upon the whole, impolitic and unreasonable; how much soever it may conduce to advance the interest of a few merchants, or this particular colony.

By what measures this contraband trade may be effectually obstructed is hard to determine, though it well deserves the attention of a British parliament. Increasing the number of custom-house officers, will be a remedy worse than the disease. Their salaries would be an additional charge upon the public; for if we argue from their conduct, we ought not to presume upon their fidelity. The exclusive right of the East-India company to import tea, while the colonies purchase it of foreigners 30 per cent. cheaper, must be very prejudicial to the nation. Our people, both in town and country, are shamefully gone into the habit of tea-drinking; and it is supposed we consume of this commodity in value near £10,000 sterling per annum.

Some are of opinion that the fishery of sturgeons, which abound in Hudson's river, might be improved to the great advantage of the colony; and that, if proper measures were concerted, much profit would arise from ship-building and naval stores. It is certain we have timber in vast plenty, oak, white and black pines, fir, locust, red and white mulberry, and cedar; and, perhaps, there is no soil on the globe fitter for the production of hemp than the lowlands in the county of Albany. To what I have already said concerning iron ore, a necessary article, I shall add an extract from the Independent Reflector.

"It is generally believed that this province abounds with a variety of minerals. Of iron in particular, we have such plenty, as to be excelled by no country in the world of equal extent. It is a metal of intrinsic value beyond any other, and preferable to the purest gold. The former is converted into numberless forms, for as many indispensable uses; the latter for its portableness and scarcity, is only fit for a medium of trade: but iron is a branch of it, and I am persuaded will, one time or other, be one of the most valuable articles of our commerce. Our annual exports to Boston, Rhode

1

Island and Connecticut, and, since the late act of parliament, to England, are far from being inconsiderable. The bodies of iron ore in the northern parts of this province are so many, their quality so good, and their situation so convenient, in respect to wood, water, hearth-stone, proper fluxes and carriage, for furnaces, bloomeries, and forges, that with a little attention we might very soon rival the Swedes in the produce of this article. If any American attempts in iron works have proved abortive, and disappointed their undertakers, it is not to be imputed either to the quality of the ore, or a defect of conveniences. The want of

more workmen, and the villany of those we generally have, are the only causes to which we must attribute such miscarriages. No man, who has been concerned in them, will disagree with me, if I assert, that from the founder of the furnace, to the meanest banksman or jobber, they are usually low, profligate, drunken, and faithless. And yet, under all the innumerable disadvantages of such instruments, very large estates have, in this way, been raised in some of our colonies. Our success, therefore, in the iron manufactory, is obstructed and discouraged by the want of workmen, and the high price of labour, its necessary consequence, and by these alone but 'tis our happiness, that such only being the cause, the means of redress are entirely in our own hands. Nothing more is wanting to open a vast fund of riches to the province, in the branch of trade, than the importation of foreigners. If our merchants and landed gentlemen could be brought to a coalition in this design, their private interests would not be better advanced by it, than the public emolument; the latter in particular, would thereby vastly improve their lands, increase the number and raise the rents of their tenants. And I cannot but think, that if those gentlemen who are too inactive to engage in such an enterprise, would only be at the pains of drawing up full representations of their advantages for iron works, and of publishing them from time to time in Great Britain, Ireland, Germany, and Sweden; the province would soon be supplied with a sufficient num

ber of capable workmen in all branches of that manufactory."

