The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

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f the pro­ vince was "chiefly owing'to his own courage and wisdom .28 SomeI thing should also be said for the superior agricultural practices of .the German immigrants who came to form such a substantial pro­ portion of the provincial population in the eighteenth century. The (relatively well advanced techniques of these settlers undoubtedly had something to do with the large agricultural surpluses which Pennsylvania had available for export in the eighteenth century.29 Whatever the reasons, the growth of eighteenth-century Pennsyl­ vania and its trade are undeniable and important facts of colonial economic history. If the earliest settlers in Pennsylvania were convinced of the desirability of trade, they were less certain about the final nature of the trade which was to emerge. William Penn wrote of the pro­ spective staples of trade as being Wine, Linnen, Hemp, Potashes and Whale Oyl.. .some Tobacco, and our Furs and Skins ."30 James Claypoole mentioned "tabacco, skins, silver, pipe staves. ..& whale oyle & bone." He also mentioned "the goods of the southern plantations, "sugar, cotton, indigo, and ginger, as possible ex­ ports from Pennsylvania .31 Such lists indicate that the earliest

The Growth and Nature of Philadelphia Commerce

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settlers were obsessed with the necessity of finding products which could be sent directly to England in payment for the manufactured goods supplied by the mother country. For this reason, tobacco and skins loomed large in R;nnsylvan-1 ia's export picture until well into the eighteenth century. The tobac-co was mostly grown in the three lower counties on the Delaware and marketed by the Philadelphia merchants . At the turn of the cen­ tury, Fniladelphia merchants wrote that tobacco could sometimes be purchased more advantageously in their city than it could be in Maryland or Virginia .32 in the years 1698-1704, Pennsylvania ex­ ported 1,482,488 pounds of tobacco, which was far more than she exported later in the century .33 Furs and skins were probably an even more profitable remit--, tance to England than tobacco. William Penn encouraged James ) Logan to enter the fur trade in the following glowing terms: ’’But, O that we had a fur-trade instead of a tobacco one, and that thou wouldst do all that is possible to master furs and skins for me, but bears more especially. . . .1 could have sold them for almost what I would .”34 Logan did enter the fur trade and became one of Pennsylvania's leading Indian traders . For a good part of the century, furs were [ undoubtedly one of the colony's major exports to England, but by/ the time of the Revolution they were of minor importance . The dream of finding export staples suitable for the English market never quite died out during the colonial period, but it never turned into reality. The ultimate destiny of the trade of Pennsylvania lay in other channels. The fertile soil and vast forests of the pro­ vince soon shaped the directions in which Philadelphia's trade was( to develop. An early scarcity of provisions in Pennsylvania soon turned into a surplus, and the inhabitants of the West Indies "sent several vessells to trade wth them & brought Quantitys of Coined Silver & gold, besides ye Produce of those Islands, to purchase Pro­ visions, by wch means Cash was plenty for ye number of People & ye Inhabitants Enabled to build vessels & Trade to Sea.. . ."35 From this time forward, the keynote of Philadelphia trade was the export of agricultural or forest products and the import of English goods in circuitous routes of trade . Among these exports, the most important, to an overwhelming', degree, was wheat and its products, flour and bread. Not merely ! first among equals, wheat, flour, and bread always accounted for more than half of the total value of the exports of Fniladelphia. In the early eighteenth century, wheat may have been more important than flour; but during the late colonial period, most ofthe domestic wheat surplus was ground into flour before export. In the years just before the Revolution, the annual value of the flour exported from Philadelphia was usually greater than L500.000 currency; but

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The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

wheat exports were rarely worth more than £50, 000. Flour ex­ ports, moreover, showed a steady growth throughout the century, while shipments of wheat remained about on the same level. In the late colonial period Philadelphia often imported as much wheat from other colonies as she exported overseas. If Pennsylvania trailed other colonies, especially Virginia and Maryland, in the export of wheat, there is no question of its pri­ macy in the export of flour . In fact, Philadelphia alone accounted for more than half of the total of colonial shipments of flour. In 1772, for example, the total export of flour from the continental col­ onies was 56,902 tons. Of this amount 30,159 came from Phi la delphia while New York, its closest rival, sent out less than half as much.36 It is small wonder that Lord Sheffield called Philadel­ phia "the capital of the corn country."37 Although contemporaries were well aware of the critical im­ portance of flour exports in the economy of colonial Pennsylvania , few modern writers have emphasized it sufficiently. The most de­ tailed of the previously available studies of Hiiladelphia colonial commerce merely lists flour as first among a great variety of pro­ visions exported from the province without any indication at a 11 that its position was any greater than that of first among equals'?^ The fact is that exports of flour alone were, in any given year, as val­ uable as all of the restof Philadelphia's exports combined. In 1772, for example, total exports of the province were valued at about LI, 200, 000, of which more than L600, 000 was derived from flour alone.39 Flour was thus an export staple the importance of which to Pennsylvania in the colonial period was fully equal to that of tobacco to Virginia and Maryland or rice to South Carolina.40 The dominance of flour in the export economy of colonial Penn­ sylvania does not, of course, mean that no other products were a>vailable for export. Among a long list of such goods, lumber pro­ ducts were undoubtedly second in importance to flour. The term lumber includes a wide variety of items of which the most signifi­ cant were staves,heading, and hoops, the components of the wood en cask or barrel. By the end of the colonial period Philadelpfia exported each year several million pieces of staves and heading, several million feet of board and plank,and about two million shin­ gles. 4' The value of these exports is difficult to calculate, but the staves and headingalone must have been worth L20, 000 to L30,000 each year. The other products undoubtedly added several thousand pounds more to the total value. Eiiladelphia was the consistent leader among colonial ports in the export of lumber products; but unlike flour and breadstuffs, she had several close rivals in this trade. Pailadelphia staves and heading, made mostly from red or white oak, did, however, have

The Growth and Nature of Philadelphia Commerce

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the reputation of being the finest produced in North America Meats preserved in salt brine were also of considerable im-i portance as an export from Philadelphia although other ports on the ; continent sent out greater quantities of this commodity than did Philadelphia. An unexplained shortage of supplies of fresh meat cut down the export of the salted product in the early 1770's, but even in these relatively lean years Philadelphia was able to send out 4,000 to 6,000 barrels of beef and pork. The value of this export of salted meat must have been upwards of L20,000 per year .43 Indian corn and other subsidiary grains also contributed a few ’ thousand pounds more to the total value of exports from Philadelphia. As in the case of wheat, however, Pennsylvania lagged well behind Virginia and Maryland in the export of Indian corn by the time of the Revolution. Another export worth mentioning is flaxseed, all of which went to Ireland. Further mention of it, therefore, will be deferred until the chapter on trade with the British Isles. There were many other minor agricultural exports from Philadelphia, but none of them are worthy of separate mention here . Of non-agricultural exports from Pennsylvania, the only one1 important enough to mention in this general discussion is iron which; was exported in two forms, pig iron and the more highly refined bar iron. The yearly totals of 2,000 to 3,000 tons are insignificant by modern standards, but they were not unimportant for their day. In value, the export of iron approached L40p00 a year which put it on about the same level of importance as lumber. Exports of bar iron remained remarkably steady during the late colonial per­ iod although the amounts of pig iron fluctuated greatly .44 perhaps the especially large exports of pig iron in 1769, 1770, and 1771 were the result of what Professor Bining has called an overexpansion in the Pennsylvania iron industry .45 Agricultural prosperity in 17721773, however, seems to have remedied this condition by drawing many of the workers from the iron plantations into farming. In­ deed, many of the iron plantations themselves were converted to the growing of farm produce for export.46 These, then, were the most important products which Phila­ delphia had available for export and upon which much of her pros­ perity was solidly based. These major exports and others of min­ or importance will be given more detailed mention in connection with the geographical areas to which they were exported . Discus­ sion of imports, too, will be reserved for the chapters on the areas of Philadelphia commerce for the obvious reason that the import trade exhibited a high degree of specialization by geographical area. Sugar and molasses, for example, originated only in the ] West Indies, while all dry goods came from England. Before ex-| amining the geographical areas of Philadelphia commerce, how-

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The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

ever, it is necessary to establish the framework of mercantile practice and government regulation within which the maritime com­ merce of Philadelphia was obliged to operate.

2. The Organization and Conduct of Business

It is not the purpose of this study to go deeply into the way Philadelphia merchants organized their business or conducted their ■ trade. Several writershave dealt adequately with these topics in relation to Philadelphia as well as other colonial cities.1 Merchants, throughout the colonies, and indeed throughout the Atlantic world, | operated within a common framework of mercantile practice, so , that descriptions of business methods and organization in Boston, for instance, are usually valid in most respects for Philadelphia/ as well. The merchant in Philadelphia could thus be confident that his orders and accounts would be comprehensible to any merchant with whom he dealt. The following analysis will attempt to exam­ ine only enough of the major aspects of business practice and organization to provide an adequate background for understanding the chapters to follow. There is no single modern counterpart for the eighteenth cen­ tury merchant. Unable to call upon the services of many of the spe - i cialized agencies of the modern business world, he was forced to perform their functions for himself. He was thus at various times ' exporter, importer, wholesaler, retailer, purchasing agent, bank­ er, insurance underwriter, and attorney. When used in this study, ■ however, the term merchantmust be understood to be one who reg­ ularly engaged in maritime commerce . The man who bought and sold only within the province was known as a "shopkeeper," ”storekeeper,” or "retailer" and, as such, was sharply distinguished, in theory at least, from the "merchant." The line between the two categories, however, often became blurred as mere "retailers" began increasingly to order goods themselves from overseas, a practice upon which the self-denoted "merchants" frowned severely .2 Anyone who had sufficient capital could, of course, set up in j

£

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The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

I business as an importing and exporting merchant. No definite aI mount of capital was necessary to open business, but some idea of ' sums considered desirable may be obtained from the following ex- ■ amples. John Reynell, two years after he began business, wrote that he was worth about £2,000.® Jones and Wister started by in­ vesting just over L2,000 each in their partnership .4 Charles, Sam­ uel, and Isaac Norris owned equal shares of the £5,332/32 with which they began business In 1764 John Gibson went to England with an initial capital of £2,000 sterling in order to invest it in his first order of dry goods. His own capital was reinforced by a loan of £1,000 sterling from his kinsman, James Hamilton.6 Most merchants considered business training as much a ne­ cessity as capital for successful entry into a mercantile career. The normal way to get this training was as an apprentice or clerk in an already established firm . If the family was a mercantile one, the sons usually went into the family counting house as a matter of course. Otherwise, to be taken as apprentice to a good Philadel­ phia house was a highly prized honor and one for which the recipi­ ent had to pay well unless he were a close kinsman or had other close ties with the employer.? Philadelphia merchants carried on their trade either as indi­ viduals or in partnership with others . The two forms of organiza­ tion seem to have been equally popular . If partnerships were used, the terms probably were written down in order to avoid later dis­ putes. Unfortunately, however, such agreements are rarely pre­ served in the papers of the merchants. One existing agreement is probably unusual in that one of the partners, James Pemberton , provided all of the capital, in this case £5,000. The other mem­ ber of the firm, Ezekiel Edwards, was to be the active member , responsible for the transaction of all business and the keeping of all accounts . Any commissions received for doing business as lietors were to be divided equally. Pemberton was to receive two thirds and Edwards one third of all other profits . The term of the partnership was to be seven years.® Apparently two to seven years was the standard length of time for a partnership to last without re­ newal . Many partnerships broke up after one term by mutual con­ sent while others were longer lasting. Abel James and Henry Drinker,for example, were partners for at least twenty-five years before the Revolution; and their letterbooks give no indication that the relationship was anything but harmonious . In addition to formal partnerships, Philadelphia merchants of­ ten entered into temporary partnerships which were only for the duration of one adventure. James and Drinker engaged in such a venture in 1757, joining eight other individuals and firms in ship­ ping a cargo of provisions to Newfoundland. The cargo was valued

The Organization and Conduct of Business

13

at LI,721 which was owned by the nine participants in shares rang­ ing from L300 to L100 $ In 1760 a group of merchants and other s formed a temporary partnership to send a cargo of sugar, valued at L6,000 to Leghorn. The proceeds of the sale of the sugar were invested in a cargo of prohibited European goods, the profits of which were distributed in the same proportion as the original in­ vestment in the cargo of sugar . 10 Partnership arrangements were normally made between or a- \ mong merchants who lived in Philadelphia, but, upon occasion, a | Philadelphia merchant might enter into a temporary agreement with an overseas mercantile house . Such partnerships often em­ braced the joint ownership of vessels as well as the sending of car­ gos on the "company account." John Hunt of London arranged to share with Israel Pemberton in a regular trade involving London, Philadelphia, and the West Indies .Elias Bland, also of London, owned a vessel in partnership with James Pemberton and took a share of the cargos which the ship carried.James and Drinker, too, owned a ship in the London trade jointly with William Neate of that city, and some of the goods which Neate sent to Philadelphia were "company goods ."13 Sometimes such partnerships were work­ ed outwith merchanisin the West Indies . Samuel Bean of Kings ton, Jamaica, offered "to hold a half or third" of any cargo which John Reynell might send him .14 James and Drinker agreed to join with a house on St. Kitts in trade between that island and Philadelphia with the Philadelphians owning two-thirds of each cargo. Each charged the usual commissions on shipments, and each promised to make remittances as quickly as possible . 15 Such partnerships often seemed advantageous because they insured that the parties in­ volved would always get the benefit of the consignment of any non­ partnership merchandize which the other might send. Much eighteenth century commerce was, in effect, barter: the exchange of one product for another. This process was, however, normally carried out on a more sophisticated level than that of pure barter. That is to say, the products exchanged were always re­ duced to monetary terms, and accounts were always kept in terms of money. This avoided the clumsiness of pure barter and at the same time made it possible to carry on an extensive trade with rel­ atively little cash changing hands . The mere exchange of products could not, however, take care of all necessary payments. In the case of the English trade, for example, Philadelphia had very few products suitable to send to the mother country. Yet payment had somehow to be made for the ' large imports which came into the province from England. One way to make payment, of course, was to send gold or silver coin which the Philadelphians could acquire in trade with the West Indies. A

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The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

far more common method was to send a bill of exchange, the fore­ runner of the modern bank check. A bill of exchange was simply an order by a first person to his correspondent (i .e ., banker) to pay a specified sum of money to the order of a third person named in the bill. Other persons might be involved as indorsers. The signature of an indorser on a bill meant that he would guarantee pay­ ment if the drawee refused to honor the bill. All bills were drawn for a certain period of "sight;" that is, they were payable so many days after their first presentation to the drawee . , Such bills circulated like cash and were bought and sold like other commodities in colonial mercantile centers . Bills, therefore, responded to the same pressures of supply and demand as other commodities. When the supply was large, the price of bills ex­ pressed in Pennsylvania currency was low, and vice versa. Often the situation changed so rapidly that the price might vary as much as "10 pct in a few days."16 Bills were normally scarce in the sum­ mer but increased in supply when orders came in for shipment of the fall crop. Bills usually rose in price just before a ship sailed for London, as people took advantage of the opportunity to make remittances to England. 1? Bills came into Philadelphia in several ways . Most of them, no doubt, came from the West Indies in payment for provisions and lumber. Others were made available by orders for provisions to be sent to the other continental colonies, to the British Isles, or to South Europe . Residents of the province with fortunes in England often drew bills when they needed money in Pennsylvania. Immi­ grants coming into the colony sometimes had resources available upon which they could draw bills of exchange. The Scottish factors of Maryland and Virginia often drew bills on Scotland and offered them for sale in Philadelphia. Finally, purchases made by mili­ tary and naval supply contractors during war time were a fruit­ ful source of bills . When a bill reached its final destination, it was presented for payment. The drawee could note it for acceptance or non-accept­ ance . If the former, it meant that it would be duly paid when the time specified in the bill had elapsed. If the latter, it meant that it would not be paid unless the drawer of the bill had in the mean­ time sent goods or funds sufficient to cover the amount of the bill or had sent a satisfactory explanation for having drawn the bill. When bills were not paid, they were usually taken before a notary and formally protested and then returned to the person who had sent them. The possessor of a protested bill was entitled to sue the drawer for the amount of the bill plus damages which varied from place to place . The Pennsylvania law set the damages for protested bills at twenty percent of the value which allowed a handsome profit

The Organization and Conduct of Business

15

to the purchaser of the bill. This, as James and Drinker pointed out, " .. .is frequently no small part of our Profits in Trade;" and John Reynell wrote that he desired ". . .no better business than such protested bills, our damages being 20 p cent."1® Early in the century it seems to have been customary for the drawer of the bill to pay the damages required by the law of the place where he lived rather than those assessed by the law of the place where the bill was sold . Thus, James Logan expressed please d surprise when a Maryland man who had sold a bill in Philadelphia insisted on paying the full twenty percent Pennsylvania damages when the bill came back protested even though Maryland lawrequired him to pay only ten percent. By the time of the Revolution, however, it seems to have become the practice to pay the damages on a pro­ tested bill according to the law of the place where it was sold rather than that of the place of its origin. 0 Two sterling bills for the same amount did not always sell for j the same price in Philadelphia. Some bills were regarded as more desirable than others. The length of time for which the bill vas drawn and the city in which it was payable were perhaps the major factors governing the selling price. By the end of the colonial per-/ iod, the standard bill was one drawn on London at thirty days sight. The preference for London billswas based on the fact that most re- | mittances were made to London. If,therefore, a bill not drawn on i London was sent, it then had to be dispatched to the city on which it was drawn for negotiation, which caused extra delay, trouble, and expense . For this reason, bills not drawn on London sold for "half or one p ct." lower than London bills.Bi­ Bills drawn at long periods of sight, even as much as forty days, i were even less desireable than bills not drawn on London. Some- / times such bills could noteven be sold in Philadelphia without giving/ the purchaser as much as three months credit. 22 Thomas Wharton' apologized profusely for sending a sixty day bill to London, offering as an excuse the fact that bills were so scarce that ".. .1 did not know when I purchas'd this where to buy another in this City."2® Bills drawn for longer than sixty days were virtually unsalable . Thomas Willing spoke of one "drawn villainously at 90 days sight.. .." He would have preferred to sell the bill in Philadelphia but was forced to send it to England for negotiation because ", . .the iniquitous long Usance prevents the Sale . . . ."24 Place of origin was also a factor in the sale price of a bill. At times, bills originating in one place or another were in bad repute in Philadelphia. In the 1740's, for instance, bills drawn in the to­ bacco colonies were undesirable because the tobacco merchants in London were reluctant to pay them and took advantage of any tech-

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The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

nicality to delay payment or to escape their obligation entirely. 25 Likewise in the 1760's Jamaica bills were said to have been "mudi out of Credit here from their being so frequently protested and the great difficultys and delays that have attended the recovering of them as well as the loss. .. ."26 For all of these reasons, Phila­ delphia merchants always directed their factors to be very careful about the bills they took and to make sure that the drawers and in­ dorsers, if any, were men of fortune and good reputation. i Although many people tend to think of credit as a modern in­ vention, the fact is that, even in the eighteenth century, commerce would have been impossible without a complex network of credit re| lationships. At the base of the structure was the consumer in the city or country. He demanded and got long term credits from the shopkeeper from whom he purchased his goods. The storekeeper in turn got his goods from the importing merchant on credit which the latter was obliged to grant lest the retailer take his business elsewhere.27 The storekeeper's point of view can be illustrated by the tone of a letter from a retailer in West Jersey to a Philadel­ phia merchant. Expressing surprise that he had been pressed for payment only four months after he had bought some goods, the Jer­ seyite asserted that seven or eight months would be a more rea­ sonable length of time considering that he had to give credits of a year or even longer to his own customers.28 John Reynell report­ ed that the only alternative to giving long credit was to sell goods "extream Low" and added that if a merchant once got the reputa­ tion of being a "sharp dunner " he might as well "shutt up his store for people wont buy of him J'29 A few exceptions to this wide use of credit may be noted . Some articles, notably rum, sugar, tea, and spices, were known as "cash articles;"but even for these the merchant often had to wait a month or longer for payment.30 Nor did credit extend to the purchase of Pennsylvania produce which the merchant wanted to export from the province . Thomas Willing’s report that " .. .we never barter for the Country produce because the Farmer & Miller will have money on delivery & frequently before they deliver their articles," would have evoked unanimous agreement from other Philadelphia mer­ chants . In these circumstances it may readily be seen that the success­ ful merchant not only had to have a considerable capital but mist be prepared to keep a large portion of it tied up in the hands of shop­ keepers if he expected to "make anything of the European trade in Phila. 2 Even the most affluent merchant, therefore, usually need­ ed some source of credit himself in order to operate; and this he obtained from the English merchants who supplied him with dry goods and hardware . So the chain of credit from consumer to r e-

The Organization and Conduct of Business

17

tailer to importer to English merchant was completed.33 As long . as the consumers were able to make their payments satisfactorily the system operated smoothly. But when the consumers found it i hard to pay, then the shopkeepers were forced to suspend payment I of their debts to the merchants, and the merchants in turn found it I difficult to make their payments to England, and cries of depression I arose on all sides . If eighteenth century trade could not have operated without cre­ dit, it could no more have operated without the institution of factor­ age . So necessary and so universal was its use'that it is virtually impossible to find a business transaction involving the import or export of goods which did not employ at least one factor . The facr > tor may be defined as one who performed various services for an- 1 other merchant on a commission basis. These services might beJ any one of a number of things . Most frequently the factor wascalle d upon to sell a cargo of goods for his employer and to remit the proceeds of the sale either by purchasing bills of exchange or by providing a return cargo. In addition to this major function, he might be asked to negotiate bills of exchange, to collect debts, to act as an attorney, to negotiate for insurance on a vessel or cargo, or any of a host of other things . For each of these services, he. received a certain percentage of the value of the transaction being' made. These fees were standardized in the mercantile practice of'' each area of trade, and the merchants looked with great disfavor upon any attempt to collect more than the recognized fee .34 The institution of factorage was a two-way proposition: Phila delphia merchants not only employed factors bat often acted as fac-1 tors themselves . Much of the factorage of Philadelphia may have’ been handled by young merchants who saw this type of business as an opportunity to build up their capital without risk to themselves, yet many young merchants just beginning business imported goods on their own account from the very beginning of their careers .35 On the other hand, the largest and most affluent houses in the city did not hesitate to act as factors . The correspondence of John Reynell, James and Drinker, and many others is filled with references to their willingness to do business on commission. So eager was Thomas Willing, for instance, to have cargos of West Indies goods shipped to him on consignment that he attempted to discredit other factors, saying that they often bought goods at needlessly hi gh prices just in order to increase their commissions and "boast of it afterwards;" and that some ofthe factorswere "People who scarce­ ly know how to write their Names ."36 jt should be noted that the general eagerness of Philadelphia merchants to act as factors did not apply to imports of English goods . This reluctance will be con­ sidered further in connection with the English trade.

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The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

In law, the principal was held responsible for all of the actions of the factor The principal was thus forced to suffer the loss re­ sulting from any bad debts which the factor might contract in the sale of his employer's .goods unless the factor specifically agreed to guarantee all debts. Such agreements were made from time to time, but the factors charged an extra commission for them .^Because the factor was in complete control of the employer's property in his possession, he was chosen with all possible care . As one mer­ chant put it, ".. .its highly necessary to be possessed of a just and able ffactor, that willhonestly negotiate his ffriends Business as he would be treated himself, by obeying orders, and Industriously searching for the Cheapest Goods in kinds. .. ."40 Family connec­ tions, religious ties, personal acquaintance, or the recommenda­ tion of a mutual friend all played parts in the selection of a factor. But in spite of all precautions the arrangement often proved to be unsatisfactory. The correspondence of Philadelphia merchants abounds in charges and counter-charges, recriminations and refu­ tations between principal and factor. Seldom did a relationship of this kind last more than a few years without serious difficulty. From the point of view of the Philadelphia merchant, perhaps the most sought-after quality in a factor, especially in the West Indies or South Europe, was the ability or willingness to remit the proceeds promptly after the receipt of the cargo and even before it had all been sold. "The making quick remittances,” said John Reynell, "is the life of trade. It encourages one to send again."41 This meant, of course, that the factor would have to put some of his own capital at the disposal of his employer . This request might seem to have been somewhat unreasonable, but the Philadelphia merchants claimed that they were perfectly willing to do the same thing when called upon to act as factors. James and Drinker, for example, in sending a large cargo to the West Indies, requested that " .. .upon receipt of the Goods you'll Endeavour to procure us undoubted good bills of Exchange for what you may suppose this ad­ venture may Neat & remitt us by first opportunity - This we would not ask if it was not.. .what we are always ready to comply with our­ selves, when our Friends at your port favour us with their busi­ ness ."42 The evidence, however, indicates that the ideal of immediate remittance was not often achieved. More often the factor made re­ mittances only as the pay for the cargo came in. Occasionally a factor, in order to encourage business, would offer to make im­ mediate remittance of a certain proportion of the value of a cargo. One Jamaica factor offered to "remitt the best part of the Proceeds p return of the vessell, 3/4 tis certain... ."43 a Lisbon house wrcte that it would "remit half what we may Judge would be the Net

The Organization and Conduct of Business

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Pro ds of it, either to London directly.. .or in exports back to Phil­ adelphia. .. They guaranteed to make remittance for the rest of the cargo within six to eight months . This offer, they wrote, was made possible by the fact that one of the members of the firm had recently inherited a fortune which he desired to employ in trade 44 Such offers as these, however, were the exception rather than the rule; and the letters of Philadelphia merchants are replete with com­ plaints about long-delayed payments from overseas factors. Another important duty of the factor was the regular and accu-. rate transmission of market information. Faithful performance of) this service meant that" . . .tho' the Market may be in general bad .. .money may be made in the trade, ” as Richard Wain pointed out to his Jamaica factor .45 The factor was not paid for this service except, of course, in terms of more frequent and larger consign­ ments of goods if his information turned out to be accurate and re­ warding to his principal. As far as can be judged, most factors at­ tempted to discharge this duty conscientiously; and it was certainly to their advantage to do so . It was a rare letter from a factor to his employer which did not contain a report of the state of the mar­ ket at the time of writing as well as his estimate of its future trend. | Some "commission hunters, " to be sure, may have transmitted un­ duly optimistic market reports in order to encourage shipments to themselves; but the honest factor reported the market as he saw it. Even with the best of intentions no factor could transmit com­ pletely reliable information. Markets were often affected by con­ ditions entirely beyond his knowledge; and, in any event, his in­ formation was sure to be somewhat out of date by the time it reach­ ed Philadelphia. There are numerous reports of cargos arriving at markets which were unexpectedly bad or of failure to have a car­ go on hand to take advantage of a good market. It can truly be said that the eighteenthcentury merchant was fully justified in referring to his cargos as "adventures ." Aside from the employment of a resident factor, the only way . in which a merchant could conduct business overseas was by con- j signing the cargo to the captain or by employing a supercargo . The former method was by no means uncommon, especially in the West Indies trade, but was subject to certain disadvantages. The captain had to look after his vessel when in port, and selling off a cargo took up a great deal of time, usually longer than the owners cared to allow their vessel to lie idle .46 The employment of supercargos was much more common. It was a frequent practice for a young merchant to make one or more voyages in this capacity before settling down in one place as a resi­ dent factor or merchant. Robert Morris, after serving his appren­ ticeship with Charles Willing and Son, took a trip to Jamaica as a

20

The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

supercargo for the Willings. He considered settling as a factor in Jamaica, but in the end returned to Philadelphia to go into partner­ ship with Thomas Willing after the death of Charles Willing. 47 David Fogo, who had resided in Philadelphia for some years, vent to Antigua as a supercargo for John Reynell and decided to stay there as a resident factor. Thereafter he transacted large amounts of business for Reynell until they came to an acrimonious parting of the ways when Reynell claimed that Fogo had failed to send pay­ ment for several thousand pounds worth of goods.48 Ezekiel Ed­ wards was another young Philadelphian who used a voyage as super­ cargo as a stepping-stone to a general mercantile career .49 Writ­ ing in 1773, William Pollard summed up the advantages of acting as a supercargo: ". . .it answers the End of these People very well, for the Commiss0 of ten p ct. . .makes them ample satisfaction indeed a Number of our Young Men have made Money this Way."50 Resident factors often complained that the "transient traders," as they called captains and supercargos, put them at a disadvan­ tage by selling at low prices for cash in order to get a cargo off their hands quickly. Permanent factors, moreover, claimed that people expected them to give long credits simply because they would be around to collect the debts.51 Onone occasion there was a com­ plaint that the transient traders had actually entered an agreement to keep the price of flour down to a certain level .52 On the other hand, some of the islands in the West Indies made things difficult for the transient trader by forcinghim to pay a tax on his commis­ sions .55 The use of supercargos and the consignment of cargos to c a ptains seems to have been pretty much restricted to the coastwise and West Indies trade. Correspondence of Philadelphia merchants yields few references to the use of either of these methods in con­ nection with the other trade areas of the province . The south Eur­ opean trade, in particular, seemed to require resident factors, probably because no stranger could be expected to have sufficient acquaintance with the markets to be able to make profitable sales. Although factors were expected to obey their instructions, it was necessary to allow them sufficient discretion to take advantage of unforeseen situations. To expect a factor to adhere rigidly to the letter of his orders might mean the loss of a potential profit or the sustaining of a greater loss than might otherwise have been ne­ cessary. As John Reynell's Lisbon factors pointed out to him, "with­ out doubt those Persons who are on the Spot must know where the best Marketts are by the continual advices they receive."-4 Most principals recognized the wisdom of this position and agreed with the merchant who directed his factor to” .. .Act discretional where thou seest an apparent prospect of greater advantage than to pursue

The Organization and Conduct of Business

21

the Course that I might have advised because it is not possible all ways at such a distance of time to foresee what may be best.”55 On the other hand, if the factor took too much liberty with his em­ ployer's orders, he ran the risk of incurring the wrath of the latter, as when James Pemberton accused his Barbados factor of having . .either not attended to our plain directions, or is willing to make use of our mony to their own benefit a little longer .”56

Maritime Insurance Brief mention should be made of the growth of Philadelphia as a1 maritime insurance center . This activity, if not technically a part of the overseas commerce under consideration in this study, was 1 neverthless a common means by which Philadelphia merchants in- I creased the flow of money into the city; and therefore it requites / consideration. Maritime insurance was well known when the colony of Pennsyl­ vania was founded. In the early eighteenth century James Logan mentioned insurance on several cargos which he was sending to Lon­ don. 57 According to Gras and Larson, the difficulty of obtaining j insurance in London was responsible for the beginning of insurance J underwriting in Philadelphia .58 Support is given to this view by! the first notice of an insurance office in Philadelphia which ap­ peared in the American Weekly Mercury of 25 May 1721. The a dvertiser, John Copson, pointed out that getting insurance made in London had "not only been tedious and troublesome, but even very precarious."59 The office was quickly abandoned, however, for reasons unknown. In 1725, Francis Rawle proposed that the pro­ vince should set up an insurance office with capital provided by the income from the provincial loan office, but nothing came ofthis in­ teresting proposal.60 By 1743, there was an insurance office in business again in Philadelphia . One merchant, however, expressed skepticism about its permanence: "I always looked on the thing as a Novelty, & what they would soon be tired off.” For his own part, he said, he would have nothing to do with the local office, "but shall constantly write to London for Comon & Honest Insurance ."6J- Indeed, despite the ' growing importance of local insurance, Philadelphia merchants con­ tinued, throughout the colonial period, to make insurance in Lon-J don. The actual techniques of insurance writing in the eighteenth cen­ tury have been well described by Gras and Larson: The shipper having a venture to be insured went

22

The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

to the broker, where a policy was made out and the rate of premium determined. The policy was left with the broker, and various capitalists came in and signed the policy, each noting after his name the percentage of the full amount for which he would be responsible . When the full amount had been subscribed, one copy of the poli­ cy was given to the insured and one copy was kept by the broker . In case of the safe arrival of the ship the premium money was divided among the underwriters. Incase of loss the broker was forced to collect the various amounts from the un­ derwriters and turn them over to the shipper By mid-century there were several insurance brokers in the city, and the French and Indian War seems to have given impetus to the whole business. By this time the Philadelphia underwriters were serving places other than their own city. Letters from New England, the Bahamas, Virginia, and elsewhere asking for insur­ ance appeared regularly in the correspondence of the merchants .64 The underwriters, nevertheless, continued to prefer to insure local vessels, the condition of whichand the capabilities of whose masters and hands were known to them.It must be said, however, that the underwriters did nothing actively to discourage business from outside the city, and the merchants took care to extol the character of the underwriters, referring to them as "good men," "Menof For­ tune," and "unexceptionable ."66 Despite these recommendations, policy holders occasionally complained about the slowness of pay­ ment and threatened to send elsewhere for insurance in the future .67 The continued growth of Philadelphia as a maritime insurance cen­ ter, however, seems to indicate general satisfaction with the kind of service provided by the underwriters . One attempt to form a genuine and permanent maritime insur­ ance company was made in Philadelphia in 1759. A group of under­ writers associated themselves under the name "Thomas Willing and Company" and agreed that all policies made by any of them should be in the name of the company. Each was to have a specified share in any policy underwritten by the company .68 Willing himself had great hopes for the organization especially in view of the fact that the combined fortunes of its partners were not less than L80.000, "which will make an addition of L600 to the sum we could formerly have done here on any one Risque, & must be an advantage to the Trade of both this City & yoursfjtew Yor£j& indeed to the Contirent in general." Within a year, however, the company had disband­ ed; and the insurance business of Eiiladelphia returned to its former character with individual underwriters working through brokers .69

I

■

3 .

