land. South Carolina, in 1739, exported 559 hogsheads deer-skins and 1,196 loose skins of other kinds.

In 1721, in order to secure to England the profit of the fur trade with Europe, an act was adopted by Parliament making beaver and other skins an enumerated article, that is, one which on being sent from the colonies, must be landed in England and pay duty before it could be exported elsewhere. On the re-exportation from England one-half the duty was allowed to be drawn back.

In 1722 the governors of New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia, met deputies of the Iroquois at Albany, and renewed with them the existing treaties of friendship and Commerce. The same year the Assembly of New York turned its attention toward the Indian trade at the Lakes, and through them with the Far West, hitherto engrossed by the French, and to secure to that province a portion thereof, established a port at Oswego, on Lake Ontario.

In 1726 the French, alarmed by this step, reoccupied Niagara, between Lakes Ontario and Erie, and erected a fort there, to restrain English trade and occupation from going any further westward.

The next year the Assembly of New York caused the station at Oswego to be fortified, and a garrison was maintained there until driven out by the French, thirty years later. Upwards of three hundred traders were assembled there constantly, meeting the Indians from Canada, and from around Lakes Ontario and Erie.

We have mentioned that within a late period a considerable trade had grown up between the French in Canada and the English northern colonies, growing out of the fact that the former could obtain from the latter the goods necessary to the Indian trade, much cheaper than from France. Massachusetts had prohibited this intercourse, with the view of driving the French altogether out of the Indian trade, and ruining their settlements. That colony had especial cause to wish them rooted out of the continent. But it was with New York that this trade principally existed. Albany was the most convenient post that could be found for carrying it on, and owed to it a great portion of its own importance. The French traders, and the populations of Quebec and Montreal and the other settlements of the St. Lawrence, were supplied with European manufactures chiefly by the merchants of New York.

The views of Massachusetts were entertained by a party in New York, which thought the whole vast trade of the Lake region and of the west might be secured to that province by withholding that aid so essential to the French. Gov. Burnet, who arrived in 1722, coincided with these, and accordingly prohibited all commercial intercourse between New York and Canada. The merchants concerned in the trade denounced the act as ruinous to their interests and to the prosperity of the colony, and hurtful to England, by the limitation of the market for her manufactures. So violent became the controversy that in 1628 the king found it expedient to set aside the policy of Burnet, and transferred him to Massachusetts, repealing at the same time the acts complained of.

This project of monopolizing the Indian trade at the Lakes, elicited the first clear perception that seems to have been entertained in the English colonies, of the value of the great western region, and of the extent and advantages of its immense courses of Inland Navigation. The man who seems to have best comprehended the matter in these times, was CADWAL

LADER COLDEN, then surveyor-general, afterwards lieutenant-governor of New York. In a report to Gov. Burnet, in 1724, after noticing the trade maintained by the merchants of Quebec and Montreal with Schenectady and Albany, he points out the far greater advantages which would be derived from an intercourse with the Indians and Indian traders by a directly western channel. For this purpose he finds in the Lakes and other water communications of New York, the most ample means. He describes minutely the route to be followed from Albany by way of the Mohawk, Oneida and Onondaga rivers, to Lake Ontario, declaring it an avenue of trade far preferable to the usual northern channel pursued by the Hudson, Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence river, to the said Lake. Connecting the Lakes with the great river, yet entirely unvisited by Englishmen, except possibly by a few traders from Virginia and Carolina, he endeavors to reveal to the governor and the colony a view of the magnificent results which the future must develop in that region, declaring "that by means of the Mississippi and the Lakes, there is opened such a scene of inland navigation as cannot be paralleled in any other part of the world."

But the French had long been aware of this fact, and had shaped their policy with reference thereto. Had their colonization of Canada, the great basis of their western operations, been more strong, they might have sueceeded in their effort to build up a grand colonial empire, having its center in the heart of the continent, and its seaports at the mouths of the Mississippi and St. Lawrence. The inability of Canada necessarily occasioned all their western efforts to be as weak as they were bold.

In 1731, in order to secure the command of the channel by which their trade with New York was conducted, and to guard Canada from further attempts at invasion by that route, the French established a fort on the eastern side of Lake Champlain, within the present State of Vermont, but changed the position soon after to the other side of the Lake, within the State of New York. This post was known afterward as Crown Point. Excepting the English post at Oswego the French had now possession of the entire country watered by the St. Lawrence and its tributaries, the whole Lake region, and the Mississippi valley. They were already attempting the removal of such tribes as obstructed the communication between the Lakes and the Mississippi, and the full navigation of that river.

