USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880, Vol. IV > Part 25
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With the advent of peace, every description of merchandise arrived from abroad in large quantities, and prices fell rapidly.3 The newspapers of the time are filled with advertisements of goods just received from British and other European ports.4 Many representatives of English houses made their appearance, and some Boston business men returned who had been residing in England during the war, and all brought speculative ventures with them. Dr. Price, an intelligent writer on economic questions, and a stead- fast friend of the newly independent States, in a letter from London, said : "The imports into the United States will probably be much greater this year than for a year or two afterward, through the eagerness of adventurers to introduce goods, whereby the market will be overstocked. It will be some time before trade can get into the regular course of circulation, and the exports be procurable to tally with the imports." These predictions were speedily fulfilled; supply far exceeded demand; prices declined to a
1 In 1782 the tax in Massachusetts was £200,000. In 1783 it was the same amount. " New loans were obtained, and the law for an impost went into operation and produced no in- considerable revenue. An exhibit by Congress stated the sum wanted for the year to be $6,000,- 000, -$4,c00,000 to be borrowed in Europe and $2,000,000 to be furnished by the States, of which $320,000 would be the proportion of Massachu- setts. At the same time, Congress recommended to the States to raise a million and a half annu- ally for twenty-five years, the proportion of which for Massachusetts would be $224,000." - Bradford's History of Massachusetts, pp. 302, 303.
Soon after the peace, an additional tax of $470,000 was voted for the purpose of paying the officers and soldiers a part of their dues.
2 Barry's History of Massachusetts, iii. 317.
Four millions of the debt referred to above were assumed by the Federal Government, and, at a later period, a million and a quarter more.
3 In the Independent Chronicle of May 16, 1783, David Sears offers goods for sale at his store in State Street, " at peace prices." [This gentleman had gone to England in May, 1775, in the same vessel with Mrs. Copley, and it is prob- able that a miniature of him by Copley, now in the family, was painted in London. Perkins's Copley's Life and Paintings, supplement, p. 6. He was the father of the late Hon. David Sears. The Sears genealogy is worked out in an ap- pendix to Edmund H. Sears's Pictures of the Olden Time. Boston, 1857. - ED.]
4 One announcement is worthy of special mention. Under date of June 5, 1783, we read : " This morning arrived a ship from Cork, loaded with beef, pork, and butter."
1
199
THE TRADE, COMMERCE, ETC., OF BOSTON.
ruinous point ; failures followed; and, in the absence of exports, the country began to be drained of its specie. A London paper of March 9, 1784, remarks : -
"Two ships are arrived in our river from Boston in New England, both in ballast, not having been able to procure cargoes of any kind, though they had (what is most desirable in that country) specie to pay for all they should have brought away. It appears from hence that the northern parts of the American States are in a much worse situation than the provinces to the southward. Boston was once the most flourishing place in America, and employed near five hundred sail of shipping, besides coasting and fishing vessels, which were numerous to a degree. Besides the trade which subsisted within themselves, they were to America what Holland has been to Europe, - the carriers for all the other Colonies. At present, their distillery is entirely at a stand; their peltry and fur trade, once so considerable, is entirely over ; the fishery is exceedingly trifling ; instead of the vast exports of hemp, flax, tar, pitch, turpentine, staves, lumber, and provisions, the only thing that offered at Boston, when the above ships sailed, was train-oil, which they got up at a high price." 1
We are indebted to English writers of the day, not only for the sombre but graphic sketch of business affairs in Boston just after the peace, quoted above, but also for a generous estimate of what the commercial capabilities of the country were, and for an intelligent judgment as to what its policy should be. The London Evening Post, commenting on the steady drain of specie from the United States to pay for importations from Europe, said :
" Can a country want trade who can build ships cheaper than any part of the world ; whose cod fisheries can be carried on with such advantages ; who can manu- facture the valuable exports of pot and pearl ashes ; whose produce of lumber, naval stores, tobacco, rice, indigo, and flour are so abundant ; and who lay so convenient to supply the West India Islands with all necessaries? These are the grand objects of America, and the system to be adopted by them is to make their exports exceed the amount of their imports, and instead of being debtors, they may establish themselves as creditors in the trade of Europe." 2
1 See Independent Chronicle, April 16, 1784.
.