The Legal Framework of Philadelphia Commerce

The body of mercantile custom and practice which the Phila delphia merchants shared with all merchants in the English-speak­ ing world was not the only framework within which they operated. A common assumption of mercantilism, the dominanteconomic sys^ tern of the day, was that the political state was obligated to take an active part in the control and direction of the economic life of the community. Laissez-faire was an ideal scarcely expressed and; certainly not practiced in the eighteenth century before the Ameri- ' can Revolution . The merchants, therefore, conducted their bus iness within a complex structure of commercial regulations, some of which dealt with the broad outlines of trade and others of which were concerned with the day-to-day conduct of business operations. These regulations were imposed on two governmental levels: by the ' British Parliament on behalf of the whole empire, and by the Penn­ sylvania legislature on behalf of the province itself. The British regulations, expressed in the Acts of Navigation and Trade, are by far the more familiar to students of colonial his- • tory. Their theory and practice have been examined and re-ex­ amined . Their effect on the political and economic life of the col­ onies and their relationship to the growth of the revolutionary sen­ timent have been evaluated by many able scholars. Therefore, no attempt will be made here to do more than to sketch in mere out­ line their specific relation to Philadelphia commerce. The basic outlines of British commercial policy toward the col­ onies were well established by the time of the founding of Pennsyl­ vania. This policy, in brief, provided that all trade to and from' the colonies must be carried in British or colonial ships, the mas­ ter and three quarters of the seamen of which were British subjects;.

24

I

The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

that all manufactured or European goods or luxury goods from the Orient must be imported directly from England; and that certain specified products must be shipped only to England or to another I colony. The Navigation Act of 1696 changed none of these basic 'rules but provided an elaborate framework for their enforcement, including the authority to establish vice-admiralty courts in the col­ onies and the requirement that all colonial governors mustpost bond to enforce the Navigation Acts. It is impossible to say if the politicians or merchants of early Pennsylvania had any theoretical objections to the Navigation Acts. It is true, however, that British officials accused the province of being a center of illegal trade . Asearly as 1695, Governor Nichol­ son of Maryland alleged that Pennsylvania was a center for the il­ legal export of tobacco to Scotland and also to Curasao where its vessels arrived in time to meet the Dutch fleet and trade the tobacco for contraband European goods. He also asserted that Pennsylvania was a haven for pirates . He suggested that English customs officials should be sent over and that a small frigate should be stationed in the bay or river to detect illegal trade. 1 Two other British officials also kept up a running fire against the proprietary administration of Pennsylvania, emphasizing in par­ ticular the lax administration of the Navigation Acts . One of these was Colonel Robert Quary, vice-admiralty judge of Pennsylvania and later surveyor-general of the customs for the northern district. In 1696, he made much the same charges against Pennsylvania that Governor Nicholson had made, claiming that tobacco was sent di­ rectly to Scotland, that the province carried on a large illegal trade with Curacao, and that goods were being imported directly from Europe.2 ’Edward Randolph, long a thorn in the side of the colonies, also made similar complaints against Pennsylvania .3 William Penn, however, stoutly denied that evasion of the Navi­ gation Acts in his province was as extensive as either of these men alleged. His denials are given some strength by the realization that both Quary and Randolph were professional advocates of the re­ vocation of the proprietary charters. In any event, charges that Pennsylvania was systematically evading the Navigation Acts sub­ sided before the eighteenth century was well under way.4 Acts restricting the export of colonial manufactures had little practical effect in Pennsylvania. Home manufactures of wool, for instance, could never begin to supply Pennsylvania's demand for woolen fabrics from England. The Woolen Act, therefore, was a statement of policy rather than a practical restriction on the eco­ nomic life of the province. The same thing might be said for the Hat Act. The Naval Stores Acts, which were intended to encourage rather than to restrict colonial industry, had little effect inPennsyl-

The Legal Framework of Philadelphia Commerce

25

vania; for the province was not well suited to the production of na­ val stores . The Iron Act of 1750 gave encouragement to the Rsnnsylvania iron industry by allowing its import into London free of duty, but iron never developed into a highly significant export from Pennsylvania to England. Among British acts affecting the trade of Philadelphia before 1763 only the Molasses Act remains to be considered. While this act was being deliberated in Parliament Governor Patrick Gordon recommended that the Pennsylvania Assembly protest even though the trade of the province with the foreign islands was "inconsider­ able ." Neighboring provinces which did conduct an extensive trade with the foreign West Indian colonies would be affected, the mar­ kets for bread and flour in the English islands would inevitably be overstocked, prices would drop, and Pennsylvania's prosperity would suffer in consequence. The Assembly agreed with the gov­ ernor’s logic and instructed the agent in London to join with the oth­ er colonial agents in a protest against the bill .5 Once the act was passed it was evaded in Pennsylvania as it was in the other colonies. Yet Philadelphia never developed a rum distilling industry comparable to that of New England, and so her need for cheap foreign molasses was never as pressing. Even as late as 1751, when the West Indies interest in Parliament was press­ ing for a complete prohibition of the trade of the northern colonies with the foreign islands, Isaac Norris, a merchant as well as Speak­ er of the Assembly, leaned to the point of view that the prohibition of trade with the French and Spanish islands would probably be a good thing. He argued that Pennsylvania's trade with the French was not great"andeven that carry'd on wth an apparent disadvante on our side,being forced, with the exportation of our cash of which we are greatly drained by our remittances to England." When the Assembly heard that Richard Partridge, the agent, had chosen to present Pennsylvania's case first in opposing the new restrictions on trade with the foreign West Indies, the members felt that the province was being "unkindly and injudiciously if not unjustly dealt with if we are made the catspaw for the other colonies at a great and unreasonable expence to us in an affair in which we have the least concern and for the event of which we presume our Colony is the least solicitous ." Just because a freer trade with the foreign islands might make Rhode Island and Massachusetts better able to pay for the provisions they imported from Pennsylvania was "no excuse to make us carry the lead in defence of those clandestine : practices which in breach of the Acts of Navigation the W India mer­ chants pretend to prove and which if they can prove we are well as­ sured will very little affect us, besides our Commodities are such as N England and R Island musthave whither they procure their pay

26

The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

from the forreign Sugar Islands or elsewhere ."6 With the possible exception of the Molasses Act, it seems un­ likely that any of the British Navigation Acts or the acts regulating .manufactures imposed any serious burden on the trade of Philadel­ phia . Most of her manufactured goods would have come from Eng­ land in any event. The enumeration of certain exports was of lit­ tle importance to Pniladelphia, for she had virtually none of the enumerated products for export. The restriction of shipping to Brit­ ish and colonial ships was certainly a positive benefit, for hallow­ ed colonial built and owned ships to participate fully in the trade of the Empire. With the great bulk of her produce unneeded and un­ wanted in Great Britain, Pniladelphia was free to export her staples wherever she could find a market for them. Provincial Regulation

The great amount of attention focused on British regulation of colonial commerce and economic life has led to neglect of another I important aspect of economic history: the regulation of economic life by the colonial legislatures themselves .7 In general, it is clear that colonials, like their British brethren, accepted the mercantil­ ists principle of government intervention in commercial and busi­ ness affairs. Colonial legislatures, in accordance with this pre­ vailing belief, enacted a wide variety of legislation dealing with commerce and economic life in general. Pennsylvania was no exception to this general rule . Indeed, the province was, in the words of a contemporary petition, "con­ spicuous to the world for its. . .well-adapted commercial laws."8 Many of these laws were concerned with internal rather than ex­ ternal commerce and therefore do not require detailed considera­ tion here . Among such regulations were the assizes of bread and beer for the city of Pniladelphia, price-fixing for cartage and haul­ age, restriction of itinerant peddlers and public auctions, prohi­ bition of obstructions to traffic on internal waterways, and the whole complex, troubled field of the control of trade with the Indians. Also omitted from this discussion is the question of provincial paper currency, a form of provincial regulation which did have a direct effect upon the activities of the importing and exporting merchants with whom this study deals. This topic, however, is far too impor­ tant tobe slighted with the brief treatment which could be giventoit here. I Perhaps the most notable aspect of provincial commercial reg­ ulation in eighteenth century Pennsylvania was the system of inspec­ tion of exports. The policy of compulsory inspection of certain pro­ ducts intended for export began early in Pennsylvania history

The Legal Framework of Philadelphia Commerce

27

and continued without a break during the colonial period.9 Some general characteristics of these inspection laws may be noted. They were limited to maintaining the quality of exports which were al- i ready important in the economy of the colony, to products which I gave promise of becoming important, or to those on which a bounty; was offered by Parliament. For this reason, the number of pro- I ducts inspected was never very large. In their fully developed form the laws were rigorous in conception, if not always in execution. They demanded that the product be viewed by a provincial official before being shipped out of the province . He could refuse to allow the export of any goods which he considered unmerchantable . Do­ mestic buyers received no protection from these laws, for their purpose was solely to maintain the quality of exports. Such pro­ tection as existed for the local consumer was provided in assizes of bread and beer and in the regulations for fairs and markets. The first inspection act in Pennsylvania was an omnibus bill passed in 1703. The preamble embodies the underlying philosophy of the inspection system, declaring that the law is passed because . . .it is the interest of all governments to exer­ cise truth and uprightness in all their trade and dealings, which many persons for their private interest too often violate; to the end therefore that the same may be observed in the traffic and com­ merce of this province and territories, and espe­ cially that the commodities generally exported to foreign markets may be good in respect to their quality, and complete in respect of their quan­ tity .... The most important provision of this act was that "no person, after the publication hereof, shall presume to ship any beef or pork be­ fore it be first viewed and packed or repacked by an officer or pack­ er...which shall, after the officer's view and approbation, be marked with the said officer's mark.” This act also regulated the size and quality of casks used in packing and specified the dimen­ sions of various types of staves intended for export. In addition, it prohibited the export of unmerchantable bread and flour and re­ quired that each cask of bread or flour be stamped with the regis­ tered brand-mark of the miller, bolter, or baker. The penalties provided in this section of the law, however, were levied only if a shipment of bread or flour was actually returned to Pennsylvania as being unmerchantable . *0 Although beef and pork were thus the first products subjected ' to compulsory inspection, the emergence of flour as Pennsylvania's; major staple soon brought about the regulation of exports of that commodity. An attempt to secure compulsory inspection of flour

28

The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

failed in 1713, but in 1722 the Assembly passed an act which con­ tained some of the essentials of the fully developed inspection pol­ icy. Under this act, however, the inspector was required to view flour for export only if he had reason to suspect that it was unsuitable for export.*1 The inadequacies of this law were immediately ap­ parent. On 1 January 1723 Governor Sir William Keith told the As­ sembly that Philadelphia flour was still in bad repute in the West Indies and that further regulation was necessary "for the sake of the whole country, who must live by the product and manufacture of grain." A group of merchants seconded the governor's message with a petition stating that great abuses still existed in the manu­ facture of flour despite the "utmost diligence of the inspector."12 A supplement to the flour inspection act was the answer of the As­ sembly to these pleas. This supplement allowed the inspector to brand the provincial arms on airy merchantable flour which was sub­ mitted to him for inspection.1-1 Proponents of a more rigorous inspection policy continued to argue that the "good intentions" of the acts could not be realized unless inspection was made compulsory.14 When the basic act and its supplement were due to expire in 1725, the Assembly passed a comprehensive flour inspection act which not only remedied this defect but set the pattern for all future inspection laws as well. The heart of this act was contained in the provision that" . . .no mer­ chant or person whatsoever shall lade or ship any flour for exporta­ tion out of this province before he shall first submit the same to the view and examination of the officer who shall search and try the same in order to judge of its goodness." All bread and flour had to be packed in sound casks marked with a registered brand. The tare of each cask must be clearly marked upon it. Upon conviction of any willful fraud in the packing of bread or flour or makingout the invoice the offender was to pay a fine of five pounds . AU flour which had passed the inspection was to be branded with the provin­ cial arms. The inspector's fee for this service was one penny per cask. In case the owner of the flour did not agree with the judgment of the inspector he could petition any magistrate to issue a warrant to "two indifferent persons of skill and integrity" to examine the flour and report their verdict. If the viewers agreed with the in­ spector, the magistrate was to order the flour to be forfeited and the owner to pay to the inspector one shilling for each cask so con­ demned . If the viewers, on the other hand, said that the flour was of good quality, all of the costs of the case were to be paid by the inspector. The officer was required to take the marks and numbers of each barrel of condemned flour. If casks bearingthe same num­ bers were later submitted for inspection, it was up to the owner to

The Legal Framework of Philadelphia Commerce

29

prove that the flour was not the same which had previously been con­ demned. The inspector had full powers of entry, search, and seiz-1 ure without special warrant. Anyone interferingwithhim in the ex-', ecution of his duty was subject to a fine of ten pounds . Anyone ship­ ping flour out of the province without the provincial brand was to be fined five shillings per cask. The inspector was allowed to appoint deputies havingpowers equal to his own for the other counties of the colony. Anyone who ground flour for export from unsound wheat was to be fined thirty-five shillings for each offense. All fines and forfeitures under the act were to be paid to the person prosecuting the case . He was to retain half the amount for himself and turn the other half over to the supervisors of the poor in the place where the offense occurred . 15 Although the basic provisions and proceduresof this act remain­ ed in force throughout the colonial period, the Assembly from time to time made important modifications as they were dictated by ex­ perience . Major modifications came in 1734 and 1746; in 1750, 1758 and 1759 the actwas continued without change-and in 1768 came the final modification during the colonial period. 16 The 1734 revision; increased some of the penalties for violation of the act and also re-', quired "good covering" for any conveyance used in the transporta- J tion of flour. Separate inspectors, instead of deputies to the Phil­ adelphia officer, were appointed for the other river counties. The revision of 1746 made inspection more stringent by assessinga penalty of one penny for each cask of condemned flour even if the owner failed to appeal the judgementof the inspector . The board of viewers, if one was demanded, was increased to three men, one appointed by the inspector, one by the owner of the flour, and one by the magistrate. The board was directed to be as specific as pos­ sible about the reasons for the bad quality of the flour if it was con­ demned. Inspectors' terms were limited to four years. The final revision in 1768 required the board to be very specific aboutthe reasons for the condemnation of the flour, and the owner was en­ titled to recover the cost of the flour plus damages from the person said to have been responsible . The legislative history of other inspection laws may be quickly related . Reference has already been made to the law of 1700 which provided for the compulsory inspection of barrelled beef and pork. On 27 April 1727 a group of merchants told the Assembly that the old act was inadequate and asked for "a bill suitable to the present circumstances of our trade."17 Before the year was over the A ssembly obliged the petitioners by passing a new inspection act. This new act standardized the gauge of the meat barrel at thirtyone and a half gallons and required all coopers to register their brand marks with the meat inspector. All meat for export had to

30

The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

be sound and merchantable and well-packed in salt and brine with not more than two heads of pork in each barrel. Eachcaskof meat had to be unpacked and repacked by the inspector. If he found it good, he was to brand it with the provincial arms. If the meat was rejected, the owner was entitled to an appeal procedure identical with that provided in the flour inspection act. The inspector re­ ceived a fee of one shilling six pence for each barrel of meat in­ spected and repacked. His powers of entry, search, and seizure were the same as those of the flour inspector.18 This act remain­ ed in force throughout the colonial period without change although it was moribund for a time during the 1740'swhen the inspector died and the Assembly neglected to appoint a successor . The merchants called this situation to the attention of the Assembly which respond­ ed by appointing a new inspector19 The act seems to have been en­ forced continuously throughout the remainder of the colonial period. Compulsory inspection of lumber products, another important export staple, did not come until late in the colonial period. The first evidence of agitation for such inspection appears in the records in February, 1752>when a group of Philadelphia merchants pointed out to the Assembly that the export of staves, heading, boards, plank, and shingles, "mostly brought to this market from the neigh­ boring governments," had become a "considerable branch of the trade of this Province."20 The Assembly took no action in response to this request, but on 1 December 1758 it noted that merchants still reported "great abuses" in the lumber trade and ordered a bill on the subject to be brought in.21 The act, passed in April 1759, required the inspectionof all staves, heading, boards, and cut tim­ ber shipped out of the province. Basic procedures and penalties followed the familiar patterns established in earlier acts ,22 The lumber inspector, however, complained that this act was widely evaded and asked for its amendment to make it more e ffective.23 The Assembly modified the act in 1761 in line with the re commendations of the inspector. The new act made it illegal to mix any rejected lumber products with good ones for later shipment. It also required deputy inspectors to have written authorization from the chief inspector before viewingany lumber products and instruct­ ed them to report the results of any inspections to the chief within six hours so that they could be entered in the records. Bad staves or heading were to be branded with a "C", signifying "cull .”2^ This act, too, seemed to be inadequate; for the Assembly in 1767 noted that the lumber trade was in a declining state because Pennsylvania lumber had "fallen into discredit at the markets abroad."25 The Assembly promptly passed an amendment to the in­ spection act, requiring inspection to take place within forty-eight hours of the "actual lading" of the lumber. When the amendment

L.

The Legal Framework of Philadelphia Commerce

31

went to Governor John Penn for his approval, a group of merchants warned him that this new provision "would greatly embarass the petitioners in regard to the shipping of lumber, and in many cases render it difficult, if not impracticable, to comply with the law." They further said that the "good intent" of the legislature would be answered if the law were to require inspection upon the sale and delivery of the lumber for export, whether out of a yard or out of a river boat. The Assembly, however, insisted on its original ver­ sion; and the amendment went into effect in May, 1767.26 No other changes were made in the basic act, and it remained in force until the Revolution. Only two other products were submitted to provincial inspec­ tion. At the behest of the cordwainers of Philadelphia the Assem­ bly, in 1772, passed a comprehensive act setting up standards for tanned leather and providing for compulsory inspection of leatherin' export. The act, however, was repealed a year later on the grounds that it "hath not answered the good purposes thereby intended ."27 The final inspection law passed during the colonial period came in 1774; the product to be inspected was shad and herring for ex­ port. Since the exportof fish had never been significant in the pro~/ vincial economy of Pennsylvania, this act was intended to promote ! a new trade rather than to protect an established one, a fact re J cognized by the preamble of the act which stated: " . . .the exporta­ tion of shad and herring to foreign markets is likely to become a considerable branch of the trade of this province, and it is neces­ sary that they be packed and salted in sound and merchantable casks and undergo the inspection of some judicious person before they are suffered to be exported."28 Thus it can be seen that the funda­ mental philosophy of inspection had remained unchanged from the passage of the first inspection act in 1700 until the final one in 1774. These provincial inspection laws would, of course, have beerT) useless without effective enforcement. Much contemporary evi-I dence indicates that the laws, particularly for flour inspection,were I indeed vigorously enforced. Many references to the condemnation of flour can be found in the correspondence of Philadelphia mer­ chants. The papersof Levi Hollingsworth, a Riiladelphiaflour fac­ tor are particularly fruitful in this respect. On the basis of let­ ters written to him from various country correspondents it appears that the inspector, Thomas Pryor, was especially rigorous in the late 1760's and early 1770's. The complaint of Samuel Patterson, a Lower Counties storekeeper and riverboatman, will serve to il­ lustrate the point. The millers in his area, he wrote, were de­ manding to know why their flour was being condemned for no ap­ parent reason. His letter concluded on an exasperated note: "I am apprehencive your good Inspector looks too much at the Planets to

32

The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

be a good judge of Flour expecting no dout but that the Flour should be as bright as the stars ... .1 wish him no harm but that he was a miller oblig'd to give 7/6 pbu for wheat. . .and have all his Flour Condem'd."29 John Reynell was another one who reported that the inspection was especially strict in the early 1770's.30 Such references to the stringency of inspection do not, of course, mean that all flour exported from Eiiladelphia was of uniformly good quality. On the contrary, the overseas factors of the Philadelphia merchants frequently complained about the quality of the flour sent to them for sale. Perhaps the most frequent criticism was that flour was hard-packed and musty or that it was of a poor color . A factor in Antigua, writing in 1755, asserted that the reputation of Philadel­ phia flour was fast declining in that island and urged that the in­ spector should be told to "take more care in the passing of Flour than he had before done for their is Seldom a Cargo of flour comes out but some of it as coarse as shorts & a great deal of it very ill .bolted."31 It should be said, however, that overseas factors often used poor quality of merchandise as an excuse whenever sales were slow and prices were low so that their Philadelphia principal would not think that their own selling ability was at fault. Another rea­ son for the appearance of an occasional cask of poor quality flour in shipments to overseas markets may have been the inspection pro­ cedure which commonly consisted of checking only three or four casks in each invoice and, if those were found good, passing the whole lot.32 It is possible, too, that deliberate fraud, as well as negligence or incompetence of the inspector, may have accounted for some of the bad Philadelphia flour which appeared in overseas markets. Just as smugglers could and did avoid British trade regulations by em­ ploying various artifices, it was equally possible to evade provin j cial regulations and ship condemned products out of the province. James Partridge, for example, suggested that Hollingsworth and Rudulph join him in shipping condemned flour to North Carolina or to St. Kitts in his shallop. Samuel Patterson wanted them to send fifty barrels of rejected flour to Dublin along with a cargo of flax­ seed.33 Their correspondence does not indicate whether or not Hollingsworth and Rudulph joined in these particular illegal ven­ tures, but it seems logical to believe that most Philadelphia mer­ chants would have frowned on such attempts to defeat the purpose of the inspection since it was surely to their advantage to maintain the highest possible quality in exports of flour . Probably most of the condemned flour was sent back to the maker, sold in town for family use, or sold to local bakers.34 Faithful execution of the inspection laws depended in large part upon the ability of the Assembly to find men of knowledge and integ-

l

The Legal Framework of Philadelphia Commerce

33

rity to serve as inspectors . Merchants and other interested parties were fully aware of this factas when Isaac Norris told a West Indies correspondent that improvement in the quality of Philadelphia flour depended on"good officers if we can get them ."35 Financial induce­ ments were probably adequate to insure that good men would apply for the jobs. Although the inspectorships carried no specified sal­ ary the various fees and penalties to which they were entitled must have made the jobs quite lucrative. This was most true of the flour inspectorship for Philadelphia county which must have been the bestpaid government job in the colony with the exception only of that of the governor himself. The Assembly, which had the job of appoint­ ing the various inspectors, seems to have devoted some care to be certain that the men who were appointed knew something about the products they were supposed to inspect. In 1766, for example, eight men petitioned the Assembly for the post of flour inspector for Philadelphia county. Ofthese, five were millers, two were bak­ ers, and one was a dealer in flour. The man chosen was Thomas Pryor, Jr., a baker, whose alleged stringency in inspection has al­ ready been mentioned.36 After two four-year terms, Pryor was replaced as inspector by Levi Hollingsworth, whose extensive deal­ ings in flour have been previously noted.3? The Philadelphia mer­ chants generally respected the judgment of the inspector and fre­ quently cited his opinion as a recommendation for a particular ship­ ment of flour .38 From time to time, however, complaints arose about the skill or integrity of one or another of the inspectors. Petitions regard­ ing Samuel Carpenter's administration of the office of flour in­ spector were so numerous around the year 1740 that the Assembly felt it necessary to conduct a formal investigation. Petitions and personal testimony both for and against Carpenter and his deputies were heard, but the investigation apparently convinced the Assem­ bly that the case against Carpenter was not proven. At least, he retained his office. In 1761 the coopers of Philadelphia asked the Assembly to remove the lumber inspector from office because of his "ignorance, partiality, and neglect."40 Their petition, how­ ever, brought no response from the legislature. Complaints such as those noted may well have arisen from the particular inter­ ests of the complainants, and it is impossible to judge their valid­ ity from the evidence now available . Historians of Pennsylvania have not agreed on the effectiveness of the inspection system. Opinions range from that of an early nine­ teenth century writer who argued that "The inspection laws, now adopted, established the character of her flour and salted provi­ sions in foreign markets, and gave her a valuable part of the trade of the West Indies, " to that of a writer in the present century who

34

The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

felt that "laws of this nature were very easily evaded, and were | probably less effective than the force of competition ."41 ContempI oraries, however, were generally agreed that inspection was valu­ able and indeed necessary to maintain a high standard of quality in [exports. Isaac Norris perhaps well expressed the consensus of eighteenth century Pennsylvania on this point when he argued that good inspection was necessary so long as "we have so many mills in ye Country which strive to gett Custom at ye expence of their , reputation. . . ."42 But even the millers sent in petitions supporting the flour inspection laws, and frequent petitions from groups of mer­ chants stated the good effects of the laws and pleaded for their con­ tinuation, tightening, or more efficient enforcement. Inspectors themselves testified to the utility of the laws; but they, of course, had a deep personal interest in the continuation of the inspection system. Governors added their note to the chorus of testimony for the value of the laws in messages which asked the legislature to con­ tinue or amend the various laws! The Assembly itself was obviously convinced that such laws were worthwhile; otherwise it would not have taken such pains to keep them in force, to modify diem in the ; light of experience, and to make sure that the inspectorships were i kept filled. Groups seeking to add to the list of products subjected to compulsory inspection also testified to the beneficial effect of the laws already in existence, as when the Philadelphia ropemakers pointed out to the legislature ”... .the benefits this Province has de­ rived from the great care taken by the Honourable Legislature to enact suitable laws for the due inspection of flour, pork, boards, staves,etc. .. ."43 The proprietors of the province and the Board of Trade itself specifically approved of the principle of inspection in general and its particular application in the various inspection laws of the colony .44 The most significant testimony to the effectiveness of the Penn­ sylvania inspection system, especially for flour, came from New York where merchants and others, envious of Philadelphia’s dom­ inance in overseas flour markets, clamored for an inspection law modelled after that of the neighboring province . The superiority, at least in reputation, of Philadelphia flour was so great that even the French and Spanish islands "absolutely” refused to purchase New York flour "if any Pennsylvania Flour could be had ... ."45 Sim Sim-­ ilar testimony came from a New York merchant who reported that "neither English, French, Dutch, Spaniards or even the Negroes would buy a barrel of New York flour while Philadelphia flour is to be had'.4o After considerable delay the New York legislature paid to Pennsylvania the sincere compliment of imitation by passing a law which was similar in most essential respects to the Pennsyl­ vania flour inspection act .47

The Legal Framework of Philadelphia Commerce

35

In the general chorus of admiration and praise for the Pennsyl­ vania inspection system there were undoubtedly a few voices raised in protest. Among these few, the most notable, perhaps, were the tanners of Philadelphia who generalized their opposition to the leath­ er ins pection law into a criticism of the whole philosophy and practice of inspection: . . .when it is considered how great an obstruction supernumerary officers are to the trade of those countries where they unhappily prevail, what tyr­ anny they exercise over the subject, what wait­ ing and delays they occasion in business, and that their salary must arise from the commodity they inspect, and its price to the public be thereby ul­ timately enhanced, the remonstrants apprehend the Honourable House will be very careful of put­ ting it into the power of any individuals to tyran­ nize over their fellow subjects. In a later petition to the Assembly the same group argued that "re­ straints upon trade generally, and laying burthens of expence and trouble upon particular occupations . . .are only to be justified by apparent public necessity ."‘*8 Although the Assembly eventually acceded to the demand of the tanners and repealed the inspection law for leather, it is doubtful if many of their fellow citizensagreed with their general skepticism in regard to the wisdom of compul­ sory inspection laws. It is more probable that the majority of them heartily agreed with the philosophy of government regulation of the quality of exports as it was expressed in the preamble to the in­ spection act of 1700, already quoted, or with William Livingston of New York who, in praising the Pennsylvania system of inspection, argued that”'Tis the business of every government to take pecul­ iar care of their staple, whether it consists in provisions or man­ ufactures; and to be singularly watchful to have it vended in the greatest perfection, and with due weight and measure."^9 The available evidence indicates that the government of Pennsylvania dis­ charged this duty in a highly satisfactory fashion. The payment of bounties to stimulate production and export of' certain commodities proceeded fro m a mercantilistic philosophy similar to that which lay behind the inspection laws . Pennsylvania, I however, had very little experience with such direct subsidies; a bounty on hemp was the only one ever actually paid. The original, act, passed in 1722, provided for a bounty of one penny per pound of hemp suitable for export, to be paid at a provincial warehouse where the hemp could be stored at a nominal charge if the owner so desired. In 1730 the bounty was increased to one penny halfpenny per pound with stricter control of quality. Within two years, how-

36

The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

ever, the legislature found that "the price to be had for the com­ modity aforesaid is a sufficient encouragement for the raising there­ of without the payment of so large a bounty, and that by reason of the large quantities of hemp likely to be raised within this Province the continuance of so considerable premium would prove too great a burden for the inhabitants to bear." The bounty, therefore, was entirely repealed.5° Hemp production certainly never reached the levels foreseen by the Assembly, but the bounty was never rein­ stated . Other efforts to obtain direct subsidies were unsuccessful. In 1726 the rum distillers of Philadelphia promoted a bill in the leg­ islature to encourage the local distilling industry by the payment of a bounty on rum . Merchants who imported rum directly from the West Indies, however, protested against the subsidy on the ground that it would result in "great abuse and discouragement" to their own business and alleged that locally distilled spirits were "ex­ ceedingly disgustful to the people, and very pernicious to their con­ stitutions, besides the intolerable frauds on the same, of large sed­ iments with mixtures of dirt and filth."51 The governor and coun­ cil also remonstrated to the Assembly against the bill on the groind that it would injure the fair trader and enrich a "few particulars" at the public expense . The Assembly took no further action on the proposal. In 1738 Governor George Thomas urged provincial encourage­ ment for the growing of flax and the making of potash, together with the reintroduction of the bounty on hemp. The legislature, he said, should encourage this type of product as much as possible since they were not objectionable to Great Britain and would provide a convenient means of direct remittance to the mother country .53 The Assembly took no action on his request, perhaps because it had decided from its previous bounties on hempthat such subsidies were not worth the cost. The legislative records do not show any fur­ ther effort to obtain provincial bounties for the encouragement of particular products or industries. Taxation in the form of import and tonnage duties was another way in which the Assembly could and did intervene in the commer­ cial life of the colony. Both import and tonnage duties were regu­ lar features of the revenue system of the province until 1723 . The primary purpose of these early duties was to raise a revenue and not to regulate commerce. By favoring local merchants and ship­ ping as opposed to outsiders, however, these acts did undertake a form of regulation. The earliest formal proposal for a duty act which would discriminate in favor of local merchantsand residents seems to have come from Governor Jonathan Evans in 1705 when he recommended to the Assembly the desirability of "some wholesome

