USA > Connecticut > Tercentenary pamphlet series, v. 3 The Beginnings of Roman Catholicism in Connecticut > Part 23
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Wethersfield's story of early trade is similar to that of Hartford and Windsor. In 1649 the men of the town banded together to build a town-owned vessel, but the profits derived from it were disappointing.
Besides these three River Towns, another settlement, Saybrook, had been established at the mouth of the Connecticut. The founders of this separate community
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realized by 1644 the impossibility of continuing it as an independent colony. As it was necessary for the other towns to have freedom to enter and sail from the river, an agreement was made between George Fenwick and the Connecticut colony-an agreement which included the first tariff sanctioned by the people of Connecticut. By this arrangement Connecticut purchased Saybrook fort and all surrounding land, with the stipulation that Fenwick was to receive, for ten years, a duty on all corn, biscuits, bacon, and cattle exported from the mouth of the river. The amount of the duty was small : corn paying two pence per bushel; biscuit, six pence a hundred; cows and horses within the river district, a tax of twelve pence a year; and hogs killed for home consumption or export, a like sum. Beaver skins were taxed two pence a pound when traded within the limits of the river and twenty shillings a hogshead when exported, with the promise that, if conditions in the Indian trade changed, this duty would be eliminated. The amount collected for Fenwick in the ten years during which this tariff was enforced was contemporaneously estimated at £1,600.
III
DURING this period the chief harbor of what is now Con- necticut belonged to the colony of New Haven, settled in 1638 by John Davenport, Theophilus Eaton, and others. While most of the towns founded in what is now Con- necticut were planned as agricultural communities, with trade as a subordinate consideration, New Haven was, from the outset, intended as a commercial center.
At first, it seemed as if New Haven might succeed in its attempt at commercial enterprise. Soon after the settlement of the town, trade was established with Boston, New Amsterdam, Delaware bay, Virginia, Barbados, and
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England. In 1639, three ships sailed directly from Eng- land to New Haven, bringing supplies to the new settle- ment; this, however, was an exception to the general rule, as most supplies came by way of Boston and most of the early exports of the New Haven colony, which were beaver and other furs, were sent to Boston and there exchanged for imported manufactured goods.
The Dutch in New Amsterdam bought from the New Haven traders wheat, biscuit, beef, pork, hides, and furs. They also provided a market for Virginia tobacco and such West Indian goods as cotton, sugar, molasses, and rum. What form of payment was used by the Dutch for these articles is not easy to determine, but it is probable that the New Haven merchants would have accepted gladly any manufactured goods, which at the time were either expensive or scarce in Boston.
The first mention of commerce between New Haven and Barbados was in 1647, when salted fish was exchanged for tobacco, cotton, and possibly sugar. This trade was determined by the surplus of fish which could be caught locally and salted for the export trade. The fish known as alewives were very bony, but became softened during the long voyage to Barbados. Later when sugar became its leading staple, Barbados was always eager to exchange its surplus sugar and molasses for the necessary commodi- ties which it could not easily produce. The fish and sugar trade continued throughout the colonial period, but New Haven did not benefit from it to any appreciable extent. This may have been due to the fact that in the later period the British government was partial to New Lon- don in trade matters, or it may have been due to the competition of the Massachusetts towns, which were established before those of Connecticut and were nearer the cod-fisheries.
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New Haven, hoping to increase its trade, made several attempts to establish trading posts on Delaware bay. In 1640-41 purchases were made in that district and a trading house was built. The attempt might have proven successful but for the opposition of the Dutch and Swedes who claimed that territory and in 1642 destroyed the trading house, causing a loss to the New Haven mer- chants estimated at a thousand pounds sterling. Another attempt was made in 1651 which also failed owing to the opposition of the Dutch and Swedes. In 1654 Captain John Mason was invited by the New Haven colony to become the leader of a permanent settlement on Dela- ware bay but, as he was forbidden by the general court of Connecticut to accept this offer, the attempt at coloniza- tion was abandoned.