The Indian trade was a first object at the settlement of Georgia. In the first year, beside the coast towns, an establishment protected by a fort was located 240 miles up the Savannah river, for the purpose of intercourse with the Indians. This was the foundation of the town of AUGUSTA, Another post was established in the nation of the Upper Creeks, (in Alabama) almost 400 miles from the sea, and not over 40 miles from the nearest French fort on the Mississippi. The Indians were very numerous in all that region, and to preserve peace with them the trustees of Georgia interdicted all trade by their settlers with them, except by special license.

In Louisiana the French were less successful in the management of the Indians than at the North. Instead of quiet, uninterrupted trade, they had frequent and desperate wars, and among some of the hostile tribes within their own territory, they found a few Virginia traders and the Indians fighting under the English flag.

From Newfoundland large quantities of peltry, consisting of the skins of deer, otter, fox, seal, minx, bear, and some beaver, were sent to England.

In Nova Scotia the English were on ill terms usually with the Indians, and the back parts were occupied by the French.

From Canada there were imported into Rochelle, in 1743, 311,355 skins. The Hudson Bay Company, in 1743, imported into England 86,740 skins of all kinds, of which 66,875 were beaver. Arthur Dobbes, Esq., afterward governor of North Carolina, alleges that the Hudson Bay Company sold their goods to the Indians at 2,000 per cent profit. Their dividends, however, were but 8 per cent yearly at this time. A statement of their prices will give some indication of the prevailing rates in the Indian trade of the continent, although, of course, in the regions below Hudson Bay, where the French and English came in competition, prices were lower than there. Beaver skin was the standard medium of trade, and the price of one of them was fixed at either of the following: a pound weight of brass kettles; one-and-a-half pounds of gunpowder; five pounds of leaden shot; six pounds of Brazil tobacco; one yard of baize; two combs; two yards of gartering; one pair of breeches; one pistol; two hatchets. The other goods usually employed in the trade of the company were broadcloth, blankets, duffles, flannel, yarns, mittens, handkerchiefs, hats, shirts, shoes, stockings, sashes, worsted, buttons, glass beads, fingerrings, blacklead, vermillion, needles, thimbles, thread, twine, lookingglasses, guns, sword-blades, flints, fire-steels, files, fish-hooks,. net-lines, knives, ice-chisels, spoons, hawks-bells, sugar, brandy, tobacco-boxes, tongs, trunks, &c. This list shows the articles everywhere most in demand in the Indian trade.

NAVAL STORES, LUMBER, &c. These articles were, so far as brought to market, mainly the product of New England and Carolina. They were also very considerable exports of New York and Pennsylvania. Virginia had an inexhaustible supply of all the requisite material, but the inhabitants, engrossed in the tobacco culture, took little advantage thereof. Lumber was very largely shipped to the West Indies, and some amount of naval stores was also sent there.

England was particularly desirous of securing from America a supply of naval stores, (pitch, tar, turpentine, &c.,) and also of masts and spars for her navy, for which she had long been and was now dependent upon the North of Europe.

In 1721 an act was passed by Parliament to increase the encouragements before offered to the importation of naval stores from America. The act provides, also, for the encouragement of the importation of "wood and timber, and of the goods commonly called lumber," embracing at that time planks, boards, shingles, clapboards, scantling, laths, staves, &c., which, says the act, "have usually been imported into this kingdom from foreign countries at excessive prices;" that the said description of goods should be exported free from the plantations to England for 91 yearswhich would have been until 1812. Masts, yards, and bowsprits, being before provided for with premiums, duties, &c., were excepted from the

terms of this act.

*

In 1728 an act was passed by Parliament for the preservation of the king's woods in all the colonies, forbidding the destruction or injury, under heavy penalty, of all white-pine trees, (the kind used for masts, &c.,)

* This was the second act of the sort. We have noticed the first, applying to New England, New York, and New Jersey, passed in 1711.

of the diameter of 24 inches and upward at a foot from the ground, upon any lands not private property. The Massachusetts charter, granted by William and Mary in 1690, made the reservation to the crown of all trees of such kind and dimension upon lands remaining at that time public. To make that reservation effectual, a penalty was now enacted against the destruction of white-pine trees on any land in that province not granted to private persons before October 7, 1790.