The Legal Framework of Philadelphia Commerce

37

law, that after the prudentexamples of other govrmts might render the trade more advantageous to those of the place."54 Subsequent import duty acts all provided that the amount of the impost on wines, beer, rum, and other spirits (which were the only commodities con­ sistently burdened with import duties) was considerably less for re­ sidents of the province than it was for outsiders.55 These duties were sharply reduced early in 1723 and abandoned entirely late in the same year in the expectation that interest paid by borrowers from the provincial loan office which had just been established would prove adequate for the support of the government .56 Tonnage duties imposed in 1718 and 1721 were even more dis- , criminatory than the import duties, for residents of the province I were entirely exempted from paying {hem .5? Attempts to favor/ local trade and shipping were carried to even greater lengths in other cases . In 1718 the Assembly levied a ten percent tax on the value of all products imported from New York or Maryland or by way of New Jersey or the Lower Counties. This duty was applied in retaliation for like burdens imposed on Pennsylvania's trade by the neighboring colonies. It was to last as long as "the duties im­ posed upon goods imported by or for the inhabitants, into New York or Maryland respectively, shall continue, and no longer .”58 jn 1723 the Assembly levied a three percent sales tax on all goods im­ ported into Pennsylvania by non-residents. This duty, however, was repealed along with all import duties late in 1723.59 After the failure of their efforts to obtain a bounty on domestic rum the Philadelphia distillers attempted to force the Assembly to place a high duty on rum imported from New England. In the same year, 1729, the iron-makers of Philadelphia asked for prohibitory duties on iron coming in from Maryland. Neither group could convince the Assembly of the justice of its demands. Never again ! did Pennsylvania attempt to discriminate against outsiders by means / of taxation. When tonnage and import duties were imposed again during and after the French and Indian War, residents of the colony were placed on an equal footing with outsiders . Port regulations and aids to navigation constitute another cate­ gory of commercial legislation. Pennsylvania had no laws in this field until late in the colonial period. Recommendations for such laws had begun as early as 1733 when the governor called attent ion to the frequent shipwrecks and recommended that channel markings be placed in the bay and river and that rules for pilotage be estab­ lished. His message to the Assembly was accompanied by a peti­ tion of merchants and shipmasters. The Assembly, while express­ ing its willingness to do anything within reason for the encourage­ ment of navigation, insisted that the "few losses that have happen­ ed, appear to us rather to be owing to misconduct than any uncom-

38

I

The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

mondifficultyor danger inour bay," and refused to take any action . 61 By the 1760's the Assembly was more amenable to proposals for such legislation . The program developed alongthree main lines: the construction of piers at strategic points in the river to protect ships from the danger of ice during the winter, the buildingofa lighthouse at the entrance to Delaware Bay and the marking of the chan­ nel up to Philadelphia, and the establishment of rules and fees for pilotage. Provincial aid to these projects was at first tentative and halting. In 1761 the Assembly allowed the commissioners in charge of selling the provincial shipof war to turn over their surplus funds, if any, for the building ofpiers in the river, provided the merchants had already begun the project on their own initiative .62 The me rchants must have fulfilled this requirement, for in 1765 the com­ missioners appointed by the act reported that they had constructed two piers at Reedy Island at a cost of three thousand pounds.63 Construction of a lighthouse at Cape Henlopen and placing of buoys to mark the channel in the bay and river also began as a pri­ vate project to be financed by a lottery. The Assembly, in 1763, passed a law appointing provincial commissioners to supervise the enterprise. They were authorized to take over all money in the hands of the managers of the lottery and to collect the money still due for tickets sold. The next year, however, the Assembly author­ ized the commissioners to borrow £5,000 to carry on the project, the lottery money having proved insufficient. The loan was to be repaid from the proceeds of a tonnage duty of six pence per ton on all ships entering and clearing the harbor, with the exception of coasting vessels to or from the area between Sandy Hook and Indian River. In 1766 the commissioners were empowered to borrow £2,000 more, and the tonnage duty was continued for another eight years. By 1771 the lighthouse had been completed and put into op­ eration. The commissioners were then given power to draw on the treasurer for the maintenance of the lighthouse and buoys. The treasury was to be repaid from the proceeds of the tonnage duty. Serious agitation for the regulation of pilots began in the As­ sembly in 1765 when a group of merchants alleged that they were suffering serious losses "through the ignorance and carelessness of the pilots."65 The next year, the Assembly passed an act ap­ pointing a Board of Wardens for the port of Philadelphia. The main duty of the wardens was to examine pilots and issue certificates of qualification according to the degree of proficiency. Vessels over fifty tons were required to hire a pilot. A seven year apprentice­ ship was required for all pilots . The fees for pilotage and the re­ lations between masters and pilots were regulated at great length .66 The act was revised in minor detail in 1767, continued in 1769 and 1770, and revised again in 1771. The last revision gave to the Board

The Legal Framework of Philadelphia Commerce

39

of Wardens the proceeds of a six pence per ton duty on shipping in order to defray the costs of carrying on their duties.67 In 1773 the legislature took the sensible step of giving to the Board of Wardens the authority to run the lighthouse and to main­ tain the channel markings and piers in the river in addition to their duties relating to pilots . They were to construct more piers in the river since those already built had proved insufficient for the pro tection of vessels from ice in the winter. The wardens were auth­ orized to borrow an additional L12.000 for the completion of this work, and the six-pence tonnage duty on shipping was to be contin­ ued for another fifteen years.°° With the passage of this act thelegislature completed its progressive movement toward the estab­ lishment of a governmental authority with comprehensive powers to control and aid navigation in the approaches to the port of Phila­ delphia . Other aspects of commercial legislation may be mentioned briefly. Among these, one of the most important was the act, al-1 ready noted, regulating the payment of damages on protested bills of exchange . This act was passed in 1700 and remained unchanged on the statute books until 1821.69 Another important commercial law was the basic bankruptcy statute which the Assembly passed in 1730 and amended in 1731 and again in 1765. This law, in its latest revision, was applicable only to those whose obligations did not ex­ ceed L150.70 General fee acts, passed in 1715 and 1752, also had direct commercial aspects; for they regulated the fees which might be charged by the king's customs officers as well as by the naval officer and the officers of the Admiralty Court.'1 Little comment is to be found relatingto commercial laws such: as those just discussed. The proprietors seem to have had no ob­ jection to them; and the British government approved of such regu- . lations if they did not discriminate against British trade, contradict the Navigation Acts or any other British laws, or interfere with royal officials in the performance of their duties. The Board of Trade even noted its specific approval of the Pennsylvania act which prescribed the fees of the customs officials, saying that this was the usual practice in the colonies . The Board similarly approved of Pennsylvania's aids to navigation and control of traffic on Dela­ ware Bay and River even though these regulations extended beyond the actual boundaries of the colony. Such regulations, the Board pointed out, were absolutely necessary for the commercial welfare of Pennsylvania .72 The Board of Trade did, however,object to the favoritism shown toward local trade and merchants in the early part of the eighteenth century.73 It also recommended that the Privy Council disallow one of the acts for constructing a lighthouse because it imposed a fine

■I

40

I

The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Fniladelphia

on customs officers who cleared vessels without demanding proof that the provincial tonnage duties had been paid. This, said the Board, was an unwarrantable attempt "to control a constitutional officer of the Crown in the execution of those duties, which the Laws of Trade and Navigation require of him." Subsequent versions of the law contained other provisions for enforcement, and the Board offered no objections to these .74 On the local level provincial regulations relating to commerce seem to have aroused little opposition or even comment. One ex­ ception may be noted. The merchants did object strongly to import or tonnage duties when they were levied for general revenue pur­ poses, as Governor Gookin pointed out to the Assembly in 1725.75 At that time the issue was a hypothetical one, for all such duties had been repealed in 1723. It became a practical one again duripg and after the French and Indian War when the Assembly resumed the practice of levying such taxes for the support of a provincial ship of war and for other general revenue purposes . The merchants protested vigorously to the Assembly against such taxes on the ground that they were unfair and that they were "distressing to in­ dividuals, and tend to the discouragement of the foreign as well as domestic traderSince all the people in the province benefitted from trade and commerce, all should share in theburdenof protect­ ing it.75 When the war drew to a close, many merchants actually refused to pay the import duties; and the province had considerable, difficulty in collecting them .77 The merchants, however, seem to have had no objection to the later tonnage duties, the proceeds of which were applied, as we have seen, in various ways to aid navi­ gation in the approaches to the port. If anyone objected to any other part of the framework of provincial commercial regulations, such objections do not appear in any of the materials examined for this study. It seems safe to say that most of the citizens of colonial Pennsylvania were satisfied with the active role which their govern­ ment played in regulating, directing, and aiding in the commercial affairs of the province .

PART TWO

The Areas of Philadelphia Commerce

A detailed analysis of Philadelphia maritime commerce may be handled most conveniently in terms of the geographical regions in which it was carried out. These areas fall naturally into four ma­ jor divisions/the West Indies, both British and foreign/the conti­ nent of Europe south of Cape Finisterreon the Iberian Peninsula to­ gether with the Atlantic "wine islands,” the Madeiras, the Azores, and the Canaries/the other British colonies on the continent of North America;/and, finally, the British Isles/ These groupings are not the result of historical hindsight but are those recognized by con- / temporaries . The AmericanBoard of Customs Commissioners, for ) example, compiled its reports on the basis of this geographic a 1 di­ vision. For purposes of convenience the following chapters dis-| cuss the four trade areas in descending order of importance as\ markets for exports from Philadelphia; but this arbitrary arrange- ' ment should not be allowed to obscure the fact of the tremendous importance of the British Isles as the major source of imports into Philadelphia . Despite the differences amongthese major trade areas which make separate consideration of eachof them desirable, there were, of course, many similarities among them. A glance ata;, map will reveal one important, although obvious, unifying factor:/ the Atlantic Ocean. All of Philadelphia's maritime commerce in the colonial period was carried on the Atlantic Ocean or waters im­ mediately dependent thereon. The world in which the Philadelphia merchant carried on his business was truly an "Atlantic commun­ ity," in a commercial sense, even though the political realization of that concept still remains an unfulfilled dream . 41

-X

4 .

B

\

The British and Foreign West Indies

American colonial trade to the British and foreign West Indies has been one of the most written-about phases of colonial economic history. There seems to be a tendency, however, to think of it in terms of its most spectacular aspect, the famous New EnglandAfrica-West Indies triangle. It would be idle to deny that such a triangle existed, but its importance, even to New England, has per­ haps been exaggerated. The attention devoted to it has, further­ more, no doubt been responsible for the impression createdty many cursory treatments of colonial commerce that New England traders had a virtual monopoly in this area . New Englanders un­ deniably conducted a large trade with the West Indies and did im­ port vast quantities of molasses for use in their rum distilling in­ dustry, but traders from all the other colonies were active in the /West Indies as well. It is, in fact, probably no exaggeration to as­ sert that exports from Philadelphia to the West Indies by the time of the Revolution were greater, both in bulk and yearly value, than ■ those from any other colonial port. Trade with the West Indies was one of the very earliest facts of economic life in Pennsylvania. "Wee have a prospect of a con­ siderable trade between Barbadoes and Pennsylvania, " commented one of the earliest settlers in the province in 1682 . Within a year he had sent his first order to Barbados for rum and molasses. This early trade seems to have involved only the import of West Indies goods for sale in Philadelphia, but by 1691 Philadelphia mer• chants were able to send provisions in payment for the goods sent from the West Indies. By the turn of the century several vessels each year were plying between Philadelphia and the West Indies; ard the trade had become important enough to Pennsylvania for James Logan to complain that it was "depressed.2

The British and Foreign West Indies

43

In 1730 Joshua Gee, an English economist writing a book call­ ed The Trade and Navigation of Great Britain Considered, noted that the Pennsylvanians had "beat out a very great trade" to the West Indies.3 His contention is borne out by an examination of the ship­ ping reports in the Pennsylvania Gazette . These show that in the 1730's an average of eighty-three ships left Philadelphia for the West Indies each year and that severty-two ships came into port from the islands. By the 1750's the average annual clearances to the West Indies had increased to 166 and the entrances from thence to 137. Numerical growth continued throughout the colonial period to the point that in the early 1770's, before trade was broken off by the Association of the First Continental Congress, an average of 262 ships per year listed the West Indies as their destination while an average of 244 ships each year reported various sugar islands as their port of origin. Although the growth of the West Indies trade thus continued throughout the colonial period it should be noted that the proportion of Philadelphia shipping engaged in the West Indies trade was somewhat smaller than it had been in the early eighteenth century .4 This relative, though not absolute, decline in the vol- j ume of the West Indies trade is accounted for by the expans ion of/ the south European and coastwise trades. The foregoing analysis is based on numbers of ships entering into and clearing from the port of Philadelphia. Because of great variations in the size of individual vessels, tonnage statistics are a much more reliable guide to the relative importance of the var­ ious trade areas.3 Such statistics are available, unfortunately, only for the late colonial period. These show that 11,000 to 15,000 tons of shipping left Philadelphia each year for the sugar islands, and that slightly smaller amounts arrived from the West Indies. ( These tonnages represent about thirty percent of the total tonnage of shipping using the port each year . As befitted the busiest port in North America, Philadelphia was always at or near the top in volume of trade with the West Indies. Many other ports, however, were substantially equal to her in this respect. Among these leaders in the West Indies trade it is sur­ prising to note a number of the small New England ports such as the Piscataqua customs district. Many of these small New England ports concentrated much more heavily on the West Indies trade than did Philadelphia, no doubt because the West Indies offered a ready ( market for a wide variety of products and because the relatively / short distances involved made the use of small vessels feasible. Thus the merchants in the small ports, not having the capital ne­ cessary to provide the larger ships and more expensive cargos for the longer sea trades, could nevertheless compete effectively in the West Indies trade .

44

The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

The term West Indies, as used in general throughout this chap­ ter, embraces a large number of islands from the Bahamas justoff the Florida coast to Trinidad, Curasao, and the other islands just off the northeast coast of South America . It also includes, for pur­ poses of convenience, a few ports on the mainland of central and South America with which Philadelphia conducted a limited trade. 1 Political sovereignty over the various colonies in this area was dis­ tributed among several nations: Spain, France, the Netherlands, and Denmark as well as England. Philadelphia traders had, there­ fore, to familiarize themselves with and accomodate themselves to several systems of commercial regulations other than British. While the trade to this whole area can properly be considered as one distinct segment of Philadelphia’s overseas commerce, it is nevertheless important to examine shiftingpatterns of trade with­ in the West Indies. Some idea of these shifting patterns can be ob­ tained by a detailed analysis of the clearances from the port as re­ ported in the Pennsylvania Gazette. In 1730 Barbados was still the favorite destination of ships leaving Philadelphia for the West Ind­ ies with thirty-three vessels having reported that island as their goal. Jamaica, however, was close behind with twenty-eight while 'Antigua and St. Kitts had twelve and ten respectively. In that year only four ships cleared for foreign West Indian colonies . By 1754 Jamaica had supplanted Barbados as the most frequent destination of Philadelphia ships in the West Indies. During that year there were sixty-three clearances to Jamaica and only forty-six to Bar­ bados. Antigua and St. Kitts followed with twenty-seven and six­ teen respectively. Other English islands were far behind: six each for Bermuda and the Bahamas and three for Montserrat. There were twelve clearances for foreign islands in 1754, including five to St. Croix and three to Curacao. In 1774 Jamaica's dominance was even more pronounced. In that year no less than 103 ships left Philadelphia for that island. Barbados, its importance as a sugar producer sharply diminished, dropped to third place with only thirty-six vessels listing it as their destination. Second place was taken over by Dominica, one of the islands acquired as a result of the Treaty of Paris which ended the French and Indian War . Forty-two ships left Philadelphia for Dom­ inica in 1774. Antigua followed Barbados with twenty-six clearance^and Grenada and the Grenadines, also acquired duringthe war, were fifth with twenty-one. Clearances to foreign islands had also increased sharply since mid-century with fourteeneach to St. Croix and St. Eustatius and nine to Hispaniola, as well as scattered ones to other foreign islands . The most striking fact to emerge from this analysis is, of course, the growing dominance of Jamaica. The reasons for this

The British and Foreign West Indies

45

are not hard to understand. Jamaica was by far the largest of the English sugar colonies, and it was the only one which underwent much expansion in sugar production during the eighteenth century. Furthermore, it was conveniently situated for trade with the Span­ ish Main; and the evidence indicates that much of this trade was carried on by way of Jamaica . Trade to the older English island colonies, on the other hand, grew much more slowly during the eighteenth century or actually declined, as in the case of Barbados. While the trade to these colonies was more or less static the direct trade with the foreign islands was growing steadily throughout the century. Yet this trade with the foreign islands never seriously challenged in importance the trade with the English sugar islands. A parenthetical word of caution should be added against taking too literally the destinations of ships as listed in the newspaper shipping reports. The press, of course, could only report the des­ tination listed at the customs house; but mercantile correspond­ ence clearly shows that ships often failed to dispose of their cargo at their first port of call and took it elsewhere to seek a more ad­ vantageous market. This was particularly true in the West Indies where the various islands were so close together that it made such market-shopping very easy and tempting. To say, therefore, that ' a given ship sailed for Jamaica is no guarantee that it disposed of all or any of its cargo on that island J Exports from Philadelphia to the West Indies consisted of a ' wide variety of products, but most of them were agricultural or. forest products of one kind or another. As early as 1700one cargo for the West Indies was made up of "Pork, Flower, and Bread, but Cheafly in Flower .”8 With the addition of some staves and heading this might well have served as a cargo list for a ship at any time during the colonial period. The Elizabeth, for instance, sailing from Philadelphia to Kingston, Jamaica in July 1764, carried 930 barrels of flour, 348 kegs of bread, thirty-four barrels of pork and gammons, 80,000 shingles, 3,000 staves, and small quantities of a variety of other products The predominance of flour in this shipment was no accident, for the West Indieswere one of the two great markets for Philadel­ phia's export staple . As one West Indian factor put it, " . . .flour is > not only the readiest sale but the surest staple of any that comes ' from North America."10 In the period 1768-1772 exports of bread / and flour from Philadelphia to the West Indiesaveraged 10,524 tons \ per year . The value of this export was close to 4.200,000 each year . J The West Indies consumed about thirty to forty per cent of Philadelphia's flour each year.H Not only was flour Philadelphia's most s. valuable export to the West Indies, but no other port on the contin- I ent even came close to challenging her supremacy as a supplier of

46

I

The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

( flour to the sugar colonies. In most years Philadelphia exported as - much flour to the West Indies as all of the other North American colonies combined. highly unfavorable trade balance with England. This peculiar and vital function of the south Europeantrade was recognized at the very beginning of the eighteenth century. As early as 1700 Edward Ship­ pen sought advice on the south European market so that he mi^it ship wheat there for the purpose of ma king remittances to England, and a few years later James Logan proposed to ship wheat to Ma­ deira in order to finance the import of goods from England. In 1737 another Philadelphia merchant extolled the Lisbon trade as the easiest means of making remittances to London, and soon there­ after announced his intention "not to be concerned in any Trade but

South Europe and the Wine Islands

63

in goods from London & returns by way of Lisbon &c.''^4 In 1750, John Kidd wrote that if it were not for the "markets to the Eastwd ...I know not what we shall do for Remittances ."35 And later in the colonial period, a Lisbon house encouraged shipments from Phil­ adelphia, noting that cargos of flour, wheat, and corn would serve as "favble remittees . . .to London."36 Orders to remit the pro­ ceeds of a voyage from Philadelphia to Lisbon in "good bills" to Lon­ don were frequent. The factors which made all eighteenth century commerce a risk I were even more applicable, perhaps, to the south European trade I than to the other areas with which Philadelphia merchants carried on commerce. In particular, the length of the ocean voyage made 1 it impossible for information to be up-to-date . The merchant, there- / fox; could only act on the latest information in his possession, a nd the correspondence indicated thathis shipments often arrived at an inopportune moment when the market was overstocked. In trading to south Europe, then, the merchant had to take account of a num­ ber of variable factors, and his success in the trade depended largely upon the accuracy of his judgement or, perhaps, on sheer luck. Domestic price was perhaps the fir st factor which the judicious merchant had to take into account when contemplating shipments to the south European market. The expanding agricultural production of Pennsylvania usually made it possible to buy wheat and flour in Philadelphia ata price which was low enough to compete with the oth­ er sources of supply for the area, even though freight charges for the long sea voyage were a considerable expense .3? Yet the price in Philadelphia did sometimes rise so high that it was not profitable to send wheat and flour to south Europe, and Lisbon and London fac­ tors often warned their Philadelphia correspondents not to ship un­ less the first cost was low.33 On the other hand, the strong desire of the Hiiladelphia merchants to keep their capital in circulation sometimes led them to continue buying wheat and flour for export even when the first cost was so high that there seemed to be little likelihood of any profit .39 The local crop in Portugal and Spain was perhaps the major ' source of competition for American flour and grain. Advices from Lisbon or Cadiz on the state of the Portuguese and Spanish cro ps ' were routine matters in the correspondence of Philadelphia mer­ chants.40 Apparently even estimating the local crop was subject to error and to rapid change . Thus John Reynell's Lisbon corres­ pondents, Leyborne and Stubbs, wrote him on 19 February 1746 that excessive rains had greatly damaged the local crop and that American wheat would be much in demand. On 14 March, however, they wrote, " .. .have only toadvise our harvest having now the fin­ est appearance . . . which wou’d prevent your produce answeringfer

64

I

The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

some time at this market."41 If Reynell had acted quickly upon the advice of the first letter, his cargo would probably have turned out to be a losing one. Furthermore, different correspondents might send contradictory advice about the state of the market at the same time. For instance, Leyborne and Stubbs wrote to John Reynell on 13 July 1747 that the local crop looked small and added tha "a Cargoe of Wheat Flour Bread & Staves immediately sent here would an­ swer ." But the very next day Henry Steers wrote Reynell that the harvest was good in most of the country and that American grain would be selling at low prices-"itwould. . .render some small loss sold at ye price mentioned ."42 When faced with such a situation, the merchant could only apply his previous knowledge of the relia­ bility of the two correspondents in determininghis course of action. The market for flour in the Iberian peninsula was also affect­ ed, oddly enough, by the wind. When there was an unusually calm season, the windmills were unable to grind wheat; and flour had to be brought in from the outside Domestic supplies, with or without enough wind to drive the windmills, were rarely sufficient to feed the population of Spain and Portugal. Perhaps concentration on the production of wine accounts for this lack of self-sufficiency. In any event, supplies from out­ side the peninsula were almost always required to augment the domestic production of foodstuffs . Before the opening of the North American continent as an important grain-growing area, the major outside source of supply, especially for Portugal, seems to have been England. The British Isles continued to be an important com­ petitor for the Iberian market during the eighteenth century, and for this reason the state of the English crop was a matter of great importance to the American merchant who intended to ship wheat or flour to Lisbon or Cadiz. Fortunately, the intimate commercial connections which most Philadelphia merchantshad in England made it possible for them to get at least relatively accurate and up-todate information as to the likelihood of large exports from England to Portugal and Spain. 44 When English flour was on the market in Lisbon, it seems to have been used in preference to the American product "for present expending."45 The competition from English flour tended to become much less severe in the years just before the Revolution since several crop failures not only made it impos­ sible to export grain from England but made it necessary for the mother country to import large quantities of grain from her Amer­ ican colonies and other sources. Several grain producing areas other than England compete d with America for the Spanish and Portuguese markets. Of these, Sicily was perhaps mentioned most frequently in correspondence from Spain and Portugal; but the Levant and the Barbary coast also

South Europe and the Wine Islands

65

exported grain to the peninsula James and Drinker noted that it was necessary to be "partly governed by the Crops & prospects of Future Crops in those Countries as well as inEngland” when specu­ lating in shipments to south Europe . "Those that have not. " they added, "have generally been loosers by their adventures ."'47 For­ tunately for Philadelphia, however, this foreign competition grew greatly less during the late colonial period so that there were con­ tinuous demands for wheat and flour from "Lisbon Cadiz & some other parts of Europe, who formerly had their Supplys chiefly from Europe .. . ."48 At the very beginning of this chapter it was pointed out that tract to Lisbon was encouraged by the relative freedom prevailing there . On the other hand, this very openness of the port contributed to the difficulties and risks of that particular trade, for it encouraged "speculating merchants" of all countries to send cargos there . This made it difficult to predict the trend of prices and ensured that "rarely any Commodity continues long scarce here ."49 Reports of,i good markets were very likely to be followed by a flood of ships' from America as well as other parts of the world, and the market was subject to extremely rapid fluctuations . A sudden shift of this kind, for example, occurred in 1764. On 21 May, Parr and Bulkeley in Lisbon wrote to Thomas Clifford that the market for wheat was very good and that ", . .the late adventurers from your city will make very good remittance by this article ." On 31 July, however, they wrote Clifford that they sincerely hoped that his ship was not coming to Lisbon. Very large quantities of wheat had arrived and " .. .our market has undergone a very great variation, the latter adventurers from your city & New York will hardly save them­ selves ... .”50 It would be interesting if the growth and fluctuations of the south European trade could be studieeLby means of accurate statistics for the whole century, but these are not available . Some indication, however, of the course of the trade can be obtained from the cor respondence of the merchants. From the time when the Pennsyl-' vania Gazette began publishing weekly reports of entrances and cTearances in 1729, there was never a year when Philadelphia did not■ have some trade with Europe and the wine islands. At this time, I nevertheless, the demand for Philadelphia produce in that area was; undoubtedly somewhat sporadic; and the evidence indicates that south Europe and the wine islands were not as yet a regular market for large quantities of fhiladelphia wheat and flour. Governor Patrick Gordon, for instance, in reporting large exports of wheat to Lisbon and elsewhere in!731, wrote that they were due largely to poor har­ vests in those countries, "but when there are plentifull crops we ship little or none."5’1 After this time, the demand became more

66

The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

regular, and the overall trend was one of rapid growth in spite of temporary recessions. One of these temporary halts in the growth of the south Euro­ pean trade resulted from the War of Jenkins' Ear and the general European War of the Austrian Succession which followed it. Com­ merce with enemy ports came to a complete stop, at least legally, and the trade with neutral ports like Lisbon was subjected to tem­ porary embargoes which were aimed at preventing provisions from falling into enemy hands .52 Ships sailing to this area were, more­ over, especially subject to the risk of capture by enemy privateers. After the peace settlement of 1748 the trade quickly revived. I A number of comments indicate that it was particularly good begini ning in 1750 and continuing into 1753 . A Madeira firm reported 'poor markets in the island in 1750 but added that in Lisbon there was a "great IJkleyhood of having a great demand for Grain as also in Spain.. . .3 This new demand, news of which also came from other sources, coincided with a large harvest in Pennsylvania so that it was expected that "we shall soon ship off great quantities for Lisbon, &c .”54 The harvest in Europe failed again in 1751, and the demand remained at a high level.55 Shipments from Phil­ adelphia continued briskly in the fall of 1751, when it was reported that several vessels were loading for Lisbon and Cadiz, and through the spring of 1752, when "great quantities" were shipped to Portu­ gal and Spain.56 Some correspondents in Lisbon expressed the hope that the good markets would last through 1753; but by the autumn of that year the prices had begun to drop, and in December a ship captain reported that the markets were very bad.57 The poor mar­ kets continued at least through 1756, at which time a Lisbon mer­ chant noted that wheat and flour were "a mere druggon the markets 58 Privateers and embargoes once again interrupted the trade dur­ ing the Seven Years War. Restrictions on trade with neutral ports during this conflict were embodied in a general act of Parliament prohibiting the export of provisions to any neutral port.59 This prohibition was highly unpopular among American merchants who referred to it as "useless” and "cursed."50 It remained in effect, nevertheless, until the war was nearly over. When the export trade to neutral ports was finally reopened, the south European markets were not particularly favorable . "Most Gentlemen Trading to t*’" Eastw,"remarked Thomas Riche, "has fell short of their expec ra­ tions. "51 By the end of 1761, however, Lisbon factors were pre­ dicting that demand for wheat and flour would be brisk in the spring.52 This favorable market lasted until 1764 when there was a sudden drop.53 Prices recovered in 1765, and Jamesand Drinker noted that "the Eastern Marketswill draw the Attention of our Mer­ chants so much that the Islands will not be so glutted as former-

l

South Europe and the Wine Islands

67

ly. .. ."64 Prices and demand were, indeed, good throughout 1765; ly.... and the Philadelphia merchants employed every available vessel in the trade. 65 The Lisbon market was oversupplied during 1766, but there was encouragement to ship grain to Barcelona where the prices were said to be high and consumption so large that there could be no fear of a sudden drop in price. 66 jn 1767 William Allen reported that he had been unable to obtain a quarter-interest in a cargo to the West Indies, "as our merchants have had the shipping of wheat and flour chiefly to Europe as the object of their trade, and have much neglected that to the Islands." But many of them, he added, had suffered losses by so doing.67 The winter of 1767-1768 was very favorable for exports to the Spanish market, 68 but, on the who le, 1768 was not a large year in the south European trade . The next two years, on the other hand, were real boom years, as a glance at the table of exports will show. Clement Biddle wrote that it was very difficult to find a vessel that was not already engaged to take wheat and flour to Lisbon; and John Swift, the collector of the port, noted that "our merchants send all their vessels to Lisbon with wheat & Flour &c ... ."69 The bottom began to dropout of this great boom market in 1770 because of the anticipated arrival of large supplies of wheat from North Africa . 7^ The effects of these new supplies were quickly re­ flected in a decline of exports from Philadelphia to the Spanish and Portuguese markets . In the autumn of 1770 a Philadelphia merchant remarked to his Lisbon factor that "the low price of Flour with you has stop'd the Communication between us ."71 Another Etiladelphia firm declined an opportunity to share with a Lisbon house in a car­ go of bread and flour to Lisbon early in 1771 because of "so many circumstances concurring to Discourage it. .. ."72 in the spring of the same year a visitor in Lisbon noted that "The trade between this Place and Philadelphia, seems almost at an End, at least for this some time to come . . . ."78 These gloomy reports, however, should not obscure the fact that even in this allegedly bad year of 1771 Pennsylvania sent nearly thirty percent of its bread and flour to the south European market. Prices took an upward turn during the summer of 1771, and reports were moderately optimistic about the chances of profits in the trade.74 Exports to south Europe rose again in 1772 but not to the level of the earlier boom years. During 1773 clearances from the port of Philadelphia to south European ports were once again at a high level, but the prices in Lisbon held up pretty well. 75 Me r chants were cautious about the south European trade at the begin­ ning of 1774, but the arrival of moderately encouraging news from England about the poor prospects of the crop there caused them to

68

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The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Fniladelphia

begin begin large large shipments shipments,. 7^ Before the year was over clearances for south Europe totalled 137 which was just six fewer than in the rec­ ord year of 1769. Unfortunately, no statistics about the quantity of wheat and flour shipped in 1774 are available . The actual extent of the investment and involvement of Philadelphia merchants in the south European trade in this year of 1774 is somewhat obscured by the fact that many of the ships listed in the newspapers as clearing for other North American ports were in fact Philadelphia ships be­ ing sent by the owners to Maryland, Virginia, and Quebec to pick up cargos of wheat for the booming Iberian and Mediterranean mar­ kets . This aspect of the trade will be discussed more fully below in connection with the general topic of the coastwise trade. It is probable that profits in the south European trade in 1774, whether carried on directly from Philadelphia or by way of other North Amer­ ican ports, did not live up to the expectations of the merchants and speculators; for Lisbon factors reported that the large supplies had glutted all the European markets and reduced the prices to "only nominal levels ,"77 The willingness of Philadelphia merchants to export these large quantities of goods in 1774 even at the risk of selling them in a bad market can be explained in part by their usu­ al desire to keep their capital circulatingbriskly but also, and more specifically, by their desire to send as much as they could out of the country before trade was effectively interrupted by the provi­ sions of the Association of the First Continental Congress . The main point which should emerge from this discussion of the trade to south Europe and the wine islands is its vast import­ ance to the merchants of Fniladelphia and to the general economy of colonial Pennsylvania . It seems probable that previous studies of Pennsylvania's colonial commerce have not understood, or a t I least not emphasized sufficiently, this fact.7® The trade began early in Pennsylvania'sexistence asanEnglish colony and developed I through a stage in which it was more or less sporadic in nature to I the point where it was a regular market for Philadelphia's staple exports. This marketarea expanded not only quantitatively but geo­ graphically as well, for by the end of the colonial period it embraced I several ports in Italy and southern France in addition to the Portu. guese and Spanish ports which had always been its mainstay. By the time of the Revolution the south European market was a con­ sistent and close second to the West Indies as an area where Penn­ sylvania coulddispose of her surplus agricultural produce. Its im­ portance, moreover, was immeasurably enhanced by the fact that i the trade was almost entirely one way, leaving a large balance in , favor of Philadelphia. ................ .... This balance was then available to Philadelphia merchants to pay their own debts in England. Fortunately for this triangular pattern of trade and payments the Iberian countries

South Europe and the Wine Islands

69

themselves had a favorable balance of fade with England arising s mainly from their large shipments of wine, and they were able to I draw on these balances to pay for their goods from North America ' in the "good bills" on London which the Philadelphia merchants al­ ways sought so avidly. Adding all of these favorable circumstances together it is no wonder that Philadelphia merchants embraced this trade so eagerly and raised it to a position of such importance .

