Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/88

66 Trade and industry. [1700- statesmen for the most part thought of a colony as a community which existed to supplement the commerce and industry of the mother-country, to receive its goods and to furnish it with desirable imports. In this respect the colonial administration of England differed in no way from that of any other country in the Old World. It differed, however, in this, that, though the men who administered the English colonies might be at times corrupt or negligent, corruption and negligence never undermined the colonial administration of England as they did that of France. Nor is there any reason to think that under a more liberal and enlightened system the colonies would have advanced further in manufacturing industry than they did. In New England repeated attempts were made to encourage the production of textile fabrics by bounties and by importing skilled workmen, but with small success. Only the coarser forms of clothing worn by the poor were made in the colony. Iron, too, was raised, but only of inferior quality ; and all cutlery and farm -implements of any importance came from England. Shipbuilding flourished at Boston and in Rhode Island. The chief exports of New England were ship-timber, salt fish, tar, and corn; and the vessels that conveyed these exports did a complex carrying trade among the southern colonies and the British West Indies, with many sales and purchases of cargo. Thus the New England trader acquired a versatility denied to those whose commerce moves regularly in certain fixed and limited grooves. The trade and industry of the middle colonies did not differ widely from those of New England. Corn, cattle, and other articles of food were sent to the West Indies; the command of the Hudson enabled the settlers to export furs; and already ironworks were carried on profitably in Pennsylvania. In Maryland and Virginia on the other hand there was one staple of industry, and one only, namely tobacco. So completely was it the dominant product of the country that, by the middle of the seventeenth century, it had become the recognised circulating medium of the country and the accepted standard of value. In the early days of the colony much of the coarse clothing worn by the slaves was home-made. As communication with England became more frequent, even this form of manufacture died out. The trade of South Carolina resembled that of Virginia, save that rice took the place of tobacco. North Carolina, the poorest, most backward and ignorant of all the colonies, was virtually a community of small proprietors living squalidly on the products of their own farms, and occasionally exporting their surplus products, pork, cattle, and tar. The lines of demarcation separating the various groups of colonies in intellectual and spiritual matters corresponded pretty closely to the differences just sketched in their national progress. In the New England colonies we find a well-organised and firmly rooted ecclesiastical system. It is not enough to say that in New England every township