USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 3 > Part 49
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53
The Embargo Act of 1807 did not include whaling vessels in the prohibited list, but it prevented exportation of the products and made profits uncertain. Since it took from two to three years to complete a voyage to the Pacific, many ships were at sea when the War of 1812 broke out. For these reasons, at the close of the war Nantucket had but half of her former whaling fleet.
533
REVIVAL OF COMMERCE
REVIVAL OF COMMERCE (1789 - 1808)
The prophet Emerson has asserted that "from 1790 to 1820 there was not a book, a speech, a conversation, or a thought in the state of Massachusetts." Brissot de Warville appears to furnish an explanation of this charge; when speak- ing of Boston, he said : "Commerce occupies all their thoughts, turns all their heads, and absorbs all their speculations." If they had no "brilliant monuments," at least they had "excellent ships." Henry C. Adams declared that the history of Ameri- can shipping from 1780-1807 "was without parallel in the history of the commercial world." Yet from the most ancient times commerce has been held to be a civilizer.
The reasons for this increased trade were numerous. The adoption of the American Constitution in 1789 was of prime importance, for American merchants found that European governments were "sensible to the weakness and inefficiency of the American Confederation." The first tariff act passed by the new government (1789) levied a tonnage duty on for- eign bottoms amounting to eight times that which was placed on American ships. This payment was required of a foreign ship each time it entered an American port, while American ships paid it only once a year. As a result, foreign ships were practically excluded from coastwide trade, and placed at a serious disadvantage for over-sea traffic. In addition, a ten per cent rebate was allowed on the duty of goods landed in American ports in American ships.
American commerce was measurably benefited by a series of commercial treaties, of which, the Jay Treaty of 1794 with England, the treaty of San Lorenzo with Spain in 1795, and the Convention of 1800 with France were the most important. Moreover, the United States gradually acquired a small navy which secured some measure of respect to our merchantmen. The Napoleonic wars in Europe directly affected our carrying trade. Whenever those wars were most widespread our trade was benefited and during the periods of peace it suffered. From 1803 to 1805 the United States was the largest carrier of goods from European ports to the ports of other European countries, possessing a million tons of shipping of which 426,000 belonged to Massachusetts. From 1790 to 1807 the
534
COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY
value of American exports increased from $2,500,000 to $20,000,000.
In addition to the great amount of tonnage engaged in the foreign trade, Massachusetts owned seven eighths of the fish- ing tonnage of the United States and a greater percentage of the coastwise tonnage than any other State.
It is hardly an exaggeration to say that commerce occupied all the thoughts of the maritime State of Massachusetts, for it has been estimated that her ships brought home some $15,000,000 in freight money alone. Massachusetts was domi- nated by the merchant class during this period as completely as the South was by the planters at a later time. Every European port was familiar to the captains of Massachusetts ; and when the direct Oriental trade slackened, other outlets were sought. Salem ships gathered commodities at Amster- dam and San Sebastian, to sell them again at Bordeaux or Hamburg. Moreover the India trade itself was closely allied with European commerce. An Indiaman often gathered goods of all kinds at West Indian ports and exchanged them for specie in Europe, with which oriental goods were purchased. Such a cargo might again be sold and bought before the ship reached its home harbor. South America was familiar with Boston traders before 1800; and Japan saw the first American ensign flying at the staff of a Massachusetts ship in 1791.
OPENING OF THE ORIENTAL TRADE (1785 - 1791)
No phase of the maritime history of Massachusetts is more dramatic than that of the Oriental trade. It is difficult to determine when that trade first aroused American merchants and seafaring men. Certain it is, however, that in 1783 such ideas were current in Salem; for in that year a small sloop, the Harriet, from Hingham, sailed for China with a cargo of ginseng. The Harriet, however, reached no farther than the Cape of Good Hope; so that the honor of being the first American ship to drop anchor in Chinese waters is ac- corded to the New York vessel Empress of China, in 1784. The following year, Elias Hasket Derby cleared his ship, the Grand Turk, from Salem for the Isle of France, and finally for Canton; whence she returned in 1787, bringing wealth and ad- venture in her wake.