6 .

■

The Coastwise Trade

Trade among the continental colonies has been treated as some­ thing of a poor relation in many studies of colonial commerce.1 Yet there was ample difference in the climates, soils and general eco­ nomic structures of the colonies from Newfoundland to Florida to allow for an interchange of commodities which was both necessary and profitable . NewEngland tradersand vessels were perhaps par­ amount in the coastwise trade, but the merchants and ships of all colonies participated in it to some extent. Despite their large overseas trades, the Philadelphia merchants did not neglect coastwise commerce; and they had commercial con­ nections in every other continental colony. The purely commercial relations were, in the case of the Quaker merchants, strongly re­ inforced by the religious ties which they felt with other Friends wherever they might be . The correspondence of John Reynell with William Redwood of Newport, for example, was both commercial and religious in nature . Similarly, the religious ties between the Pembertons of Philadelphia and the Pleasantses of Virginia were re­ inforced by extensive business dealings and were eventually ce­ mented by the marriage of young Samuel Pleasants to one of the Pemberton daughter s. Such religious-commercial connections could be multiplied indefinitely. Philadelphia's coastwise trade grew steadily throughout the co­ lonial period. An average of sixty-two or sixty-three ships left Philadelphia each year for other American ports during the early 1730’s, while coastwise entrances into the port during the same period averaged nearly sixty-five each year . Coastwise clearances during the years 1750-1754 averaged nearly 191 each year; and an ..average of 181 or 182 vessels entered the port each year from other

The Coastwise Trade

71

continental American ports . In the years just before the Revolution an average of 340 vessels left Philadelphia each year in the coastal trade, and the average coastwise entrances were 304 each year. In terms of percentages, the growth of Philadelphia's coastwise trade was even more rapid than its absolute growth. In the 1730's, for example, about thirty-two percent of the ships enter ingor leav­ ing the port came from or were destined to other ports on the con­ tinent of North America . By the late colonial period, however, over forty percent of the ships using the port of Philadelphia came from or were bound to other American ports.2 This numerical analysis of the coastwise trade, however, lends it somewhat more importance than it actually deserves; for the coastwise trade was mainly carried on in vessels which were con­ siderably smaller than those used for the long sea voyages . The available tonnage statistics show that 10,000 to 15,000 tons of ship­ ping cleared from Philadelphia coastwise each year in the late co­ lonial period and that 9,000 to 12,000 tons entered port each year in the coastwise trade. These figures represent from twenty-five ' to thirty-three percent of the total tonnage entering and leaving the port These figures canbe further de-emphasized by pointing out '■ that many ships listed as clearing for other American ports were eventually destined for ports overseas . Even when the statistics relating to entrances and clearances/ coastwise are placed in proper perspective, this trade must still;1 be regarded as highly importantto the welfare of Philadelphia com-; merce . This is particularly true in relation to exports . Many areas inNorth America had need of flour, the commodity which Philadel­ phia could supply in such abundance . The coastwise trade provided amarket for 5,000 to 7,000 tonsof bread andflour each year, valued at more than £100,000 . This amount represented more than twenty percent of the total export of this commodity from Philadelphia .4 The second most valuable export from Philadelphia to the other * continental colonies was bar iron. The quantities involved were small - several hundred tons a year - but the values were relatively large: £15,000 to £25,000 each year. Most of Philadelphia's bar iron found its market in the other continental colonies.5 In addition to bar iron, Pniladelphia also exported a small quantity of pig iron and wrought iron work such as anchors, all of which probably added about £2,000 to the value of iron exports. A considerable proportion of Philadelphia's exports of salted meat went into the coastwise trade: as much as forty-seven per­ cent in 1768. Even in this good year, however, the value of the coastwise export of beef and pork was only about £12,000 . Inother years, meat exports to the other continental ports brought in not much more than five or six thousand pounds .6

I

72

I

r

The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

Philadelphia merchants also carried ona brisk coastwise trade in rum. Exports of this beverage to the other continental colonies were as high as 200,000 gallons in a year. It should be emphasized \ that this was essentially a re -export trade; for Philadelphia imported even larger quantities in the coastwise trade, in addition to the large imports direct from the West Indies. Most of the rum imported coastwise came, of course, from New England .7 The total value ofcoastwise exports from Philadelphia was swell­ ed by a great array of miscellaneous products, most of which were so trifling individually as to make much mention of them superflu o us. f One exception, perhaps, is refined loaf sugar, ofwhich Philadelphia exported about 50,000 pounds each year . The value of this expast was about L2,000 a year. Other coastwise exports which might at least be mentioned are: afew thousand barrels ofbeer; 100,000-odd bricks; about 50,000 pounds of candles; afew hundred-weight of coffee; a few thousand bushels of corn; a like quantity of bran and malt; some oats; small quantities of shingles, staves, and other lumber products; small amounts of handcrafts, such as chairs; and a host of other products in very small quantities . Probably no sin­ gle one of these products was worth as much as El, 000 a year. ; Imports coastwise into Philadelphia were even more miscellanI eous'than exports. Of greatest value by far were the imports of ' rum from New England which have already been noted . Imports of molasses in the coastwise trade were also surprisingly large: in some years, more than 200,000 gallons, valued at upwards of £20,000.8 The source of this molasses is not clear. Much of it undoubtedly came from New England, but some of it probably came from the smaller ports on the Delaware where ships occasionally entered their cargos before coming up to Philadelphia . Philadelphia also imported from 50,000 to 100, 000 bushels of wheat each year in the coastwise trade.9 Most of this, however, probably came from the Lower Counties, and should therefore be considered as part of the produce of Pennsylvania. Moreover, all of this wheat and more, was usually re-exported from Philadelphia to foreign markets. Rice was another important import in the coastwise trade, aver(' aging 2,950 barrels ayear inthe period 1768-1772. Prices for rice were quoted by the hundredweight, which makes the calculation of the value of this import difficult. It is probably safe to say that they were worth something less than L5,000 ayear. This was more than enough rice to supply the domestic consumption of Pennsylvania, and about half of it was regularly re-exported to England. Naval stores are the only other coastwise import into Philadel­ phia which require particular mention. Several thousand barrels of pitch, tar, and turpentine, worth L4,000 to L6,500, came into

The Coastwise Trade

73

Philadelphia each year from the Carolinas . 10 This was more than I enough naval stores to supply the domestic demand, and Philadelphia/ re-exported about half of them to England. This by no means ex-| hausts the list of Philadelphia's imports from the other colonies on the continent. There were many products which came into Philadel­ phia in quantities so insignificant that they need not be mentioned . Added together, of course, they were probably worth several thou­ sand pounds a year. Such seemingly insignificant shipments, ex­ ports as well as imports, do serve to emphasize the apparent will­ ingness of the eighteenth century merchant to send any amount of anything to any place where he thought it could be sold. The term "coastwise” has been used so far in this discussion in its general sense to refer to Philadelphia's trade to and from all other ports in British North America. This general use of the term may tend to obscure the wide variety of climates, soils, and gen­ eral economic conditions embraced within this rather large geo­ graphical area . A closer analysis in terms of smaller geograph­ ical groupings is desirable. Economicas well as geographical just­ ification can be asserted for the following smaller divisions: New England; the Carolinas and Georgia; Virginia and Maryland; Quebec, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia; and the other middle colonies . This listing is made in descending order of importance according to the' volume of trade, in terms of tonnage, which Philadelphia carried on: with each.11 Philadelphia traded regularly and continuously with all of these areas on the North American continent, but probably no individual Philadelphia merchant attempted to maintain continual commercial! connections with all of them . Individual merchants, on the con-J trary, often seemed to specialize in trade with one or more of the other continental colonies. Peter Baynton, for example, traded mostly with South Carolina and Boston. John Reynell, in the early years of his mercantile career, was extensively involved in the North Carolina trade but, in his later years, concentrated almost entirely on the New England colonies. James and Drinker did a big business with North Carolina but practically never traded with any other area on the continent. For these cases, and others which might be cited, the correspondence of the merchants does not offer much evidence whether the area selected by the merchant for con­ centration was chosen by accident or design. In many cases, no doubt, personal friendships or family ties had something to do with the choice. It is impossible to say how early Philadelphia merchants began to trade with the Newfoundland-Nova Scotia-Quebec area. Nova Scotia did not come under British political control until after the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 while Quebec remained in French hands,

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The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

of course, until the defeat of France in the French and Indian War. Newfoundland, however, had been an English colony for many years before Pennsylvania was founded. The earliest reference to New­ foundland trade found in the material examined for this study came in a letter from a London merchant to his Philadelphia factor in 1727. ordering a cargo of provisions sent to Newfoundland on his account. The cargo list for this order is probably typical of many which went from Philadelphia to "the Land" during the colonial period: 250 bar­ rels of flour; 250-300 hundredweight of bread; 100 barrels of pork; 3,000 to 4,000 gallons of rum; 100 bushels of Indian corn; 6 to 8 hundredweight of hams; 30 hogsheads of mollasses, 6 barrels of su­ gar; and barrel staves to fill up the vacant spaces. To pay for this shipment the London principal allowed the Philadelphians to draw bills of exchange on him, but he wrote that in future he expected to i send English goods to pay for the cargos.12 An order this large suggests that the trade was already well established by that time. John Reynell executed a similar order for an English merchant in the 1730's and wrote that he thought it would be profitable to send a cargo of provisions to the "Land" every spring.11 By 1752, there was sufficient interest in the trade to cause the Philadelphia mer­ chants to protest bitterly against a scheme of a group of London merchants to obtain a patent fora monopoly of the Labrador trade With the capture of Louisbourg during King George’s War, a new factor entered the picture; the possibility of supplying mili­ tary and naval forces with provisions. The military governor of the captured fortress invited all comers to bring supplies and pro­ mised to pay for them with French goods taken as prizes.1^ Even­ tually, however, most of the contracts for the supply of the mili­ tary forces fell to Boston merchants, especially Thomas Hancock. After Louisbourg had been returned to the French in the treaty end­ ing the war in 1748, the British began to build a base at Halifax, Nova Scotia as a counterpoise to the French fortress . Hancock in Boston, again, seems to have had most of the business for the sup­ ply of the new base, but some contracts for the supply of provisions were given to Philadelphia merchants. The business of military supply once more became important with the renewal of the war in 1754. One of the English merchants holding a contract for the supply of provisions in Nova Scotia dur­ ing the early years of the conflict regularly procured part of them - from a Philadelphia merchant.17 The entire bread supply for the navy and for Newfoundland was in the hands of Philadelphians in 1757, according to Willing and Morris, although they admitted that this was "contrary to custom."iS Other military supply business for Newfoundland and Nova Scotia was handled in Philadelphia in subsequent years, but the regular market for provisions in New-

The Coastwise Trade

75

foundland during this time was very dull. 39 After the capture of Canada, many Philadelphia merchants fore­ saw the possibility of good markets in Quebec and accordingly dis­ patched several ships with cargos of dry goods and rum; but too many merchants had the same idea at the same time, and the mar­ ket was soon overstocked. Many goods had to be sold at public auc­ tion at about half what they had cost originally in England .20 This attempt to unload surplus dry goods in Quebec thus ended poorly for the Pailadelphia adventurers . a Trade with Quebec revived in 1773 and 1774; but this time it~/z was Canadian wheat which interested the Philadelphians .They sent ' a number of vessels to Quebec to load with wheat to England and to south Europe. Those "great speculators", Willing and Morris, were perhaps the heaviest investors in this trade; but the profits were said to be highly problematical since the wheat was inferior to Pennsylvania wheat, freight charges on the cargos to Europe were higher than from Fniladelphia, and there were no cargos which could be sent to Quebec to pay for the wheat.21 The whole trade to Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Canada was'’ probably not important enough to be a vital factor in the Phila­ delphia economy, nor did it provide large remittances to England .22 It did, however, serve as a useful source of commissions to the Fniladelphia merchants; for much of the business was done on that i basis.23 When they shipped to this market on their own account, _• they did so primarily to finance the purchase of cargos offish to be taken to the south European countries . The New Englanders, both because of their closer geographical proximity to Newfoundland and because of their own interest in the fishing industry, were much more active in supplying provisions to this area than were the Phil­ adelphians . Philadelphia's trade with the New England colonies was farl more important than the Newfoundland trade. In the early days, ' "New England" meant Boston almost exclusively; and the trade con- J sisted mostly of lumber, West Indian goods, wine, fish, ironware, X and European goods sent from Boston to Philadelphia and tobacco, \ wheat, flour, meat, and skins going the other way.24 As late as the 1720's the trade still resembled this description rather closely .25 In later years the New England trade widened geographically to in­ clude all of the New England ports as well as Boston, but it tended to concentrate more heavily on the exchange of a few key commod­ ities. Rum and molasses soon became the most important exports! ’J?"' from New England to Philadelphia, and these products generally came to a good market if they were of good quality .26 On the re­ turn voyages flour came to be by far the most important product which Philadelphia could provide . The New England cities, espec-

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The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

ially Boston, had a permanent and growing need for flour which could not be met by the local production of the agricultural hinter­ land. 27 The trade thus became a reciprocal exchange of mutually useful products of which a transaction which occurred in 1749 be­ tween William Redwood of Newport and John Pemberton of Philadelphia may serve as a representative example. Redwood sent some gold and rum (which he said was so good that it would "sink oyl") to pay for a shipment of eighty barrels of flour from Philadelphia .28 Ac­ counts of such transactions could be multiplied almost indefinitely from the correspondence of Philadelphia merchants. The demand for Philadelphia flour in New England seems to have been remarkably steady and reliable. Edmund and Josiah Quincy, in advising John Reynell on the markets in Boston in 1738, wrote that ”. . .as we bolt but very little wheat into Flower we would advise. . .to most part Flower it being most likely soonest to pro­ duce the Cash and most commonly the best price in proportion ."29 Rhode Island, too, offered a steady market for Philadelphia's ex­ port staple . "I would advise thee to send flour . . .and not anything else," wrote one Newport merchant.30 Correspondents were often urgent in their demands that flour be sent immediately. Payments for these shipments were usually made in rum and molasses; but occasionally an unusual item like copper of Boston-made scythes crept into the accounts while one Portsmouth merchant offered to make his payments in carpenters' and joiners’ work as well as Eng­ lish goods.*1 In the late colonial period at least one Philadelphian reported that Boston paid for all of its imports of Philadelphia flour with bills of exchange .32 With all the reports of steady demand and good prices for Phil­ adelphia flour in the New England cities the question may arise: why were not the New England markets soon flooded by shipments from Philadelphia merchants eager to take advantage of the highly favorable conditions? The answer seems to be provided by the fact that the New England business was carried out, on the Philadelphia side, as a commission business for merchants in the New England cities. Shipments were thus regulated by the orders of the New England merchants who were on the scene and were able to calcu­ late the amount which the markets could absorb without overstock­ ing. This basis for the trade seems to have been perfectly satis­ factory to even the most affluent Philadelphia merchants. The let­ terbooks of John Reynell and of the firm of Coates and Reynell, for example, show that in the late colonial period they did an extensive business in shipping provisions to New England; but they did it all as factors for New Englanders and sent nothing at all on their own account. The New England trade, not only of Reynell but of other Philadelphia merchants as well, was, moreover, mostly carried on

The Coastwise Trade

77

in New England ships which went to Philadelphia to pick up the car­ gos of provisions .33 The operation of this trade on a commission/ basis meant that there were no large speculative profits to be made nor was the trade an important means of making remittances to Eng­ land, but it did provide a reliable market for Philadelphia flour and was a lucrative source of income to the Philadelphia merchants paid to them in the form of factorage fees for their services. -------Trade with Maryland and Virginia began in the late seventeenth; century with Philadelphia sending foodstuffs, West Indian commod­ ities, and livestock to the tobacco colonies in exchange for cash; bills of exchange, and European goods. With Maryland in particu­ lar, the trade was almost exclusively carried on by land .34 By the middle of the eighteenth century both Virginia and Maryland wer e well able to supply their own needs in basic foodstuffs. Some flour was shipped to Virginia as late as the 174O's,35but no later refer­ ences to such shipments have been found. Virginia and Maryland i came increasingly, in fact, to have large supplies of wheat, corn, ' and salted meat available for export. It was these surpluses which > attracted the attention of the Philadelphia merchants. Since most of the Pennsylvania production of wheat was ground into flour before export, the Philadelphia merchants sougjit for cheap sources of sup- O ply of wheat to be sent abroad. These supplies they found in Vir- ■ ;• ginia and Maryland, and large amounts of Philadelphia capital were | ) invested in the purchase of wheat in the tobacco colonies . This particular phase of Philadelphia's coastwise commerce began earlier than might be expected; for the general shift of Mary­ land and Virginia away from reliance upon tobacco as their princi­ pal crop is generally thought to have been a late-colonial develop­ ment. Nevertheless, two Philadelphia merchants, William Fish­ bourne and Ennion Williams, carried on a large trade with the east­ ern shore of Maryland between 1711 and 1715, buying corn for ship­ ment to south Europe and other markets.36 By die 1750's refe rences to such dealings are commonplace in the correspondence of Philadelphia merchants, and in the years just before the Revolution the trade reached large proportions .37 These dealings in Maryland and Virginia wheat must have proved, on the whole, satisfactory and profitable to the Philadelphia merchants although there were occasional complaints about the quality of the wheat, the length of time necessary to collect a cargo, and the shortness of the meas­ ures. 33 Most of the wheat purchased by Philadelphia merchants in Vir- 1 ginia and Maryland was shipped directly in Philadelphia ships from the tobacco colonies to market in south Europe or elsewhere . There was not much point in sending the wheat to Philadelphia since it was almost certainly destined for reshipment overseas . Only very

78

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The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

low prices in Virginia or Maryland and very high prices in Phila­ delphia made it profitable to send wheat coastwise to Philadelphia. Upon occasion there was sufficient differential in price in the tvo areas to encourage such shipments, but such conditions were dis­ tinctly abnormal These cargos of wheat and corn purchased in the tobacco col­ onies were usually paid for by sending a cargo of goods in the ship which went to pick up the grain. The proceeds from the sale of these goods were then invested in the purchase of the grain. The most common and profitable goods used in this way were West In­ dian products: rum, molasses, and sugar. One Maryland mer­ chant, however, wrote that it was advisable to send cash for at least part of the cargo .40 Sometimes dry goods from Philadelphia found a market in Virginia; on one occasion a Virginian reported that he had sold a cargo of cloth and hats from Philadelphia at a great "holesail" advance.41 The large direct trade which Maryland and Virginia carried on with England, however, rendered such shipments impracticable under normal conditions. An abnormal situation in Maryland and Virginia in 1773 did promote the export of large quantities of English goods from Philadelphia to those pro­ vinces . This unusual export was attributed to the fact that" .. .the Scotts Factors in Virginia & Maryland have been generally disap­ pointed in receiving their usual supplies of goods ... Other than the purchase of grain by Philadelphia merchants in the tobacco colonies, there is little in the trade relationship between the two areas which requires comment. Philadelphia merchants rarely meddled with the tobacco trade, finding it unprofitable and extremely difficult to collectcargos and arrange for the payments .43 A few thousand pounds of tobacco each year appeared on the cus­ toms records as imports into Philadelphia, but most of this prob­ ably came up the river from the lower counties. Some salted meat did come into Philadelphia from Virginia; in fact, one report said there was no common pork at market in Philadelphia in the winter of 1765, " . . .the Reason of it Our River being full of Ice the Ves­ sels Cant Come from Virginia from where the porke comes from ."44 Philadelphia itself, however, was a large exporter of salted meat; therefore, it seems unlikely that it depended upon Virginia for any considerable part of its supply for domestic consumption. Some mention should be made of the growing trade rivalry be, tween Baltimore and Philadelphia. Hardly more than a village in 1750, Baltimore had several thousand inhabitants by the time of the Revolution. This flourishing condition was based, in part at least, on its trade with backcountry Pennsylvania by way of the Susque­ hanna River. In addition to takingsome of the trade of western Pennsylvania away from Philadelphia, Baltimore flour mills began

The Coastwise Trade

79

to take wheat from the region around Elk River and the head of Chesapeake Bay which had formerly gone to Eiiladelphia .45 Public alarm at this diversion of Pennsylvania trade to another colony was expressed in demands for roads and bridges to facilitate the car-’; riage of goods from the backcountry to Philadelphia .46 The private j correspondence of the merchants of the city, however, fails to show much concern over the rise of Baltimore in the pre-Revolutionary period. The merchants admitted that Baltimore merchants did busi­ ness on a lower commission than they did and also that wheat and flour were a "trifle" cheaper there, but they were convinced that the general advantages of trade in Philadelphia would induce most buyers and sellers to continue to prefer Philadelphia to Balti­ more. Among these advantages were quicker sale of cargos, fast­ er dispatch of vessels, and much lower port charges than in Balti­ more.47 Although the signs were clearly evident before the Revo- I lution the period of bitterest trade rivalry between Philadelphia and Baltimore did not come until after the end of the war. Philadelphia conducted a brisk, if not tremendously important tradewith North Carolina. References to such trade are infrequent! before the middle of the eighteenth century, but after that time they! are commonplace . Exports from Philadelphia to North Carolina, as i to the other colonies, consisted largely of produce, although the Philadelphia merchants welcomed orders for dry goods .48 Evidentlysome supplies of dry goods did go from Philadelphia to North Car­ olina. When James and Drinker learned that a North Carolina mer­ chant proposed to open a direct trade with England, they remarked that such amove would hurt their own business in that colony since they could not hope to compete with goods brought directly from England.49 These shipments of produce and dry goods were gen- ; erally made on order from the merchants in North Carolina, but! from time to time a Philadelphia merchant would send a cargo on' his own account. Just as Philadelphia had great difficulty in making remittances to England, so North Carolina found it hard to pay for its imports from Philadelphia. One resident of Edenton wrote despairingly,; "...my reason of your not hearing from me oftener is that nothing; we have here is worth sending to Philadelphia. . . .1 should be will­ ing to keep up a correspondence if I could find anything here that would answer."50 There were, however, products which other places in North Carolina could send to Pniladelphia. The most ob­ vious one is naval stores which should have been in good demand for Pniladelphia's shipbuilding industry. Considerable quantities of naval stores were, in fact, sent from North Carolina to Philadel­ phia. Surprisingly enough, reports from Philadelphia merchants to their North Carolina correspondents were almost unanimous in

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The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

sayingthat naval stores made a very bad remittance . "Cursed pith and tar," one exasperated Philadelphia merchant called them, and instructed his correspondent not to send any more unless he paid the freight for them in North Carolina. Otherwise, he said, they simply would not sell for any decent price in Philadelphia .51 North Carolina also had salted meat in abundant quantities as a possible export, and this sometimes served as a remittance for imports from Philadelphia. But this was a product which was lit­ erally in bad odor in Philadelphia; "many parcels. . .have perfectly stank at delivery," wrote James and Drinker. On another occasion they wrote, "your country beef is in the worst credit imaginable here, there is no such thiqgas selling it... ."52 If neither naval stores nor salted meat made a suitable remit­ tance to Philadelphia, what could North Carolina send which would . sell at a reasonable price? One Philadelphia firm recommended peas to its North Carolina correspondents, saying that this product came into Philadelphia only from North Carolina. The same Phil­ adelphia firm later recommended continued shipments of peas to­ gether with "good Deerskins, Hydes, Tallow, Myrtle Wax. . .asalso Gold and Silver ."53 Flaxseed also was acceptable as payment for the goods which North Carolina bought from Philadelphia .54 To­ ward the end of the colonial period Philadelphia merchants became more and more interested in the possibility of investing the pro­ ceeds of voyages to North Carolina in staves and other lumber to be shipped directly from North Carolina to the West Indies. The low prices in North Carolina and the short voyage to the West In­ dies proved a tempting combination, and a number of Philadelphia merchants tried this scheme with varying success.55 From the tone of their letters, the Philadelphia merchants did not think much of the business ability of the North Carolina traders. Sometimes they took it upon themselves to give the North Carolina traders some rather patronizing instruction inelementary business practice. At other times they complained vigorously about such things as the careless packing and invoicing of goods . James and Drinker once cited a barrel labelled as pork which proved to contain only salt as an example of the "remarkable negligence" generally found in the packingof goods comingfrom North Carolina. "It mist be obvious to us both," they warned, "that Goods Shipp'd from your place under all advantages, fall very short of the rates they are shipp’d at, and the bad order they are rec'd in here, often contrib­ utes to make bad worse ." They also complained that the laws and customs of the colony were highly unfavorable to creditors who were not residents of North Carolina . North Carolina traders also lack­ ed "prudence," according to James and Drinker; if more of that quality were exhibited, " .. .we hardly think the general Character

The Coastwise Trade

81

of die Place wou'd suffer so much as it has done ." In the end they threatened to quit the North Carolina business entirely since . .we have long ago discover'd that a careful attention to Business and a proper share of Industry is too scarce in Carolina. "56 Other mer­ chants, too, had complaints about North Carolina, especially that it was an extremely slow place to trade because of the dilatory hab­ its of its merchants . An irate ship captain, for instance, during a voyage to that colony wrote that ". . .of all places I ever yett have been this is the worst either for dispatch of saile of a Cargo or the purchase of one ."57 Whether or not these admonitions from Phil­ adelphia were effective in improving the habits of the North Caro­ lina merchants, they do much to indicate the relative positions of the two provinces in the trade between them . —---Philadelphia's trade with South Carolina was about equal to thel North Carolina trade in terms of the tonnage of the ships employed .' Exports from Philadelphia to South Carolina were much the same, too, as those to North Carolina . Flour and bread were the major items with beer and other provisions to fill up the cargos . Peter Baynton traded extensively with Charleston during the 1720's, in part for his own account and in part on commission for South Car-, olina merchants. His outward cargos consisted almost entirely of flour and beer while the return shipments from Charleston at that time were almost entirely naval stores. This trade proved to be insufficiently profitable to suit Baynton, and he ended it abruptly with this farewell: "For my own part shall decline any farther cor­ respondence wth myfciends in Carolina more then to wish them all happiness ."58 During the 1740’s John Reynell sent regular ship­ ments of provisions to Charleston on commission for English mer­ chants.^ During the same decade a Charleston merchant prom­ ised to order 1,200 barrels of flour each year. He was quite urgent in his demands that the flour be sent without fail, and he was indig­ nant when the supply did notcome up to his expectation in quantity .60 A glance at any issue of the South Carolina Gazette will show how much South Carolina depended upon imports of "Philadelphia super­ fine" flour. The Charleston merchant mentioned in the preceding paragraph ■ offered to pay for his large imports of flour in bills of exchange since "it seldom happens that any goods answers from this place. "61 South Carolina did, however, send some rice to Philadelphia, part of which was re-exported and part of which was consumed in the province . The rise of indigo culture in South Carolina brought pro­ mise of another profitable remittance to Philadelphia where the con­ sumption of this product was "considerable ."62 But in the event, only a few hundred pounds of South Carolina indigo came into Phil adelphia. Carolina indigo could never compete, at least in reputa-

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The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

tion in Philadelphia, with the French product. The latter variety was so much more highly favored that it sold for a shilling more per pound even when it was of no better quality than good Carolina indigo.63 The large backcountry cattle industry of South Carolina provided some sole leather as a regular export to Philadelphia; but this trade, too, brought complaints about its unprofitability .64 No references to the shipment of salt beef and pork from South Caro­ lina to Philadelphia have been noted, but there was some trade in live cattle driven all the way up the backcountry valleys to market in Philadelphia .65 Aside from the prospect of a market for bread and flour, Phil­ adelphia merchants had another inducement to send their vessels to South Carolina: that is, the possibility of having them loaded with rice for shipment to England or to South Europe . Occasionally they purchased cargos of rice to ship on their own accounts,but in general they preferred to take the cargos on freight for South Car olina shippers. South Carolina did not ownenough vessels to handle her own rice trade, and often there were not enough ships in har­ bor to carry off the crop. When this happened, Philadelphia mer­ chants were happy to send their vessels to act as carriers unless they were engaged in more profitable trades of their own.66 Trade with Georgia occupied only a few hundred tons of ship­ ping each year. Furthermore, it so closely resembled the South Carolina trade that i t i s not worthy of separate attention. The trade to East and West Florida, too, remained of too little signif­ icance during the colonial period to require any discussion. Trade with New York was the smallest in volume of any of Philadelphia's coastal trades, yet the fact that there was any meas­ urable commerce at all is perhaps somewhat surprising. On the whole, New York's patterns and products of commerce were re­ markably similar to those of Philadelphia. It had much the same produce to export as Pniladelphia did and sent it to the same mar kets and in similar proportions. New York was the second largest exporter of bread and flour in America, and it was also second to Philadelphia in the export of materials for making casks and bar­ rels. Its imports, as well, were quite like Philadelphia's; as one New Yorker commented, "I suppose much ye same cargo suits this place as yours ,"0/ Another evidence of the similarity of the com­ merce of the two cities was the tendency of sterlingexchange to stay pretty much on a par, one place with the other; when it rose or fell in one place, it was likely to rise or fall in the other .68 ' The trade of the two cities was thus naturally competitive rather than complementary in nature . This natural rivalry was noted as early as 1684 when Governor Dongan of New York complained that Philadelphia was taking the Delaware River trade in fur and tobacco l

The Coastwise Trade

83

away from New York, and in 1698 Governor Cornbury of New York reported that the trade of Philadelphia had already equalled that of the older city .69 Cornbury's report, however, is doubtless either an error or an exaggeration, for as late as 1705 Governor Evans of Pennsylvania wrote that Philadelphia merchants took their example from the traders of New York, "whose measures in Traffique, as being much more considerable therein, have generally a great in­ fluence over us.. . ,"70 During the course of the eighteenth cen­ tury, however, Philadelphia far outstripped New York in virtually every department of trade, the solid basis of its superiority rest­ ing on the export of flour . Despite frantic efforts to overtake Phil­ adelphia, mostly centered around the revision of its flour inspec­ tion laws, New York never succeeded in challenging Philadelphia's supremacy during the colonial period . Contemporaries, of course, were well aware of Fniladelphia's lead over New York as a place of trade; and the reasons they as­ signed for this supremacy usually amounted to the fact that provi­ sions could be bought more cheaply in Philadelphia and were of bet­ ter quality, that ships could be sent away more quickly, and that imported goods usually sold for a higher price in Philadelphia.7i It might be argued that these were merely symptoms, not causes, of Hiiladelphia’s leading position; perhaps the real cause lay in the fact that Pennsylvania's population, for one reason or another, was growing more rapidly than New York's, thus providing a larger agricultural surplus for export and at the same time providing a better market for imported goods . In spite of the great similarity of their trade there was some interchange of goods between New York and Philadelphia, consist­ ing mostly of products of which they both had a plentiful supply in normal times. Such a trade was possible only because the rela­ tively rapid communication between them allowed the merchants of one city to take advantage of a very small difference of price in the other. On a number of occasions rum, molasses, or sugar was shipped from one city to the other. Wheat, flour, salt, and butter areother products mentioned as travelling between the two cities.72 ( Haste was imperative in such shipments, for a small alteration in the market price might mean tire difference between a profit and a loss. "The sooner the wheat and flour come the better & do nt think it will do unless it can come out of hand," remarked a New York merchant in transmitting a large order to Philadelphia ,7^ In addition to provisions and West Indian commodities there was some trade in dry goods between New York and Philadelphia . There are a few accounts of such shipments, mostly relating to dry­ goods being shipped from New York to Philadelphia ,74 In 17 7 2 "Philadelphus" complained that "many thousand pounds worth" of

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The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

dry goods brought from New Yorkhadbeen sellingat public auctions in the city. 75 Perhaps the normally higher price levels for dry goods in Philadelphia account, at least in part, for such shipments from New York.'6 Apart from the trade in English goods, the general balance of trade between the two cities seems definitely to have favored Phil­ adelphia, mostly because Philadelphia often sent bread and flour to New York while the reverse situation was said never to occur .77 As a result of this unfavorable balance New York was usually in debt to Philadelphia, and the New Yorkers had considerable difficulty in making remittances. "...Have done our best endeavours to procure a bill on your place, "wrote Gerard Beekman of New York, but find our city is so much indebted to yours that it is next to im­ possible. ”78 Thomas Riche agreed that New York was so in debt to Philadelphia that it was "next to imposable” to draw a bill on the former city in the latter .79 James and Drinker also corroborated this fact when they noted, ", . .Indeed the Balia of Trade seems so much in our favour that we hardly hear of anybody wanting money in New York but many from there ."80 In 1766 Gerard Beekman once more complained about the situation: " . . .it appears to me that all our gold and silver will soon center at your place, for every man that can meet with either secures it to lay outfor bills . . . .Otherwise away it goes to Philadelphia ."81 A Philadelphia merchant may upon occasion have purchased a cargo of goods in New York in order to secure payment of a debt owed him in that city, but this was by no means a regular practice .82 In summing up this discussion of Philadelphia’s coastwise trade, several points should be re-emphasized . This trade took off large quantities of Philadelphia's staple export, bread and flour. It pro­ vided Philadelphia with some necessary imports, but the general balance was certainly in favor of Philadelphia. The coastal trades were also unique in that mostof the business was done by the mer­ chants not on their own accounts, but on commission from traders in the other colonial ports. This fact, incidentally, no doubt is responsible for the relative lack of market reports in letters from other continental colonies in sharp contrast with the correspondence from factors in other trade areas whose letters were replete with such information. Sending out cargos on commission, of course, eliminated all risk on the part of the Philadelphia merchant; but it eliminated as well the chance of large speculative profits. Finally, the coastwise trade often served as a part of a longer voyage; the trip to another American portwas often merely one leg of a journey which might involve several overseas ports before it finally ended up once again in Philadelphia .

