a very considerable part of the Town of Boston," to the number of one hundred and twenty-nine, presented a memorial praying for protection in their several callings under the following circumstances: The}^ complained that "by the frequent intruding of strangers from all parts, especially of such as are not desirably qualified," they found themselves " under great disadvantages and prejudicial to the town; and many times the stranger draws away much of the custom from his neighbor which hath been long settled and in reality is much more the deserving man." The memorialists asked for the regular and effectual execution of the orders relating to the admission of inhabitants, and that tradesmen should fulfill a sufficient apprenticeship and be proficient before they set up for themselves. The subject was referred to a committee, but whether any subsequent action was taken, we do not know.

At the close of the year 1070 Randolph arrived in Boston for the second time, bringing an appointment as "collector, surveyor, and searcher" for all the colonies in New England, and a letter from the king, enjoining, among other matters, "a strict obedience to the Acts of Trade and Navigation." He proceeded without delay to one part of the business committed to him, and had several vessels seized with their lading ; but to secure the condemnation of this property was altogether another thing, for the courts and the juries, representing public opinion, were not disposed to help him in any way. "His Majesty's authority," he said, "and the Acts of Trade were disowned openly in the country, and I was cast in all these cases, and damages [were] given again.st his Majesty. " He drew iip a formal paper in which he made complaint against "the Bostoneers " under eight heads; under the eighth he averred: "They violate all the Acts of Trade and Navigation, by which the)' have engrossed the greatest part of the West India trade, whereby your Majesty is damnified in the customs _;^100,000 yearly, and the kingdom much more."

In his zeal for the cause of the crown as against the colonists, and in (jrder that he might be armed with new powers for the conflict into which he had thrown himself, Randolph went back to England in the spring of KjSl, and returned again in December of the same year. He bore a royal commission for his collectorship, and a new appointment as " deputy auditor and surveyor-general;" he brought also a letter from the king, much more positive and decided than any which had preceded it, in which the threat was distinctly made that, iinless the colonists submitted themselves in all particulars to the royal authority, proceedings would be entered upon in the coiarts whereby the charter, with all the powers under it " might be legally evicted and made void." This threat produced a certain degree of compliance with the requirements of the king; an address to him, loyal in tone, but general in terms, was agreed to by the General Court, in which his longer forbearance was entreated ; and, what had been many times asked for but hitherto delayed, two agents, Joseph Dudley and John Richards, were dispatched to England, to make explanations, and receive direct instructions. It was ordered that the Acts of Trade and Navigation shmild "be forthwith published in the market-place in Boston by beat of drum, and that all clauses in said acts relating to this plantation should be strictly taken notice of and observed." The agents were to give assurance to the king, "that the Acts of Trade, so far as they concerned the colony, should be strictly observed, and that all due encouragement and assistance should be given to his Majesty's officers and informers that might prosecute the breaches of said Acts of Trade and Navigation." As to the old grievance - the coinage of money, the agents w^ere directed to ask the king's pardon for the past, and, for the future, his "gracious allowance therein, it being so exceedingly necessary for civil commerce."

While thus respectful in terms, and, in appearance, compliant with the royal demands, the General Court took care to reserve, in effect, to the colony all its rights in connection with trade, and placed checks and limitations on the appointee of the crown for the collection of the customs, which were likely to interfere seriously with the exercise by him of the powers with which his office was endowed. The wily official, however, was not deceived ; he understood the men with whom he was dealing as thoroughly as they imderstood him. He had the royal authority and the courtiers at his back ; they appreciated the advantages of their position, on the hither side of the broad intervening ocean, and they had the encouragement and moral support of many sympathizing friends in England. " The distance of place, and hopes of troubles at home, with the many scandalous papers sent hither for the benefit and comfort of the ill-affected, make this party thus daringly presume." Thus wrote Randolph, in an official letter, in connection with certain "high articles of misdemeanor exhibited against a faction in the General Court;" in these "articles," he charges the authorities with refusing to " declare and admit of his Majesty's letters-patent," creating the office of collector of customs in New England ; of obstructing him by the revival of a law which constituted a colonial naval officer; of usurping, in the General Court, judicial powers confined by the charter to the governor and assistants; of neglecting to repeal their laws " contrary to the laws of England; " and of disregarding the king's letters-patent, " creating an office of surveyor and auditor-general of his Majesty's revenues arising in America."

James Russell was appointed naval officer, with the duty of watching the proceedings of the collector. The office is perpetuated in our custom-house system, as at present administered ; it now has no political significance, and nothing whatevei" to do with the rights of the people as against prerogative: it is simply an agency - a somewhat cumbrous one - for checking, by duplicate papers and account-books, the transactions in the office of the collector.

Randolph followed his "articles of high misdemeanor" to England, April, ](i.S->, and, immediately on his arrival, was ordered to supply the attorney-general with proofs of his charges against the Massachusetts government. The business had been matured beforehand, and the fonnal proceedings took little time. Before he had been a month in England, says Palfrey, "he had virtually accomplished the object of his ambition and revenge. The blow with which the colony had so long been threatened was struck. The writ was issued, which summoned it to stand, for the defense of its political existence and of the liberty and property of its people, at the bar of a court in London."

