quintals of dried fish were annually exported to Spain, Portugal, and the Mediterranean.[1]
New England then supplied the largest and finest masts in the world. The exportation of rice from Carolina, which in 1733 amounted to thirty-six thousand five hundred and eighty-four barrels, besides considerable quantities of pitch, turpentine, lumber, provisions, and Indian corn, had in 1740 increased to ninety-one thousand one hundred and ten barrels. Georgia, established in 1732 by a society of gentlemen, headed by General Oglethorpe, with the view of producing silk, the worm having been brought from Piedmont, was paving the way for the growth of rice, indigo, and other products suited to her soil and warm climate.[2]
Commercial jealousy in the West Indies. But commercial jealousy bad already seized the English colonists in the West Indies, and had led them to claim an exclusive monopoly of the trade with the colonies on the continent; while, at the same time, the contraband traffic carried on by the French and the Dutch was pressed on the consideration of parliament. Hence it was that a Bill received the sanction of the House of Commons prohibiting, under
- ↑ For the various details on this subject see Macpherson, vol. iii., and the annual register for each year of that period.
- ↑ It is estimated that since the Peace of 1783, and down to the end of 1873, there have been 8,779,174 aliens landed in the United States; emigrants arrived from various parts of the world. Various estimates have been made of the amount of money brought into the country by immigrants. The late John A. Kennedy, for many years Superintendent at Castle Garden, found it about $68 per head for a given period. Placing it at only $50, we have $444,000,000 as the result up to this time. But the far greater value consists in the labour brought into the country, a very large proportion of which goes to build up new Territories and States in the West.—London 'Times' newspaper, January 20th, 1874.
