out any previous knowledge of routes, winds, tides or harbors, the American whalemen and pilot-boat seamen visited every coast, and, to the astonishment of Europe, made shorter voyages than old and experienced navigators. It is scarcely necessary to enter into details as to the progress made in the value of exports and imports. The tables tell their own story. After considerable fluctuation the imports went above one hundred millions during the year 1831, since which time they have not fallen below that amount, the exports going past this point in 1834. The panic of 1837 caused a falling off, but the lost ground was very soon recovered. In 1851 both exports and imports went above two hundred millions; in 1856 both exceeded three hundred millions, the imports having passed this point in one of the previous years (1854, when they were $304,562,381), and in 1860 the exports were $400,122,296. The influence of the civil war is seen in the small figures for the years 1861-1865 inclusive, and the beneficent effect of peace is shown by the sum of $550,684,228, as the exports for 1866, overbalancing by more than one hundred millions of dollars the imports ($445,512,158). There was some fluctuation during the following four years. In the fifth (1871) both exports and imports passed the bounds of five hundred millions. In 1872 (exports, $501,164,971; imports, $640,337,540) and 1873 (exports, $578,938,985; imports, $663,617,147) the balance of trade was against this country, but for 1873-4 the specific figures are as follows: Excess of total exports over total imports (being the balance in favor of the United States), $57,052.97; specie and bullion exported, $66,630,405 (domestic, $59,699,886; foreign, $6,930,719); imports, $28,454,906; excess of specie and bullion exported, $38,175,499; total exports of merchandise, $569,433,421 (domestic, $552,583,802; foreigni. e., re-exports-$16,849,619); imports of merchandise, $567,407,342; real balance against the United States, being the excess of imports of merchandise over exports of domestic merchandise, which had to be made up by shipments of the precious metals, $14,823,540. For the year ending June 30, 1875, the figures (furnished by the chief of the Bureau of Statistics in advance of the publication of the Annual Report on Commerce and Navigation) are as follows: Domestic exports, $643,094,767; foreign (reexports), $22,433,624; exports of merchandise, $573,396,249 (domestic, $559,237,638; foreign (re-exports, $14,158,611); imports of merchandise, $533,005,436; exports of specie and bullion, $92,132,142 (domestic, $83,857,129; foreign, $8,275,013); imports of specie, $20,900,717; specie balance in favor of the United States, $71,251,425. Balance in favor of the United States, arising from the excess of exports of domestic merchandise over imports of merchandise, $26,232,202. If the exports of foreign merchandise (re-exports) be thrown into the scale, the balance in favor of this country is $40,390,813, and the balance to the credit of this country

arising from the excess of total exports ($665,528,391) over total imports ($553,906,153) was $111,622,238. We have taken it for granted, while making our comments upon these figures, that the real balance of trade in favor of this country arises from the excess of the exports of domestic merchandise over the imports of foreign merchandise; that the drain of the precious metals required to make up the deficiency when the exports of domestic merchandise fall below the imports of foreign merchandise is highly undesirable, and an indication of an importation above our real wants, or at least that when the trade of this country is in such a condition that large shipments of specie and bullion are requisite to keep the balance even, the outlook is not so hopeful as it is when the intrinsically useful products of the industry and enterprise of our people suffice, and more than suffice, to satisfy the debts incurred in foreign lands.