2 Ibid., May 27, 1784. Although the article from which we have given an extract above referred to the country at large, its real signifi- cance and force related to Massachusetts. In reference to this province, more than sixty years before, in 1721, the Board of Trade had made a report to the King, in which it was said that its products proper for the consumption of Great Britain were "timber, turpentine, tar and pitch, masts, pipes and hogsheads, staves, whale fins and oil, and some furs ; " that it had a trade to " the foreign plantations in America, consisting chiefly in the exportation of horses to Surinam 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." The same report said further, in reference to the people of
Massachusetts : " The branch of trade which was of the greatest importance to them, and which they were best enabled to carry on, was the build- ing of ships, sloops, etc." About a hundred and fifty vessels were built in a year, measuring six thousand tons. Most of these were built for sale abroad, but there belonged to the province "about a hundred and ninety sail, which might contain six thousand tons, and were navigated by about eleven hundred men, besides a hundred and fifty boats, with six hundred men, employed in the fisheries on their own coast." - See Pal- frey's History of New England, iv. 429.
In a foot-note on the same page Dr. Palfrey says : " According to information which the his- torian Neale professed to have obtained from the King's Custom House, 24,000 tons of ship- ping cleared annually from Boston about the year 1719."
200
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
The shipment of specie under the circumstances which have been de- scribed could not be maintained for any length of time, and the cessation of remittances, when it came, brought disaster to those who had sold or consigned goods from the other side of the Atlantic. London dates to Aug. 27, 1784, reported : "No less than five great American houses tumbled in the City yesterday, one to the tune of £140,000. With regard to American connexions since the peace, it may be safely said, Si populus vult decipi, decipiatur." Again, under date of September 3, it was said: "But few large fortunes have been made shipping goods to American houses, even before the war. Those who got money in that country had stores of their own, kept by their partners or factors, who had no separate interest, and were anxious to make early remittances. Where the same plan has been followed (with this difference, that no credit has been given) money was got last year, and to these people the prospects of this summer are by no means discouraging." And later (September 24) : "Very few of the last orders from America will be executed, as the tradesmen are coming to their senses. Very few dollars make their appearance now; indeed, the new States are almost exhausted of specie already." 1
In the winter of 1783-84, some of the leading merchants of Boston took measures for the establishment of a bank of deposit and issue, believ- ing that such an institution would have a conservative influence on the trade of the town, by promoting promptness in the payment of debts, and by maintaining the standard of individual credit, while it would facilitate the transaction of legitimate business. In December, 1783, an advertisement appeared in the papers, as follows: "The utility of a bank established on right principles being generally known and acknowledged, a plan has been projected, and is now ready for the patronage of those gentlemen who wish to derive the many public and private advantages which have resulted from such institutions in other countries. Copies of the plan are lodged with, and subscriptions received by, William Phillips, Isaac Smith, Jonathan Mason, Thomas Russell, John Lowell, and Stephen Higginson, Esqrs, and at the offices of Edward Payne, John Hurd, and M. M. Hays, Esqrs."2 On the 12th of February, 1784, the committee reported progress, and advertised for " three or four iron chests." An act of incorporation had been obtained under the name of the Massachusetts Bank; and on the 26th of February William Phillips, Isaac Smith, and Jonathan Mason, by virtue of the powers vested in them by the act, called a meeting for organization "to be holden
1 " The excessive importations of 1784 and less severe." - Bradford's History of Massachu- 1785, and the drain of specie which followed setts, P. 312. had the effect of deranging the State finances ; In 1785, Governor Bowdoin proposed the establishment in the interior of the State of a large manufactory of pot and pearl ashes. He believed that by the production of these articles in sufficient quantities to meet the demand for export, the shipment of specie would be checked ; but the plan was not adopted. Ibid. p. 310. for many who had been extravagant in their purchases thought it first necessary to pay the debts they had thus incurred, so far as they were able, and to leave the payment of their taxes to a future day. Had the taxes from 1781 to 1784 been promptly paid, the pressure in the years which followed would have been
2 Independent Chronicle, Dec. 18, 1783.
201
THE TRADE, COMMERCE, ETC., OF BOSTON.