In October, Randolph reappeared in New England with the notification of the proceedings against the charter. He brought, also, a "Declaration" from the king, promising that the proceedings should not be pressed to their final stage, if " the corporation of the Massachusetts Bay" should make full submission, and resign itself to the royal plea.sure. This the court of assistants was ready to do ; but the deputies, who more directly represented the people, were not so subservient, and refused to concur. They made a noble stand for their liberty, and for the cause of religion, which, they felt, was boimd up with it. " It is better," they said, "to suffer, than to sin and suffer too." On the commercial question involved, we cpiote a paragraph from an elaborate paper, prepared, perhaps, by Thomas Danforth, the deput3'-governor, who ably maintained the popular cause: " If his jNIajesty should prohibit trade with other plantations, will not he have the worst of it? The people can make a shift to live poorly without much trade ; for here is wool, flax, hemp, iron, and many other useful things, and hands enough to make them up for use, besides many ships and vessels which will venture abroad, and some possibly may and will return home in safety, and bring supply of what is absf)lutely wanted. " These men were running tremendous risks ; but in a contest for liberty, on the part of a nation, actual or potential, can the stakes ever be too high?

By a change in the legal proceedings in London, which need not be considered here, the charter of Massachusetts Bay was vacated by a decree in the Court of Chancery, June "21, confirmed, October 2:5, 1()84. Owing to the death of Charles, the accession of James, and other stir- ing events, a year and a half passed before Randolph, Maj- 14, 1686, landed in Boston from the frigate Rose, with an exemplification of the judgment against the charter, and commissions for the officers of a new government. A provisional government was constituted, with Joseph Dudley as president, which continued until the closing month of the year, when Sir Edmund Andros arrived in Boston, bearing a commission for the government of all New England.

The government of Sir Edmund Andros lasted two years and four months, and was brought to an abrupt and violent end by the revolution in New England which synchronized with the uprising at home, when the second James was driven from England and William and Mary were established on the Briti.sh throne. " Again Englishmen were free and self-governed in the settlements of New England." During the years known as the inter-charter period, business enterprise must have become discouraged, and general trade, no doubt, languished, but we have no particular knowledge on the subject. The colonial shipping, however, would seem to have found its wonted employment, without intermission. We learn from one of Randolph's custom-house returns, that there were cleared at the port of Boston, in the half year between March 25 and September 31), 1G88, seven vessels for England (all bound to London); one, for Fayal ; two, for Madeira; one, for Holland; eleven, for Bilboa; one, for the Canary Islands; eighty-four, for Barbadoes, Jamaica, and the other West India Islands ; thirty-two, for other North American colonies ; one, for Portugal ; and one for Cadiz. Almo.st all these vessels were owned in Boston, and were "plantation built." The coasters and the vessels trading to the West Indies were of thirty, twenty and ten tons' measurement. There is an instance of a vessel of only seven tons; her cargo consisted of "provisions" - one pipe of Madeira, two chests of Rhenish wine, some earthenware, and "a parcel of English goods." Within the same time there were entered at the port of Boston thirty-seven vessels from other North American colonies; eighty-nine, from the West Indies; twenty-one, from England; two, from Madeira; four, from Fayal; and one, from Ireland. This last vessel was of forty tons burden, and her only cargo was "thirty-one men and women servants, being bound for Virginia." We give the names of some of the vessels, with their captains, which passed the custom-house at this period :

Trade And Commerce

Nelson; ketch Ahii:;ail, Andrew Eliot; ketch Mary, Jonathan Balston ; bark Lydia, Benjamin Gillam; ship Society, ninety tons, four guns, ten men, Thomas Fayerweather ; ship A'ci'is McrtTiant, Timothy Clarke; ship Sical/ozc, John Eldridoe; brig Sylvaiius, of Charlestown, Bartholomew Green; ship Dolphin, John Foye; ketch Lark, John Walley; ketch Saiinici, Giles Fifield; ketch Fricndsliip, thirty tons, six men, Th(jmas Winsor; ship Swa/i, Andrew Belcher; brigantine Supply, John Hunt; ship Rebecca, John Hobby; ketch George, Andrew Eliot; brigantine y)/(X\7'«<,>-, of Charlestown, Bartholomew Green; -pink Endeavor, Simon Eyre; bark Trial, Barachiah Arnold; ship Friendship, one hundred tons, fourteen guns, John Ware; sloop Providence, John Rainsford.

When Edward Randolph returned to Boston with the exemplification of the judgment against the charter, he brought with the rest of his commissions one by which he assumed the duties of postmaster for New England. On the overthrow of the Andros government, Mr. Richard Wilkins, bookseller, was appointed postmaster in Boston, "to receive all letters and deliver them out ; to receive one penny for each single letter." In Ki'.ll, under William and Mary, a patent was granted to Thomas Neale, authorizing and empowering him "to erect, settle and establish within the chief parts of their Majesties' Colonies and Plantations in America an office or offices for the receiving and despatching letters and packets;" the grantee was to receive "such rates and sums of money as the planters should agree to give." Under this patent a " General Letter Office " was established in Boston in 1093, and Duncan Campbell received the appointment of deputy. As the receipts of the office fell short of the expenditures, the General Court granted Campbell an annual allowance of about five and twenty pounds.