At the same time new premiums, more moderate than those before existing, were granted upon masts, yards, bowsprits, good tar, pitch, and turpentine, produced in and imported from America, the premiums upon these articles to be repaid to the government upon exportation from England. Like premiums were offered upon the same articles to Scotland; but although woods were there abundant, were, owing to the difficulty of transportation between the mountains and seaports, ineffective.

In 1730 the Czarina assumed the monopoly of tar in her dominions, which had furnished a considerable revenue to the treasury of Peter the Great. The Russian tar was usually shipped at the port of Archangel to the amount of 40,000 lasts, or 440,000 barrels, being mostly taken by the Dutch and Hamburghers for themselves and the South of Europe, to which ports they carried great supplies. This step made the English still more desirous to supply themselves entirely from the colonies, as by that time they did in a very large degree, the acts of encouragement having been very effective.

The Board of Trade, in their annual reports of this period, generally concluded with recommending further encouragements to the production of naval stores as a means of great benefit to England, and to divert the colonies from engaging in manufactures detrimental to those of Great Britain.

In three months of the year 1733, there were exported from Charleston, South Carolina, 6,073 barrels of pitch, 1,785 barrels of tar, and 424 barrels of turpentine. In 1739 South Carolina exported 8,095 bbls. of pitch, 2,734 bbls. of tar, and 33 bbls. of turpentine. In 1740 she exported 10,263 bbls. of pitch, 2,374 bbls. of tar, and 562 bbls. of turpentine.

New England produced the largest masts for the British navy that could then be furnished in the world. She could also supply the West Indies with lumber cheaper than it could be afforded by any other section. Virginia and Maryland exported of lumber to Great Britain in their tobaccoships to the value yearly, in England, of 15,000l., of which the first cost was not over 4,000l. to the British merchant, and was paid for in goods. South Carolina exported in 1739, of pine and cypress timber and plank, 209,190 feet; cedar boards, 3,200 feet; shingles, 42,600 pieces; caskstaves, 56,281.

The French in Louisiana had begun to saw lumber, with the view of supplying their sugar islands, but could not yet compete with New England, nor furnish the requisite amount.

PRODUCTS OF MINES.

IRON AND ITS MANUFACTURES. In 1732 there were, according to the Board of Trade, 6 furnaces and 19 forges for iron work in Massachusetts. Bar-iron and cast-iron, or hollow ware, was made; there was one slittingmill and a manufacture of nails in this number. There were also a few smiths in Connecticut and Rhode Island. But these works could supply

New England only with such manufactures as were needed for the more ordinary uses. Not one-twentieth part the amount used, the Board say, was derived from them. The British iron was esteemed much the best, and was wholly used for ship furniture.

Iron mines were discovered about 1730 in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, which it was thought could supply England with all the iron she wanted, and save her the payment to Sweden of 300,000l. cash per year. Two promising iron works for pig and bar iron were soon set up in Virginia, and one in Maryland. The Reading furnace, in Berks county, for the manufacture of pigs and bars, the first in Pennsylvania, was set up in 1730. The Warwick furnace, the second in that colony, was established in 1736; and the Cornwall furnace, in Lebanon county, the third, was erected in 1742.

In 1730, 40 tons of iron were exported from Virginia, and two tons from the Island of St. Christopher's, to Great Britain, being an entirely new import there from America.

About 1737, the question of encouraging the importation of iron from the colonies was much discussed in England-in the Parliament, in pamphlets, and the newspapers. The merchants petitioned for the encouragement, proposing to admit the colonial iron, in a state no more manufactured than bars, free, and to impose an additional duty upon all foreign bar-iron. The proprietors of the English iron works and of the English woods, although the latter were fast failing, opposed the petition, and nothing was effected.

COPPER AND LEAD. Copper ore was found in New York first of all the British colonies, where, say the Board of Trade, in 1732, has been lately opened "the richest copper mine that perhaps was ever heard of—great quantities of which have lately been brought to England." Some mines had been found in Massachusetts, but they were not deemed worth digging. Copper was found also, and worked, in Pennsylvania. From Virginia 30 cwt. was exported to England in 1730, being the first ever sent from that colony.

In 1722 Parliament made copper ore an enumerated article, exportable from America to Europe only through England, giving English ships a freightage upon it.

In 1717 the copper coinage of Great Britain was of Swedish copper. In 1721 about 30,000 people subsisted by the manufacture of copper and brass in Great Britain. About 1725 the supply of British copper, of which the island had much, was equal to the demand, lessening, therefore, the occasion for encouraging the development of the American

mines.

The French had before found Lead mines at the Lake region, and were enabled by the discovery to improve their Indian trade.