7. The British Isles

Ireland Philadelphia's trade with Irelandmust be considered apartfrom the English trade, ifonly because Ireland wasnot included with Eng­ land in the provisions of the Navigation Acts . But economically as well as legally, the two were fundamentally different. Ireland was ! primarily important as a market for Fniladelphia produce, while 1 England was mainly a source of manufactured goods. Commerce! with Ireland, therefore, actually bore more resemblance to that] with the other areas of trade than it did to the English trade. By( any standard of measurement, however, the commercial cormec- [ tions between Philadelphia and Ireland were less extensive and less j important than those with any other area . / An average of only ten or eleven ships cleared from Philadel­ phia for Ireland each year during the 1730's. By mid-century, the average had risen to thirty-six ships a year; but, in the years just before the Revolution, it had actually dropped to twenty-eight clear­ ances each year. Entrances into Philadelphia from Ireland were even less impressive: only five or six a year in the 1730's, ten or eleven in the 1750's, and thirteen or fourteen in the early 1770's. Very small proportions of Philadelphia's shipping were engaged in: the Irish trade . It reached its peak in 1750-1754, when eight per- ’ cent of all ships clearing from Philadelphia went to Ireland. But by j 1770-1774, less than four percent were destined to Irish ports .1 When tonnage figures, insteadof numbers of vessels, are used, the Irish trade assumes slightly larger proportions. In 1770, for instance, nearly 5,000 tons of shipping left Philadelphia for Ireland,

86

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The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

more than ten percent of the total tonnage clearing from the port. During other years in the late colonial period, however, the figures were considerably lower.2 Exports from Philadelphia to Ireland can be discussed almost wholly in terms of one commodity, flaxseed . In spite of the general insignificance of the Irish trade, flaxseed must be accounted one of Philadelphia's more important exports . The trade probably began sometime in the 1730's; in 1737 John Reynell wrote that the export of flaxseed to Ireland "is grown a very considerable branch of trade here."3 According to figures presented to the Assembly in 1754, only 1, 785 bushels of flaxseed were exported from the province in 1731. In 1749, 1750, and 1751, exports were 21,336 bu she Is, 44,527 bushels, and 69,295 bushels, respectively.4 During the years 1768-1772 the average export was just over 78,000 bushels a year which indicates a steady, but hardly spectacular growth in the intervening years .5 In most years New York sent more flaxseed to Ireland than Philadelphia did, thus making it one of the few items of trade in which New York could claim leadership. After flaxseed, lumber was the most valuable export from Philadelphia to Ireland. Of the several varieties of lumber products included in this export, staves were by far the most important. Ireland was second only to the West Indies as a market for Philadel­ phia staves, and the average annualexportwas just over one million pieces in the years 1768-1772.6 The value of this export was about L6,000 per year . There was an occasional market for Philadelphia wheat and flour in Ireland associated with crop failures in the British Isles. Such a situation occurred in 1757, and a considerable number of Philadelphia ships were employed in taking flour to Ireland.2 Cus­ toms records show shipments of 500 to 1,000 tons of flour yearly in the years 1769, 1770, and 1771 . These amounts, of course, are only a tiny proportion of Philadelphia's total exports of bread and flour. Rum was the only other export of any consequence from Phila­ delphia to Ireland, and this amounted to only a few thousand gallons a year at most. Ireland apparently imported most of its rum either from England or directly from the West Indies . Wherever it was obtained, the Irish were apparently discriminating in their taste for that beverage; at least one Philadelphia merchant advised a West Indian factor that in order to "suit the Irish market” rum must be "high enough to sink Oyl."8 As for imports from Ireland, one merchant pointed out that "Your Country produces servants Beef Pork Soap Tallow & Candles which I believe would all anser. . .they will always command th e cash."9 As early as 1686. provisions were sent from Ireland to

The British Isles

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Philadelphia, one shipment consisting of beef, butter, and candles. !0 , Philadelphia soon outgrew any real need for imported provisions of ' this kind, but small amounts continued to be brought in from Ireland throughout the colonial period. Superior quality may have had a great deal to do with these continued imports, for it was said tint when good Irish beef was available in Philadelphia, the domestic product was considered a "poor article ."11 Attimes there was so much of iton the marketthat it depressed the price of all meatprod­ ucts.12 Butter was also a regular import into Philadelphia from Ireland but in rather small quantities .13 The servant trade is beyond the purview of this study although . it might be pointed out in passingthat Irish servants were apparently 1 not as highly regarded as those of other nationalities .14 There was also a constant market for Irish linens in Philadelphia, but these | had to be imported by way of England in conformity with the provi- ‘ sions of the Navigation Act of 1663. Some linens and other Irish goods were undoubtedly hr ou git directly from Ireland into Philadel­ phia, but the possible extent of these illegal imports will be dis­ cussed below in connection with the general topic of evasion of the Navigation Acts. Small as it was, the Irish trade undoubtedly left a balance in I favor of the Philadelphia merchants. This debt was normally paid / by sending bills of exchange to England to the credit of the Phila­ delphia shipper. Commerce with Ireland was thus.a small but not insignificant factor in helping to redress Philadelphia’s unfavorable balance of trade with England . 15 England

Trade with England was the aristocrat of all of Philadelphia’sT trades. It employed the largest ships, the ablest captains, and the I energy and capital of the most successful merchants . As early as ; 1704 James Logan wrote that the import of English goods was the means by which the successful merchants "make their business circulate."1^ Philadelphia merchants in their correspondence withother merchants always tended to equate business conditions in general with the state of the market for English goods in Philadel­ phia. Yet in terms of the number of ships employed and the ton-! nages involved, the trade with Great Britain was of less magnitude than that with the West Indies, south Europe, or the other contincontin-i ental colonies. The truth of this statement is easily demonstrated by an anal­ ysis of the entrances into and clearances from the port. About

I

I

88

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The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

seventeen ships left Philadelphia for England each year during the early 1730's, and the average annual entrances from the mother country during the same years were twenty-two or twenty-three. Clearances to Great Britain averaged only sixteen each year from 1750 to 1754, but average annual entrancesfrom the mother country during the same years were forty-two. In the late colonial period about twenty-six ships left Philadelphia each year for British ports at the same time that an annual average of about fifty-two ships a year were coming in the other direction. The English trade thus experienced a steady growth throughout the colonial period, but the rate of growth was smaller than that of Philadelphia's other trades. 'This means, of course, that the percentage of Philadelphia shipping 'engaged in the English trade was somewhat smaller toward the end of the colonial period than it had been earlier in the eighteenth century .17 This numerical analysis of Philadelphia's trade with GreatBritain , does not do full justice to its true importance . Tonnage statistics, for those periods whentheyare available, do much to place the trade in a better perspective; for the ships used in voyages across tie Atlantic were considerably larger, on the average, than those used in any other area of trade . The available tonnage statistics show that 3,000 to 4,000 tons of shipping left Philadelphia each year for Great Britain and that 5,000 to 8,000 tons entered annually from the same area in the late colonial period. These figures represent an average of 16.5 percent of all the tonnage entering the port during these years. It should be noted, too, that this average for the years 1768-1772 is lowered by the fact that 1769 and 1770 were abnormally poor years for the import of English goods because of the operation of the merchants' non-importation agreement in protest against the "Townshend duties” imposed by Parliament on tea, paper, glass, and painters colors in the Revenue Act of 1767. Seen in this light, the volume of shipping engaged in the English trade is more nearly equal to that of the other trade areas, but it still may seem insufficient to justify the term "aristocrat" used above to describe Philadelphia's commerce with the mother country. , Why, then,was the English trade so important to Philadelphia? The answer lies, of course, not in the volume of shipping involved in the trade, but in the value of the goods imported from England; for the trade with the mother country was pre-eminently an import trade from the point of view of Philadelphia. It was from England that Pennsylvania imported many of the necessities and most of the luxuries of life in the form of manufactured goods of various kinds, foreign as well as British. These goods, moreover, were such as ^had high value in proportion to their bulk in sharp contrast to most of the exports from the province which, of course, were farm or

The British Isles

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forest products having a low value in proportion to their bulk. A large amount of English goods, in terms of their monetary value, ' could therefore be carried to Philadelphia in a relatively small vol­ ume of shipping. The true extent to which the English trade was a source of im­ ports into Philadelphia rather than a market for her produce is best shown by reference to the statistics of trade between the two areas. Official customs records show that in the years 1760-1774 the aver-3.— age value of exports from England to Pennsylvania was £.395,000 sterling per year and in some exceptionally good years reached! upwards of L700,000 sterling. It should be pointed out, too, that| these figures are based on the official English customs house valued of the goods which had, in most cases, been arbitrarily established before the beginning of the eighteenth century and unchanged in the succeeding years. They were thus, for the most part, far below! the actual market values of the goods involved inasmuch as there had been a general upward movement of prices during the eighteenth century.19 Since the figures were kept from year to year on the o Id basis they are useful in showing fluctuations of trade, of course, and must be referred to for other purposes as well since they are the only ones available . These figures, in addition to giving some indication of the value of English exports to Pennsylvania, show i that English imports from Pennsylvania during the same years had I an average annual value of only £.36,000 sterling. The average bal- j ance of trade in England's favor was thus about £.259.000 per year. I " No other American colony came close to this figure .20 This large volume of imports from England into Philadelphia! consisted to a very great extent of various, kinds of cloth and other? varieties of dry goods which taken together invariably accounted formore titan half of the total value of imports from the mother’ country. Of the many varieties of cloth listed separately in the re re­­ ports of the English customs service, British woolens were by far the most valuable item sent to Pennsylvania as they were, indeed, 'to. every American colony. Just before the Revolution the value of British woolens sent to Pennsylvania was in excess of £.200,000 sterling per year. Next in value were British linens of various kinds, accounting for upto £.125,000 a year in value . These figures, of course, are subject to the objections noted above. Other kinds of clothand dry goods lagged far behind woolens and linens in value but, taken together, amounted to another LIOO.OOO sterling per year.21 Next to dry goods, the most important category of goods brought | into Pennsylvania from England was hardware of various kinds of I which the most valuable was wrought iron ware including wire and ( nails. The value of this import was as follows: 1772, £.21,765;

"4

90

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The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

1773, L23.782; and 1774, L32.547 sterling. To these amounts should be added several thousand pounds worth of wrought brass and copper, cutlery, and other hardware. Pewter was also an item of considerable value in the list of imports from England, amounting to about 15,000 sterling per year in the early 1770's. Portuguese and Spanish wines are another item in the list of imports from England which deserve to be mentioned individually. The value of this import was: 1772, L9,074; 1773, L19.352; 1774, 115, 282 . Much of this wine was transported in Philadelphia ships which went from the Iberian peninsula to Falmouth in England to unload the wines, pay the English duties, and reload them for the voyage to Philadelphia in accordance with the provisions of the Navi­ gation Act of 1663. The remainder of Pennsylvania's imports from England was made up of a bewilderingassortmentof manufactured goods, spices, drugs, "groceries," books, and the like, few of them amounting to more than a thousand pounds a year in value individually, but all of them together adding up to more than 1103,000 sterling. Their presence in the list of imports indicates the degree of colonial re­ liance upon the mother country as a source of supply for many of the amenities of eighteenth century life .22 There is relatively little to be said about exports from Penn­ sylvania to England; for no other colony had as much difficulty in finding products which were suitable for the English market. The fur trade, once Philadelphia's most important product for direct shipment to England, never really recovered from the effects of the French and Indian War. By the end of the colonial period this once proud trade could provide only a few thousand pounds of deerskins and small quantities of other skins, the total value of which was not more than L4,000 sterling per year. Tobacco, which had also been an important export to England in the early years of the eighteenth century, does not appear at all in the customs records of the late colonial period. By the end of the colonial period Riiladelphia's most valuable export to England was a product not even native to the province; logwood, along with other dyewoods found mostly in central America along the coast of the Bay of Honduras. Several hundred tons of such woods were sent to England each year, amountingto more than L5, 000 sterling in value. New York, however, was far ahead of Philadelphia in this trade .23 The most important native Pennsylvania product exported to England was iron. The quantities were miniscule compared to the standards of our day, but they were not insignificant for their own time . Exports of iron to England averaged 1,151 tons per year in the years 1768-1772. The average annual value of this export was

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about Ell,000 currency. Most of this iron was pig iron rather than I the more highly refined bar iron, and virtually all of the pig iron I exported from Pennsylvania went to the English market.2^ I Exports of grain and flour from Philadelphia to England were ■ occasionally important, but this was an unusual circumstance which I could take place only when the failure of crops in England caused I Parliament to open the ports for the free import of cereals. Such circumstances seem to have been virtually unknown during the early years of the century. The earliest lifting of the restraints on the import of cereals into England seems to have taken place in 1740 when Parliament temporarily allowed (lie import of grain and flour into several English ports. The absence of customs records for this period makes it impossible to say how many Philadelphia mer­ chants took advantage of this opportunity; but John Reynell, at least, sent cargos of wheat and flour to Bristol and Plymouth in 1741,2® Again in 1757 the English ports were opened to American grain, and James and Drinker reported that many vessels were going to Ireland as well as to England with wheat and flour . A wartime em­ bargo interrupted these shipments temporarily, butEnglish factors expected that the high prices would continue in England and that imports from America, after the end of the embargo, might not be sufficient to satisfy the English demand.2^ Large imports during the summer reduced the prices below the level at which Philadelphia merchants could profitably ship grain to England.2? By the end of the year, however, there was once more a shortage, and wide pub­ lic complaints caused Parliament to pass an act which completely removed, for a limited time, the duties on imported grain.2® Toward the end of the colonial period opportunities for the ex­ port of grain and flour to England became more frequent. The immediate cause was a series of disastrous crop years, but it is at least possible that the Englisheconomy was already demonstrating the effects of its long-term shift from agriculture to industry as the fundamental basis of its operation. A severe crop failure in 1766> forced Parliament toallow the importof grain duty free until 1 Aug­ ust 1767, and Philadelphia merchants responded by sending large quantities ,29 By the time of the expiration of the act, so many ships had come in from Philadelphia with breadstuffs that the price had fallen sharply .30 gm poor crops again that year caused Parliament to open the ports for another year; and in 1768 Philadelphia sent more than 17,000 bushels of wheat and nearly 2,000 tons of flour to England.31 During 1771 prices of wheat and flour in parts of England were high enough to encourage imports from America even though tlie duties were still in effect. The next year's crop was so short that there was fear of popular uprisings, and many petitions were sent to Parliament for the suspension of the duties32Parliament

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did suspend the duties until 1 December 1772, but for one reason or another the exports from Philadelphia to England during that year were not large .33 In 1774 the ports were once again opened, and Philadelphia merchants sent fairly large quantities of wheat and f lour directly to England .34 Discussion of Philadelphia's coastwise trade above has pointed out that direct shipments of wheat and flour to England do not tell the whole story of the interest of Philadelphia merchants in exports of grain from America to England. Much of the unmilled grain in which Philadelphia merchants invested large amounts of money was sent from the place of its growth in Maryland, Virginia, or Quebec directly to England as well as to other overseas markets in years when English regulations made this possible . This was particularly true of the year 1774 when Philadelphia merchants dispatched a large number of ships to England laden with wheat not grown in the province. Many merchants were involved in this trade, but the firm of Willing and Morris was probably the I e a der . This busi­ ness, however, was very "precarious." A few firms made good profits, but many others "suffer'd deeply," and some were "totally ruined" by it .35 Exports of lumber from all of the colonies to the mother coun­ try were encouraged by an act of Parliament in 1765 which offered a bounty on such shipments.36 This bounty, however, does not seem to have had much effect in stimulating Philadelphia's exports of lumber products to England. Small quantities of various kinds of lumber - staves, boat boards, and the like - were sent to England, but the value of these certainly did not exceed L5,000 per year even after the bounty had been offered. A thousand or so barrels of rice per year and a like quantity of naval stores are about the only other exports from Philadelphia to England which deserve mention. Neither of these products, of course, was native to the province; both were re-exports arising from the coastwise trade with the Carolinas and Georgia. Many other exports appear in the customs records, but in amounts so trifling as to render mention of them superfluous . Faced with this formidable unfavorable balance in their trade with England, the merchants of Philadelphia devoted much of their energy to its reduction. One avenue which they constantly and hope­ fully, if vainly, explored was the development or discovery of new products grown or producedin Pennsylvania which would be suitable . for shipment direct to England and would become as important as rice was to South Carolina or tobacco to Virginia and Maryland. Such a product or products would, of course, render their problem of making remittances to England much less complicated and diffi­ cult than it was. For a time after the passage of the Iron Act in

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1750 it seemed as if that product might provide the answer. Thomas Penn, then the chief proprietor of the province, was one among many who hoped that such would be the case; but these expectations were never fulfilled . Difficulty of transportation proved to be an unexpected obstacle . Because of its great weight in relation to its bulk, no ship would take more than a few tons of iron on any one voyage, and there were simply not enough other exports from the province to justify the employment of additional ships in the trade37 British ironworkers, too, were reported to have found deficiencies in the quality of iron imported from Pennsylvania and other Amer ican colonies . At least, a self-proclaimed spokesman for the iron and steel producers of Sheffield, who were supposed to be the bene­ ficiaries of the importationof cheap supplies of American pig iron, alleged that ironbrought in from the colonieshad produced "nothing that deserves the Name of Steel, and no sort of Advantage has hith­ erto been found by the pretended Importation of American Iron."38 It is possible, of course, that this "spokesman" was really speakig for the British pig iron producers who had fought bitterly against the passage of the Iron Act in the first place . Despite the failure of his hopes for iron, Thomas Penn did not give up die idea that there must be some product which would put his own province on a more equal footing with the plantation colo­ nies in regard to exports to England. The ideal, as Penn expressed it, was that . . .a commodity should be raised in the Country, that is very necessary to the well being of this Kingdom, and that will make returns for mer­ chandise exported from hence to a very great amount, and which is much wanted to keep down the prices of exchange and enable the Traders in Pennsylvania to pay their debts to merchants and traders here, to whom at this time I am told there is an immense sum due . The product he had in mind at this time was hemp, and he was very active in trying to secure a parliamentary bounty on the importation of hemp from the colonies .39 But: Penn’s hopes for hemp as an ex­ port suitable for the English market proved even more abortive than those regarding iron, for the customs records of the late colo­ nial period do not even list hemp as an export from Pennsylvania to England. The merchants themselves occasionally had hopes for and made experimental shipments of other products which they thought might sell readily in England. In 1752, for example, there was a "great noise" about the possibility of ginseng, a root used as a medical preparation, proving to be a profitable remittance to England. A

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number of small shipments were sold at good prices in London and aroused the hope that it would develop into a permanent trade which "will be a very profitable & beneficiall thing to this part of the world."40 But this hope, too, proved to be illusory; and by 1772 ginseng had disappeared entirely from the list of exports to England. During the war years Philadelphia merchants found it profitable to re-export sugar, usually French in origin, to England, especially to Bristol. But this was an abnormal situation resulting from cap­ tures of British sugarby French privateers; under normal conditions supplies brought directly to the British Isles from the West Indian colonies were ample to supply British demands. This avenue of trade, therefore, did not outlast the war .41 The merchants also made trial shipment of spermacetti, but they found that the duty in England was too high to allow for much profit.42 It is very un­ likely, in any case, that supplies of spermacetti would have been large enough to allow this to become an export of major significance . More often than not, the Philadelphia merchants were completely discouraged about the prospect of finding anything that would do to send to England. "I never was more puzzled to know what to fill her up with, for hardly anything.. .comes to market that will do to send to London;” "there is not any Commodity at this Market, that we can Purchase, that there is the least prospect of answering at your Market;” or "What the Shipswill load with this year for London we can't conceive...:" these are the gloomy phrases which the merchants used in expressing their inability to find goods suitable for export to England .43 Baffled in their efforts to use direct shipments of commodities as a means of redressing the unfavorable balance of Hiiladelphia's trade with England, the merchants, of necessity, turned to indirect means of making their payments . The most important of these, of course, was the use of the profits gained in Philadelphia's export trades with other areas. It might be asserted with a good deal of truth that the other trades existed primarily to support the import I of manufactured goods and luxuries of various kinds from England. This point has been stressed in previous chapters, but it will bear repetition here. The merchants themselves Were, of course, fully aware of the relationship of their trade with areas outside of Eng­ land to the import of English goods into Pennsylvania. To cite only two examples, James and Drinker went so far as to say that they were willing to conduct their West Indies trade "even without much benefit to us” if bills of exchange could be procured "so as to remitt our Friends in England;" and Thomas Wharton noted that he "entere d in Merchandize with a view of getting Remittances home .”44 ■j-he merchants, of course, had no desire to trade without profit to any area; but it is clear that they felt that the big profits of trading lay

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in the importation and sale of dry goods and other manufactured goods in Philadelphia and that other trades were to be looked upon in relation to their ability to supply the balances needed to make payments to England . Profits secured in other areas of commerce might be remitted to England in any one of several ways: by the purchase of cargos i of goods, such as sugar or rum in the West Indies or wine in Spain or Portugal, which could then be taken to England for sale^y the purchase of a cargo which could be taken to Philadelphia and there sold for cash or bills of exchange on England,- by accepting payment for a cargo in bills of exchange and then havingthe bills transmitted directly from the place of sale to England; by accepting payment in bills of exchange which were brought to Philadelphia and then sent to England; and by the direct shipment of gold and silver coin from Philadelphia to England. All of these methods were used at one time or another, and it is impossible to make more than a few general­ izations regarding their relative desirability and frequency of use . The first method noted was used from time to time in all areas of trade but perhaps found its greatest employment in the various branches of the coastwise or West indies trades, as in the purchase of cargos of wheat in Virginia, rice in South Carolina, or rum in the West Indies. More common in the West Indies trade, however, was the purchase of a cargo of rum, sugar, or molasses which was then taken to Philadelphia for sale . Often the Philadelphia merchant had no choice but to accept this method of payment for the cargos he sent to the West Indies although he preferred it to bills of ex­ change only when the markets in Philadelphia offered the prospect of a profitable sale of the return cargo. Direct dispatch of bills of exchange from the place of sale of the Philadelphia cargo to England was probably most common in the south European and Irish trades although bills of exchange were sometimes sent directly from the West Indies as well. Sending bills of exchange from Philadelphia to England was by far the most common means of making remittances. In one mer- i chant's letterbook after another, the bulk of payments to England is listed as having been made in bills of exchange . English factors , it might be added, preferred this method of remittance a s being safer and less tedious for them to handle than any of the others .45 Shipment of gold and silver coin was far less common than sending bills of exchange if for no other reason than the relative scarcity of precious metals in Philadelphia. It did take place, however, from time to time. One such incident took place in 1762 when a group of merchants, headed by James and Drinker, combined to ship 27,909 Spanish milled dollars to England. Another objectionto this means, its relative riskiness, is highlighted by the fact that this group of

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The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

merchants did not trust an ordinary merchantman to carry this large amount of coin to England but sent it instead to Boston to be taken aboard a man-of-war .46 Profits from trade, of course, werenotthe only source of profit which Philadelphia merchants could apply to paying their debts in England. There were what are usually called "invisible items" in Riiladelphia's total trade picture: such things as insurance premiums paid to Philadelphia underwritersandfreightchargespaid to owners of ships in Philadelphia . It is impossible to estimate the amount of such items, but they were undoubtedly considerable. It also seems reasonable to assume that such payments increased toward the end of the colonial period as Philadelphia grew in population and in im­ portance as a general trade and mercantile center. Another "in­ visible" item in the balance was the sale of Philadelphia ships in England or elsewhere . Standard histories of the colonies have al­ ways emphasized the general importance of colonial shipbuilding and its advantages over the English industry which arose primarily from the greatly lower costs of materials in the colonies. The /center of colonial shipbuilding, of course, was New England; but ! Philadelphia did have a substantial industry. Colonial historians 'have usually asserted that about one-third of all ships owned in England at die time of the Revolution had been built in the colonies . How many of these had been built in or near Philadelphia it is im­ possible to say, although one history of the colonies reports, without identifying the source, that during the years 1763-1766 Pennsylvania sold twenty-five ships in England, the value of which was £17,50 0 sterling.47 Regardless of the accuracy of this particular figure, it can be said with assurance that the letters of Philadelphia mer­ chants and their orders to the captains of their vessels make it clear that any Philadelphia ship was for sale at any time and at any place if a sufficiently attractive offer were made. There were several ways in which the shipments of Englidt goods which constituted the bulk of the commerce between England and Riiladelphia might be handled. The English merchant or man­ ufacturer might sell them outright to the Philadelphia merchant, taking his profit in the price he charged for them; he might send them to Philadelphia on consignment for sale onhis own account; or he might simply act as a factor in the transaction, invoicing the goods at wholesale costand addinga fixed percentage (usually two-and-onc half percent) as a payment for his services. The outright sale of goods by the English merchant was certainly the least common way of handling shipments to Philadelphia. Perhaps it was used most often by manufacturers who dealt directly with Philadelphia, although at least one large London mercantile house announced that it had changed its business to this basis, and some other merchants as

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well were said to trade on a "non-commission" basis .48 >. Sending dry goods to Philadelphia on commission was a fairly J common practice among English merchants . Evidence of such ship- , ments can be found throughout the colonial period. Many such con­ signments, however, consisted of small shipments of special pro­ ducts. The Pembertons, for instance, sold such things as "fflax," "Dantzig rolls," and books in small lots for people in England. Sometimes an initial consignment would be sent in the hope of in­ troducing the product and inducing further orders.49 Philadelphia merchants, however, tended to view this type of commission busi­ ness with distaste . James and Drinker, for example, wrote, "... we may assure you that Consignments of Dry Goods were always unac­ ceptable things to us . . . .We have rejected several proposals made us by considerable manufacturers in England of selling goods for them, as it is what we have an aversion to and really injures our other business." In a subsequent letter, they wrote that the only goods they would accept on consignment were pepper and bohea tea . Expressing the same point of view, Gough and Carmalt wrote, "Con­ signments was allways disagreeable ,"5u Dissatisfaction with send­ ing goods to Philadelphia on consignment was not confined to that city; there was a strong feeling in England that Philadelphia mer­ chants sold such goods only when their own had been disposed of.^1 Most of the dry goods which came into Philadelphia were orr dered by Philadelphia merchants from the English merchant who acted as factor in the transaction. In trading thus on his "own ac- | count" the Philadelphia merchant assumed all of the risks of the trade, but he took all of the profits as well. Most Philadelphia mer­ chants seemed to aspire to the goal of the importation and sale of English goods for themselves. John Reynell is a case in point. In hisearly mercantile career his capital apparently was not sufficient to finance purchases of English goods, but he did anextensive busi­ ness selling such goods on commission for English merchants . As his trade prospered, he began to import goods on his own account, and eventually he announced that he had "grown tired of the Commis­ sion business."52 His subsequent trading with England was almost entirely on his own account. It is impossible to say exactly what percentage of Philadelphia's dry goods trade was carried on at the risk of her own merchants, but the proportion must have been very high. In his recent study of the New England merchants, Bernard Bailyn has pointed out that they shared the aversion of Pniladelphia merchants to selling goods on commission for English merchants and aspired to conduct this trade on their own account.53 New York merchants presumably had the same attitude. This method of con­ ducting the English trade in the northern colonies is in sharp contrast