535
OPENING OF THE ORIENTAL TRADE
If the success of the Grand Turk inflamed the imagination of Massachusetts merchants, the arrival at Boston in 1790 of the Columbia proved the worth of a different line of com- merce. A serious difficulty with the China trade lay in the dearth of suitable commodities for exchange. Hence a group of Boston merchant adventurers, probably with some knowl- edge of the Russian fur trade in the Bering Sea, conceived the idea of buying Chinese products with furs previously gathered along the northwest coast of the American continent. The Columbia, a ship of 212 tons, and the Lady Washington, of less than half that size, were fitted out to try the experiment. Both ships arrived at Nootka Sound in April, 1788; but finding the season too far advanced for trade, were forced to stand by until 1789. In the summer of that year, the Columbia proceeded to Canton, exchanged its furs for tea, and returned to Boston westward around the world, thus opening up a new avenue for Yankee energy.
In the fall of 1790 the Columbia sailed again, preceded by a seventy-ton brigantine sent out by Thomas Perkins, and followed within two months by yet another vessel. The Inde- pendent Chronicle of Boston, October 27, 1791, contained the following notice: "Upwards of seventy sail of vessels sailed from this port on Monday last for all parts of the world. Among them was the ship Margaret, James Magee, Esq., Com- mander, bound on a voyage of observation and enterprise to the northwest coast of this Continent. This vessel is copper bottomed, and is said to be the best provided of anyone that ever sailed from this port."
Other ships followed the Margaret to the northwestern coast, soon to be known as "the coast," a phrase not yet ex- tinct as applied to the eastern shore of the Pacific. So rapidly did the idea of this trade spread that, within two years after the arrival of the Columbia in 1790, the route to China by way of Vancouver was firmly established. Boston was the center of this fur-trading industry, for Salem men preferred the Cape of Good Hope route. In fact, such was the mo- nopoly of Boston sail on the northwest coast that the natives long dubbed all citizens of the United States who reached them "Boston men."
536
COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY
COURSE OF THE CHINA TRADE (1790 - 1812)
The "Boston nor'westermen" were generally small craft of 100 to 250 tons, built in the ship yards of Massachusetts and copper-bottomed to prevent the accumulation of barnacles and weeds. If they cleared from Boston in the fall they generally arrived on the "coast" by spring. Although the passage of the Horn was considered hazardous, no loss is re- corded of a single one of those sturdy craft in rounding the cape. They were usually armed with from six to twenty cannons, with muskets, pistols, cutlasses, and boarding pikes, in order to combat pirates and the Indians, whom Captain Gray found to be both treacherous and aggressive. In 1803, the natives of Nootka Sound attacked the Boston and mas- sacred all the crew save two.
Arriving on the "coast" in the spring, a trader would stop at each Indian village on the sea front long enough to gather what furs were available. Copper, brilliantly colored cloth, chisels, shoes, blankets, nails, and trinkets were among the common articles of trade. The most valuable fur was sea otter and the price varied from one chisel to ten chisels each. Ornaments and trinkets were worth many pelts. As a general thing it required three years for a round trip from Boston to Canton by way of the northwest coast.
The enterprising Massachusetts traders extended commerce whenever opportunity beckoned. Captain Kendrick, of the Lady Washington, discovered sandalwood growing wild in the Hawaiian Islands; and after that, sandalwood as well as sea otter was likely to be a part of an American cargo for Canton. In 1796 a Boston ship, the Otter, anchored in California wa- ters, despite Spanish restrictions. Ships generally carried let- ters of friendship written in Spanish, for use in case it was necessary to put into a Spanish port under "stress of weather" -which happened frequently "if the land breezes smelt sea otterish."
Besides sea otter and sandalwood a nor'westerman might carry to Canton a few thousand sealskins. Seals were plenti- ful from Chile northward, and great quantities could be easily obtained. The price was low, but a hundred thousand could easily be taken in a single ship.
537
EXPANSION OF ORIENTAL TRADE
EXPANSION OF ORIENTAL TRADE (1790 - 1808)
At Canton, Boston merchants established agencies. Major Samuel Shaw of Boston, supercargo of the Empress of China, returned to Canton in 1808 as the first American consul. He established the firm of Shaw and Randall, which handled goods for a commission of 71/2 per cent. Later, after several rival companies were organized, the commission was reduced to 21/2 per cent. Trading at Canton was expensive on account of the graft and inefficiency of the officials ; but the fur-trading industry thrived. Between 1805 and 1806 American ships carried to Canton 192,202 pelts of all kinds besides sandalwood and other articles.
