Fostering Legislation. Certain agricultural interests were Beer, furthered by the desire of English statesmen to render England's Colonial Great Britain independent of European imports. The Policy, hemp, lumber, pitch, and tar used in British shipyards had 389-420. been imported from countries with which England might at any time be involved in war. To secure these supplies from a reliable source, the government determined to repeal the import duties, so far as the colonies were concerned, and to offer bounties on such goods as should be shipped to the British Isles. The bounty on hemp was made £6 per ton (1702). In response to this premium Virginia and Maryland exported one thousand tons a year; but New England, whence great returns were expected, never produced enough for her own shipyards. Deep, rich loam and plenty of moisture were essential to success, and these conditions were rare in the Northern colonies. The same act of Parliament offered a bounty of £1 per ton on masts sent to England. So solicitous was the government that the timber of the colonies should not be wasted, that a penalty was imposed for felling a young pine. The surveyor general was authorized to mark with a broad arrow trees reserved for the use of the royal navy. The penalty for felling such was £100. The import duties on lumber were removed. Notwithstanding these inducements the colonists continued to ship the major part of their lumber to the West Indies, Spain, and Portugal, in exchange for goods imported thence. An order from the Privy Council prohibiting this trade was of no effect. 'Nothing," said one of the king's representatives, "but an Act of Parliament can prevent them." 66 The Act of 1702 proposed bounties on other naval stores, £4 per ton on tar and pitch, £3 per ton on rosin and turpentine. This last bid was unexpectedly successful. The Carolinas availed themselves of the premium offered and were soon sending sixty thousand barrels a year to England. Prices dropped to one third of the former rate and imports from the Baltic ceased. English merchants soon had more of these commodities than could be disposed of at home and Pitkin, U.S., began exporting to the Continent. For the purpose of encouraging the production of indigo, the duty on colonial imports was removed (1748) and a bounty offered of sixpence a pound. This and the removal of duties on raw silk affected the Carolinas favorably but availed nothing toward increasing the exports from the Northern colonies. Manufactures Parliamentary legislation affecting colonial industry was usually suggested by the Board of Trade and Plantations, a committee of the Privy Council intrusted with the oversight of Britain's possessions in America. The lord commissioners were empowered to inquire into the condition of the several plantations, the progress made in agriculture, trade, and manufactures, to receive complaints and petitions, and to make recommendations as a basis for imperial enactment. The reports rendered to the Board by the colonial governors, sometimes voluntary and sometimes on request, afford important information as to the industrial development of the colonies. The first concern of the commissioners was to keep colonial industry to the channels that would furnish a revenue to the mother country. The colonies were expected to provide the raw materials for England's manufactures and a market for the finished products. From the first the colonists of New England found it difficult to pay for goods imported from the mother country. The first shipload of exports from Plymouth (the Fortune, November, 1621) was made up of clapboards and beaver skins. Naval stores, masts, planking, tar, pitch, etc., were always in demand, but the supply decreased as the forests were cleared. Beaver and other furs brought a high price in London, but this, too, was a short-lived industry. It was fortunate for New England that the whale fisheries began to afford marketable products just as the fur trade was languishing. The spoil of the whaling voyages, however, enriched only a few coast towns. The farmers could raise nothing that found a ready sale in England. Moreover, the cost of imported goods was beyond their means. The transatlantic voyage was slow and the hazards great. Freight charges were high and commissions excessive. Contem- Bradford, porary records abound in complaints of the extravagant 243. prices paid on this account. A shipload of goods sent to THE BALANCE OF TRADE BETWEEN THE AMERICAN COLONIES AND Plymouth in 1624 sold at a profit of seventy per cent. The Civil Wars (1640-1660) checked migration to New England, and the inflow of gold ceased. The small stock of coin in the colony was quickly exhausted, and the colonists were left with no means of meeting debts in London. Cloth Manufacture. strove to meet this - The General Court of Massachusetts Bagnall, Textile Industries of U.S., I, Ch. I, II. manufacture. In 1640 the magistrates were directed to further the growing and preparation of flax and to consider measures for providing wheels and teaching the boys and girls how to spin not only flax but cotton and wool. In 1656 the selectmen of the several towns were ordered to require every family to furnish one or more spinners accordCol. Laws of ing to its capacity, each of whom was expected to spin three pounds of yarn, cotton, or wool, every week for thirty weeks in the year. The penalty for nonperformance was a fine of twelve pence for every pound short. Mass., 141. Weeden, Weeden, The raw material of cloth manufacture was scarce and dear. European flax had been introduced in 1629, but, despite the efforts of the magistrates, not enough was raised for the home market. Cotton, a far more difficult fiber, was brought in from the Barbadoes and the West Indies, but could only be spun when mixed with flax and was not in general use. Wool, the stuff most in demand, might not be had from the mother country. The English government guarded with jealous care this much prized industry and prohibited the exportation of sheep or fleece. There were as yet few sheep in the colony and the only available supply of wool was found in Spain. The General Court of Massachusetts (1645) appealed to the towns within its jurisdiction to set about the preservation and increase of sheep. Residents were urged to purchase imported ewes, and friends in England meaning to come over were advised to bring with them "as many sheep as they conveniently can." Connecticut enacted similar laws for increasing the supply of flax and wool. The raw material once available, the people were soon able to manufacture their own clothing. Every farmhouse kitchen was a workshop where the women spun and wove the serges, kerseys, and linsey-woolseys, which served for common wear. By the close of the seventeenth century New England manufactured cloth in sufficient quantities for exportation to the Southern colonies and to the West Indies. As the industry developed, mills were erected for the more difficult processes of dyeing, weaving, and fulling. The carding and spinning continued to be done in the homes. The Dutch of New Netherlands and the Swedes along the Bishop, Delaware were no whit behind their Yankee neighbors. In I, 314. Pennsylvania prizes were offered for the finest weaves of cloth, and the artisans of Philadelphia acquired an enviable fame. Restrictive Legislation. — So long as the colonists confined themselves to making coarse cloth for family use, the British government showed no concern; but when goods of finer grade began to be woven and offered for general sale, the English woolen manufacturers became alarmed lest their colonial market suffer. Lord Cornbury, the avaricious and despotic governor of New York (1702-1708), reported to the Board of Trade, "I am well informed, that upon Long Island and Connecticut, they are setting up a Woollen Manufacture, and I myself have seen Serge made upon Long Island that any man may wear. Now if they begin to make Serge, they will in time make course [sic] Cloth, and then fine; we have as good fullers earth and tobacco pipe clay in this Province, as any in the world; how farr this will be for the service of England I submit to better Judgments; but however I hope I may be pardoned, if I declare my opinion to be, that all these Colloneys which are but twigs belonging to the Main Tree [England] ought to be Kept entirely dependent upon & subservient to England, and that can never be if they are suffered to goe on in the notions they have, that as Englishmen, soe they may set up the same manufactures here as people may do in England; for the consequence will be that if once they can see they can cloath themselves, not only comfortably but handsomely too, without the help of England, they who are already not very fond of submitting to Government would soon think of putting in Execution designs they had long harboured in their breasts. This will not seem strange when you consider what sort of people this Country is inhabited by." In accordance with the recommendations of the lord commissioners Parliament passed the Woolen Act (1699). No woolen goods might be exported from the colonies, nor F Doc. Hist. N.Y., I, 711-712. |