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to the pattern in Virginia and Maryland where the imports of dry goods were handled mostly through resident "Scots factors." Philadelphia merchants may have carried on most of the dry goods trade at their own risk, but they did it by no means entirely with their own capital. On the contrary, the credit which they re­ ceived from their English factors was of the greatest importance to them. It is impossible to say how early in Pennsylvania history this credit relationship between English factors and Philadelphia began, but surely after 1750 it was a fact of economic life almost universally accepted on both sides of the Atlantic. Among the Phil­ adelphia merchants, to be sure, there were a few holdouts against the practice of accepting credit from English mercantile houses; and these included at least two of the most substantial merchants in Philadelphia. John Reynell, whose name has recurred frequently in this study, was one of those who seem to have conducted the dry goods business entirely on a cash-with-order basis. Another was Israel Pemberton, whose views on the subject are worth quoting at length as a strong statement of what had become, by the time they were expressed in 1753, a distinctly minority opinion among Phila­ delphia merchants: I allways wilst I followed merchandizing rather chose to keep my store supplied by fresh cargoes as I could procure bills of exchg or get mony in England, and by that means I got off some of the old stores that lay on hand of former cargoes, and kept myself out of debt there, for I never was in debt to the merchants of England, untill thy Bro­ ther Israel was there, and then hebroughta much greater cargo than I expected, and by that means brought me in debt there which gave me no little concern, and could not be easy untill it was dis­ charged, which was pretty soon, but I have never since desir’d my friends to send me any goods till I had mony in their hands or had a prospect that I would have mony in their hands by the time the goods would be shiped and by that means kept my mind at ease respecting anything I owed the merchants there.54 I Aside from such old-fashioned merchants as these, the accept­ I ance of credit from English merchants, and indeed insistence on receiving it, had become the general practice among Philadelphia merchants by mid-century. They had come to look uponcredit from England as an absolute necessity in conducting their trade. As John Kidd put it, "Custom here has introduced so long a C r that it would be impossible for any of us to Trade was it not for the indulgence of

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our Factors at home ." More specifically, Abel James pointed out that the credit given by English merchants allowed the Philadelphia merchant to trade more extensively and to operate at a lower mar- I gin of profit than he would otherwise be able to do .55 In theory the English merchant who furnished the credit objected to the custom which forced him to do so . One of them stated the objections in these terms: . . .in regard to goods bought on commisso it has certainly been very unwise custom, to introduce giving any credit therein as it is putting the per­ son who remits money &him who floes not] on the same footing. . .besides incurring a risque for a consideration intended only as payment for the Factors trouble, a s he would charge the same commiss o if money was remitted to him to inves t . moreover the Tradesmen here will none of them pretend they get only 2 1/2 proffitt on the Goods they sell to ye Factors, so that the latter stand middle Men to secure the former a handsome proffitt. Despite these objections, the same merchant who voiced them ad­ mitted that the custom was so widespread that all factors in England were forced to give credit; "'tis vain for any Factor now to set his Face against it. . . Not only were English factors forced to give credit to Philadel­ phia importers whether they wanted to or not, there was a definite trend during the eighteenth century toward longer periods of time of credit. In the late 1740's, Elias Bland of London, who had served • his mercantile apprenticeship with John Reynell in Philadelphia, aroused the ire of his fellow London merchants by offering nine months credit on orders comingfrom Philadelphia . The other Lon­ doners predicted dire consequences arising from this foolhardy extension of the six-month term then current, and were in apposi­ tion to say, "I told you so,” when Bland's business failed.But within a very few years, the nine-month period which had seemed so risky had become the standard time of credit allowed by the Eng­ lish factors. It was, in fact, during the decade of the 1750's that many Philadelphia merchants began to demand, and some English merchants to grant, a full year's credit. As early as 1755, Thomas Wharton had insisted that nine months’credit was not enough to allow him to carry on his business; and in 1758 James and Drinker wrote to one of their English factors that nine months seemed like an"illiberal credit” on large orders suchas they sent and added that they thought that payment within a year "ought to be deem’d good Pay , and what all our other Correspondents are contented with and thank-

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ful for . . . ,"58 The tone of this last letter indicates that there was some resistance among English merchants to this extension of the credit period to a full year . In addition to William Neate, to whom the foregoing letter was addressed, Richard Neave also objected to the longer credit period, arguing that the merchant who was expected to stock the wide variety of goods needed in the Philadelphia trade simply could not afford to extend credit for a full year. Another who resisted the trend was Elias Bland, back in business after the failure mentioned above. Chastened by his experience, he refused to join those who gave twelve months credit and lost a considerable amount of business as a result of his newly-acquired caution. These men, however, were fighting a rear-guard action; for by 1760 twelve months was the "time of credit now generally given by Merchants in London who supply this Place with goods." Since the Philadelphia merchants quite naturally felt that they must import their goods on the best possible terms, those merchants who re­ fused to give a year's credit were threatened with a loss of trade. AU English merchants who dealt with Philadelphia seem to have fallen into line eventually .60 Although most Philadelphia merchants took advantage of the credit extended to them by English factors, the more substantial of them felt that the extension of credit to too many people in Philadel­ phia was one of the causes of the chronic difficulties in the dry goods trade about which the merchants made constant complaints . Too liberal extension of credit, they argued, allowed people to im­ port and deal in dry goods who had no reasonable expectation of being able to pay for the goods. In particular, the merchants deplored the extension of credit to those whom they identified as retailers or shopkeepers; for this allowed them to enter into direct competition with the "merchants." A case in point is the warning which James and Drinker gave in regard to the giving of credit to one S. Carith­ ers. By giving this warning, they intended, they said, to make no reflection on the character of Mr. Caruthers whom they identified as "an Honest Man and one to whom we give a credit but he is only a Retailer ."61 Credit in other words, was a useful tool in the trade with England, but only in thehandsof the "right people," those looked upon as members of the fraternity of importing merchants. Several years of poor payments from Philadelphia in the 1760's led at least three of the large English houses to attempt something of a reform in their credit relationships with the Philadelphia mer­ chants. They made no attempt to alter the basic twelve-month credit period, but they did announce that they would no longer be in advance of payments for more than two cargos. That is to say, they would ship a spring and an autumn cargo without payment, but they would

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not send a cargo the following spring unless they had been paid for the one sent the year before .62 The force of this reform, however, was lessened by the fact that not all of the major houses joined in it. Moreover, Philadelphians believed that "there are so many particular Friends. . .who are not to be tied down Strictly to any Rule that it will not have all the force that it otherwise would. . . ."63 It should be understood that when the English merchant talked \ about twelvemonths credit, he expected to have payment inhis hands within a year from the date of the invoice . If he received payment before that time, the English merchant allowed five percent inteiest. The Philadelphia merchant expected to pay the same interest rate on sums which he had not remitted within the allotted time . This was not a matter of law but was "understood to be the mutual cus­ tom of Merchants .”64 When an English house failed to charge in­ terest on an overdue account, James and Drinker expressed surprise, writing that such a favor was "more than we could desire ." They were pleased by the courtesy shown them but insisted that "we can't desire that you shou’d not be gainers by our Trade, nor that you shou'd favor our account in particular ." Israel Pemberton undoubt­ edly spoke with truth when he wrote that no Philadelphia merchant would"hesitate about the Justice" of paying interest on overdue accounts .65 Philadelphia merchants preferred to deal with merchants in the larger towns of England . The trade was thus pretty much centered in London, Liverpool, and Bristol, although one or two Manchester, firms began to do considerable business in Philadelphia before the\ Revolution. In 1774 twenty-six ships entered Philadelphia from' London, sixteen from Liverpool, and fifteen from Bristol. The only other port from which more than two ships entered Philadelphia was Falmouth, where vessels coming from Portugal or Spain with wine entered and paid the duties . Special rote should be made of the f a ct I that Philadelphia had virtually no trade with Scotland, a situation I very different from that in the tobacco colonies which conducted al- I most half their trade with North Britain. One or two ships a year, to be sure, came into Hiiladelphia from Glasgow, but the trade was so slight that James and Drinker, probably the foremost dry goods merchants in the city, wrote that they knew nothing at all aboit Scotch goods .66 As a general rule, Philadelphia merchants were most satisfied with the goods which they got from London. Occasionally they dealt with inland manufacturing towns, but London offered several advan­ tages . The goods could be sent more quickly from London than from the inland towns; the cost of carriage from inland to a port was high; the London merchants were well acquainted with the colors and patterns which were preferred in the Philadelphia market and

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offered longer credit terms than the dealers in the inland towns. ■Moreover, the Philadelphia merchants preferred to have their goods shipped from London rather than from Bristol or Liverpool even though they always carried on a brisk trade with the latter two ports. .This preference was based upon more frequent sailings from Lon­ don, the superiority of ships and masters ''established" in the Lon­ don trade so that goods were rarely damaged in transit, and on the lower insurance premiums generally charged by the London under­ writers. Philadelphia merchants further expressed a preference fo r dealing with those London houses which specialized in the New York and Philadelphia trade rather than those which conducted a general mercantile business. The former, because of their greater famil­ iarity with the conditions of the market, always had a larger stock of suitable goods than the houses which were engaged in general merchandising. 6? The question of quick dispatch of goods, which the merchants cited as a reason for preferring London to other English ports, was not merely capriciousness on their part. They were emphatic in stating the importance of having goods arrive at the proper season, and on the first ship if possible . Goods arriving at the right time might bring as much as fifty percent more than those which came late in the selling season. The "right time" meant that goods in­ tended for the spring and summer trade should arrive in March, if possible, and not later than April while goodsfor the fall and winter trade had to arrive in August or September, or else they would only "lye by for the moths to eat the following summer .”6° Not every merchant, of course, could expect to have his goods by the first vessel from London in the spring or fall; but those who did counted themselves fortunate indeed. Thus on one occasion, a Philadelphia house happily reported that their goods had come on a ship which had arrived more than five weeks before any of the other London vessels, which has been of great Service to us in the Sale of our Cargo for had they been here before us in all Probability we should have had the greatest part of our goods on hand, but our having the Start of them has Enabled us to Run off about Twelve Hundred pounds Sterling which we think is a pretty Tolerable sale.... They added that if their goods could not always be sent in the first spring or autumn vessels, "they had better not come at all."69 Some merchants made the additional complaint that when their goods failed to arrive in proper season, their regular customers who owed them money from previous purchases took the cash with which they would have paid their debt and bought goods from mer-

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chants who had fresh stocks . Thus the merchant lost not only the sale of the goods for that season but also the chance to have some of his outstanding accounts cleared up.70 If timing of shipments was of first importance, quality of the ' goods sent was hardly less so. The Philadelphia market was so well supplied with dry goods that the customers could afford to be very particular in their choice . Merchants in Philadelphia alleged ' that Philadelphia purchasers demanded the best quality goods and were "more nice" in their selection than English consumers. Not only must the quality be good, the Philadelphia purchasers demanded the latest fashions in styles, colors, and trimmings as well, as Peter Baynton noted when he told his English factor to "remember feshionable trimming to the duroys & druggetts for the people here will have everything the newest and best of their kind and will adva ac­ cordingly. . . 1 When goods failed to meet their expectations in either quality or style, the Philadelphia merchants did not hesitate to send sharp letters of repr imand to their English factors .72 Not only must the goods be of the best quality and in the latest \ fashion, but they must be sent at the lowest possible price; for the Philadelphia shopkeepers went from one merchant's store to another seekingout the best bargains. Nor was it possible to conceal the actual first cost of the goods from the retailers; the merchant, on the contrary, had to open all of his invoices freely to the inspection of all who came to buy from him .73 Therefore, the English factor who had a reputation for sending his goods more cheaply than others soon attracted the attention of the Philadelphia importers; and when the Philadelphians felt that they were being overcharged for their English goods they did not hesitate to reprove their English cor­ respondents .74 The system of buying goods from English merchants who were supposed to invoice the goods at costand receive their only remun­ eration from the commissions they charged on the sale often gave rise to suspicions in Philadelphia that the English factors were con­ cealing a "hidden advantage" in the prices which they charged for the goods. Philadelphia merchants were vehement and unanimous in their denunciations of this practice if itexisted. "Many here," said John Reynell, "strongly suspect that most of the merchts in London charge more for their goods than they give for them which I con­ ceive is not honest, if their commissions is not enough, let 'em charge more ." Another merchant wrote that it was "generally un­ derstood” in Philadelphia that English merchants used this "dis - honest" method of increasing their remuneration .75 English mer­ chants, however, were equally vehement and unanimous in denying that they charged anything but an honest price for their goods and further alleged that their commissions were barely sufficient to

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compensate them for the risks they ran in the Philadelphia trade.7^ Complaints from Philadelphia about timingof shipments, quality of goods, and prices often reached such a pitch that relations be­ tween the Philadelphia merchant and his English factor were broken off with much ill-feeling on both sides . Sometimes the complaints were serious and numerous enough to require some adjustment by the English firm which had sent the goods. Such a case occurred in 1757 when a Manchester house received so many complaints that it felt compelled to send a representative to America with a cargo of goods valued at more than L6, 000 sterling which he was to sell at cost and free of all charges to those who had been dissatisfied with their previous shipments.77 Another method used to mollify the wrath of dissatisfied American customers was to send over anagent of the firm who had full powers to examine complaints and to make any necessary adjustments ■ This practice had become popular in the early 1760's, accordingto James and Drinker, and within a short time many people had come to expect it. "The Necessity and Util­ ity of your having such a Person here," they advised their English factor, "appears to us in so plain & striking a Light that we cant bit press it very much."78 Benjamin and John Bower of Manchester carried this idea to a logical conclusion when they hired a Philadel­ phia merchant to be their permanent representative in Boston, New York, and Charleston as well as Philadelphia. He had power to tale orders, collect debts, and make all kinds of adjustments. For these services the Bowers' firm paid him L200 sterling a year. The ar­ rangement seems to have been satisfactory although there is no evidence that any other mercantile house in England adopted it.7^ It remains now to justify the assertion made at the beginning of this chapter that the trade in English dry goods was the most lucrative of all the activities of the Philadelphia merchants. To do 'this, it is necessary to attempt an examination of the margins of profit which the Philadelphia merchants expected and were able to achieve in the importation and sale of manufactured goods from England. No positive or universally valid answer to this questiai can, of course, be given; but there is a great deal of evidence to suggest the standards which the Philadelphia merchants attempted to follow in pricing their goods. First of all, it should be made clear that modern systems of regular prices were virtually unknown in the eighteenth century; and there must have been much haggling between buyer and seller. In general, of course, it would no doubt be fair to say that the Philadelphia merchants charged whatever the traffic would bear . More specifically, the merchants usually talked of advances (or "markups” in modern terminology) of 100 percent or more. Lest these merchants be accused of the grossest kind of profiteering according to modern standards of pricing, it should be

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pointed out that this markup includes the change from sterling, in which the goods were invoiced, to Pennsylvania currency, in which they were sold. A merchant who said that he sold his goods for an advance of 125 percent, for example, meant that he charged £225 currency for goods which had cost him £100 sterling. To some de gree, then, his profit depended upon the cost of the sterling bill of exchange which he usually had to buy in order to make payment to his English factor. If bills were plentiful and cheap, his profit was greater than if they were scarce and expensive . As a general rule, when a £100 sterling bill of exchange cost as much as £170 in local currency, the Philadelphia merchants complained that their profits were being eaten up by the high cost of bills. Some specific examples will serve to illustrate the advance which merchants expected to receive on the sterling cost of dry goods at various times in the eighteenth century. In 1732 John Reynell wrote that "goodswell bought at home & net overcharged there, will readily fetch 100 p cent here if not more ."80 In other wor d s, goods worth £.100 sterling would sell for at least £200 currency. At the time the letter was writtenhe would probably have paid about £160 currency for a £100 bill of exchange, leaving him a gross profit of at least £40 currency. Reduced tosterlingat the rate then current, this would have left Reynell with a gross profit of at least £25 on his investment of £100, certainly more than adequate by modern standards. Out of this gross profit, however, came such costs as freight charges, insurance premiums, and factorage com­ missions, all of which were charged to the Philadelphia importer and served to reduce considerably his margin of net profit. A few years later, John Bell, an English merchant, sent John Reynell some dry goods to be sold for him on consignment; he said that he would be glad if they could be sold at 100 percent advance. He was willing to accept this relatively low markup, he said, be­ cause sterling exchange was selling at a very favorable rate in Philadelphia at the time . An English merchant who sent goods to John Swift on consignment in 1748 wanted them to be sold at 150 percent advance. Swift advised him, however, that this was an impossibly large advance and that 125 percent was the most that he could expect to receive . One year after this incident, John Pember­ ton reported that almost all goods were being sold at 120 percent or less, which he considered to be a very small markup. At about the same time, John Swift was reporting that "125 pct upon goods is now recon'd a good sale ."81 A little calculation, however, will show that these prices still allowed a gross profit of about twentyfive percent, even though exchange in 1748-1749 was selling at a relatively high rate of 172 . The most elaborate explanation of the markup which Philadelphia

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merchants charged on European goods was offered by James and Drinker. In a letter written in 1758 they reported that they sold their goods at 120 to 150 percent advance on sterling cost, or an average of 130 percent. At this rate their profits must have been very good indeed, for during the flush times of the French and In­ dian War, money was plentiful and bills of exchange were cheap. These levels of prices and profits, they admitted, were distinctly connected with the wartime boom; in peacetime they expected to make an advance of 100 to 125 percent on the sterling cost of their goods which would give them a profit of about twelve and one half percent clear of all charges . This, they pointed out, was about the same as their commission for acting as factors, selling one cargo and dispatching a vessel with another. Two years later, in 1762 with the war still in progress, they reported that "the price of Eur­ opean Goods are regulated generally here at this time from L233.6.8 to E250 Curry for one hundred pounds sterling actual cost, exclu­ sive of any charges of Package, Freight, Insurance, &c." Two years later in 1764, the wartime boom in dry goods had collapsed; and they reported that they were now able to collect only 110 to 115 percent advance on the sterling cost. These prices enabled them to "make 10 to 12 1/2 p cent profit & interest on our capital,” with which they professed themselves to be satisfied. This last letter also confirms their earlier statement of the prices they expected to charge and the profits they expected to make in peacetime .82 In reviewing this information about markups and profits in the trade in English goods in Philadelphia, it seems probable that there was a general trend toward somewhat smaller profit margins in this branch of Philadelphia commerce toward the close of the colonial period. As late as midcentury 120 percent advance seems to have been regarded a very lowprice, but in the late 1760's and afterwards goods were regularly sold for less. This may be one reason why Eiiladelphia merchants complained so loudly about depression in . the dry goods trade after 1763. These complaints will be discussed ■ more fully below in connection with general economic conditions in Philadelphia after 1763: but it may be noted here that the difficulty of adjusting to these lower profit margins and prices perhaps led the merchants to talkas if conditions were worse than they actually were . Despite the trend toward lower profit margins it seems ob­ vious that these margins were still ample by modern standards . It might, of course, be argued that the greater uncertainties and risks of eighteenth century commerce entitled the merchants to propor­ tionately greater rewards. But in any event, it should be clear why the trade in English dry goods was the "aristocrat” among Phila delphia’s trades, the one which most of the merchants aspired to enter.

8. Routes of Trade

The preceding analysis of the maritime commerce of Philadel­ phia in terms of separate geographical areas seems the only feasible way to deal with a complicated topic. Yet it is, to some extent, an artificial division especially in that it tends to emphasize the sepa­ rations rather than the interconnections of the various areas . These interconnections, of course, existed on two levels: first, in relation to the settlement of accounts; and second, in actual routes of trade which interconnected the various trade areas physically. Previous, chapters have no doubtemphasized the first level of interconnection sufficiently, especially in showing how the profits gained in the ex­ port trades were transferred to England to pay for the imports of dry goods into Rtiladelphia. Various aspects of the second level of interconnection have beenmentioned, but it seems desirable to bring together and summarize this information in a separate chapter in an attempt to see if there were a significant number of regular trade routes involving more than one of Philadelphia's trading areas in one voyage. The first point to be noted is that many routes of trade or indi­ vidual voyages did not involve more than one of Philadelphia's areas of trade. It is probable, in fact, that the great majority of ships which sailed from the port of Philadelphia with a cargo of goods fcr market returned to Philadelphia directly from the place where the goods were sold. Yet the shipping records sometimes show dis­ crepancies in the number of clearances to and entrances from one of the major trade areas which tends to show, in general, that a significant numberof vesselsdid touch at more than one trade area, or at least more than one port, during a given voyage . Reference to the papers of the merchants amply documents this assertion and

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shows that several more or less regular circuits were followed by ships engaged in Philadelphia's overseas commerce. The "triangular trade" of New England has received all of the ■. attention it deserves, and perhaps more, but Philadelphia, too, had I several "triangular" trades of its own. Unlike the New England triangle which included Africa as one of its apexes, none of the Phil( adelphia routes seems to have been concerned with the slave trade . Some of these triangles, however, are important enough to warrant description. One of them has perhaps been described sufficiently already in the chapter on the coastwise trade; that is, a triangle ; which had at its apexes Philadelphia, Maryland or Virginia, and '.-.southern Europe or England. This pattern of trade, the main fea|ture of which was the carriage of Virginia or Maryland wheat to an overseas market, became increasingly important as a source of investment for Philadelphia merchants. Another triangle, perhaps equally popular, was that which involved taking provisions to the West indies, followed by a voyage to England with sugar or rum, and endingwith a return to Philadelphia carrying English dry goods . The advantages of such a circuit, which could be completed within a year, were outlined by a Kingston factor in a letter to a Philadel­ phia mercantile house: .. .In the first place a Freight from philada to Jamaica, which will at least pay more than her Portlidge Bill the whole voyage - then a Handsome freight from hence to London & we suppose a freight from there to your port, so that on the circuit the Ship must make money with little wear and Tare, as she will always sail from hence to have a summer passage home and may be with you again before you have much bad weather on your Coast - If she gets fixed (as we expect) it may be a Means in future of disposing of a Good Quantity of Lumber to different estates . The factor warned, however, that the ship must be very carefully fitted out because the planters were generally prejudiced against North American vessels, which prejudices he said were assiduously kept alive by "those who would have all others excluded from the trade but themselvesIt should be noticed in this proposal that 'the advantages claimed for it were almost entirely in terms of the (Shipowner's point of view because of the freight charges which would accrue to the vessel; only incidental mention is made of the possibility of regular sales of lumber in the West Indies . This, perhaps, bears out the point made earlier in connection with the Vfest Indies trade that the Philadelphia merchants were at least relatively well satisfied if their cargos would "pay a freight."

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The advantages of this three-sided, Philadelphia-West Indies - ' England circuithad occurred, too, to the English shipowners whose I vessels carried most of the West Indian sugar crop to market in England. On their way out to the West Indies they would stop at ' Philadelphia for a load of provisions. The details and advantages of this practice are fully set forth in a letter from a Pniladelphia merchant, who was eager to act as factor, to an English shipowner: The Gentn in Jamaica a Number of them, engaged with theirFreind in Engdwho has Vessells in the Jamaica trade to call at Philad a & bring them out what they want. . . .this they agree to pay the first cost for & all Charges of Freight, Coms Interest &c, in consequence, they oblige themselves to ship on board his Vessell for England, & consign to him, so many Hhds Sugar & puncheons Rum, this I conceive answers well the purpose of both Parties, for the Jamaica Gentlemen get their goods on the best terms our Marketts will admitt of, & the Gentlemen in England are certain of two Freights for their vessells besides a part if not a whole Consignment of their Friends Effects in Jamaica besides that I conceive a Vessell from Lond o to this Place would get a much better Freight from Lond o to Jamaica, especially if she was to advertize to take in goods on something lower Frt than those Vessells do who are directly in the trade from Lond o to this Place, I mention this with certainty because I have for several years past loaded two or three vessels a year for my Freinds in Liverpool to go to Jamaica & I believe it is very satisfactory to all parties. Another inducement offered by Philadelphia merchants eager to act as factors for English shipowners whose vessels were engaged in the Jamaica trade was the likelihood that ships outbound from England for Jamaica would be able to avoid the dangerous Caribbean waters during the late summer hurricane season by making a stop at Philadelphia to pick up a cargo of provisions. This advantage, of course, was in addition to the extra freight paid by the shipper of the provisions. Another important trade triangle of which Philadelphia served as one apex was one with stops at Newfoundland, south Europe, and Philadelphia. In this case, Philadelphia sent a cargo of provisions ' to Newfoundland where it was sold to finance the purchase of a cargo of fish which was taken to Lisbon or another south European port for sale. The ship might then return to Philadelphia with a ballast-

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cargo of salt or a load of wine picked up at Madeira. Like the tri­ angle previously discussed, this one was, to some extent, financed by Philadelphia merchants doing the business on their own account and in their own ships. But for the most part it, too, was carried on in English ships for whose owners the Philadelphia merchants acted merely as factors in loading the vessel with provisions to be taken to Newfoundland .4 Perhaps the most striking example of an English ship engaged in this trade was reported by John Swift, the collector of the port: There is now a large vessel now at this port that belongs to Poole, thathas not been there this three years. She is i n the Newfoundland trade, die loads with fish at Newfoundland, goes with them up the Streights, comes from thence here & loads with Provisions for the Fishery at Newfoundland & its very probable she will continue in this round of trade as long as she lasts, without returning to Great Britain... .5 Still another regular circuit was Philadelphia-Charleston-Eng­ land . The major object, of course, was to take a cargo of rice to England, either on freight or by purchase . James Logan and sev­ eral associates undertook a venture of this kind as early as 1703 . It was necessary for them to send two cargos of provisions to South Carolina to buy one load of rice, but they had expectations of great profit on the voyage .6 The popularity of this circuit varied in re­ sponse to the demand for shipping in Charleston.? In addition to this particular voyage, Charleston was also a stop on another run which was followed with some degree of frequency. On this route, the vessel took rum to Charleston from the West Indies, rice to Philadelphia from South Carolina, and provisions to the West Indies from Philadelphia .8 Mention of these particular routes in the correspondence of the Philadelphia merchants indicates that they were probably the multi­ sided trades pursued with the greatest degree of frequency, but /there were many others which were less important. James and /Drinker, for example, proposed to keep a vessel going continually from Philadelphia to Barbados to New York to Philadelphia. The point of this particular route was that rum usually brought a higher price in New York than in Philadelphia while provisions were less expensive in the latter city .9 Many voyages, too, were more than triangular. Thus, John Reynell proposed a regular trade involving England, Madeira, Pniladelphia, the West Indies, Philadelphia, and England, in that order. Soon thereafter he outlined an even more complicated pattern which would include Philadelphia-Madeira-Pniladelphia-Jamaica-England-Philadelphia. The advantage which he

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foresaw in these complicated patterns was to avoid the possibility of the vessel lying idle in any port for more than a short time. 10 Another planner of ingenious circuits was Thomas Wharton who outlined the following plan for a route to be followed by an English vessel. She was to go from London to Lisbon, there pick up salt, lemons, and wine to carry (the latter two illegally, of course) to Philadelphia, whence she would go to the West Indies with provi­ sions, and finallyback to Londonwitha freightof sugar. H An even more complicated circuit, also involving illegal trade, was devised by Daniel Clark and proposed to an Irish mercantile house . His pro­ posal was to employ a ship " .. .from Gallway to Liverpoole, there take in salt Coal & ale andon your comingout call at the Isle of Man take in Bohea Tea Gin Brandy Silk handkerchief &ca... .then from this town to the West Indiesand here back again time enough to re­ turn to Ireland with flaxseed."!2 Merchants' correspondence does not always show if these highly complicated trade patterns were always carried out, but at least they illustrate the ingenuity of which the merchants were capable in planning them. Discussion of routes of trade should not lead to an assumption I that all voyages fell into regular and well established patterns. In many, if not most, cases there was a high degree of opportunism ' involved; andplans were usually flexible enough toallowfor changes in market conditions or other factors which might have affected the profitability or safety of a voyage. Many voyages thus had the ap- | pearance of "tramp” sailing. New England vessels were justly fam­ ous for such activities, but Philadelphia merchants often sent their ships out on this kind of voyage . James and Drinker, for instance, in a set of orders to one of their captains on a voyage to the West Indies directed him to call at any or all of these islands: Grenada, Antigua, St. Kitts, St. Eustatius, St. Croix, Dominica, Montser­ rat, and Tortola. He was to use his own judgment in determining which one offered the best prospect of a good sale and a profitable return cargo.13 Perhaps this point can be more effectively illustrated by tracing the peregrinations of one brigantine, owned by James and John Pem­ berton and their cousin, William Logan. Sometime in 1748 this vessel left Philadelphia for Barbados with a cargo of provisions. From Barbados she went to Port Royal, South Carolina with run and sugar, arriving in December 1748 . The sale of this cargo paid for a cargo of rice with which the Hazard sailed again for Barbados. Although badly damaged by a storm she arrived safely in February 1749. The cargo of rice did not sell very well in Barbados, but the ship returned to Philadelphia in April with some rum on the owners' account in addition to fifty-two casks of rice which the Barbados fac­ tor had been unable to sell. The ship had been able to obtain no

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The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

goods on freight in Barbados . At tliis point, John Pemberton was "at a stand" to know what to do with the Hazard . "Cozen Billy” Logan wanted to send her to Mad­ eira, but there were no pipe-staves on the market in Philadelphia. By May, however, they had decided to send her to Madeira anyway. She loaded with corn, flour, staves, bread, and gammons and sailed during the month. The captain had orders to sell her in Madeira if he could get as much as forty-five pipes of wine for her. Quite pos­ sibly she was sold at that time, for all mention of her disappears from the Pemberton Papers . In less than a year, however, she had visited three of Philadelphia's major trade areas. The commerce of colonial Philadelphia was thus a complicated affair, dedicated primarily to the financing of dry goods imports from England. To be successful, the Eiiladelphia merchant had to have flexibility of mind, good judgment, willingness to risk his cap­ ital, and a wide knowledge of the business methods and market con­ ditions in all parts of the Atlantic community.

PART THREE British Policy, Philadelphia Commerce, and the Revolutionary Movement, 17631774

The years between the end of the French and Indian War and the outbreak of the Revolution were a period of great turmoil for the Philadelphia merchants as well as for other elements of the population. The normal readjustment to peacetime business con­ ditions was complicated by a whole series of new or revived meas­ ures of British colonial policy, many of which had a direct effect on Philadelphia trade, and others of which had an indirect influence on the activities of the merchants. But many of the acts of British policy had vast political-constitutional implications as well as eco-| nomic consequences. It is in attempting to assess the relative I importance of economic as opposed to political-constitutional factors that most of the historical controversies regardingthe revolutionary movement in the colonies have arisen. The following chapters do not purport to be a complete history of the revolutionary movement in Pennsylvania and Philadelphia duringthe pre-revolutionary decade; but they do attempt to analyze economic conditions in the city and' province duringthese years, to see if these conditions were directly or indirectly the result of British policies, and to examine the role of the merchants in the growing opposition to Great Britain.

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9 .

Economic Conditions in Philadelphia Before the Revolution

In considering the relationship between British policy, Phila­ delphia commerce, and the revolutionary movement, it is neces­ sary, first of all, to see what economic conditions actually were in Philadelphia in the pre-revolutionary years. This is especially important in that a number of -writers have asserted that there was a severe depression in the colonies following the end of the French and Indian War; and that, furthermore, British policy was largely responsible for this depression. This analysis is used to support the thesis that the revolutionary movement, in Pennsylvania as in other parts of the colonies, resulted primarily from the protests of the merchants against these policies and their efforts to force the British government to modify or abandon them.1 It is the purpose of this chapter, then, to sketch economic conditions in Philadelphia, with particular reference to the mercantile community, and to see what they themselves thought were the causes and cures of their difficulties. /' There can be no doubt that the merchants' letters and news­ paper accounts are filled with references to the parlous state of 'trade after 1763. This point will be amply documented and discussed below. But in order to argue effectively that these conditions were ' peculiarly the result of British post-war commercial and economi: ; policies it would be necessary to demonstrate that the years before the institution of the new British policies were ones of uninterrupted prosperity and growth or at least that merchants did not complain about bad business conditions before 1763 . But the following brief survey of merchant opinion on economic conditions in Philadelphia before 1763 willshowthat complaints about "hard times" constituted a recurrent refrain in the letters of the merchants.