at Colonel Martin's in State Street, on Thursday, the 18th of March next, at ten o'clock A. M." The call concluded with the following monition : "As punctuality in all respects is of the greatest importance in such an institution, the stockholders or their substitutes will observe the hour fixed, and govern themselves accordingly."1 The meeting was held pursuant to notice, and the following directors were chosen and announced in alphabetical order, as follows : James Bowdoin, president; Samuel Breck, George Cabot, Stephen Higginson, John Lowell, Jonathan Mason, Samuel A. Otis, Edward Payne, William Phillips, Thomas Russell, Isaac Smith, and Oliver Wendell.2 The directors advertised for a " cashier, accomptant, teller, clerk, and sub-teller," and for a banking house. The bank first occupied the old Manufactory House; 3 but it purchased the American Coffee House in State Street, in April, 1792, and put up a building there for its own use.4
The citizens of the United States might well have supposed, that, having achieved their independence, their commercial enterprise would now have free play upon the ocean ; and that although they could no longer lay claim to the precise privileges and immunities which they had formerly enjoyed as subjects of the British crown, they would be able to put in exercise on the sea, no less than on the land, all the rights attaching to the citizens of a sovereign State. But if such was their expectation, they were soon to be disappointed. The same mischievous disposition as of old, to prescribe and to limit the channels in which American trade should flow, was mani- fested by the British Government, notwithstanding the results of war and dismemberment of the empire which this policy, persisted in, had brought to pass. It had been found impracticable to negotiate a commercial treaty in behalf of the United States with Great Britain, and another course of restric- tive legislation was now entered upon by the Government of the latter coun- try, more severe in some respects, and certainly more galling to the citizens of the former, than that which previously had driven them into rebellion. The trade with the West India Islands had been very large and remunera- tive. In the prosecution of this, the merchants found themselves hampered and crippled, and in imminent danger of being cut off from it altogether. American vessels were forbidden to carry the products of the British West Indies to England; only American products could be imported direct from the United States into England, not even British ships being allowed to bring West India products as formerly from America.
1 Independent Chronicle, Feb. 26, 1784. [See further on the Massachusetts Bank in the chapter on "Finance in Boston" in this volume. - ED.] 2 Ibid. March 25, 1784.
8 [For the previous history of the Manufac- tory House see Vol. II. pp. xxvi., 511, and the chapter on "Industries" in this volume .- ED.]
4 It was announced in June, 1784, that the Bank of New York would soon commence oper- ations, as the president and directors had been VOL. IV. - 26.
qualified on the 22d of the preceding month, "before His Worship the Mayor, to conduct the business of the bank to the best of their knowl- edge and abilities for the interest and benefit of the proprietors, and agreeable to the true intent and meaning of their constitution."- Independent Chronicle, June 10, 1784. The Union Bank of Boston was incorporated in 1792. It was “pred- icated on principles designed and adapted to the accommodation of landholders."
202
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
The Order in Council of April 17, 1784, permitted only unmanufactured goods (except oil) and pitch, tar, turpentine, indigo, masts, yards, and bow- sprits, being the growth or production of any of the United States, to be imported directly from them into any of the ports of the United Kingdom, either in British or American ships, by British subjects or by any of the people inhabiting in or belonging to the said United States, or any of them. The products of the West India Islands could be exported to the United States only in British ships, and the products of the United States could be imported into the West Indies, including the Bahamas and Bermudas, only by " British subjects in British-built vessels, owned by His Majesty's subjects and navigated according to law."