As time passed and trade did not prosper, it was deter- mined to open direct trade with England. No one man in the colony could afford the undertaking, so a stock com- pany was formed. This company built a ship which was made ready for a voyage to London in 1646. It was laden with a cargo of pease, wheat, West Indian hides, beaver skins, and plate, valued in all at £5,000. This ship, which was to become the famous phantom ship of New Haven legend, was lost at sea and with it was lost New Haven's hope of becoming a leading seaport. The company built another ship a year later and still another in 1648, but these ships also failed in their purpose of bringing pros- perity to New Haven. Though trade continued, it was on a minor scale and was subordinate to agriculture, upon which the colony was forced to depend.
IV
THE most important commercial center of colonial Con- necticut was New London. Founded in 1646 by John
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Winthrop, Jr., son of the governor of the Massachusetts Bay colony, it was not certain at first whether it should be under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts or Connecti- cut. It was therefore natural that the first trade relations should be established with Boston. Thus to Boston were sent peltries and wampum, which were exchanged for clothing, household goods, implements of husbandry, military accoutrements, powder, and lead. A petty traf- fic was also built up with New London's other near neighbors, Rhode Island and New Amsterdam. In 1662 a coastwise trade in dry hides and buckskins was estab- lished with Virginia. This trade did not prosper as Vir- ginia's staple crop, tobacco, was not needed in Con- necticut. There is a statement in the magistrate's report of 1680 as follows, "We have no need of Virginia trade, most people planting so much Tabacco as they spend."
During the early period, New London's most intimate and regular trade, aside from the coastal, was with Barbados; two or three round trips were made each year. Horses, cattle, beef, pork, and sometimes pipe staves were exchanged for sugar, molasses, and later, rum. Agencies for the New London trade were established at Barbados, and there was an interchange of inhabitants of the two places. Merchants of Hartford, Middletown, and Wethersfield sent their goods to New London to be shipped thence. Major John Pynchon of Springfield also used New London as a shipping base. The path to Pequot, the early name for New London, traveled by Pynchon's droves of cattle, is mentioned in the early records of Springfield.
Trade was established at an early date between New London and Newfoundland. This commerce soon devel- oped into a triangular trade: beef and provisions were taken to Newfoundland and there exchanged for fish,
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which was exported to the West Indies, and there ex- changed for sugar and other West Indian produce. As there was also a direct trade between New London and Barbados, it is singular that this triangular trade should have proven profitable. It may not have remained so for a long period of time, as Miss Caulkins reported that by 1700, direct trade between New London and Newfound- land was almost entirely at an end.
Soon after the settlement of New London shipbuilding was begun. About 1660 John Coit, Hugh Mould, and John Stevens opened a shipyard, and within the next four years had built three vessels, called barques, ranging in burden from twelve to twenty tons. These were named Speedwell, Hopewell, and The Endeavor. The Endeavor was put into the West Indian trade and was sold in Barbados, April 10, 1666, for two thousand pounds of sugar. As there was an abundance of timber in Connecticut, vessels were often built with the intention of selling them at the first opportunity in a foreign port. Most of the vessels built in Connecticut during the colonial period were small, seldom more than two hundred tons burden. The larger vessels had three masts and were square rigged. A slightly smaller vessel, known as a ketch, had two masts, of which the forward was square rigged, the other had a fore-and-aft mainsail. The smallest type of vessel used for a long voyage was a sloop, rigged with one mast, large mainsail, and large topsail. These vessels were strong and well built but quite slow. They were good sea boats, which was a necessity at a time when the dangers of navigation were great, because of lack of charts, light- houses, and other modern aids to navigation. As trade increased, so did shipbuilding. The New London of seventy tons was built in 1666; the Regard in 1668; the Charles in 1672; the John and Hester in 1678; The Queen
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and The Recovery in 1680, and the Edward and Margaret in 1681-all by the Coit, Mould Company of New London.
The story of the early trade of the other Connecticut towns founded in this period may be quickly summarized, as it is almost identical with that of the towns already mentioned. Such towns as Milford, Stratford, Guilford, Fairfield, and Stamford, all located on Long Island Sound, engaged with Boston, New Amsterdam, and the West Indies, in the exchange of their local products of hides, fish, and pipe staves for manufactured goods, sugar, molasses, and rum. In all cases the trade was small and subordinate to agriculture, as it was only when a surplus could be obtained that trade was possible, and in the early days it was often difficult to produce enough even for home consumption.