When the Columbia arrived home at Boston in 1790, Ori- ental goods were being sold in the shops. Fourteen American ships had already visited the Canton market, four of them belonging to Elias Hasket Derby of Salem. After the nota- ble success of the Grand Turk, Derby and other Salem mer- chants sent ships to the East in great numbers. These craft traded along both coasts of Africa, the Dutch East Indies, Manila, Calcutta, and Canton; but seldom if ever adventured to the northwest coast. Ships for China carried many wares, and the trade gave use to many lines of local commerce. Smaller craft were required to collect a cargo not only of wines, lead, and other articles from Europe, but fish, flour, iron, provisions, and tobacco from many American ports. The returning ships brought tea, coffee, muslins, and silks, which again were distributed to the Atlantic ports.
Salem ships engaged in a thriving carrying trade between various Eastern harbors. A clever captain could make a profit from trade between Ceylon, Bombay, Madras, and Bengal, provided that he "tipped heavily and behaved like a gentle- man." Captain Jonathan Carnes brought the first cargo of pepper to Salem in 1793. The profit from the voyage was 700 per cent, and the town went pepper mad. In a short time four- teen vessels cleared for Benkulen, and the northwestern coast of Sumatra was a rendezvous for Salem men. Salem for a time was "the pepper emporium of the world."
538
COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY
ELIAS HASKET DERBY (1770 - 1812)
Any survey of the maritime history of Massachusetts during this period would be incomplete without special mention of a few of her notable merchants and captains. Probably the most noted was Elias Hasket Derby of Salem. He was of English extraction and of a family famous as traders for several generations. His father before the Revolution had experi- enced the rigor of the English admiralty courts in America. His brother John was the owner of the Columbia when it reached Oregon under Captain Gray. When the Revolution broke out, "King Derby," uniting with his fellows in Salem, equipped one hundred and fifty-eight ships as privateersman. These ships intercepted transport and supply vessels from England and Nova Scotia, and compelled England to convoy her merchantmen. According to Felt's Annals of Salem, pri- vateers sent out from that port captured four hundred and forty-five ships. Derby was one of the few men engaged in privateering who survived the Revolution with fortunes in- tact.
Derby established shipyards, studied naval architecture, and built a class of ships superior in size, model, and speed to any that had heretofore been launched from the yards of Massachusetts. He was a true "merchant prince," an adven- turer of the old school. In 1784 he sent the first American ship to Russia with £8,000 worth of sugar. In the same year the Grand Turk was sent to Canton. Derby was later re- ferred to as "the Father of American Commerce to India." At one time he owned one fourth of Salem's tonnage. From 1785 to 1799 he despatched one hundred and twenty-five ships, forty-four of which went to India. Hundreds of captains and merchantmen were trained in his service; and when he died he left an estate of a million dollars.
NOTABLE MERCHANT PRINCES
Aboard one of Derby's ships, the Astrea, which sailed from Boston to Canton in 1789, was Thomas H. Perkins, who had turned from the West India to the Oriental trade. He re- turned to Boston in 1790, but visited Canton again and re- mained long enough to become thoroughly acquainted with commercial conditions there. Perkins and his brother James
Original by James Frothingham, Peabody Museum Courtesy of the Essex Institute, Salem ELIAS HASKET DERBY
539
COMMERCIAL POLITICS
established one of the largest and most successful trading companies, not only of the United States, but of the world. In 1797 he was the president of the Boston branch of the United States Bank. He established the Perkins Institute for the Blind, and gave lavishly to many philanthropic enter- prises.
A third notable merchant prince was Joseph Peabody. Start- ing his career as a privateersman during the Revolution, he was second officer aboard the famous Ranger, and first officer under Thomas Perkins. Later he sailed his own ship, the Three Friends, and retired from the sea in 1791. He pros- pered rapidly, built 83 ships, and employed 7,000 seamen.
One of the most famous of the merchant traders of the northwest fur trade was Captain William Sturgis. At the age of sixteen he left Boston as a foremast hand and returned five years later as master of the Caroline. He became one of the wealthiest merchants of Boston and a respected member of the General Court.
Equally renowned was Captain John Suter, who came to Boston from Virginia, and went to sea as a foremast hand at the age of seventeen. His experiences extended from im- pressment into British service to imprisonment in a French dungeon. Eventually he entered the India trade as the master of his own ship. It is a notable fact in the history of Massa- chusetts that a surprisingly large number of the eminent merchants and other men of the period started their careers either as privateersmen or foremast hands, and thus brought themselves and their families into wealth and social position "through the hawse hole."