The money used in this province is silver, gold, British halfpence, and bills of credit. To counterfeit either of them is felony without benefit of clergy; but none except the latter and Lyon dollars are a legal tender. Twelve halfpence, till lately passed for a shilling; which, being much beyond their value in any of the neighbouring colonies, the assembly, in 1753, resolved to proceed, at their next meeting, after the 1st of May ensuing, to the consideration of a method for ascertaining their value. A set of gentlemen, in number seventy-two, took the advantage of the discredit that resolve put upon copper halfpence, and on the 22d of December, subscribed a paper, engaging not to receive or pass them, except at the rate of fourteen coppers to a shilling. This gave rise to a mob, for a few days, among the lower class of people, but some of them being imprisoned, the scheme was carried into execution, and established in every part of the province, without the aid of a law. Our paper bills, which are issued to serve the exigencies of the government, were at first equalled to an ounce of silver, then valued at eight shillings. Before the late Spanish war, silver and gold were in great demand to make remittances for European goods, and then the bills sunk, an ounce of silver being worth nine shillings and three pence. During the war, the credit of our bills was well supported, partly by the number of prizes taken by our privateers, and the high price of our produce abroad; and partly by the logwood trade and the depreciation of the New-England paper money, wich gave ours a free circulation through the eastern colonies. Since the war, silver has been valued at about nine shillings and two pence an ounce, and is doubtless fixed there, till our imports exceed what we export. To assist his majesty for removing the late encroachments of the French, we have issued £80,000, to be sunk in short periods, by a tax on estates, real and personal; and the whole amount of our paper currency is thought to be about £160,000.

Never was the trade of this province in so flourishing a condition, as at the latter end of the late French war. Above twenty privateers were often out of this port at a time; and they were very successful in their captures. Provisions, which are our staple, bore a high price in the West-Indies. The French, distressed through the want of them, gladly, received our flags of truce, though sometimes they had but one or two prisoners on board, because they were always loaded with flour, beef, pork, and such like commodities. The danger their own vessels were exposed to, induced them to sell their sugars to us at a very low rate. A trade was, at the same time, carried on between Jamaica and the Spanish Main, which opened a fine market to the northern colonies, and the returns were principally in cash. It was generally thought, that if the war had continued, the greatest part of the produce of the Spanish and French settlements in the West-Indies would have been transported to Great Britain, through some one or other of her colonies; whence we may fairly argue their prodigious importance.

numerous.

The provincial laws relating to our trade are not very Those concerned in them, may have recourse to the late edition of our acts at large, published in 1752; and for this reason, I beg to be excused from exhibiting an unentertaining summary of them in this work.

CHAPTER IV.

OF OUR RELIGIOUS STATE.

By the account already given, of the rise and progress of the acts for settling a ministry in four counties, and the observations made concerning our various christian denominations, I have in a great measure anticipated what I at first intended to have ranged under this head.

The principal distinctions amongst us, are the episcopalians, and the Dutch and English presbyterians; the two

last, together with all the other protestants in the colony, are sometimes (perhaps here improperly) called by the general name of dissenters; and, compared to them, the episcopalians are, I believe, scarce in the proportion of one to fifteen. Hence partly arises the general discontent on account of the ministry acts; not so much that the provision made by them is engrossed by the minor sect, as because the body of the people are for an equal, universal, toleration of protestants, and utterly averse to any kind of ecclesiastical establishment. The dissenters, though fearless of each other, are all jealous of the episcopal party, being apprehensive that the countenance they may have from home, will foment a lust for dominion, and enable them, in process of time, to subjugate and oppress their fellow subjects. The violent measures of some of our governors have given an alarm to their fears, and if ever any other gentleman, who may be honoured with the chief command of the province, begins to divert himself, by retrenching the privileges and immunities they now enjoy, the confusion of the province will be the unavoidable consequence of his folly; for though his majesty has no other subjects upon whose loyalty he can more firmly depend, yet an abhorrence of persecution, under any of its appearances, is so deeply rooted in the people of this plantation, that as long as they continue their numbers and interest in the assembly, no attempt will probably be made upon the rights of conscience, without endangering the public repose.

Of the government of the Dutch churches I have already given an account. As to the episcopal clergy, they are missionaries of the English society for propagating the gospel, and ordinarily ordained by the bishop of London, who, having a commission from the king to exercise ecclesiastical jurisdiction, commonly appoints a clergyman here for his commissary. The ministers are called by the particular churches, and maintained by the voluntary contribution of their auditors and the society's annual allowance, there being no law for tithes.

VOL. I-43.