and wooden houses framed and ready to set up. These and a multitude of other exports afforded large means of employment to the shipping of New England, while the harbour of New York, one of the finest in the world, presented great maritime facilities to their rising merchant navy. Though Virginia and Maryland had directed their chief attention to the cultivation of tobacco, large quantities of grain were raised in those provinces prior to the revolution. By law their tobacco hitherto could only be exported to Great Britain; but they were now allowed to ship it and their corn, flour, timber, and other produce to the West Indies and elsewhere. North Carolina also grew tobacco, though to a limited extent; but her annual export of pitch, tar, and turpentine, was not less than one hundred and thirty thousand barrels, the larger portion of which was shipped to England. In South Carolina and Georgia (the growth of silk proving unprofitable) rice and indigo became the staple products; but it was not until a later period that these two regions, especially Georgia,[1] became the seat of the vast produce of cotton now employing so large a portion of the merchant shipping of both the European and American States.
Shipping of the North American colonies, A.D. 1769. That an idea may be formed of the actual state of the navigation and commerce of the North American Colonies when they declared their independence we furnish in the accompanying note an outline of the leading figures bearing on this subject from a report, issued shortly after the Declaration of Independence,
- ↑ Cotton was first planted in Georgia in 1786, but made little progress for several years.