V
IN 1659, the Connecticut general assembly placed an import duty of twenty shillings on every butt of wine, and five shillings on every anker of liquors. This was a modification of an act passed in 1654 which prohibited the importation of Barbados rum, or kill-devil, as it was called, and taxed other liquors ten shillings per anker and wine forty shillings per hogshead. To enforce the law of 1659, nine customs officials, called naval officers, were appointed by the general court. As they were the first men so appointed in Connecticut, their names and the names of the towns they served merit mention: for Hartford, Jonathan Gilbert; for Windsor, Walter Filer; for Wethersfield, Samuel Boreman; for Fairfield, William Hill; for Stratford, Richard Butler; for New London, John Smith; for Saybrook, John Westall; for Middle- town, John Hall; for Norwalk, Matthew Campfield. The duties of these men consisted in entering and "recording
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such Goods as are subiect to Custome," for which service they were paid two shillings for every butt of wine and twelve pence for each anker of liquor. This tax on wine and liquor was the only law of that type passed in this early period by the Connecticut general court.
The colonists were in favor of free trade with the world, having no industries of their own to protect and wishing to buy what they needed in the world market. Their hope of free trade was doomed to failure as, on July 4, 1660, Charles II appointed a committee of the privy council to consider colonial matters and later in the year created two special councils, one for trade and the other for foreign plantations. The avowed purposes of these councils were the supervision and regulation of domestic and foreign trade, the encouragement of home manufactures, and the advancement of fishing and ship- ping. With the formation of these councils, whose chief purpose was to discover ways to make the colonies useful to the mother country, the colonies became to England important from a commercial rather than from a political point of view.
Connecticut, having no direct connection with Eng- land or the Continent, was affected but slightly by the navigation acts, with the single exception of that of 1673, which imposed the plantation duty. Up to that time in order that a beneficial coastwise trade might be built up among the colonies, no duty was placed by the English government on enumerated commodities transported from one colony to another. Many traders took advan- tage of this and after shipping a commodity, such as tobacco or sugar, from one colony to another proceeded to transport all or a part of the cargo to some foreign port, feeling that they had complied with the law. To prevent this illegal practice, parliament, in 1673, passed
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an act which required all captains who had not taken out a bond in England to carry their cargo directly to the mother country to pay a duty at the colonial port of clearance. This payment became known as the plantation duty and was a penny a pound on tobacco and corre- sponding amounts for other commodities. Payment of this duty did not exempt the ship's captain from giving bond to the effect that if he did not unload the goods in another colony he would take them directly to England.
As a result of this law many royal customs officials were appointed in the colonies, by the commissioners of the customs in England under authority from the treasury, whose business it was to collect duties and to see that they were paid in silver. The object of this duty was not revenue, but the prevention of evasions of the navigation acts of 1660 and later years by making it unprofitable to trade directly with the European continent in enumer- ated commodities. This duty was unpopular in the colo- nies, as it was very difficult to make the payments in silver which was very scarce.
The unpopularity of trade restrictions in Connecticut may be seen in two petitions sent by the colonial govern- ment to England. One of these in 1665, and the other in 1680, asked that New London might be given special privileges in respect to trade. In the 1665 petition the request was worded, "Grant it to be a place of free trade for 7, 10, or 12 years"; in that of 1680, "Grant unto us that New London and some others of portes, might be made free portes for 20, 15, or ten yeares." Just how much these petitions asked for is not clear. Whether free trade within the English colonial world was all that was wanted or whether free and direct trade with all parts of the world was sought is not shown. Whatever the intent of the colony, the petitions were denied, as the privilege
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was thought to be opposed to the interests of the mother country.
VI
THE first comprehensive report of Connecticut trade is contained in the answers of 1680 to the queries of the lords of trade. This committee of the privy council, formed in 1675, consisted of the lord treasurer, lord privy seal, and nineteen others. The report showed that there was no vice-admiralty court in the colony, as it stated, "We have litle traffique abroad and small occasion for such a court, and so have not considered or stated any such court at prsent, distinct from the rest; but it is left wth ye Court of Assistts."