Articles of Export and Import.-"The great variety of the native productions exported gives assurance of the impossibility of failure in the resources of the nation. If the Americans were limited to a few products, it might be argued that such products might not be in demand, or that their supply might fail, or that other countries might compete successfully with America by producing them in greater abundance and at lower rates; but here we have the products of the sea, consisting of oil, whalebone, spermaceti, and dried, smoked and pickled fish; of the forest, consisting of every description of timber, shingles, staves, lumber, naval stores and furs; of agriculture, consisting not only of every description of corn and vegetable food, but of the products of animals, beef, pork, tallow, hides, bacon, cheese, butter, wool, lard, hams, and of horned cattle, horses and other animals; of the great staples of the Southern States-cotton, tobacco, rice and sugar; of manufactures, in very great variety; of raw produce, in increasing quantities; and of specie and bullion, to an extent which has never been exceeded." The division adopted by Sir Morton Peto in the above statement is partly copied from that which was early adopted at the Treasury and appeared in the annual account of exports after the year 1802. The exports were classed, according to source, under four heads-viz., 1. The produce of the sea; 2. The produce of the forest; 3. The produce of agriculture; 4. Manufactures and those articles the origin of which was uncertain. In 1830 cotton ($29,674,833), tobacco ($5,586,365) and rice ($1,986,824), amounting collectively to $37,248,072, furnished more than one-half of the total value of the exports of that In the year ending June 30, 1873, unmanufactured cotton ($227,243,279), wheat and wheat flour ($70,833,918), Indian corn ($23,794,694) and illuminating oils ($37,195,735), amounting collectively to $359,067,626, furnished one-half of the exports (total value of domestic exports in currency, $649,132,563). The currency value of domestic exports shipped in cars and other land vehicles during the year just mentioned was $7,785,075;

year.

shipped in American vessels, $163,110,634; shipped in foreign vessels, $478,236,854. The principal articles imported were sugar and molasses (892,639,023), 293,284,201 pounds of coffee, worth $44,107,397, and 64,815,016 pounds of tea, worth $24,466,094, amounting collectively to $161,212,514, or nearly one-fourth of the total imports. Of the total value of the imports, the following statement is given as to the conveyances in which they came: "Brought in cars and other land vehicles, $17,070,548; brought in American vessels, $174,739,834; brought in foreign vessels, $471,806,765. The principal articles exported during the year ending June 30, 1874, were cotton (value, including that of sea-island cotton, $211,223,580), wheat and wheat flour ($130,679,153), illuminating oils ($37,560,955), bacon and hams ($33,283,908) and leaf tobacco ($30,399,181), amounting collectively to $405,585,822, or nearly two-thirds of the total currency value ($693,039,054) of the domestic exports. Of this total value there was exported in cars and other land vehicles, $5,645,265; in American vessels, $165,998,880, and in foreign vessels, $521,394,909. The principal imports during the same period were sugar and molasses ($92,949,203), 285,171,512 pounds of coffee ($55,048,967), 72,353,799 square yards of dress-goods ($21,162,635) and 55,811,605 pounds of tea ($21,112,234), amounting collectively to $190,273,039, or more than one-third of the total imports. Of this total value ($595,861,248) the following statement as to conveyance is given: Brought in cars and other land vehicles, $14,513,335; brought in American vessels, $176,027,778; brought in foreign vessels, $405,320,135.

Shipping. The partial suspension of emigration to America brought about by the civil wars in England threw the first colonists in New England upon their own resources, and gave a decided impulse to the business of ship-building. Governor Winthrop says in his journal (Dec. 2, 1640): "The general fear of want of foreign commodities, now our money was gone and things were [not] like to go well in England, set us on work to provide shipping of our own, for which end Mr. Peter, being a man of very public spirit and singular activity for all occasions, procured some to join for building a ship at Salem of 300 tons; and the inhabitants of Boston, stirred up by his example, set upon the building another at Boston of 150 tons." These were not, however, the first American vessels. A bark belonging to Governor Winthrop, and named by him The Blessing of the Bay, was launched at Mystic (now Medford), Mass., on the 4th of July, 1631. Its burthen was 30 tons. Another vessel, of 60 tons, was built at the same place in 1633, and the people of Salem built at Marblehead a vessel of 120 tons in 1636. In 1676, just a century before the Declaration of Independence, there were 730 vessels owned in Boston and its vicinity and built in that neighborhood-viz., 30 between 100 and 250 tons; 200 between 50 and 100 tons; 200 between 30 and 50 tons; and