These harsh and indefensible regulations provoked much indignation in the American cities and towns, and led to serious deliberation and con- sultation among the merchants as to the course they should adopt in their own defence. It was seen that a general policy of some kind would have to be agreed upon, and that it might become necessary to retaliate.1 A meet- ing of merchants, traders, and others was held in Faneuil Hall on the 16th of April, 1785, at which a very spirited and positive preamble and series of resolutions were adopted. The preamble was as follows: "Whereas no commercial treaty is at present established between these United States and Great Britain, and whereas certain British merchants, factors, and agents from England are now residing in this town, who have received large quantities of English goods and are in expectation of receiving further supplies, imported in British bottoms or otherways, greatly to the hindrance of freight in all American vessels." The resolutions called for the appoint- ment of a committee to enter into correspondence with other seaports, ordered a memorial to Congress, and pledged the honor of the citizens not to purchase from, or have commercial connections with, the said British merchants, factors, and agents, and not to sell or let to them warehouses, shops, houses, or any other place for the sale of their goods.2
In July, 1785, the Legislature of Massachusetts passed an act for the regulation of navigation and commerce. It prohibited the exportation of any of the products of the United States from the ports of the Common- wealth in British ships, until the removal of the restrictions imposed by Great Britain which have been enumerated; it laid a heavy tonnage duty, a light money tax, and double duties on goods brought into Massachusetts in British vessels. This was followed by similar legislation in Rhode Island and New York.3
1 The Philadelphia merchants addressed cir- cular-letters to the other great trading communi- ties, urging that restrictions be laid on the trade of all the nations which forbade their carrying even the products of their own country into their ports; for Great Britain had not been the only power which had thus sought to interfere with their commerce, although both in the ex- tent of its restrictions and in the method of en-
forcing them it had shown more severity than any other.
2 Independent Chronicle, April 21, 1785.
8 Ibid., July 7, 1785. In the same paper, of July 21, an extract is given from a letter written from Boston, June 17, to a merchant in Halifax, in which it is said: "After August, a British vessel arriving here will be obliged to pay five pounds a ton, and twenty-five per cent on all
203
THE TRADE, COMMERCE, ETC., OF BOSTON.
In July, 1785, there was not a single British merchantman in the harbor of Boston, and it was beginning to be understood that no free entry would be granted until there had been an abatement of the rigor of the British navigation system. It began to be seen, also, that the restrictive policy did not make it the more easy to the business men of the United States to meet their engagements with their English creditors. In the month of November London dates were received to September 3, and among other news it was said: "Thursday, three capital houses in the City were obliged to stop pay- ment, on account of the remittances from America not arriving according to promise for goods sent to that country."
The intelligence of what had been done by the Legislature of Massa- chusetts made a great impression in mercantile circles in England; but the Government were not to be turned aside from the purpose to which they had committed themselves. A letter from the West Indies reached Boston in April, 1786, in which it was said: "The ministry suppose they have now put a finishing stroke to the building and increase of American vessels; an act ha's lately been passed in England, and instructions arrived in February, that no American-built vessel should be employed or owned by British subjects on any pretence whatever, except such as were built before the year 1776; and in case of dispute, the carpenters of the ships of war are to determine the build. American vessels condemned for smuggling are to be burnt hereafter, not sold." It was further stated that three hundred sail of brigs, schooners, and sloops employed in the trade among the Islands would be rendered useless by this legislation.1
Notwithstanding the various drawbacks and hindrances to which we have referred, the merchants of Boston gave way to no feeling of discour- agement; and their enterprise, as we shall see, so far from abating in any degree, was at this very juncture pushing toward more distant fields of effort, and reaching toward larger and richer rewards than had yet been attained. While they did not propose to abandon to their rivals the trade of the Atlantic, they determined to participate in the commerce of more distant seas; and they might well expect that they would thus be able to avoid the vexatious interference with which they had always had to contend nearer home. The New York Gazetteer said: "Thank God ! the intrigues of a Christian court do not influence the wise decrees of the Eastern world."
In July, 1784, we find an advertisement of " fresh teas taken out of an Indiaman and brought by Captain Hallet from the Cape of Good Hope,"
goods on board, so that you will govern your- self accordingly."
"The General Court prohibited British ves- scls to carry the products of the State; they were also forbid entering and unlading when they brought cargoes from ports from which American vessels were excluded, and only three places of entry were allowed within the State." Bradford's History of Mass. p. 311.
This legislation was made to apply at first to other countries besides Great Britain; but it
was repealed, so far as it related to them, on the 29th of November in the same year.
4 Independent Chronicle, April 13, 1786. The American shipping employed in the foreign trade of Great Britain had been a good deal more than half as much as the British, and as ships could be built in New England and sold in Britain for one third less than Brit- ish-built vessels, there had been a constant demand there for them. All this was now to be stopped.
204
THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.
to be had at P. Bowen's store, Dock Square.1 American mercantile enter- prise was just beginning to venture beyond the Cape, but with doubtful re- sults. A London paper of March 16, 1785, said: "The Americans have given up all thought of a China trade, which never can be carried on to advantage without some settlement in the East Indies. The ship they fitted out for China, soon after the peace, has been offered to sale in France for a sum less than the outfit."2 The judgment thus expressed was rather pre- mature; as two months later, almost to a day, May 18, the ship "Empress of China," Captain Greene, arrived at New York from the East Indies, after a round voyage of fourteen months and twenty-four days. She had sailed from New York in February, 1784, touched at the Cape de Verdes, and reached Canton in August.3 On the 5th of December, 1785, Elias Hasket Derby of Salem despatched the "Grand Turk," under command of Captain West, on the first voyage from New England to the Isle of France, India, and China. In some of Mr. Derby's later voyages to the East Indies he was joined by Boston merchants, among others by David Sears and Samuel Parkman.4
Mr. Samuel Shaw5 had gone out and returned as supercargo in the " Empress of China," and he had brought with him much valuable informa- tion, which he was able to turn to good account. He sailed again from New York, in the ship " Hope," Captain James Magee, Feb. 4, 1786, hav- ing been commissioned as American consul at the port of Canton, and being accompanied by Mr. Isaac Sears and Captain Thomas Randall.6 In
1 Independent Chronicle, July 29, 1784.
2 Ibid. May 5, 1785.
3 The "Empress of China" was three hun- dred and sixty tons. A large part of the cargo taken by her was ginseng (four hundred and forty piculs), to be exchanged at Canton for teas and manufactured goods. The English ships were then carrying out lead and large quantities of cloth, which latter the East India Company was obliged by its charter to export annually to China for the encouragement of the home wool- len manufacture.
4 These new and longer voyages required much more capital than the trade to which the merchants had been accustomed, and it was found convenient by them to combine for the purpose of engaging in it. The following adver- tisement appears in the Independent Chronicle of June 23, 1785 :-
" Proposals for building and fitting out a ship for the East India trade have been approved of by a considerab'e number of citizens, who met at Mr. Walter Heyer's in King Street, on Thursday evening last. Several gentlemen are named to receive subscriptions, and this is to give notice that another meeting is appointed on Wednesday evening next, at the same house, when any citizen who wishes to be- come interested may have an opportunity. A single share is only $300."
5 Mr. Shaw was born in Boston in 1764, and was educated at the Latin School. He served
in the army of the Revolution, held the rank of major, and was on the staff of General Knox. At the close of the war he gave himself to com- mercial pursuits, for which he had originally been destined. He was a finished scholar and an accomplished gentleman, as well as a sound and able merchant; and his early death was a public as well as private loss. While at home, in 1792, he married a daughter of the Hon. William Phillips. He died at sea May 30, 1794. The late Robert Gould Shaw was his nephew.
On his arrival in China for the first time, Mr. Shaw was taken for an Englishman, and he had * to make it known to the Chinese authorities through the French consul that he and his com- panions were Americans, "a free, independent, and sovereign nation, not connected with Great Britain." He says in his Journal : "They styled us the ' New People,' and when by the map we conveyed to them an idea of the extent of our country, with its present and increasing popula- tion, they were highly pleased at the prospect of so considerable a market for the productions of their own empire." [See Josiah Quincy's Life of Samuel Shaw, and the note to Mr. Porter's chapter in Vol. III. p. 38 .- ED.]
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