In reply to the question of intercolonial trade the report declared that "Our cheif Trade, for procuring of cloathing, is by sending what provissions we rays to Boston, where we buy goods with it, to cloath us."
The trade with the Indians was reported to be of no value, as the Indians were so continually at war with each other that they had no time for interest in trade. The commodities of Connecticut were given as: "Wheat, Peas, Ry, Barly, Indian Corn, and Porck, Beif, Woole, Hemp, Flax, Cyder, Perry, and Tarr, deal boards, Pipe Staves, Horses," the yearly value of which could not be determined or what part of the total was exported. Most of it was transported to Boston and bartered for cloth- ing. "Some small quantities [are] directly sent to Barba- does, Jamaicah, and other Caribia Islands, and there bartered for suger, cotton wool and rumme, and some money." "Rarely, some vessells are laden with Staves, Pease, Porck, and Flower, to Maderah and Fyall, and there barter their comodities for Wine." "For sundry years past" the wheat had been blasted and the "pease spoyled with wormes."
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Taking it all together the trade seems to have been very limited and this is borne out by the small number of vessels owned by the colonists. The report stated: "It is rare any Vessells come to trade with us, but what come from Massachusets Colony or N. Yorke. ... Our own vessells are as followeth. .. . " Then came a list of all Connecticut vessels, with their home ports. There were altogether only twenty-seven vessels: four ships, three pinks, two barks, six ketches, and twelve sloops. Seven of these claimed New London as their home port, five were from New Haven, one from Hartford, one from Middle- town, and the rest scattered among Long Island Sound ports.
When the colonists were asked what they found the greatest hindrance to trade, they answered, lack of capital and high wages. When asked what could be done to im- prove trade they requested, as mentioned above, that New London and three other places be made free ports for fifteen or twenty years.
In this report the word "barter" occurred several times and gave a key to the character of the trade in that early period. There was but a limited amount of hard money in Connecticut, so that most of the trade was carried out by barter, in the process of which only small amounts of cash changed hands in proportion to the total value of the transaction involved. This exchange of commodities had been standardized to such an extent in respect to furs and pelts that an established table of values was generally accepted. Thus a pound and a half of hides was equivalent, in the ratio of exchange, to a buckskin weigh- ing four and a half pounds. A pound of hides equaled two pounds of old iron and two pounds of hides were proportionate to one pound of old pewter.
In the same year, 1680, the commissioners of the cus-
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toms in England sent a letter of instructions to Governor Leete of Connecticut concerning the enforcement of the law relating to the plantation trade. The governor's reply, January 24, 1680, supplemented the answers to the lords of trade mentioned above. Governor Leete wrote: "We have neither had leasure or ability to lanch out in any considerable trade at sea, haveing onely a fewe small vessells to carry our corne, hoggs & horses unto our neighbours of Yorke & Boston, to exchange for some cloathes and utensils . .. . We have allso appoynted Customers or Colectors in our severall countys, to take speciall care that those Acts of Navigation & Trade be duely observed and kept. . . . They are the most aptest persons we could pitch upon for that affayre. This worke is yet novell and unknown to them, . . . but we have no cause to doubt of their fidelity and care in the due at- tendance of the worke and trust reposed in them."
Governor Leete may have been sincere in this matter. Without doubt the men appointed as collectors found the work unknown to them, but it is to be doubted whether they had any great wish to learn what should be done to enforce the acts of trade. Often it was difficult to find a market for colonial goods in the English West Indies, or, if such market were found, it was impossible to make the exchange with West Indian goods at prices which would show any profit to the colonial trader. In such cases it was a great temptation to sail to the Dutch, French, or Spanish colonies in search of greater profits and to enter into illegal trade with them. This would necessitate a furtive return to Connecticut in order to avoid discovery and confiscation, but the possible gain was worth the risk and public opinion in the colony was favorable to the smuggler, though it is unlikely that much smuggling took place in Connecticut at this time. There are no means to
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determine how much smuggling was practiced even in the other colonies. Evidently the English government thought it was considerable, since it issued constant instructions to the various governors how to cope with it, and later ap- pointed royal customs collectors and established vice- admiralty courts in the colonies.