COMMERCIAL POLITICS (1789 - 1800)
James Sullivan once declared, anticipating a school of twen- tieth-century writers, that the "merchants had made the Con- stitution," and that they should have an important influence in the selection of those who were to control the government. It was patent that the policy of the Federalist administrations of Washington and Adams favored the interests of New Eng- land more than that of any other section. The drawback sys- tem, the additional duty paid on foreign goods imported in
540
COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY
foreign bottoms, the bonded-warehouse system, and the ton- nage duties, all served to aid the commercial interests.
The merchants of Massachusetts considered that their wel- fare and their interests were closely allied with those of Great Britain. For one thing, credit, which was available nowhere else, could be obtained in London. Moreover London bills of credit were known and recognized all over the western world, whereas American paper became less valuable as the distance from its place of issue increased.
The merchant was also drawn to England as against France. Whatever else the capitalist respected, he upheld property and vested interests; and the French social and political upheaval was dangerous Jacobinism to the Salem or Boston merchants. Finally, there was an ever increasing frontier element in Mas- sachusetts which had scant respect for the commercial classes. Since the frontier farmer possessed an insatiable longing for democracy, he was antagonistic to the hegemony of the mari- time interests. The shipping interests, therefore, allied with the local officials and the predominant church, looked askance at the election of Jefferson as President in 1800, and finally turned thumbs down on his policy of commercial coercion as a policy for meeting the oppressions of Great Britain on Amer- ican commerce.
MASSACHUSETTS UNDER THE EMBARGO (1807 - 1809)
The Boston Gazette of January 11, 1808, predicted in detail the sacrifice that the embargo would occasion to New Eng- land. It estimated that Massachusetts would lose $38,000,- 000 annually; and that the loss of interest on that amount was fourteen times the total State tax. Massachusetts was then represented in the Senate of the United States by John Quincy Adams and Timothy Pickering. The former was tired of commercial restriction and wanted action of almost any variety, but Pickering opposed the embargo. "I know," he declared to Ambassador Rose, "that in the present unexampled state of the world, our own best citizens consider the interests of the United States to be interwoven with those of Great Britain, and that our safety depends on hers."
When Adams declined to share his views, Pickering decided to make the embargo a political question in Massachusetts.
MASSACHUSETTS UNDER THE EMBARGO 541
He sent to Governor Sullivan a statement for transmittal to the General Court, citing his reasons for opposing the em- bargo, and implying that Jefferson was in secret league with France. "Those states," he said, "whose farms are on the Ocean, and whose harvests are gathered in every sea, should immediately and seriously consider how to preserve them."
Adams opposed the particularism of Pickering. Although he doubted the efficacy of the embargo movement, he re- fused to condemn it; for he realized that the alternative was war, which he did not wish to recommend. On the other hand, Adams did not seek to prolong the trade restriction, and at one time proposed its repeal in the case of those States not guilty of acts against neutral shipping. No such half-hearted measure pleased the "old guard," composed of such men as John Cabot, Harrison Gray Otis, and Timothy Pickering.
The consequence was a political contest in Massachusetts in 1807 between the British and the American influences. The letter sent to Governor Sullivan by Pickering was widely read and had great effect. As a result of the State elections of 1808, a majority in the legislature opposed Adams; and he resigned his seat in the United States Senate. Petitions from Massachusetts, asking for the removal of the embargo, poured in upon Congress in great numbers. Between January and April, 1808, 5,571 people of Massachusetts signed such peti- tions.
John Henry of Montreal, an unofficial British agent, was admitted "freely" into Boston society, where he found con- genial companions. He declared that "men of talents, prop- erty and influence in Boston" were resolved to do all expe- dient things to prevent war with England; and that "a few months more of suffering and privation of all benefits of com- merce" would cause the people of New England to secede from the Union. Senator Pickering made substantially the same statement in regard to Massachusetts opinion. Each stated that organized propaganda had been launched to im- press upon Jefferson's administration the opposition to the embargo; and each hinted that either singly or together the New England states would eventually negotiate separately with England.