The first governor under the new charter was vSir William Phipps, a native of Maine, who was brought up to the ship-carpenter's trade, and afterward followed the seas. It was said of him that he was "much better fitted to manage the crew of a man-of-war than to sit at the helm of the ship of state," but he was honest and true, and served his country to the best of his ability. He landed at Boston in May, li)92, and a few months later another man arrived here, whose training had been somewhat similar to his, and who afterward made a name for himself that will not soon be forgotten. This was Thomas Coram, the philanthropist. He came here at the charge of Thomas Hupt and others, London merchants, and under government permission and protection, "for the better improvement of shipbuilding in these parts;" and he brought with him "divers shipwrights and other proper and necessary hands, and also a great quantity of merchandise." He built in Boston for a few years and then moved to Taunton, where he was not well treated, and in 1T03 returned to England. On the 1st of October, 1702, a register was issued to Captain Coram for the ship Kcsignatwn, of about two hundred tons, just built at Taunton, in which he was styled master, and he and Thomas Hunt were designated as owners.

In May, KiDij, the Board of Trade and Plantations, the members of which were to be known as "the Lords of Trade," succeeded to the authority first exercised by the Council for Trade and Foreign Plantations, and afterwards by the plantation committees of the Privy Council. Let us look for a moment at the functions of this Board from the English point of view. Says Chalmers: "Of this respectable commission it has ever been the praise that they have exerted themselves as the guardians of the national interests, as the patrons of the colonies, as the supporters of the commercial system of Britain, though their success hath not been always equal to their intentions and their efforts, because their powers were not proportionate to the extent of their will." But - what was never taken into the account by this Board - there were colonial as well as national interests, and there were enterprising colonists who wanted, not patronage, but the free exercise of their rights, and who were not disposed to square all their transactions by the artificial arrangements of a commercial system constructed without reference to their wants or wishes. It was not long before Massachusetts protested against the acts of the Board; and the merchants of Boston expressed their indignation at the restrictions which it would place upon their commerce, and insisted that "they were as much Englishmen as those in England, and had a right, therefore, to all the privileges which the people of England enjoyed." What the inevitable consequences of all this were to be we shall see in due time.

An order passed by the General Court June 15, 1090, provided for a market to be held in Boston every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, and no other days. A bell was to be rung at the opening of the market, at 7 a. m. from March to May; at 0 a. m. from May until September; and after that at 9 a. m. The market was to last till 0 p. m. between March and September, and until 4 p. m. during the rest of the year. No sales were to be made elsewhere. Fairs also were to be held annually on the last Tuesday in May and the last Tuesday in October, and to continue four days.

Lord Bellomont, the second governor under the new charter, an amiable nobleman, whose commission also included New York, spent only one year in Boston. He observed closely, however, while he was here, and in writing home he said: " I believe one may venture to say there are more good vessels belonging to the town of Boston than to all Scotland and Ireland. " He thus classed the ships belonging to the town : from one hundred to three hundred tons, twenty-five ; one hundred tons and under, thirty-eight ; brigantines, fifty ; ketches, thirteen ; sloops, sixty-seven ; in all one hundred and ninety-three. This was for the year 1G98. Some merchants at Boston, he said, with whom he discoursed about the trade of the province, "computed that Boston had four times the trade of New York." "The staple " in Massachusetts was " the fishery." " They compute at Boston that they ship off fifty thousand quintals of dry fish every year, about three-quarters whereof is sent to Bilboa. " There were sixty-three wharves in Boston and fourteen in Charlestown. The governor died in New York in 1701.

To provide further for the accommodation of the commerce of the town. Long Wharf was projected in 1707 by Oliver Noyes, Anthony Stoddard, John George, Daniel Oliver and others. Among the proprietors of this wharf in 1734, were James Allen, Samuel Sewall (son of Judge Sewall), Thomas Fitch, Jacob Wendell, Andrew Faneuil, John Gerrish, James Bowdoin, Thomas Hill, Andrew Oliver, Peter Oliver and Stephen Boutineau.

Governor Dudley reported to the Lords of Trade in 1709: "The people here clothe themselves with their own wool. New English goods are here sold at less than a himdred and fifty pounds per cent, advance, most goods moreV "They are proud enough to wear the best cloth of England, if chopping, sawing, and building of ships would pay for their clothes, and this method would double the sale of English woolen manufactory presently." There was an exportation of codfish to Spain and elsewhere to the amoimt of thirty thousand pounds annually, and of mackerel to the West Indies to the amount of five thousand pounds. In a description of Boston by one Captain Uring, which we find in the Historical Magazine (18G6), it is said: " The inhabitants are very industrious, and carry on a very considerable trade to the vSouthern Plantations, viz., to all the Carribee Islands and Jamaiea, which they supply with lumber as plank, boards, Joyce and shini,des'for buildino- houses, dried fish and salted mackerel, some beef and pork, pitch, tar and turpentine, tallow and Bay berry, wax candles, which last is made of wax extracted from a berry that grows in plenty in that country." The same traveller tells us that the dried codfish was commonly called " Poor Jack, or Baccalew."