300 between 6 and 30 tons. Ship-building was carried on in the other colonies, but not to so great an extent as in New England. The tonnage of the vessels built in all of the colonies during 1769 was 20,001; in 1770 it was 20,610; and in 1771, 24,068, of which amount a little more than one half was built in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. It is difficult to obtain any reliable figures for the number of vessels built after the adoption of the Constitution before the year 1815. A table "showing the number and class of the vessels built, and the tonnage thereof, in the several States and Territories of the United States, from 1815 to 1874, inclusive," will be found elsewhere [see TABLE I., in APPENDIX]. Warden (writing in 1819) says: "Merchant vessels are built and prepared for the sea in the course of four or five months, and they sail faster than those of any other country. The schooners constructed at Baltimore and known by the name of 'pilot-boat schooners' have often sailed with a cargo from an American to an English or French port in seventeen or eighteen days. The American seamen are exceedingly active and enterprising. Sloops of sixty tons and eleven men have sailed from Albany (160 miles up the Hudson River) to the coast of China. The first of this description which arrived there was believed by the natives of the country to be the longboat of a large merchant vessel, which (the large vessel) they vainly looked for during several days. We have seen it announced in an American newspaper that on the 11th of April, 1814, a ship was launched at Vergennes, on Lake Champlain, of 150 feet keel, and measuring 500 tons, the timber of which was cut down in the forest the 2d of March preceding. The Peacock, of 18 guns, was built in New York in 18 days, the Wasp [see HISTORICAL SKETCH, page 116] at Portsmouth in 20 days, and the Superior, of 64 guns, on Lake Ontario in 30 days." He says elsewhere, speaking of the inland navigation: "As early as the year 1793 a schooner launched on the Monongahela River, between Brownsville and Pittsburg, sailed to New Orleans (a distance of 2000 miles), and afterward proceeded by sea to the port of Philadelphia. Since that period numerous vessels of from one hundred to four hundred tons have been built on the Ohio at Marietta, Frankfort, Elizabethtown, Louisville, Wheeling and Pittsburg, for the purpose of transporting the surplus productions of Kentucky, Tennessee and Louisiana to the Atlantic ports of the United States, to the West Indies and to Europe. From the year 1802 to 1805, at the shipyards of Pittsburg, there were launched four ships, three brigs and three schooners; at Elizabethtown two brigs. In 1808 two ships and a brig were launched on the same day at Marietta. Several of the gunboats of the United States have been built at this place. Between the Southern and the Northern States there is a constant interchange of commodities, which in time of war is carried on by land and during peace by sea. The latter furnish rum, molasses, cordials, dried fish, European goods

and articles of small value quaintly styled 'notions,' and take in return the corn, grain, cotton and tobacco of the South. In this trade the New England people are the carriers, and furnish everything for which there is demand. Even coffins of all dimensions have been offered for sale by these ingenious trading speculators. In 1810, 23 vessels (ships, brigs and sloops) were employed in the trade of Lake Erie, and 12 in that of Ontario." After referring to "the proposed canal between Lake Erie and the Hudson River," in the success of which he evidently had more faith than Jefferson [see HISTORICAL SKETCH, page 121], he notes the following interesting circumstance: "In 1813 the war gave rise to an internal trade greater in point of distance than any hitherto known, except that between Moscow and China. Light goods were transported from the town of Boston, in Massachusetts, to the province of Mexico by the following channels of conveyance: From Boston to Providence by wagons; from the latter place by water to Amboy; thence by land and water to Philadelphia; thence by wagons to Pittsburg, and down the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans; thence by land and boats to the country of Mexico. Before the war there were but two wagons that plied between Boston and the town of Providence, and soon after its commencement the number increased to 200. It has been stated that certain light goods have been delivered in Mexico with the addition of fifteen per cent. on their cost at Boston, when the ordinary insurance by sea would amount to twenty-five or thirty per cent. Of late there has existed a commerce in mules, which have been brought from the country of Texas to the Carolinas (by the way of Natchez and the country of Tennessee), where they are sold for 40, and even 60, dollars per head." The reader will elsewhere find statements of the amount of tonnage of the whole mercantile marine of the United States, also a separate statement of the steam tonnage for various successive years [see TABLES II., III., in APPENDIX]. The increase in the registered tonnage shows the progress made in the number and size of vessels engaged in the foreign trade. The "enrolled and licensed" tonnage gives a fair idea of the progress made in inland and coast navigation. In the Report on Commerce and Navigation for 1874 is given the following summary for that year by States and coasts: