SHIPBUILDING AND CURRENCY 397 and naval stores to a greater or less extent. But prolonged attempts to preserve trees in the king's woods fit for masts for the Royal Navy were opposed by the New Englanders, who could not be restrained by Acts of Parliament from cutting them for their saw-mills and lumber trade. The northern colonists were to a large extent also a sea-going people. Massachusetts alone was building 150 vessels annually by 1729, and could boast a fleet of 190 sail.1 Indeed the shipbuilding activity at Boston, Rhode Island, and New York was beginning to cause anxiety in the English yards. These Plantationbuilt vessels were employed in the carrying trade to the West Indies, England, Spain, and Portugal, but mainly in the coast-wise trade and fishery. All along the coast from Boston to Canso the New England fishermen plied their calling. They took their share in the Newfoundland fishery as well, where they caused much complaint by debauching the English fishermen with rum, and carrying them off as indentured servants to the mainland.2 In return for their exports of raw material the American colonies imported British manufactures. These were retailed at a profit of from 100 to 300 per cent. All who could afford it wore good English cloth, and only those who could not wore homespun.* Fostered by the Acts of Trade and the policy of the British Government, which discouraged all manufacturing industries in the Plantations, the balance of trade was permanently in favour of the mother country. It grew from about £50,000 a year at the beginning of this period to nearly £2,000,000 in 1760. This adverse balance, which had to be liquidated by the colonies in gold or silver, was made good by trade with the British West Indies, by freight money earned by shipping, and by illicit trade with the French, Spanish, and Danish West Indies and the French and Spaniards on the continent. But the colonies were drained of specie, whilst the growth of the population, the expansion of trade, the expenses of the intercolonial wars, and the inconvenience of barter all created a demand for an increase of currency. British coins were almost unknown in the Plantations. Spanish pieces of eight (reals) formed the metallic basis of the colonial monetary system. But their value, though fixed by Act of Parliament, was a fluctuating one. For a long time all payments in Virginia were made in tobacco, in the West Indies in sugar. Wheat certificates were used in Pennsylvania, and there the property tax was made payable in money or flour. In North Carolina seventeen commodities were declared legal tender, and so remained throughout this period. The need for an increased currency was met by paper money. The issue of paper bills of credit was begun by Massachusetts as early as 1690, to defray the expenses of the Quebec expedition. The 2 Cal. St. Pap. Col. 1715; 1716, no. 70, i, etc. 1 C.O. 5, 752, no. 45. Ibid. 1714-15, no. 673, etc. Macpherson, D., Annals of Commerce, III, 340; Mitchell, Dr John, The State of the Colonies, p. 280; cf. C.O. 5, 1093, f. 178. subsequent war with the French and the cost of defending the frontier against the Canadian Indians, amounting to £30,000 a year, led to further issues. By 1715 they totalled £474,000. These bills were issued by the Government. But in 1701 a plan was put forward for establishing a Land Bank, to issue paper money on security of land. This scheme was revived in 1714. It was supported by a large body of debtors and others impoverished by the war, who looked to an inflation of the currency as the cure for their financial and commercial troubles. It was opposed by those who favoured restricted government issues with suitable sinking funds. The question long remained a burning one in Massachusetts's politics. As the issues increased, the value of paper money declined. By 1729 it was barely a quarter of that of sterling.1 At length, the £175,000 sterling voted by Parliament to New England in compensation for the return of Louisbourg was well and wisely applied to the reduction of its paper at the rate of 7 to 1. In 1751 Parliament forbade further paper issues in New England except for certain stated objects. Wars with the Spaniards and Indians were likewise the occasion of paper issues in South Carolina. The first was made in 1702 and others followed rapidly, secured on land and crops. Depreciation was soon acute. Bank bills were rated by an Act of 1722 at 4 to 1 in silver. In Pennsylvania the deficiency of coins, caused by contraction of trade with the West Indies after the war, was made good by an issue of bills for £50,000 in 1723, which was followed by others for small amounts. A limited paper currency of this kind proved wholly beneficial. The danger lay in excess. The wise policy of the Council of Trade was to restrain the amount of the issues, to secure the provision of adequate funds to sink the bills, and to see that such provisions were not altered by appropriations and diversions by subsequent Assemblies, as in the case of Carolina and New Jersey. To this end, governors were forbidden to assent to bills for further issues without a clause suspending their operation until they had received the assent of the Crown.3 The need for such wholesome restraint was proved by Rhode Island, where no such control could be exercised. There the paper currency became a veritable political scandal. Bills for half a million were issued to private individuals in proportion to their political influence. By the end of this period the resulting depreciation was so great that the exchange stood at 32 to 1.4 Where depreciation became too great, reversion to barter ensued. One of the difficulties with which the struggling post office in Virginia had to contend was that there were no small coins, and the postage was smaller than the smallest bill.5 1 C.O. 5, 898, no. 64; cf. Hutchinson, Thomas, Hist. of Mass.; Davis, Andrew, Currency and Banking in Mass. Bay. 2 Pa. Votes, II, 483; m, 32; Franklin, B., Works, 11, 254. Rider, Sidney, Rhode I. Hist. Tracts, 1st ser. vin. 5 Cal. St. Pap. Col. 1710, no. 437. 3 A.P.C., Col. m (1720). POST, EDUCATION AND NEWSPAPERS 399 Posts were already in operation in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, as well as between Boston and New York and Williamsburg, when Parliament established a General Post Office for all His Majesty's Dominions in 1710. Letters cost 4s. an ounce from London to New York. Mr Dummer's service of packet boats to the West Indies and New York had been ruined by captures in the French wars. A fortnightly service to New York was reopened in 1755.1 Inland, communication improved slowly. Main roads were built from Boston to New York, and from Philadelphia to Maryland, Virginia, and Carolina. But for the most part, especially in the south, bridle tracks prevailed, and water transport by rivers and coasting sloops. As late as 1731 one-third of the Assembly of New York came to town by river.2 Facilities for education varied greatly in the several colonies. In New England not only had Harvard College been founded in 1636, but from the earliest times in every township of fifty householders in Massachusetts and Connecticut elementary schools had to be provided, and schools for higher education in those of one hundred. In the middle colonies great diversity of religious belief militated against the establishment of any general school system. There were several schools in Pennsylvania, and there the Academy at Philadelphia provided a liberal education, thanks largely to the efforts of Franklin (1749). Otherwise, the colleges founded in the eighteenth century, such as Yale (Connecticut, 1716), and Princeton (New Jersey, 1746), were designed principally for the training of clergy. Dartmouth College (New Hampshire, 1769) was intended to train Indians as missionaries. In Maryland, every county was required to have a school. In the southern colonies, the conditions of education as of labour were similar to those in the West Indies. Virginia had a dozen free schools, but rich planters usually maintained a tutor or sent their sons to school and college in England. Here, too, LieutenantGovernor Nicholson and James Blair had founded, with help from England, the College of William and Mary for the education of youthful Virginians and the sons of Indian chiefs (1691). Virginians, too, could boast of writers like Beverley, Byrd, and Stith, who could write the history of the Dominion with elegance and ease. The first regular newspaper, the Boston Newsletter, was published in 1704. In 1721, James Franklin began to publish the New England Courant, and successfully resisted an attempt by the Assembly to impose a censorship of the press. His brother Benjamin, after making his way as a journeyman printer, founded the Pennsylvania Gazette. The first number of the New York Weekly Journal appeared in 1733. It was published by John Peter Zenger, whose trial for libel was undoubtedly one of the turning points in American history. When Governor William Cosby, a strong-willed Irish soldier, arrived in New York, he called upon Rip van Dam, who had acted as lieutenant-governor 1 Cal. St. Pap. Col. 1708, no. 10; 1712, no. 10, i. 2 C.O. 5, 1955, f. 210. before his arrival, to refund half the emoluments received since his appointment, in accordance with the usual practice and instructions. Van Dam refused. As Cosby was himself chancellor, he could not have the case tried in Chancery. He therefore took it to the Court of Exchequer, before judges sitting as a Court of Equity. The right of governors to constitute courts had long been challenged in the colonies, but was consistently maintained as part of the prerogative of the Crown. When the legality of a court which had no statutory basis was now again questioned, the chief justice, Lewis Morris, a man of great political distinction, admitted its invalidity, and retired from the bench. He appealed to the people, obtained decisive victories at the elections, and defended his position in Zenger's paper. Zenger was prosecuted for publishing a false and scandalous libel. His counsel, Smith and