The returns of the commerce of Boston for the three years ended June 4, 1 TIT - the period which saw the close of Governor Dudley's administration, and the beginning of Governor Shute's - show as follows: Cleared, for the West Indies, five hundred and eighteen ships, sloops, and other vessels; for the Bay of Campeachy, twenty-five vessels; for foreign plantations, fifty-eight vessels; for Newfoundland, forty-five vessels; for Europe, forty-three vessels; for Madeira, the Azores, etc., thirtv-four vessels; for Great Britain, one hundred and forty-three vessels; for British plantations or the continent, three hundred and ninety vessels; and for "ports unknown," eleven vessels - an aggregate of twelve himdred and sixty-seven vessels (twelve hundred of them " plantation built "), amounting to sikty-two thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight tons of shipping, and employing between eight and nine thousand men. This was an average of more than twenty thousand tons for each year. During the same period the clearances at the port of New York averaged seven thousand tons annually. Barry quotes these figures from the New York Colonial Documents, but Chalmers is disposed to discredit them. There is no record of the general trade of the province at this period, apart from ocean commerce, but it was large and profitable, and manufacturing industries were springing up, which will be described elsewhere in this work. The statesmen of England did not know what to make of this progress, and, not unnaturally from their point of view, thought that the prosperity of the colonists should be made to contribute towards the relief of the pressing burdens at home. "Few," says Barry, "had the sagacity to perceive that the prosperity of America was the prosperity of England, and that more benefit could be derived to the mother country by leaving the colonies to their own way than by hampering their commerce with burdensome restrictions, and checking their industry by discouraging manufactures."

then called, at the mouth of Boston Harbor. When it came before the Lords of Trade, the next year, for their approval, Captain Coram appeared and objected to it, because " it laid a tax upon the shipping, and made no provision for pilots, which are much wanted," he said, "on that coast." Boston li.ght was "kindled" September 14, 171ii, and was, we believe, the first light in the colonies, if not the first on the continent. The dues were fixed at a penny a ton inwards and another penny outwards, except for coasters, which were to pay two shillings each at their clearing out; all fishing vessels, wood sloops, etc., were taxed five shillings each by the year. Judge Sewall writes in his diary, January 14, 171'.)-20: " Last night the light-house was burnt." There was no system of pilotage at this port until 1783. In 1724 Joseph Marion established an Insurance Company in Boston, the first, perhaps, in New England.

In an elaborate report made by the Board of Trade in 1721 to the king, he was informed that, of "products proper for the consumption of Great Britain," Massachusetts had "timber, turpentine, tar and pitch, masts, pipes, and hogshead staves, whale fins and oil, and some furs;" that the province had a trade to "the foreign plantations in America, consisting chiefly in the exportation of horses to Surinam and and to Martinico and the other French islands;" whence came in return sugar, molasses, and rum, which was "a very great discouragement to the sugar planters in the British islands; " and that the people had " all sorts of common manufactures," but that "the branch of trade which was of the greatest importance to them, and which they were best enabled to carry on, was the building of ships, sloops, etc." The report set forth further, that about one hundred and fifty vessels were built in a year, measuring six thousand tons, mostly for sale abroad, but, that there were owned in the province about one hundred and ninety sail, besides one hundred and fifty boats employed in the coast fisheries.

In the winter of 1724-35, the shipwrights of London complained to the Lords of Trade, "that in eight years, ending 1720, they were informed there were seven hundred sail of ships built in New England, and in the years since as many, if not more ; and that this New England trade had drawn over so many working shipwrights that there are not enough left here to carry on the work. " When asked what proposals they had to make to obviate this inconvenience, they were ready with a simple, not to say heroic, remedy for breaking down the competition complained of, and for their own protection : "If the ships built in the plantations were confined to trade only from one plantation to another, or to Great Britain, it would answer the end proposed; or, if they were allowed to trade to foreign parts, that then they should be obliged, to pay a duty of five pence per ton each voyage they should make, and that they should also be restrained as to the bigness of such ships or vessels as should be built in the plantations. '' Even the Lords of Trade were not prepared for so extreme an application of the protective principle.

By the various figures we have given in the foregoing pages, it has been shown that the trade between Boston and the West Indies was very large and important. This trade was seriously threatened by an Act of Parliament, passed in 1733, after a discussion which lasted through two years, imposing duties on molasses, sugar and rum imported into the colonies from any West India islands other than British. The purpose of the act was to break up the trade with the French, Dutch and Spanish islands, where these products of the plantations were obtained in exchange for fish. It is said that before the opening of the trade with these islands, molasses was thrown away by the planters, and that it was first saved and put into casks to be brought to New England to be distilled into rum. The people of the northern colonies insisted that unless they could continue to sell fish to the planters on the foreign islands, and to import molasses from thence to be manufactured into spirit, they could not prosecute the fisheries except at a ruinous loss. The duty imposed on molasses was sixpence, sterling, a gallon, and the penalty for violating the Act was forfeiture of the vessel and cargo. New England, however, never really paid this tax, and the interdicted trade with the foreign islands did not cease imtil a late period of the controversy which terminated in the Revolution. So far as the codfi.shery was concerned, it would seem not to have been much affected by the Act of 1733 during the thirty years which immediately followed.