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Complaints about the poor state of business began, in fact,; not much later than the founding of the province itself. As early as ; 1702 James Logan reported to William Penn that he was "every day/ more out of heart, through the great discouragement we lie under here." There was, he added, no money in the country, and wheat and flour were a "very drug." Likewise, in the 1720’s Peter Baynton referred to Philadelphia as "this more pleasant then profitable place." All kinds of goods, he said, were plentiful and cheap. An early issue of the Pennsylvania Gazette added an allegorical note about the languishing state of commerce in the same decade: "Money here seems very scarce, Trade has been long in a deep consumption, her nerves relax'd, her spirits languid, her joints have grown so feeble, that she has had of late so terrible a fall that she now lies bleeding in a very deplorable condition." Unfortunately the paper did not elaborate on the conditions it so poignantly de­ scribed.2 Nor did the 1730's bring much improvement in conditions, if we may credit tire report of JohnReynell who said that local produce was scarce and dear at the same time that there was very little de­ mand for it in the West Indies . English goods, at the same time , were so plentiful that prices fell fifteenpercentwithin a short time . The only immediate hope for improvement, in Reynell's view, was that the poor sales would discourage further large imports of dry goods so that prices could once again rise to normal levels .5 Some possibility of relief was seen with the outbreak of the war with Spain in 1739 . In their usual pessimistic way the merchants grumbled about increased insurance costs and freight charges, but they did concede the possibility that the warwould stimulate the demand for Pennsylvania produce abroad and increase the prices of dry goods within the province .4 Evenwiththe wartime stimulation, however, English goods continued to be plentiful in the province and payments for goods were said to be lagging. John Reynell's anal­ ysis of the situation at this time was that too many people in England, "Jews among others," were getting into business as factors for Philadelphia and were vastly increasing the supplies.5 Complaints about bad times continued well into the 1740's with one merchant writing that if quick sales of English goods were desired, it was necessary to sell "many things for no more Philada currency than what they cost sterling.”5 Yet at the same time the merchants were recording these gloomy reports in their correspondence, the gover­ nor of the province, George Thomas, summarized the economic state of the province for the benefit of the Assembly in terms which present a sharplyclashingview. "Your trade," he said, "was never in a more flourishing condition, and . . .the war has been so far from doing you any injury that it has been a means to raise the price of

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your produce at foreign markets and has advanced the value of your money by lowering the rate of exchange here In any event, an improvement which was at least temporary, came when the Spanish commercial war merged into the general European War of the Austrian Succession in 1744. Sales of English goods in Philadelphia increased to some extent, and the more hope­ ful merchants expected a rise in prices to compensate for the in­ creased costs of freight and insurance. Moreover, the rigorous conditions of wartime tradingwere expected to drive inexperienced merchants out of business to the benefit of the more established houses.® Prices failed to rise, however, as much as had been ex­ pected; and soon the merchants were singing their chorus of gloom once more. John Reynell, as usual among the ranks of the complainers, reported that the expectations of a wartime boom had been so great that supplies of dry goods for several years had greatly exceeded the demand and that the critical state of commerce was aggravated by low prices for Philadelphia goods in overseas mar­ kets . Benjamin Franklin agreed with this analysis, pointing out that the book business "as well as others, grows duller daily." Consumers simply would not, he said, pay an advanced wartime price for the goods they bought.9 Yet it must be pointed out that in later years John Be ynell looked back upon the years of King George's War as a good time for trade when goods had sold "at about 175 p. cent advance and bills of exch a were at about 85 p cent, so there was a good profit."iO After the war had ended in 1748, however, merchants agreed \ that conditions in the dry goods trade were very bad indeed. Let­ ters of the merchants in the years between the end of King George’s War and the beginningof the French and Indian War are full of com­ plaints about overstocking, low prices, slow sales, and poor pay­ ment of debts. John Swift's analysis of the difficulty at this time was that "the trade is got into so many hands & such large quantities of goods imported y t the Shop Keepers will have them at their own price." The only possible course of action in this situation,Swift felt, was to sell goods as quickly as possible for cash at a low ad­ vance on the sterling cost, and then to hope that the entire situation would straighten itself out as the small traders who had overextended their credit were forced out of business. 1 Swift's hopes for a natural solution of the difficulty were not realized. Further large quantities of goods arrived in the city in 1750 so that John Kidd "trembled" at the prospect but " . . .knew no better Remidy then Currage to brush it through." James Pemberton noted the same "glutt" of goods and reported the opening of several new stores. "The importers," he added, "I suppose must sell their goods on the best terms they can that I think there never was a

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worse prospect. >t 1 9 During the summer of 1750 at least two shopkeepers went bank- 1 rupt and were able to pay barelyeight pence in a pound of their out- j standing debts. So discouraging was the sale of dry goods at this time that James Pemberton advised his brother to invest in lands rather than goods. Almost any kind of goods, he wrote, could be bought "at or under the prime cost," and so many cargos were coming in "from all quarters, that there's no prospect of a sudden alteration of times for the better." Nor did sales improve in the autumn; and to compound the ills of the merchants, produce stayed high in Philadelphia and low in the West Indies. 13 The merchants continued to report bad times until the spring of 1751. John Kidd noted, moreover, that "we have no Arrivall of any ' thing this Spring to the Northward which plainly proves it is not us ‘ alone but all the Continent that labour under the difficulty of a de­ cay'd trade ."14 An optimistic note entered the letters for the sum - \ mer of the same year, however, with reports of brisk sales and! good prices; but this situation did not last long. By autumn, James Pemberton once more was writingthat "People here generally com­ plain of the slow sale & low price of dry goods." The only hopeful note he could see was the usual negative one that poor business might cause a temporary suspension of imports which would allow for reasonable profits in the future. 15 The failure of three more shopkeepers in the spring of 1752 in- j dicated the continuance of bad conditions, but one merchant admitted I that the farmers were having "brave times" because so many ships I were in harbor bidding for "country produce ." After a temporary j improvement in the summer of 1752, the dry goods market returned | to its former condition of oversupply and slow sales .16 In 1754 , ! Charles Willing and Sonclaimed that they were unable to sell goods for cash at a profit and that "to trust them out amongst the Country retailers is like throwingyour Money on the surface of the Water." They threatened to quit business if conditions did not improve, "for truely we do not sell anything, our trade is lost." The difficulties under which the trade already suffered were aggravated during the fall of 1754 "by the encroachment of the French on our back inhab­ itants." Goods coming to Philadelphia were constantly being sold at a loss at public auctions as well as by the merchants themselves . The prospect of a war with France offered the only hope of im­ provement . 17 Despite this prospect, the dry goods business in Philadelphia continued to be so bad in 1755 that one large English house refused to accept orders from new customers there on the ground that the Philadelphia merchants were very far behind in their remittances. 13 That year also saw the first of the wartime embargoes on the export

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of provisions. While this was in effect there was practically no sale for English goods. Trade was still dull late in the year, al­ though John Reynell noted that the prices of some goods had already gone up in anticipation of the war . He hoped that if war did come, the dry goods trade would be as good as it had been during the last one .19 As in the time of King George's War, the expected boom was delayed for some time . During 1756 and into 1757 there were still many complaints about the slow sale and low price of dry goods and the extreme difficulty of collecting debts. The cause of this long­ standing depression in the dry goods trade, wrote Thomas Willing was that there were far too many importers doingbusiness in Phil adelphia, many of whom had already been ruined by their rash im­ ports. The supply of dry goods late in 1757 was said to be larger than at any one time during the previous seven years . But instead of decreasing, the oversupply was reinforced early in 1758 by very large imports of Manchester goods so that Willing and Morris re­ ported that the total quantity of dry goods on hand was "more than equal to three years consumption. Much of tills would have to be sold at a loss if the importers were to make their payments to Eng­ land when they were due . This great supply of English goods was coupled with an embargo on exports in the spring of 1758 to inten­ sify the poor state of the trade .20 Very shortly thereafter there must have been a dramat i c u pswing in the sales and prices of goods as the long-awaited wartime boom arrived at last. The year 1760 saw James andDrinker order­ ing huge quantities of dry goods from England. At one time they had L20,000 sterling worth of goods on order. Now was the time, they felt, to make money in the dry goods business. "If the trade is not pushed to its Extent at this time, " wrote Henry Drinker, "we shall miss an oppor y we may not have again very soon." They de­ scribed the prosperity of the dry goods trade in glowing terms: "the War hath occasioned such a plentiful Circulation of Cash in this & the neighboring Provinces that the demand of the Inhabitants for Eur­ opean goods is beyond what any Person not fully acquainted there­ with can conceive ."21 Yet even in the midst of this great prosperity rumors of a peace with France began to promote fears that trade would suffer a sharp setback. Edward Shippen warned his brother that if a peace came suddenly, those with dry goods on their hands would "sink Money." John Strettell in London warned John Kidd against importing dry goods until the turn of events could be seen, for those who had bought them when freights and insurance were high were sure to suffer if peace caught them with large stocks of goods on hand . Kidd followed his advice and decided to stop importing goods for the time being.

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By September of 1760 James and Drinker admitted that trade bad become dull owing to the high cost of goods in England and said that those who had gone more deeply into trade than their capital war­ ranted would have difficulty making remittances to England. Yet the demand for dry goods in Philadelphia was still brisk enough to cause Daniel Clark, a merchant just beginningbusiness, to estimate that he could dispose of LIO,000 sterlingannually inEnglish goods 22 The slump in trade had hit with full force in Philadelphia by November 17 60. James and Drinker announced that times had changed so much that they were forced to contract their business. The market was as well supplied as they had ever known it to be, and the goods being imported from England were more expensive than they ever had been. They deeply regretted their own large im­ ports and said that they would "long labour under the Inconveniences the same has & will subject us to ." Their imports the previous year had been, they estimated, fully E10,000 sterling too large . At this critical time they refused to extend their dry goods business until peace should bring trade into a more settled state. They were even unable to make remittances to England within the twelve-month credit period because their own debts came in so slowly. Many people who had come into trade with insufficient capital were sure to be hurt, together with the English merchants who had unwisely extended credit to them. On the other hand, few of the really substantial houses in Philadelphia, in which category James and Drinker included them­ selves, were in any real danger of insolvency.22 Daniel Clark, who six months before had boasted of his ability to sell large quantities of dry goods, wrote to England to cancel an order with the excuse that goods were so expensive in England and sales so slow and bills so high in Philadelphia that "I know not how or when we young Importers can pay for what wee have already had. Trade was so bad, he wrote, that all he did was "slave and ' sink.” When he received a shipment of dry goods billed at L2, 136 ! sterling, he complained bitterly that they were overpriced . Mean­ while, he had on his hands a large previous shipment of goods from the same English merchant of which he had been able to sell only E500 worth and for which he had collected only twenty pounds incash.. Many houses in Philadelphia had ceased the importation of dry goods! entirely. The only bright spot in the picture seemed to be a brisk! demand for Indian goods. "You no not your granfather, " he lament­ ed, "never saw such times in Philadelphia as at present." He suc­ cinctly summarized the difficulties of the Philadelphia merchants in the following statement: The present time is perhaps the most distressful the Philadelphians have ever met with in the way of business, at least the modern part of them.

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We owe heavy sums in England . Sales dull, goods high, and scarce at home, here plenty, money prodigious scarce & not easily collected from the Inhabitants these circumstances have reduced the trading part of us to a most tragick Condition, and the Merchants of London amaffraid will par­ ticipate of this our general Calamity. 4 To add to the woes of the importers, the price of sterling bills in Philadelphia remained very high. In these conditions it is small wonder that the English factors began to complain of lack of remit­ tances from Philadelphia and to dun their Philadelphia correspond­ ents for the balances due them. On their side, the Philadelphians sought for any excuse to delay or evade the payment of their obli­ gations in London.25 The declaration of war against Spain brought about another im­ provement in the dry goods trade, and the merchants were able to dispose of some of their surplus goods. The improvement, though gratifying to the merchants, was by no means spectacular; and the English merchants still complained of slow remittances from Phil­ adelphia. At the same time, country storekeepers in Pennsylvania explained the slowness of their payments to the importers by saying that it was Impossible for them to collect money from the farmers Noting the limited improvement in the dry goods trade, James and Drinker hoped that future imports would be "kept within the Bounds of what the Importers can in the common Trade of the Place be en­ abled to Remit or Defects & Failures must somewhere be felt & in Proportion as we overdo the trade in Importing."27 Soon the prospects of a definitive peace became imminent. English merchants and manufacturers, advising their American correspondents of this fact, were certain that the end of the war would bring lower freightand insurance charges; but they were less hopeful of any significant reduction in the actual cost of the goods sent to Americans Philadelphia merchants expected that the prices of Pennsylvania produce would fall in the overseas markets and con­ sequently exhorted the country storekeepers to collect their debts from the farmers. As far as the dry goods trade was concerned, James and Drinker expected that the peace would have a very bad effect unless a trade opened up with the new British territories in Florida and on the Mississippi. Of this they had little hope. In addition to the prospect of a decreased volume of trade, they feared that "as the late great flow of Trade and Cash hath Introduced and Increas'd many Expences amongst us not formerly known, the dealing here generally on Credit may be attended with greater dan­ gers than you or we were heretofore us'd to." Because of the poor prospect of making remittances to England, they became very cau-

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tious about ordering more goods from England and, indeed, in the' fall of 1763 declined to order any goods at all from their chief sup- 1 pliers for the spring trade. At the same time, John Kidd admitted' that the "many shocks the trade of this place has met with" made it impossible for him to make remittances within the allotted credit period.29 Another sign of the bad times was the number of business fail-\ ures among Philadelphia merchants . The collapse of several small > traders in 1763 was followed by the failure of the house of Scott and 1 McMichael, "which is like to prove the most considerable break I ever known here Upon examination of their affairs, it appeared I that they owed L50.000 currency and would not be able to pay more than twenty percent. Their failure deeply affected other merchants and tradesmen who had accepted their bills and given them credit 30! The growing number of business failures in Philadelphia caused the proprietor, Thomas Penn, to caution his receiver-general to be wary of the bills of exchange he accepted in payment of quit-rents and other accounts due .31 Not all of the merchants were as cautious as James and Drinker about ordering goods from England. Large shipments arrived in Philadelphia in the spring of 1764, but James and Drinker felt that the optimism which had prompted the orders for these goods was entirely unjustified in view of the continuing epidemic of business failures in the city. Anna Clifford, looking after the family busi­ ness in her husband’s absence, confirmed James and Drinker's pessimistic outlook and reported her inability to collect any of the debts owed to them. Stephen Collins faced the same situation and was warned by his English factors that they would not fill further orders from him unless he reduced the large balance due on his account with them .32 The year 1765 saw no improvement in trade . James and Drink er were highly apologetic about the slowness of their remittances to j England but pointed out, in explanation, that the decline of trade in Philadelphia and the neighboringprovinces had injured their debtors so much that they were unable to pay. The general slowness of pay­ ments from America in general and Philadelphia in particular was. not only a source of embarrassment to the American merchants, it was also a cause of considerable difficulty in England and led to 1 more warnings that shipments would be curtailed unless payments \ improved. An English merchant, writing in a London newspaper , claimed that his own exports to America had "visibly decreased" during the preceding three or four years and that what little goods he did send were badly paid for . "Every gentleman, " he concluded, who knows anything of the American commerce, knows very well, that not above an eighth of the orders, which were sent over in 1 7 63,

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came over during the course of last year; and they also know very well, that remittances from our colonies have been so extremely precarious that it would be a degree of the greatest rashness to trust them with any quantity of goods."33 During the next few years the strictly economic complaints of the previous period apparently were swallowed up in the political complaints against the Townshend duties and other British policies of the late 1760's. The correspondence of the merchants refers much less frequently to allegedly poor business conditions . Con­ tinuing business failures, however, testify to the existence of mer­ cantile distress. The most spectacular of these failures was the resounding collapse of the great house of Baynton, Wharton, and Morgan: general merchants, Indian traders, and land speculators. In November 1767 they stopped payments and laid their affairs be­ fore their creditors. It appeared that they owed about L100,000, which made it the largestfailure in the colonial history of Pennsyl­ vania. Itwashoped, however, thatwhen their affairs were untangled they would be able to pay all of their creditors in full. A committee of die creditors was appointed to supervise them, and they were allowed to continue in business with a letter of license granted by this committee .34 A year's interlude in dry goods imports, brought about by the non-importation agreement of 1769, allowed the merchants to dis­ pose of much of the stock of English goods on hand. It might be supposed, and the merchants expected, that the end of this agree­ ment would have been followed by a seller's market. This did not happen, however, and the merchants' complaints about depression in the dry goods trade began again with all of their old vigor. A basic source of the difficulty after 1770 lay in the fact that every­ one in Philadelphia anticipated good markets following the end of non-importation and ordered huge quantities of goods to arrive in the spring of 1771. Evenbefore these direct shipments had arrived in Rtiladelphia, large supplies of English goods were brought in from New York where non-importation ended more than two months before it did in Philadelphia, and from Maryland, where the agree­ ment allowed the import of many kinds of goods in general use. Thus, the supply of goods seemed likely to exceed any foresees b le .demand .35 Despite the huge imports the sales in 1771 seemed quite brisk. Profits, however, were small. By 1772 the complaints of the mer­ chants had mounted once again to a full crescendo. It was the old story once more: prices were low; the amount of imports far ex­ ceeded the demand; thousands of pounds worth of goods were sold each week at public auctions; many people even sold goods below first cost in their stores. Even with no prospect of a change for

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the better, people continued to import, and there were "hundreds" more people in the dry goods trade, as importers and retailers, than could possibly be supported by it .36 Poor business resulted in excessive irritability among the mer­ cantile community. One way to express their bad temper was to in­ veigh against English merchants who seemed to be guilty of over­ charging for the goods they sent. "The Tempers of the Merchts seem so soured," wrote William Pollard, "that if one Merchant on your side charges an article Id . higher than his Neighbour the Man here seems to make it his business (having indeed very little else to do) to blaze it to everyone he is acquainted with and make the worst of it .”37

An even more concrete expression of the irritability of the, Philadelphia merchants was the wave of resentment against the public j auctions or vendues, as they were called, at which such great quan­ tities of English goods were being sold. Never popular with the merchants, the cry against the auctions reached great proportions in the early 1770's. A typical complaint is that of William Barrell who reported that he had not been able to sell one fourth of the goods he had brought with him from England, mostly because "there is not a day passes without the horrid sound of the bell man crying Large and compleat assortments of Merchandize for Sale at the Vendue, of which there is at least three to one with you, and one of them here have more Goods than all in Boston together, where every shopkeeper and in short every consumer may supply themselves'. 8 Grievances against the auctions brought forth a demand for their regulation by the Assembly. In 1772 "A Pennsylvanian," whose point of view seems typical of that of the merchants, attacked the vendues in a long newspaper article. He admitted that the basic source of difficulty in the dry goods trade was the over-importation of goods by the merchants but asserted that the freedom of the vendues brought additional difficulties by encouraging strangers from Europe or from other Americancities to send goods to Philadelphia on spec­ ulation . Even if the merchants quit importing goods entirely the same quantities would come in anyway. As long as imported goods were necessary articles of consumption the profits on their sale ought to stay within the province rather than to go to strangers . In the next week's issue of the Gazette "A Philadelphian" joined the attack, claiming that the auctions were driving the "fair traders” out of business. It was better, he argued, that the auctioneers lose their livelihood than that the regular merchants should lose theirs since the whole city depended upon the merchants for its welfare39 The Assembly, however, did not take any action to regulate or suppress the auctions. One irate merchant charged that its mem­ bers, most of whom were notmerchants, were "actuated by private

■ 124

The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

instead of public views," because they were able to purchase goods ten or fifteen percent cheaper at the auctions. The auctions were undoubtedly popular with the voters as well as the legislators, and the Assembly chose to ignore the problem even though the continu­ ance of these public sales meant "loss of Credit to the City & the ruin of many innocent Persons on the other side the water ."40 The large public sales continued at least into 1773 and finally led to the suspicion that large quantities of cheap goods, especially made for the purpose, were being sent from England. These goods seemed "mere trash" to one merchant who also reported that a vendue master had told him "that People begin to be a little sick of them & said that the whole was an Imposition on the Publick.” This mer­ chant feared, nevertheless, that the auctions had led people to ac quire the habit of buying the cheapest goods; and it seemed unlikely that they would find "their mistake in purchasing these kinds."41 Continued bad business in 1773 forced at least some of the Philadelphia importers to curtail their business. William Pollard, who handled all of the American business of Benjamin and John Bower of Manchester, told his employers that the merchants, unable to sell anything, even at a loss, had decided to import nothing until the prodigious stocks on hand could be sold off. James and Drinker, declining an invitation to order goods from an English house, wrote that "since the commencement of our partnership. . .our Trade has not been in so disagreeable & discouraging a State as for 12 or 18 mo s back.” Reynell and Coates likewise lamented that the times were "very dull indeed."42 An unusual demand for goods from Virginia and Maryland where the "Scotts Factors. . .have generallybeendisappointed in receiving their usual supplies of Goods last Fall & this Spring" stimulated . business in Philadelphia during the summer of 1773 . The imp rove! ment was merely temporary, for in September 1773 William Pol­ lard used the following dolorous terms to describe the state of the Philadelphia dry goods trade to his employers in Manchester: the Trade is bad beyond description, there are too many Persons in Business, the Consequence is, they import a greater quantity of goods than the Consumption requires, & everyone finding himself overstock they have reduced their Prices time after time in hopes of getting their Goods off, (a very false Notion) in order to keep Credit on your side the Water, till nothing is got by the trade the Merchts & their families must live, Profit or no Profit, the Consequences you may de­ pend will be a terrible Crush some where, many of the steady People in Trade here are laying on

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125

their Oars doing little or nothing & many declare they will import no more goods. James and Drinker joined in Pollard's complaints about the state of the trade in 1773.43 The clouds of gloom surroundingthe sale of English goods lifted somewhat during 1774, the last year covered by this study. At the beginning of the year, to be sure, Jamesand Drinker classified the dry goods merchants as "poor” and "suffering." By March, however, a note of moderate optimism had crept into their letters. At that time they admitted that "our saleshave been such as we cannot com­ plain of considering how difficult it is to break through the many injudicious Habits which have for 2 or 3 Years past crept in amongst the dry goods importers ." A cargo worth about £1,000 sterling would, they wrote, leave a "desirable benefit." By June, they were obliged to turn down an order for dry goods from another colony, because "our very large Sales during the late Spring hath left our Store very thinly furnished .”44 Imports during 1774 were indeed very large, but this was probably as much in anticipation of the ban on imports imposed by the Continental Association of 1774 as it was a reflection of any fundamental improvement in the demand for dry goods. Before attempting an analysis of this recitation of the woes of the Philadelphia dry goods importers in the years before the Revo- I lution, it should be noted that they were not alone in their com­ plaints. Merchants in other cities, especially in the northern col­ onies, were equally forceful in stating their grievances duringthe pre-revolutionary decade. Obviously no complete survey can be undertaken here, but a few examples may suffice to make the point. A New Yorker, writing in 1764, characterized the trade of his city as "quite stagnated," while William Pollard, who did much travel­ ling between New York and Philadelphia, reported that the trade of the former was even worse than that of Philadelphia in 1773 .45 Bos­ tonians voiced similar complaints. In 1771 one of them wrote that there was no business at all going on in town and that he could not "help being of opinion the trade of thisgrt Town is on the Decline ." Another Bostonian seconded this opinion in 1773, remarking that goods were selling at such low rates that the consequences must be "fatal.” "Almost every voice," he added, utters complaints, and we are straining every Nerve in Rivalship & Competition .”46 The familiar phraseology of these complaints from New York and Bos­ ton indicates that merchants there suffered from, or at least thought they suffered from the same ills which beset the Philadelphia im­ porters during the same period . If all of these mercantile complaints were to be taken at face value, it would be difficult to escape the conclusion that Philadelphia,

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The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Fniladelphia

if not the American colonies as a whole, was an economic wilder­ ness in the years just before the Revolution. Indeed, many writers • on colonial history, eager to discover some connection between general colonial economic conditions and the rise of the revolutionary movement, have probably generalized these cries of mercantile distress into accounts of a severe colonial depression which they in turn relate to the economic effects of British policies in the per­ iod after 1763. Such generalizations may have resulted in a dis­ tortion of the true economic picture of the colonies in the years when the revolutionary movement was taking shape in response to new measures of British colonial policy. It would be idle to deny that there were economic problems in Pennsylvania and the other colo­ nies after the end of the French and Indian War, but it is equally important to take note of considerable evidence which indicates that the pre-revolutionary years were ones of growth and prosperity in Pennsylvania at least, if not in the other colonies as well. In the city of Philadelphia itself the years between the French and Indian War and the outbreak of the Revolution saw an enormous growth in population, as the most detailed history of the city points out. Other evidences of prosperity and growth during the same years were the paving and lighting of the city streets, the building of many new wharves on the waterfront, and the greatly increased rents yielded by the stalls in the city markets. The silversmiths of the city peti­ tioned for the establishment of an assay office to weigh and testtte fineness of the increased quantities of precious metal coming into the city. 47 Nor was the apparent air of prosperity and growth confined to the city. There was, to be sure, some evident distress caused by the scarcity of circulating cash after the effects of the Currency Act of 1764 had begun to make themselves felt. But agricultural exports stayed at high levels after the end of the war. Even though the West Indies market may have expanded little, if at all, during this period, the emergence of south Europe as a regular, reliable and large market for Philadelphia wheat and flour provided an outjet for increased production. Prices of agricultural commodities therefore remained generally high until the Revolution; despite short-term fluctuations, they never dropped to pre-war levels. The merchants, of course, complained bitterly about these high prices; but they continued, nevertheless, to buy and to export the wheat, corn, meat, lumber, and flour produced by Pennsylvania's farms, forests, and mills .48 Not only did the farmers find a ready sale for the produce of their farms, but the value of their lands increased by leaps and bounds as well. One observer noted that land values in a newlyopened tract in the backcountry had doubled within a year .4? This

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was perhaps not an unusual phenomenon in an agricultural com­ munity with a rapidly expanding population, but it helps to empha­ size the general prosperity of rural Pennsylvania which caused one Philadelphia merchant to remark, "I would advise no Person to come to America at present, without they go to farming that is the best Trade that is going here ."50 Contemporary commentators, especially those notdirectly con­ nected with the mercantile community, took note and were proud of the general prosperity and progress of the province, both urban and ; rural. Chief Justice William Allen, for example, proudly reported 1 in 1766 that the province was flourishing and that its continued growth and improvement would cause it to be the "wonder of the world." A clergyman, writing in 1773 when mercantile complaints were at a peak, asserted that "Pennsylvania still preserves its superiority over every other partof America. . . .this Province is full of People ; and encreases in inhabitants & wealth every day." Even the mer- I chants, if they could have been induced to raise their eyes from their ledgers and look around them, might have agreed with Abel James when he admitted in 1772 that " .. .abundant prosperity seems to attend this new world."51 At this very time, of course, the busi- / ness letters of the firm of James and Drinker were filled with the deepest kind of gloom . Perhaps it may be asserted on the basis of this evidence that 1 economic distress was largely confined to the mercantile commun- ' ity. It also seems clear that the depressed conditions were, for the most part, evident in one phase of commerce: the importation j~~~ and sale of British goods . If this is so, why did the merchants then talk as if the economy of the city and province was on the verge of collapse? Partly, no doubt, it was the result of their natural ten­ dency to think of their business in terms of the dry goods trade al­ most exclusively since it was, formost of them, the source of their biggest profits when English goods were sellingwell. When the dry goods business slacked off, it was natural for them to feel that all of their business was depressed even though they might be making large amounts of money in the export trade at the same time . Something should also be said about the psychology of the colo­ nial merchant which seems to have led him to make the most of poor business conditions and to make relatively little mention of good times except perhaps in retrospect or in non-mercantile cor­ respondence . He tended to overemphasize his failures and mini­ mize his successes . This may, in part, have been deliberate pol­ icy, calculated to keep his correspondents from thinking that his prosperity warranted taking undue advantage of him. In any event, it is always wise to cast a skeptical eye on complaints about hard times, losses in trade, difficulty of collecting debts, and the like..

128

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The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

James and Drinker, for example, were amongthose who complained most about depression in the 1760's; yet in 1764 they admitted that they expected to make about twelve and one half percent profit on their trade which is surely an adequate remuneration by modern standards ,^2 Furthermore, it must be remembered that the habit of com­ plaining about conditions in the dry goods trade was not acquired only after 1763; as we have seen, their correspondence during most of die eighteenth century was filled with allegations of depressed conditions in the trade . In spite of such complaints the dry goods trade, as well as all others, registered a continuous growth during the eighteenth century as a whole . Even in the years of "depres­ sion,” 1763-1774, most of the major houses in Philadelphia stayed in business and continued to import goods from England. Still, when all of these modifying factors are taken into consid­ eration, it would be difficult to deny that the dry goods traders were in some distress in the pre-revolutionary period. No doubt they found it difficult to adjust to the slower sales and lower profit margins which prevailed after the lush years of the wartime boom. A scarcity of circulating cash made it difficult for them to collect their outstanding debts and, in turn, caused them to be lax in their remittances to England. At the same time, they had to pay high prices for the goods they bought from the farmers for export and also for the bills of exchange which they used in making their pay­ ments to England. These conditions caused the failure of a number of small traders and a few large houses who had extended their enterprises beyond the limits warranted by their resources. In relation to the major point of this chapter, however, it is . of greatest importance to note that in their private correspondence the merchants rarely blamed their difficulties on British commercial and colonial policies after 1763. At most, they expressed the view that these policies added to, or made more complex, the ills from which they already suffered. In general, the reasons they cited for the poor conditions of trade were much the same both before and after the French and Indian War: the English merchants were too liberal in extending credit to importers, especially to those whose resources did not warrant it; there were too many merchants in England trying to dispose of goods in the colonies;'there were too many people in business in Philadelphia who with little capital and I less knowledge of sound business practices imported far more goods than could be disposed of at profitable prices within the province/ ' laxity of the regulations for public auctions encouraged strangers to venture into the trade of the city/there was too little cash circu, lating within the province. Of these problems, only the shortage of cash could be related to British policy through the operation of the

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Currency Act of 1764 which deprived the province of the power to , make legal tender issues of paper currency. Otherwise, the causes i of the "depression," as the merchants saw them, were such as had very little connection with the control exercised by the British gov­ ernment over the commerce of the colony. If this is true, it then seems reasonable to express doubt about the general validity of the thesis that holds that it was the merchants, reacting to allegedly harmful British economic policies after 1763, who were largely re­ sponsible for the creation of the Americanrevolutionarymovement.

10 .