542
COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY
DEFIANCE OF THE EMBARGO (1807 - 1808)
While these discussions were in progress among the mer- chants and politicians, the embargo was steadily violated by Massachusetts. The temptation for smuggling across the Canadian border was too strong to be resisted. The revenue inspectors along the frontier were powerless and often com- pletely intimidated. It was said that few places appeared "to be safe for civil officers to execute the laws." Even Governor Sullivan of Massachusetts admitted that the em- bargo was everywhere evaded. The President permitted a coastwise trade under strict supervision. Grain could be im- ported into Massachusetts from the States south of her under licenses issued by Governor Sullivan, but the ease with which these licenses were obtained aided the smugglers. July 27, 1807, President Jefferson declared that the infractions of the embargo in Massachusetts were open. "I have removed Pope of New Bedford," he said, "for worse than negligence .... The tories of Boston threaten insurrection if their importation of flour is stopped." At Newburyport an armed mob pre- vented a customs officer from detaining a ship, and the Presi- dent openly rebuked the people of Nantucket and Penobscot for illegal commerce.
Josiah Quincy, whom John Quincy Adams had attempted to convert to the embargo policy, declared that "nature gave the Ocean to New England"; and that any attempt to deprive the people of it was an infringement on their "natural rights." When the Enforcement Act of January 9, 1809, was signed, it was bitterly opposed by Pickering, ambitious for the Presidency and flattered by England. Along with Harrison Gray Otis and others, he declared himself willing to try nulli- fication. For this and other reasons, the embargo was repealed in 1808; and thenceforward the restrictions upon commerce under the Enforcement Act were nominal.
The effect of the embargo on general trade is well illustrated by the decrease in national imports from a value of $138,500,- 000 in 1807 to $56,990,000 in 1808. During the continuance of the embargo the fishing tonnage of the United States fell off by one half. In 1807 New England exported 473,924
HVAINVM-KODVM
After a miniature by Hinckley, Peabody Museum Courtesy of the Essex Institute, Salem HON. JACOB CROWNINSHIELD, 1770-1808
543
IMPRESSMENTS AND PRIVATEERING
quintals of dried fish; in 1808, only 155,808 quintals. The small shipowners and people dependent on shipping suffered serious hardships. Shipbuilding for the time almost entirely ceased, and the trade of Salem, Newburyport, and Plymouth was so seriously damaged that it never fully recovered its former importance.
After the embargo was lifted came a prompt revival of trade. The commerce with Russia was especially flourishing, inasmuch as Napoleon had closed other European ports to intercourse with Russia. It is probable that one hundred ships from Massachusetts were engaged in the Russian trade. The profits were frequently extraordinary, and there is a record of one vessel, worth $7,000, which returned a profit of $115,000 on one voyage.
MASSACHUSETTS ON IMPRESSMENTS AND PRIVATEERING (1805 - 1814)
In face of the prosperity that confronted commerce, mer- chants and shipowners were not inclined to quibble over im- pressments. They sought to minimize the evil. A committee from Nantucket declared that out of an aggregate of one thousand seamen sent out from that island, only one had been impressed. James Lloyd, a member of Congress, said that no impressments had taken place aboard his ships, and that none of his constituents had made complaints. Peace meetings were organized throughout the State. As a result of this op- position Massachusetts did not send out privateersmen in the War of 1812 as ardently as during the Revolution. Boston, for example, sent out but 31 ships, as against 55 from New York. Marblehead, on the other hand, supported the war and furnished 726 men as privateersmen.
During the first year of the war, before England was thoroughly prepared to protect her commerce, privateering was profitable. Eighteen vessels from Salem captured 87 prizes. The America, belonging to Crowninshield, furnishes a good example of a privateersman of the time. She mounted twenty-four guns and carried a crew of one hundred and fifty men and captured prizes which sold for over a million dollars.
544
COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY
TRADE WITH THE ENEMY (1812 - 1815)
During the War of 1812 probably every port of Massachus- etts carried on a more or less extensive illegal trade with Eng- land. Some of her merchantmen took out Portuguese papers. Gradually, however, England placed prohibitive restrictions on our commerce. In 1813 only five ships cleared Boston, where in the harbor 246 ships lay idle. The coastwise trade was also effectively stopped, which acted as a strong encour- agement to land traffic between the States, known derisively in Boston as the "horse-marine." Goods were frequently sent overland from Boston to Philadelphia and Richmond.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.