According to some authorities, the annual production of rum in Massachusetts at this period was fifteen thousand hogsheads. It had become the "chief manufacture" of the province, "a staple commodity," a " standing article in the Indian trade," and the "common drink" of laborers, timbermen, mastmcn, loggers, and fishermen, who, it was said, " could not endure the hardships of their employments nor the rigors of the season without it." On the coast of Guinea it was "exchanged for gold and .slaves." Burke said of this product: "The quantity of spirits which they distil in Boston from the molasses they bring in from all parts of the West Indies is as surprising as the cheap rates at which they vend it, which is under two shillings a gallon ; with this they suppl}' almost all the consumption of our colonies in North America, the Indian trade there, the vast demands of their own and the Newfoundland fisheries, and in great measure, those of the African trade; but they are more famous fi>r the quantity and cheapness than for the excellence of their rum."

We have this view of commercial Boston in a narrative, never published, of a Mr. Bennett, who visited the town in 1740; its population at that time is variously estimated at from sixteen to eighteen thousand: "At the bottom of the bay there is a fine wharf about half a mile in length, on the north side of which are built many warehouses for the storing of merchants' goods; this they call the Long Wharf, to distinguish it from others of less note. And to this wharf ships of the greatest burthen come up so close as to unload their cargo without the assistance of boats. From the end of the Long Wharf, which lies east from the town, the buildings rise gradually with an easy ascent westward about a mile. There are a great many good houses, and several fine streets little inferior to some of our best in London, the principal of which is King's Street ; it runs upon a line from the end of the Long Wharf about a quarter of a mile, and at the upper end of it stands the Town House or Guild Hall, where the Governor meets the Council and House of Representatives; and the several Courts of Justice are held there also. And there are likewise walks for the merchants, where they meet every day at one o'clock, in imitation of the Exchange at London, which they call by the name of Royal Exchange too, round which there are several booksellers' shops; and there are four or five printing-houses, which have full employment in printing and reprinting books, of one sort or other, that are brought from England and <_)ther parts of Europe."

John Oldmixon, in the second edition of his work entitled " The British Empire in America," published in 1741, wrote: " L^pon the whole Boston is the most flourishing town for trade and commerce in the English America. Near six hundred sail of ships have been laden here in a year for Europe and the British Plantations." In 1741 there were " at one and the same time " upon the stocks in Boston, fort)' topsail vessels, measuring about seven thousand tons. But from this time there was a decline in the shipbuilding industry ; the number of vessels launched in 1743 was thirty; in i;4<;, twenty; and in 1740 only fifteen, with an aggregate tonnage of two thousand four hundred and fifty tons. Douglas, from whom we take these figures, attributes this decline "to Mr. .Shirley's faulty governinent," but we can easily understand that i>ther causes may have contributed to the temporary depression of this industry, such as the unfriendly and restrictive interference of the home government, and the conflicts between England and France, which vexed both hemispheres.

In the year 1741 the cod-fishery of the province was in a prosperous condition, and the annual product had reached two hundred and thirty thousand quintals. The vessels engaged in this industry were owned on Cape Cod, and at Marblehead, Gloucester and other ports on the north shore of Massachusetts Bay, but a large part of the product was brought to Boston for exportation. During the long years of war this fishery suffered severely, as the fishermen were called off to man privateers, to enter the royal navy and, in other ways, to engage in the struggle.

The carrying-trade of the province did not suffer proportionately with the shipbuilding industry. The two interests are often classed together as if they were really one, and, in our own day, we have seen the former sacrificed for the sake of the latter, with most disastrous results. Burke well called the New England people the Dutch of America, for they were carriers for all the colonies of North America and the West Indies, and even for some parts of Europe. From Christmas, 1747, to Christmas, 1748, five hundred and forty vessels cleared from the port of Boston, and f(jur hundred and thirty entered; these figures did not include coasting and fishing vessels, of at least an equal number. The proportionate size of the vessels may be inferred from the accounts of the Boston Naval Office on foreign voyages, which report from Michaelmas, 1747, to Michaelmas, 1748, four hundred and nintey-one clearances, of which fifty-one were ships, forty-four snows, fifty-four brigs, two hundred and forty-nine sloops and ninety-three schooners. In reference to the two-masted schooner, we may say that it dates back only to the year 1714, when Edward Robinson, of Gloucester, built and rigged a vessel according to his own fancy, and imlike anything that had previously been seen either in America or Europe. As the strange looking craft, with her masts in her, as we suppose, started from the stocks at her launching, a by-stander exclaimed, " See, how she scoons I " Whereupon Robinson reijlied, "A schooner let her be." The special

In the autumn of 1T4"J Faneuil Hall was completed and presented to the town by the princely merchant whose name it bears. It was to be both a town-hall and a market. It had been proposed more than once to build a market-house at the public expense, but the measure had been each time defeated ; and even the generous offer of Peter Faneuil had met with serious opposition, fortunately, on the part of only a minority of the citizens.