Alexander, questioned the validity of the court, and were promptly disbarred. But Andrew Hamilton, a Scottish lawyer of consummate ability and a leading figure in public life in Philadelphia, suddenly appeared for the defence. He was now eighty years of age. His eminence in the profession compelled the judges to listen to him. They ruled that it was not necessary to prove that the publication was false; and that it was for the court to decide whether it was libellous. The jury had only to decide the fact of publication. With rare eloquence and close argument, Hamilton then appealed to the jury for a verdict in the cause of liberty—the liberty of "exposing and opposing arbitrary power", and won his case (1735). He did more. Not only had he persuaded an American jury thus to break away from the rule of English courts, but also to strike a blow for the right to discuss and oppose the Government in the press.1 Meanwhile lands were being rapidly taken up, and the spaces towards the frontiers and the coasts occupied. Townships developed and multiplied. Northwards towards Canada, southwards towards Florida, westwards towards the Alleghanies, expansion took place. In some directions, as in New York and Massachusetts and Virginia, this process was delayed by the excessive grants of lands made to individuals. The Council of Trade endeavoured with some success to rectify land speculation of this kind in New York and Virginia.2 But its alternative policy of small holdings of fifty to a hundred acres, as in Nova Scotia and Georgia, was found to discourage settlers.3 The population is said to have doubled itself every twenty years, mainly by natural increase of the native-born. The censuses are imperfect, but conjectural estimates give the total number of whites in 1720 as 339,000, and blacks 96,000. The combined population had 1 Channing, II, 488 seqq.; Osgood, 11, 443 seqq.; Chandler, American Criminal Trials, I, 159 seqq. 3 C.O. 5/971, no. 34; 5/898, no. 62. 2 Cal. St. Pap. Col. 1699-1713, passim. Doyle, J. A., English in America, vol. ш, app. I. POPULATION AND IMMIGRATION 401 risen to 1,500,000 in 1760, of which 299,000 were blacks in Maryland and the south. Only about 8 per cent. of the 878,000 inhabitants north of Maryland were negroes. For in the northern colonies, where grain was raised, climate and occupation were more suitable for white labour, and negro slaves were kept chiefly in the port towns. Wages were high and the demand for free labour and indentured white servants was constantly increasing. Some colonies, however, endeavoured to protect themselves against the importation of felons, but their acts were annulled by the Home Government. South of the Potomac the conditions of climate and labour were more suitable for negroes. In Virginia the number of slaves rose from 12,000 in 17081 to 150,000 in 1760, forming half of the total population. They were reckoned as chattels or merchandise, and laws, brutally severe, sanctioned burning and mutilation among their punishments. Insurrections or conspiracies, as in New York in 1712 and 1741, sometimes caused panic executions and legislation, which some governors did their best to restrain. On the other hand, there was a growth of feeling against slavery. In Massachusetts, Samuel Sewalls argued that all men had a right to liberty, and in Pennsylvania, whereas Penn had owned slaves without a qualm, Friends in 1758 were advised to set their negroes at liberty.a In race, as in religious and political outlook, New England retained its homogeneity, in contrast to the middle colonies, where to the original Swedish and Dutch populations were added waves of immigration. Encouraged by the British Naturalisation Act, and by their generous reception in England, Protestants from Switzerland and refugees from persecution in the Rhenish Palatinate began to pass in increasing numbers through Holland and England to the American colonies. The movement began in 1708, when a few Palatines under Joshua von Kocherthal, a German minister, came to England, and were sent to New York. There they founded Newburg. In the following year 13,000 poverty-stricken refugees from the Palatinate arrived in London. Some hundreds of these went to North Carolina, together with some Swiss immigrants, and founded New Berne. They were led by Baron Christoph de Graffenried, who had received large grants of lands from the lords proprietors.5 Another 3000 were sent over with Governor Hunter and settled in New York. They were to receive forty acres apiece after they had paid for their passage and subsistence by the manufacture of naval stores. This early experiment in state-aided emigration was not a success. The Palatines proved mutinous, and before their work came to fruition, the Tory ministry stopped supplies. Hunter, nearly ruined by supporting them, was obliged to allow them to shift for 1 Cal. St. Pap. Col. 1708, no. 216. a Ibid. 1711-12, no. 454; 1712–14, nos. 293, 525, etc.; 1714-15, no. 673. Sharpless, I., Quaker Government, 1, 432. Sewall, S., The Selling of Joseph, 1701. CHBE I 26 |