The colonial governors were made the chief enforcing agents of all trade laws, and each of them was required to take oath to carry out the terms of the acts. The oath was to be administered by such persons as the king might commission. Should a governor fail to take the oath, he was subject to a fine of £1,000. In Connecticut, however, the act was never genuinely enforced, though after 1722 the governors were most punctilious in taking the oath to support the acts of trade. The oath was ad- ministered to them by one or more of the assistants or members of the upper house of the colonial legislature who held office in the colony only by vote of the freemen of the colony. This taking of the oath in a manner not prescribed must have caused a certain amount of anxiety, as there appears in the colonial records of March, 1698, the following: "The persons by name appointed by his Majesty to administer oath to the Governour to take all due care that the late Acts of Parliament for incourage- ment of Trade and Navigation, and preventing Frauds &c, be duely observed, not being present, the Governor took the said oath in Councill, being administred to him by ... three of the members of the Councill." During the remainder of the colonial period the king's appointees remained "not present." The Connecticut governors first gave bond, in October, 1722, to obey the acts after an inquiry had been made if they could do so under the pro- visions of the Connecticut charter.
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VII
DANIEL WETHERELL had been appointed customs master for New London by the Connecticut government, but as no colonial appointments to the customs service were recognized by the English government, Wetherell had to obtain, March 9, 1685, a second commission, this time not from the colony but from William Dyre, surveyor general of the customs in the plantations, as deputy collector and searcher for Connecticut. He was thus the last of the Connecticut customs officials to be appointed by the colony and the first to be appointed indirectly by the treasury board in England. In October, 1707, John Shackmaple was commissioned by Robert Quary, then surveyor general, to supersede Wetherell as collector, surveyor, and searcher for Connecticut. As Shackmaple was an Englishman who had never lived in Connecticut, it seems likely that the reason for his appointment was an attempt to gain a more rigid enforcement of the acts of trade than that attained under Wetherell.
Shackmaple's appointment affected the colony in sev- eral ways. For the first time there was permanently stationed in Connecticut a man who owed his office directly to the English government and who was inde- pendent of governor and company. Formerly the governor had appointed the naval officers to regulate trade in the chief colonial ports, to collect the colonial duty on rum and other liquors, and to receive the plantation duty. This transfer of power to alien hands could not but cause antagonism and opposition. The struggle continued for eleven years and in the end proved a complete victory for Shackmaple. The story is interesting in that it shows the spirit of the people in Connecticut at that time, a spirit of defiance, albeit legal, toward all attempts of England to regulate their affairs.
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The first hint of a conflict appeared in the records of 1708, which mentioned a letter received by the governor from Colonel Quary, "who stiles himself Surveyor Gen- eral of her Majesties Customs in all the Provinces on the Continent of America," relating to the naval officers and deputy collectors within the colony. In this letter Quary claimed the right to appoint officers under him to admin- ister the collection of the customs and to regulate trade, which right he exercised in the appointment of John Shackmaple. The governor had the letter read to the general assembly, wishing to ascertain their opinion of it. The assembly made no decision but desired the governor and council to consider the matter carefully and to dis- cover whether Colonel Quary had any authority in the form of a commission from the treasury, to make such appointments.
Before this question could be answered a new ruling from England rendered the situation more acute. In 1709, the treasury declared that any vessel sailing from any Connecticut port to a port in any other colony or to a foreign port must have its bills of lading signed by a royal collector of the customs in Connecticut. Shackmaple was the only royal collector in the colony and as he was stationed at New London, this ruling meant that all vessels had to go to New London in order that they might receive his signature before sailing to any non- Connecticut port. In the trade with Rhode Island and Boston this would cause only a minor delay, as the vessels sailing from the western Connecticut harbors had to pass New London on their voyages; but for vessels that had their home port in New Haven, Stamford, or other western Connecticut towns and wished to sail to New York, it would cause great delay and expense to go first to New London.
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