Neither the laws relating to navigation nor the "sugar and molasses act " (as it was called) of 1733, had been uniformly and rigidly enforced. As Palfrey suggests, it would have been imprudent for the home government to cripple and offend the colonists by a strenuous interference with the business which furnished them with a great portion of their livelihood, while they were playing so important a part in the struggle with the French. Then there was the practical difficulty of securing an honest and scrupulous execution of the revenue laws by the servants of the crown. Governor Bernard reported that on his arrival in Massachusetts he had "entirely defeated the machinations of a formidable confederacy intended to annul and avoid the Laws of Trade. " The profits of illicit trade were so large that the merchants could afford to pay liberally for a complaisant policy in the administration of custom-house affairs. The subordinate officers seem to have been called upon to divide their receipts under the law with their superiors, and they evidently preferred to pocket fees which would be all their own. Thomas Hutchinson wrote to a correspondent in England : ' ' For my part, I have always wished whilst I was in trade myself for some effectual measures to put a stop to all contraband trade ; but I have always thought it might have been done without any further provision by the Parliament. The real cause of the illicit trade in this province has been the indulgence of the officers of the customs ; and we are told that the cause of this indulgence has been that they have been quartered upon for more than their legal fee, and that without bribery and "corruption they must starve."

One plan devised by the merchants who maintained intercourse with the interdicted islands in the West Indies, had been to load their vessels with molasses at the French or Spanish ports as usual and to purcha.se clearances "signed with the name, if not the handwriting, of the governor of Auguilla, who acted also as collector." This island was so small as nut to afford a cargo for a single vessel, as was well known to the collectors of customs in New England, yet they allowed vessels with their cargoes, for a considerable length of time, to be entered without inquiry on these " Auguilla clearances." This, however, could not go on forever.

In 17(11 the ofificers of the customs, under fresh instructions from England, began to be more rigorous in enforcing the law, and as it had always been odious, their conduct, so far as it was sincere, was resented, their proceedings were challenged, and their authority was called in question. Palfrey, indeed, doubts whether the new activity of the officers was prompted by anything else than by the increased opportunities which they conceived to be offered by the instructions of 1700 for adding to their official emoluments. Be this as it may, it was not long before they found themselves in open conflict with the merchants, and the latter, in self-defence, petitioned the General Court for a hearing on the questions involved ; this request was granted, and a report in their favor was presented by the committee and accepted by the Legislature. The officers then brought the matter before the law courts, and at length succeeded in carrying their point. They were now encouraged to go further, and "as they had been accustomed, under color of the law, forcibly to enter both warehouses and dwelling houses, upon information that contraband goods were concealed in them, one of their number petitioned the vSuperior Court for writs of assistance to aid in the execution of his duty." Exceptions were taken to this application, and the cau.se was argued in the council chamber in the old building at the head of King street, before Thomas Hutchinson, the newly appointed chief justice, and his four associates. This was the memorable occasion when James Otis, " a tlame of fire," inade his great plea in behalf of the popular liberties, and of which John Adfims said: "American independence was then and there born." We are told also that Adams, carried away by the occasion, felt the spirit of resistance within him, and that from that time forward he could never read the Acts of Trade without anger, "nor any section of them without a curse." The chief justice was determined that the court should not yield to the eloquence of the patriot or to the pressure of public opinion, and he "prevailed with his brethren to continue the cause to the next term, and in the mean time wrote to England " for definite instructions. The answer was in favor of the government, and after it came, although the charge of illegality had not been touched.

writs of assistance were granted by the court whenever the revenue officers appHed for them, on the ground that such writs were issued by the Court of Exchequer in London.

" The peace of Paris was as joyously welcomed in America as in England." But the mother-country was heavily bvirdened by debt, and the statesmen there were at their wits' end in their endeavors to provide revenue. It is not strange that they looked to the North American colonies, so prosperous and so progressive, for help in their emergency. These colonies were an integral part of the empire, and, as it seemed, their fate was bound up with that of the empire as a whole. Why then should not they bear their proportionate share of the bvtrdens which had been assumed or accepted in England for the common defence, and why should not they submit cordially to such measures of taxation as Parliament might enact? As George Grenville insisted: "Protection and obedience are reciprocal. Great Britain protects America; America is bound to yield obedience." A cjuestion might be raised as to the extent and value of the protection which the colonies had enjoyed. Colonel Barre, in the House of Commons, denied that they had been protected by the British arms. "They protected by your arms!" he exclaimed, "the}' have nobly taken up arms in your defence. And," he added, "the same spirit of freedom which actuated that people at first will accompany them still." But, waiving this point, the hardship of the positicm consisted in this, that the colonists had not been treated hitherto as on the same footing with their fellow-subjects at home. Their shipping interests had been crippled, their manttfacturing industries had been repressed, and every advance they had made had been watched with jealousy and suspicion. They had been governed practically as outsiders, and now it was proposed to lay new exactions upon them as subjects,

A further hardship was that the colonists had no direct representation in the legislative body which claimed the right to tax them. As a consequence they were not understood at Westminster, their circumstances were not appreciated, and their wishes were not regarded. In this respect they were at a great disadvantage as compared with the large proprietors of the British West Indies, who resided in Britain, many of whom had seats in Parlianicnt, and who, therefore, could enforce their demands by an offer of votes which a minister might feel that he could not afford to lose. This state of things continued far into the present century, and the battle for West India emancipation had to be foug-ht <mt in Enj,dand and Scotland rather than in the possessions themselves in which slavery existed. The duties of 1733 had been imposed at the call of the West India proprietors, who were "jealous of the success of their rivals at the north, and of the extent and importance of their commercial adventures," and who, having- no shippin.g- of their own, were ever ready to join hands with the British shipowners to hamper the commerce of the northern colonies.

Tf the British sugar planters could have had their way, New England would have been prohibited altogether from trading with the French, Dutch and Spanish West India islands. In the Massachusetts Archives (volume 88) there is a full report in manuscript of a hearing in i;5(t before the Lords of Trade, which furnishes a suggestive illustration of the way in which men are often deceived by considerations of personal interest, and how selfishness may assume the plausible guise of public spirit and patriotism. In the petition on which this hearingwas based, it was said : "The petitioners charge the northern colonies with being the agents of France, and other foreign nations, carrying on commerce in Europe and America for their benefit, and against the interest of their mother country ; and suggest there is danger of their becoming by this means, independent of it." They therefore prayed that the northern colonies might be prohibited from taking any sugar, rum or molasses froi-n any of the West India islands not stibject to the British crown. The charges were elaborated in ten articles, each of which was replied to at length by the representatives of New England, and the danger was averted for the time.

On the accession of the Grenville ministry to power, it was determined to pass a stamp act for the colonies, and the officers of the ctistoms were served with "new and ample instructions enforcing in the strongest manner the strictest attention to their duty." Proclamations against the clandestine importation of goods were issued December 2(!, 171)3, and published in the Boston newspapers of the followingmonth. The "restraint and suppression of practices which had long prevailed " could not but encounter great difficulties, and the whole force of the royal authority was invoked in aid. The troops were ordered to " give their assistance to the officers of the revenue for the effectual suppression of contraband trade;" the officers of the ships of war on the coast were also obliged to qualify, as Barry says, "for their new and distinguished duties as excisenien and tidewaiters, " having the promise of a share in the property confiscated for violation of the law.

The whole country was roused, and the people were "stung nearly to madness" bv the proceedings of the officials and of those who were assisting them. At the instance of the merchants of Boston and other towns, the General Court directed the agent of the province in London to labor for the repeal of the sugar act, and to exert himself to prevent the passage of the stamp act, " or any other impositions or taxes iipon this or the other American colonies."

In the spring of 1704 Mr. Grenville gave notice of his intention to bring in a bill for imposing stamp duties in America, but, ' ' out of tenderness to the colonies, " he consented to postpone it for a year. He also sought to conciliate the people of New England by two measures which they gratefully accepted for all that they were worth, but not as the price of their acquiescence in what they regarded as unequal and unjust schemes of taxation. The two measures referred to were, the revival of the bounties on hemp and flax, first granted in the reign of Queen Anne, and encouragement to the prosecution of the whale fishery. At the same session of Parliament, a bill was introduced, providing that duties be laid on various enumerated foreign commodities, as coffee, indigo, pimento, French and East India goods, and wines from Madeira, Portugal, and Spain, imported into the British colonies and plantations in America, and upon other articles, the produce of the colonies, exported elsewhere than to Great Britain. It was provided, further, that a duty of threepence a gallon be laid on molasses and syrups, and an additional duty of twenty-two shillings a hundred weight upon white sugars, of the growth of any foreign American plantation, imported into the British colonies ; and that the income of this last duty should be paid into the national treasury, to be disposed of by Parliament towards " defraying the necessary expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the British colonies and plantations in America." This tariff bill was pushed rapidly through all its stages, and, within a month from the day it was reported in the House of Commons, it received the royal assent. Machinery for its prompt and rigid enforcement was also devised and made ready. Two months later, all this had been made known in America, and, to quote the words of the Massacliusctts Gazette, there was "not a man on the continent who did not consider it a sacrifice made of the northern colonies to the superior interests in Parliament of the West Indies."

were to be affected, and, perhaps, imperilled, by it ; but it was generally supposed that a rigorous administration of the new law, with the naval and military power to support it, would compel the popular submission. The exact truth on this point would, in due time, become apparent, but the first words spoken in response were those of protest. The General Court, in an address to Governor Bernard, at the autumnal session of 1764, represented as follows: " Chir pickled fish wholly, and a great part of our codfish, are only fit for the West India market. The British islands cannot take off one-third of the quantity caught ; the other two-thirds must be lost, or sent to foreig-n plantations where molasses is given in exchange. The duty on this article will greatly diminish the importation hither; and being the only article allowed to be given in exchange for our fish, a less quantity of the latter will of course be exported - the obvious effect of which must be a diminution of the fish-trade, not only to the West Indies but to Europe, fish suitable for both these markets being the produce of the same voyage. If, therefore, one of these markets be shut, the other cannot be supplied. The loss of one is the loss of both, as the fishery must fail with the loss of either."

"It was apprehended that in Massachusetts the annual loss to be sustained from the enforcement of the new act would be not less than a hundred and sixt3-four thousand pounds, while vessels worth a hundred thousand pounds would be rendered nearly useless ; and there would be a further loss of property amounting to scarcely less than a quarter as much, as the worth of the various articles of equipment and forms of industry used in the prosecution of the business. Five thousand seamen would be thrown out of employment."

The question will be asked: If the duty on molasses laid by the act of ITIJS was sixpence a gallon, while that laid by the act of 1704 was threepence, was not this reduction of fifty per cent, a boon to the province? The answer is easily found. The higher duty, as we have intimated, had been very generally evaded ; the lower rate was to be collected at all hazards. Even if the methods for collection were not to be more thorciugh, it would be less of an object, both for the merchant and for the official, to run the risk involved in conspiracy to defraud the government under the lower rate, than it had been under the higher. The smuggler is' a regulator in the movements of international trade, whose operations no wise finance minister will fail to take into the account. A duty laid for revenue will invariablv vield more to the public treasury at a moderate, rather than at the highest rate. In the instance before us, the duty was levied largely in the hope and expectation that it would be prohibitory, and the Boston merchants believed that this would be the effect.

In a petition of the General Court to the House of Commons, agreed upon at the same session as above, it was urged that " the importation of foreign molasses into this province, in particular, is of the greatest importance, and a prohibition will be prejudicial to inany branches of trade, and will lessen the consumption of the manufactures of Great Britain; that this importance does not arise merely, nor principally, from the necessity of foreign molasses, in order to its being consumed or distilled within the province"; but, "that if the trade, for many years carried on for foreign molasses, can be no longer continued, a vent cannot be found for more than one-half of the fish of inferior quality, which are caught and cured by the inhabitants of the province, the French not permitting fish to be carried by foreigners to any of their islands, unless to be bartered or exchanged for molasses ; that if there be no sale of fish of inferior quality, it will be impossible to continue the fishery; the fish usually sent to England will then cost so dear that the French will be able to undersell the English in all the European markets, and by this means one of the most valuable returns to Great Britain will be utterly lost, and that great nursery of seamen destroyed. " In a letter written at the same time to the provincial agent in London, it was said : ' ' We are morally certain that the molasses trade cannot be carried on, and the present duty paid."

The stamp act became a law, March 22, ITUo. How its publication was received on this side of the water, we need not here relate. By its operation, the courts of the province were closed, business was suspended, and an unusual stillness reigned throughout the community. The provisions of the act were very stringent ; and as the people refused to use the stamps which had been sent over, nothing remained but to abide the consequences. The principal merchants of Boston and other towns, to the number of two himdred, agreed to import no more goods from England, unless the act should be repealed, and they countermanded the orders already sent over. Several vessels went to sea, however, without stamped clearances, the custom-house officers giving the masters certificates that stamps could not be procured within their jurisdiction. The- first ship to venture under such circumstances was the Boston Packet, Captain T-^hn Marshall, owned and sent out by John

Hancock. She was bound for London, and on her arrival in the Thames she passed the custom-house without having her papers called in question. Another vessel, engaged regularly in the trade between Boston and London at this time, was the London Packet, Captain Robert Calef.

Mr. Hutchinson wrote at this time: " I am now convinced that the people throughout the colonies are impressed with an opinion that they are no longer considered by the people of England as their fellowsubjects, and entitled to English liberties. " There were "two Englands, " however, then, as there are now; and, in one them, America has never wanted for sympathy or support.

When the startling news reached England, of the uncompromising opposition of the colonists to the stamp act, a change of ministry had taken place and the Marquis of Rockingham had come into office. The question of immediate repeal was agitated throughout the kingdom, and confronted Parliament as it assembled in January, 1700. In the course of the debate on the first day of the session, William Pitt made the great speech which has endeared his memory to Americans for all time. In closing, he expressed it as his opinion that the act shorild be repealed, "absolutely, totally, immediately," and that the reason for this repeal should be assigned - "because it [the act] was founded on an erroneous principle." "At the same time," he added, "let the sovereign authority of this country over the colonies be asserted in as strong terms as can be devised, and be made to extend to every point of legislation whatsoever - that we may bind their trade, confine their manufactures, and exercise every power whatsoever, except that of taking their money out of their pockets, without their consent." Even this broad-minded statesman could not divest himself of the idea that the colonies existed for the benefit of the mother country.

Petitions for the repeal of the stamp act were laid on the table of the House of Commons from the merchants of London trading to North America, and from Birmingham, Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester, and other towns. Public opinion was thoroughly aroused, in part, no doubt, under the pressure of selfish considerations, for the commercial interests of the country were suffering greatly ; but, as Barry observes : ' ' The people of England were friendly to liberty ; their attachment to freedom was stronger than their love of arbitrary power ; and their consciences and affections appealed to them loudly to side with those who were struggling to resist the encroachments of absolutism. " When the offensive measure was repealed, one year almost to a day from the time when it became a law, the church-bells of London were rung, the ships on the Thames displayed their colors, and the houses were illuminated in all parts of the city.