I

Illegal Trade and Resistance to Customs Enforcement

If it is relevant to discuss general economic conditions in Phil­ adelphia as a prelude to a consideration of British policy after 1763 and its effect on Philadelphia commerce, it is equally relevant to ; discuss the questions of illegal trade and resistance to customs I officers in Philadelphia with the same considerations in mind . In ' fact, this aspectof the questionmay have been overemphasized; for historians of colonial America have almost universally considered this kind of activity solely as an American reaction to the Naviga­ tion Acts and to the other restrictions imposed on colonial trade by the mother country. If the writer believes that these acts were in­ jurious to colonial economic interests, then he is likely to assert that the acts were widely evaded and that the evasion was intended ,as a protest against the principle of regulation itself. Thus, Hanna insists that the merchants of the Delaware trade area systematically and regularly evaded British regulations so that " . . .the authority of the vice-admiralty courts and custom houses of the district was completely nullified."1 If, on the other hand, one believes that the Navigation Acts were beneficial, or at least recognized natural con­ ditions of trade, then one is apt to assert that there was compara­ tively little illicit trade in the colonies.2 To think thus of smuggling in the American colonies as a spe­ cific colonial reaction to a system of commercial control imposed by the mother country, may introduce acertain amountof distortion into the picture . Viewed in this light, the smuggler tends to be come a heroic patriot risking his capital and perhaps his life to assert the principle of colonial freedom as against tyrannical con­ trols imposed by the enemies of American liberty. Probably no American smuggler or rioter against customs enforcement would

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have rejected this flattering characterization, but it is doubtful if | very many of them thought of themselves consciously in this light. , If they had any self-conscious attitude at all, it was probably to re­ gard themselves simply as business men who were willing to tale extra risks in order to have the chance to make extra profits. It should be remembered, too, that the mother country, to whose wel­ fare the whole Navigation System was presumably directed, had a serious smuggling problem of her own, so serious, in fact, that the British government itself had, in 1745, been reduced to the ex­ pedient of offering amnesty to its smugglers if they would come out and disclose their methods of operation. 3 The moral of this, if ary ' there be, seems to be that where there are laws, men will befcund to evade them when there is profit in doing so. Probably there will never be any substantial agreement about the extent of smuggling and illicit trade in the American colonies . Records simply do not exist to give an accurate (or any) statistical picture of smuggling in relation to trade carried on within legal channels. The most that can be said is that the Acts were evaded by some colonials at all times, but the great bulk of the trade of most of the colonies was probably carried on within the framework provided by British commercial legislation. Philadelphia traders and shipowners, along with those in other colonial ports, engaged in a certain amount of evasion of the Navi­ gation Acts and the Molasses Act. Probably most of this smuggling had to do, one way or another, with the West Indies . The reasons for this are obvious: for one thing, the Molasses Act, undoubtedly the most onerous of the British restrictions from the colonial point of view, involved West Indian products; for another, the small ves­ sels widely used in the West Indies trade were also the most suited to the techniques used by the illegal traders in bringing their cargos into the mainland colonies. The import of foreign molasses with-\ out paying the six pence per gallon duty imposed by the Molasses Act was unquestionably the most widespread instance of illegal trade in Philadelphia as it was in the other colonial ports. Philadelphia , of course, imported far less molasses than did the New England ports; and therefore the temptation to evade the Act was far less powerful for Philadelphians than it was for New Englanders. Yet large quantities of foreign molasses, beyond question, did come into Philadelphia without paying the required duty A It should be noted that smuggling of molasses, in Philadelphia at least, virtually ceased after the passage of the Revenue Act of 1766 which reduced the duty on molasses to a purely nominal level and applied it equally to British as well as foreign molasses. For­ mer smugglers of foreign molasses apparently found it no longer worthwhile to run the risks of smuggling to avoid the payment of so

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The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

small a duty. This assertion is borne out by the case of Thomas Richd, an inveterate smuggler, who encouraged shipments of mo­ lasses from the foreign islands after 1766 with the remark that the "duty is only 1 d p gallon."5 Foreign sugar was also frequently imported into Philadelphia without the payment of the duty. Illegal trade in this commodity perhaps reached a peak in the mid-1750's, to judge by the letters of Charles and Thomas Willing which contain many references to virtually open sales of French sugars on the Philadelphia market during these years. The Willings claimed that French sugar was so plentiful and cheap during these years that it almost drove the English product off the market.6 During the war, French sugar continued to be readily available in Philadelphia; but much of this was legitimately brought in by privateers and condemned as prize goods. Foreign supplies remained relatively plentiful even after the war had ended, at least until 1764 when James and Drinker noted that the passage of the Sugar Act together with the increased vigi­ lance of the customs officers and the sharp watch kept by the naval vessels should discourage the illegal import of foreign sugars and "of course make the Importation of that Article, from our English Islands, an object more worth the attention of our Fair Traders ."7 Yet these measures did not entirely stop the smuggling of sugar into Philadelphia, for the very next year Thomas Riche? told his brother, who was on a voyage to St. Croix, that sugar prices were very high in Philadelphia and advised him, "if you morage all you have in the world Send a Cargoofthe bestSugar you can get." That he had no intention of payingthe duties is shownby his order to have the ship sent to Salem in New Jersey rather than to Philadelphia .8 Most of the rum used in Philadelphia came in legally from the British islands or from the centers of continental rum distilling in New England. Nevertheless, there was some smuggling of this product. Imports of foreign rum were entirely prohibited after the passage of the Sugar Act of 1764. Since there were no duties on English rum, the price of foreign rum had to be very low in the place of its origin in order to induce smugglers to venture in this commodity. The French islands produced virtually no rum, but small quantities from the Dutch and Danish islands were illegally imported into Philadelphia. According to one report, however, few traders other than those from New England dared to load rum in the foreign islands .9 Molasses, sugar, and rum were the most important native West Indian goods imported illegally into Philadelphia; but the tempting access to free ports in the Dutch and Danish islands encouraged tie smuggling of some other goods as well. The ones most often men­ tioned were spirits of various kinds, especially gin and brandy.

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Peter Gurley, writing from St. Eustatius to Thomas Richd, offered to send him gin and brandy, pointing out that "its an easy matter to Conceal them with fustickthey may be stowed afore and afte and the Wood in the Center to prevent Suspetion if you Mannag having landed in a bye place I flatter my Selfe greateadvantages will accrue: why cant we do as I am Sencible others do in that affair." On anothe r occasion, Richd ordered one of his captains to bring back "fifty cases of best Hollon ginn Stowd afore or aff out of sight."10 Phila­ delphia smugglers also imported tea from the Dutch islands upon occasion, but most of the illicit supplies of this beverage probably came in through other channels .H Philadelphia also carried on some illegal trade with the con- j tinent of Europe . From south Europe this took the form of imports I of wines and fruit directly from Spainand Portugalas well as mana- ) factored goods, principally luxury items, of various kinds . Even. John Reynell, who would surely have considered himself a "fair trader,” once ordered a shipment of lemons, cacao, and forty doxn silk handkerchiefs in partnership with Israel Pemberton, Jr., another Quaker "fair trader ." Still another pious Quaker, Thomas Wharton, at various times ordered small shipments of chinaware, silk stock- i ings, velvet, and wine from Lisbon and Teneriffe . Tea was another ! product occasionally brought illegally into Philadelphia from south Europe; on one occasion Willing and Morris ordered a very large shipment of tea valued at £2,000 sterling from their Lisbon cor­ respondents . 12 Such a valuable shipment of any product from south Europe was the exception rather than the rule; more common were small quantities of luxury goods which may have been primarily for the personal or family use of the merchants rather than for sale in their stores. One of the largest-scale smuggling ventures recorded in the papers of the Philadelphia merchants involved south Europe . This scheme originated in 1760 when the younger Joseph Shippen proposed to take a pleasure trip to England and to combine it with business by bringing back a cargo of dry goods for sale in Philadelphia. His brother, Edward, mentionedthe plan to William A lien who suggest e d that it would be far more profitable to take a cargo of sugar to Leg­ horn, for "the Returns from the Streights would be in such Com­ modities as would yield 3 or 400 pct profit." The voyage eventually developed along these lines. The Shippen brothers each contributed L750; William Allen, L2,000; Mr .Coxe, L750; George Bryan, L750; Thomas Willing, L500; and Mr. Stephens, L500, making L6,000 in all. Joseph Shippen sailed as supercargo, and the vessel arrived in Leghorn in July 1760. The market for sugar there was fair, but not so high as had been expected. The ship returned to Philadelphia with unspecified manufactured goods to the value of L2.100 sterling,

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purchased in Leghorn, Barcelona, and Malaga. George Bryan was commissioned to sell the cargo in Philadelphia; he was reported to be "as busy, as so lazy a man can be” at this task. The investors hoped that the sale of tiie sugar in Leghorn would net them at least L300 sterling more than the cost of the return cargo in addition to the large profits they hoped to realize on the sale of the European goods in Philadelphia. Unfortunately, no final report on the outcome of this venture appears in the Shippen Papers. 3 There is also evidence of some illegal trade between Philadel­ phia and ports on the continentof Europe north of Cape Finisterre. John Kidd reported the existence of a regular trade in loaf sugar brought into Philadelphia from the French port of Bordeaux in the years just before the French and Indian War began. Most of the ships carrying on this business were Irish ships bound for Phila­ delphia to pick up flaxseed. Having no suitable Irish goods to take to Htiladelphia, they put in at Bordeaux to pick up the sugar. The war put an end to this trade at least temporarily, but after the war was over at least one Philadelphia vessel made a similar trip. The owner of the vessel was that indefatigable smuggler, Thomas Riche, and the illegal cargo from Bordeaux this time consisted of "1/3 in Bersalona Hankercheifs & bestof silk Stocking a few pieces of good cambricks & the Remainder in What you Judge best Do not forgett some good Clarett."14 Tea was the product most regularly smuggled into Hiiladelphia from the Netherlands, and the great bulk of it came in the "Palatine ships" which brought German immigrants from Holland in such great numbers, especially in the early 1750's. Dutch tea also came into Philadelphia from the Isle of Man where the Dutch deposited it to be picked up by colonial ships on the way home from Ireland. This "damb'd counterband trade" in tea, said one merchant, threat­ ened entirely to ruin legal imports from England.-13 This same irate importer, John Kidd, must have overcome his scruples against the illegal trade with Holland; for in 1762 he sent one of his own ships to Amsterdam for a cargo of unspecified goods . He even had the effrontery to write to London for insurance on this illegal cargo, instructing his factor there, " . . .as you know all these goods that are shipped at Amsterdam are all counterband you must pick out such Underwriters on whose honour you can depend for pay­ ment (notwithstanding they are not Lawfull goods) in case of loss." Still later, Kiddat least planned to openan illicit trade with Sweden, where he supposed that "something might be done to advantage in that way especially in time of peace .” Thomas Riche, who left no stone unturned in searching out illegal enterprises, also ventured into the Dutch trade . He sent small consignments of goods to two Amsterdam merchants and ordered the returns to be in tea, "gen-

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evea," Frontenac, and china. He also wanted to be "advised by all Opportunitys as I have a mine to get into your trade ."16 Philadelphia's regular trade with Ireland also presented tempt­ ing opportunities for smuggling Irish goods into Philadelphia without first taking them to England for unloadingand reloading as required by the Navigation Acts. The goods most likely to be involved in this trade were Irish fabrics, mainly linens and woolens, and various! other kinds of dry goods . John Reynell reported that Irish hats and' woolens were so plentiful in Philadelphia in 1741 that they were likely,1 to drive the English product out of the market, but this must have been' either an exaggeration or a temporary situation since English wool­ ens continued throughout the colonial period to be by far the most valuable import into Riiladelphia from England .1? Irish linens were probably more tempting to smugglers than woolens; and references to direct trade in this article are frequent enough to justify a belief that such illegal importations were a fairly regular occurrence. 18 The payment of an English bounty on the re-export of Irish linens to the colonies from England tended to minimize the extent of this I trade, for many merchants found it more profitable as well as less risky to import the linens lega Uy by way of England and thus re- , ceive the benefit of the parliamentary bounty .19 Most of the smugglingof illegal goods into Philadelphia involved overseas voyages, at leastfrom the West Indies; but there was some smuggling in the coastwise trade . This was undoubtedly petty in its! extent since few of the other continental colonies had products which Philadelphia could not import either free of any duty or with the payment of the nominal "plantation duties" on enumerated goods imposed by the Navigation Act of 1673. Some tobacco was smuggled into Philadelphia from Virginia and Maryland to avoid payment of this duty, but the amounts involved cannot have been very large .20 A brisk trade in Dutch tea went on between New York and Philadel­ phia in the mid-1750's, but a vigorous enforcement campaign, per­ sonally led by Governor Robert Hunter Morris of Pennsylvania, soon put a stop to this illegal enterprise .21 Discussion of illegal trade in Philadelphia so far has concerned imports into Philadelphia. It was theoretically possible, of course, to conduct an illicit trade in export of enumerated goods to prohib­ ited areas . For Philadelphia, however, this remained pretty much1 a theoretical possibility for the simple reason that Pennsylvania had virtually no enumerated goods for export anyway. Any enumerated goods produced in the colony or acquired by trade with other areas went automatically to Great Britain to redress Fniladelphia's huge balance of trade there . One minor exception to this generalization! may be noted . The trade with South Carolina brought in more rice titan could be consumed within the colony. This surplus was avail-

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able for re-export; but, as an enumerated good, could legallybe sent only to England or to another British colony. One report from Lisbon, however, says that Philadelphia merchants often violated this restriction by sendingrice to Portugal "without a License smugled on board & clear'd out as flour .”22 The quantities of rice involved in such shipments cannot have been large enough to be of any sig­ nificance . The general freedom of Hiiladelphia's export trade in non­ enumerated goods was restricted after 1766 by the requirement in the Revenue Act of that year that no goods of any kind could be sent to continental European ports north of Cape Finisterre. There is no evidence, however, to suggest that such exports had ever been of any importance to the Philadelphia economy, nor is there any evidence to suggest that there was any attempt to evade this re­ striction in any significant way. Except possibly in years of crop failure, there wouldhave beenno real marketfor Pennsylvania pro­ duce in north European ports even without the new restriction im­ posed in 1766. Some of the evasions of the Navigation Acts which have been mentioned in this discussion can scarcely be considered smuggling in the strictest sense of the word, for they were carried on with the knowledge and consent of the customs officers who made no real attempt to halt them. It is generally, and probably correctly, as­ sumed that American customs officers, schooled in Walpole's poli­ cy of "salutary neglect," were content to allow the Molasses Act to lie as a dead letter on the statute books. Philadelphia merchants reported also that the officers of their port were very lenient re­ garding illegal imports of wine, fruit, and other products from Spain and Portugal. Thomas Wharton, for example, told a Lisbon firm that "altho’ the Wine & fruit is not free yet there never has been a seisure made of those articles in this Port, but are daily brought in and no notice taken thereof." John Kidd seconded this testimonial to the lenience of the Philadelphia officers by saying that "salt is the only commodity that's allow'd by Law to be imported from you, but our officers are so indulgent here that I can land any other Goods without any risque in the worlde." Another merchant, proposing to import tea, gin, brandy, silk handkerchiefs, and other prohibited goods from the Isle of Man, remarked that "we are happy in the freedom and Libarty of our Trade, being strangers to any interupsion from officers .”23 Such lenience, by the way, may ex­ plain the willingness of strict Quakers like John Reynell and the Pembertons to take part in this illegal trade when they were nor­ mally so scrupulous in regard to all government regulations except the obligation to bear arms . Since the officers allowed the trade to proceed unhampered, they felt, perhaps, that no violation of

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their principles was involved. It is probable that the lenience shownby the Philadelphia officers was shared, to some degree at least, by most of the members of the American customs establishment. Such official tolerance of illegal practices, wherever it existed, was pretty much a thing of the past after the publication of an Order in Council in 1763 which directed a general tightening up of customs enforcement and procedures in the American colonies . Even before the publication of this Order the Philadelphia officers had begun a campaign of stricter execution of the Navigation Acts . In part this new attitude in Philadelphia was said to have resulted from new instructions from England; but the new Deputy Collector of the port, John Swift, a former merchant, seems to have taken his duties more seriously than his predecessor had done.24 Despite the new air of strictness and attention to duty which the / merchants felt was evident in the Philadelphia customs house, the | officers freely admitted that they alone were incapable of preventing all illicit trade on the Delaware. As one of them pointed out, "the length of our Bay and River indeed putts it greatly out of our Power' to know what is transacted amongst shipping, especially as there are so many convenient Inlets and Harbours for landingas well as ang­ ling of Contraband Goods & no Custom House Officers near enough to prevent them The element missing for effective enforcement, he thought, would be supplied by the naval vessels which had just arrived in the bay to supplement the regular continental customs establishment .25 Indeed, the presence of a man-of-war cruising about the en­ trance to Delaware Bay, seemed to many people, fair traders and j smugglers alike, to sound the death knell of illegal trade . When i the vessel was expected but had not yet arrived, Thomas Ric h/ 1 boldly announced that he intended to carry on his normal smuggling enterprises with "Great Spirit." But when the man-of-war, with its tenders, actually arrived and began its enforcement duties, Rich/ sadly concluded that all trade with the foreign islands must end; for if the duties must be paid, there was no profit to be made in the trade . He also notified his Lisbon correspondents that in future die only returns from that portwould be salt, since the manof-war searched "all to go and come.” Later, he noted that "all things are carried on with such Strickness wold be most onPosable to run aney Thing."26 Rich/ was not the only one who expected il­ legal trade to come to a virtual end after the arrival of naval re­ inforcements for the customs officers . Benjamin Marshall, John Reynell, Daniel Roberdeau, and Joseph Shippen all reported the new strictness . Even Parr and Bulkeley, one of the major Lisbon firms acting as correspondents in the Philadelphia trade, were aware of a

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new regime in the Philadelphia customs house and noted that ships bound for Philadelphia would no longer take contraband goods on board for fear of seizure by the naval or customs officers when they got home .27 After the first flurry of excitement, however, the enforcement help provided by the British Navy proved to be neither as completely effective as the smugglers feared nor the fair traders hoped. The smugglers soon found that the vessels were usually put into dock in Philadelphia or elsewhere during the coldest weather which meant that hardy and enterprising smugglers could work with impunity at those times. Furthermore, the British Navy made no attempt to devote enough vessels to customs duty to watch all American ports simultaneously and continuously. Instead, vessels would be sta­ tioned off one port for a time and then would be removed and sent to another colonial port for a tour of duty. These hit-and-run tac­ tics served to keep colonial smugglers on their toes, but they cer­ tainly failed to put a complete stop to illegal trade . No vessel was on the Delaware Bay station during 1767, for example, and great quantities of tea were said to have been run into the city during this period of opportunity .28 Still, there can be no doubt that the Navy was of considerable assistance to the regular customs officers when vessels were actually on duty. Aside from the seizures made duringthe initial period of strictness in 1764-1765, the notorious schoon­ er, Gaspee (later burned by irate patriots in Rhode Island), was on the station in 1769-1771; and her captain, William Dudingston, act­ ing with what John Swift called his "usual diligence," seized several vessels for engaging in illegal trade . In so doing, he made him­ self obnoxious enough to the smugglers and to the general public to become the subject of a newspaper attack which labelled him as "cowardly and insolent," and a "Disgrace” to his commission. 29 Another vessel, the Lively, was stationed on the Delaware in 1772 and was reported to be extremely active in searching all vessels which went up or down the river .’0 The techniques used by Philadelphia smugglers are of consid­ erable interest. Like smugglers everywhere, they were men of resource, exploringand using every possible method of evading the scrutiny of the customs officers . The favorite method of the Phila­ delphia smugglers, accordingto the testimony of John Swift, was "for the vessel to come to an anchor fifteen or Twenty miles below this City and employ shallops to bring up the Cargo and land it in the night; the Vessel afterwards comes up empty & the Capta swears that he brought no goods, ncr has he broke bulk or deliver’d any­ thing out of his Vessel since he came from the port he was last at." As an instance of this practice, Swift cited the case of a brig which had come in from Fayal in November, 1767 and had remained down

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the river for several days before coming up to town. When she did come up, an officer boarded her and found nothing but stone ballast and some empty wine casks . At this time she was riding so high in the water that her topmasts had to be struck in order to keep her from overturning, and it was obvious that she could not have come across the ocean in this condition. Yetthe captaincame to the cus­ toms house and swore upon an openBible (which Swift offered to him with "trembling hand") that he had brought no cargo. Since no real evidence of the cargo could be found, Swift had no choice but to let him go with a stern warning that if any evidence was found later his ship would be seized .31 Many references to the technique of smuggling described by Swift can be found in the correspondence of Philadelphia merchants who were willing to evade the Navigation Acts . Samuel Patterson, for example, reported to a Failadelphia firm that he had ordered a vessel loaded with foreign rum to stop at Christiana Creek, near Wilmington in the Lower Counties, where "GA Shollop and Gilles­ pie's 2 to be alongside tonight and will be up with you tomorrow night." Thomas Riche's orders to a captain setting offonavoyage to south Europe to return with a cargo of illicit wines from Fayal instructed him, "on your return dispach the pilote Boat up to Markis Hook with a line to Flowers. . .to be ready & give her time to be up at least 12 hours before, get yourTakels in good order for histingout." There were, of course, risks in this operation, es­ pecially when naval vessels were present in the bay or river; and shallops were occasionally seized while carrying illicit cargos. The smugglers, however, accepted the risks as part of the game; as Samuel Patterson put it after narrowly escaping seizure by a naval vessel, "I was affraid I ashure you - but nothing Venture nothing winn ."32 If this practice of unloading the illicit cargo down the river was the most frequent method used by smugglers, it may also have been somewhat riskier than others; for it made it necessary to avoid all contact with customs officers until the smuggled goods had been safely unloaded from the ship. A safer procedure was to provide the ship and cargo with some kind of papers by which an entry could actually be made at a customshouse with some pretense of legality. Such papers could sometimes be obtained at the British port from which the ship ostensibly sailed. In the West Indies trade, for ex­ ample, it was sometimes possible to obtain a signed clearance for a whole cargo of sugar or molasses at a British port while the ship actually sailed with only a fraction of a full cargo. The rest of the cargo could then be loaded at a foreign island. When the vessel arrived at a mainland port, the captain or owner could then make a formal entry at the customs house equipped with an apparently

14 0

The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

legal clearance from a British West Indian port. This procedure re quired the collusion or negligence of the officer in the West Indies .33 Sometimes the smuggler was able to provide himself with forged dockets or with genuine ones which had previously been used by some other shipper. He then instructed his captain or the shipper of his illicit goods to mark the cases orcasks in conformity with the num­ bers on the docket. He could then enter the goods at the Philadel­ phia customs house with at least the hope, if not the assurance, that the Philadelphia officer would accept the forged or used docket as valid evidence of legal shipment of the goods from anEnglish port.34 Another common device was to look for a customs officer in some American port who had an elastic conscience and an open purse. The vessel with the contraband cargo on board would then stop at this port on the way to Philadelphia; the corrupt collector would al­ low the illicit goods to enter his port and would then issue a valid clearance certifying thatthe goodson board had legallybeen brought into his port as English goods. The vessel would then proceed to Philadelphia where the officer would have no choice but to accept the valid clearance of his fellow customs officer even though he might suspect the foreign origin of the goods . Our old friend, Thomas Rich/, was especially active in using this method to protect his illegal enterprises. Word reached him in 1759 that the collector in New London, Connecticut was willing to do business on this basis; soon two of his vessels coming from Hispaniola with contraband cargos had orders to put in at that port to pick up clearances from the customs house there . In further ventures of this kind, Richdwas able to refine the technique so that his vessels never had to put in at New London. The collector there simply sent signed clearances, with blank spaces left for the names of the ships, the cargos, and the dates, in the mail to Philadelphia; and Rich/ gave them to his ships as they entered Delaware Bay. Riche, of course, was not the only smuggler to make use of the obliging New London collector; in fact, he complained bitterly when the gentleman raised his price to 150 dollars for each clearance and warned that so many of them were being issued that they would not "pass currant" any longer .35 Following this complaint, Richd seems to have made no further use of New London clearances for his vessels . His search for cor­ ruptible customs officers continued, however, and he was able to procure two clearances from the collector of one of the Virginia astoms districts. To make use of these, Richd instructed the masters of two of his vessels coming in from Hispaniola with illicit cargos, to put in at the North Cape of Virginia where they were to go ashore alone to make a pretense of enteringthe ships at the customs house in order to deceive the crews. The ships were then to proceed to

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Philadelphia where the false clearances would be waiting for them.36 Richd' also bought at least one blank clearance in North Carolina, but this venture boomeranged on the enterprising smuggler. The surveyor-general of the North American district of the customs happened to be in the Philadelphia area on a tour of inspection at the time Rich^attempted to enter a cargo of wines at Salem, New Jersey, under the protection of the North Carolina clearance. Suspicious of the clearance, the surveyor ordered the Salem collector to seize Richd's cargo. The indignant Philadelphia smuggler refused to pay the "66.5" which the collector wanted for the clearance, for "it will be anuff to Suffer the loss & not pay for this unhappy clearance that was the cause ."37 Smugglers also attempted to corrupt customs officers in the Philadelphia district itself. As Richard Wain pointed out, "our‘ Smuglers find it safest to employ those who are appointed to pre­ vent the trade ."38 This indictment was particularly applicable to the smaller ports of entryon the Delaware: Lewes, Newcastle, and Salem. With a very slight volume of trade coming through their customs houses under normal circumstances, the officers of these ports were especially vulnerable to corruption by the smugglers. Philadelphia officers were always aware of the problem created by the existence of these smaller ports of entry within the general trading area served by the major port, especially after the reforms of 1763 had caused the Philadelphia customs house to abandon its former lenience. An example of the kind of use which the smugglers might make of the smaller ports is recorded in a complaint which John Swift sent to the collector of Salem, noting tku«. his colleague at the New Jersey port had recently cleared several ships to Phila­ delphia with certificates affirming that their cargos of sugar and molasses were British produce. But if their cargos were really British in origin, Swift wondered, why should they have been taken to Salem in the first place when their ultimate destination was Fniladelphia, just a few miles up the river from the tiny Jersey port? The answer was obvious to Swift: either the Salem collector was closing his eyes to illegal trade or else he had been "very much imposed on" by the traders.39 Perhaps Swift's complaintsled to the removal of the corrupt or indulgent Salem collector. In any event, there was soon a new col­ lector, John Hatton by name, at the New Jersey port. From Swift's point of view, however, he was no improvement over his predeces­ sor . Swift, in fact, formally charged Hatton with being in league with smugglers. The burden of Swift's charge against Hatton wa s essentially the same as his complaint against the former collector : vessels from foreign ports, loaded with sugar, molasses, or wine, frequently made their entries at Salem although”in that part of Jer-

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The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

sey. . .there are neither merchants, nor any vessels that go to Sea, nor warehouses to receive aCargo ofthat kind of goods." The ves­ sels came up to Gloucester Point, just below Philadelphia, where they transshipped their cargo into river boats and then came up to the city with clearances from Hatton at Salem. S>vift was convinced that there must be some reason for this cumbersome and expensive procedure, for "the transshipping & bringing Goods from Glouces­ ter to this City must be attended with considerable expence, which would be saved if the Vessel came directly to this Port; so that it is reasonable to suppose that some illegal advantages are obtained by entering at Salem." To complete the picture of corruption at the smaller Delaware ports, the collectors at Newcastle and Lewes were charged with practices similar to those of which Hatton at Salem was said to be guilty .40 Of those charged with corruption, Hatton, at least, went to great lengths to deny the allegations againsthim . Swift, of course , had a vested interest in seeing as many ships as possible enter at Philadelphia; for his income came only from fees and forfeitures. If there were no other evidence of malpractices in the smaller Del­ aware ports, Swift's charges might have to be viewed with sus­ picion. In this case, however, there is evidence in the letters of the smugglers themselves that they really did prefer to deal with the officers of the minor ports for the very reasons which Swift had surmised in his charges against them . When Thomas Riche was using the fraudulently issued clearances from New London, he al­ ways entered the ships at Newcastle, where "there is a Collektor who knows no better wheather Rale or not." In other letters he clearly indicated that pure ignorance was not the only reason for the indulgent attitude of the Newcastle collector: "I am well ac­ quaint d with the Collecktor, & will not ask any questions. . .as Mr. Till & I have connections aney thing will go down." Soon the "con­ nections" were so strong that Richd was able to boast that "I am on such tearmswith Mr . Till that the coular of aClearanceis anuff."41 John Hatton's protestations of innocence of any wrongdoing seem sincere and convincing enough when taken at face value; but the letters of Thomas Riche provide convincing evidence that Swift's charges were indeed well-founded. The connection between Hatton and the Philadelphia smuggler began before the former had even taken up his duties. Armed with a hint from one of his New York friends, Riche undertookto entertainMr . and Mrs . Hatton in Phila­ delphia on their way to Salem . After showing them "all the Complysence in mypower," he graciously escorted Mrs . Hatton to"Sailam" in a "Carrage" while Mr. Hatton remained in Philadelphia on business . Fortunately all of the favors which Riche showered on the Hattons were not wasted; for within a few months, Riche began to

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order his vessels to make their entries at Salem.42 While Swift fretted about the illegal practices of his colleagues in the minor Delaware ports, there were always some of his own subordinates in the Philadelphia customs house who were not above accepting bribes from the smugglers, as Swift himself was well aware . One such instance occurred in 1756 when Governor Morris was personally conductinga campaign against Dutch tea being smug­ gled in from New York. In the words of Thomas Wharton, one of the consignees of a shipment of tea which had narrowly escaped seizure by the governor and the collector, " . . .the Collector’s Clark was very serviceable in the Affair . .. .had it not been for him ap­ prehend should have suffer'd, and as the other Factors here have permission to present something to him should be glad to know thy mind thereon." In reply, Wharton's New York principal authorized him to give the cleikwhatever he thought was sufficient for "a ll civilitys of that kind ."43 The initiative in this instance seems to have come from the clerk himself who volunteered the information about the searches and then received his reward from the grateful merchants. The Customs House papers do not show if Swift ever found out about this instance of treachery within his own official family, but he did later secure evidence that one George Ross, the "tide sur­ veyor" of the port was "in league with several persons concern'd in fraudulent and Illicit practices to the prejudice of his Majesty's Revenue, and that you have been corrupted by Bribes to countenance and connive at such proceedings'.' ActinguponSwift'sformal charge against Ross, the Board of Customs Commissioners at Boston re­ moved the surveyor from his post. The removal of Ross, however, did not solve the problem of findingan honest and competent person to fill the vacant post, as Swift sadly noted; for " . . .whoever under­ takes to discharge it wth fidelity must have a great deal of resolu­ tion to withstand temptation; if a small sum will not do a large one will be given till he is corrupted & when once that is effected he will be of no further use; he must ever after do as his corrupters bid him ."44 Discussion of the ease of smuggling in Philadelphia and the neg­ ligence and corruption of some of the very officers supposed to en­ force the Navigation Acts might lead, if taken out of context, to the erroneous conclusion that illegal trade was the rule rather than the exception and that most of the merchants systematically and dili­ gently evaded the trade laws and customs regulations. To set the picture in proper perspective, the probable predominance of "fair traders" among the Philadelphia merchants should be strongly em­ phasized . These men prided themselves on their scrupulous obed­ ience to all of the laws and regulations. Prominent among them

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The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

were the Quakers who. made a definite point to abide by the regu­ lations and made this clear in their instructions to their factors and in their sailing orders to the captains of their ships. A typical set of orders from John Reynellto one of his captains setting out on a voyage to Antigua reminds him to "bring no goods on frt or other­ wise, but what can be legally shipt& is enter'd & clear’d according to law." Confronted later on with an opportunity to share with one of his English correspondents in a smuggling venture, Reynell re­ fused to participate in it because such dealing were "contrary to my principles.”4^ Abel James and Henry Drinker, likewise stal­ wart Quakers, were just as unequivocal in their stand against il­ licit trade . Their instructions to this effect to their ship captains going to the West Indies were perhaps even more explicit than Reynell’s: "not to bring any Contraband or Prohibited Goods - or ary article that is not full cleared out at the Custom House in the West Indies," and to "be very careful that nothing illicit is done & that all duties imposed by Act of Parliament are paid, or the Goods Shipp’d in that open way wch becomes the fair Trader ." When they ventured into the Leghorn market in 1774, they ordered the captain to obey all of the Navigation Acts and reminded him that "we have ever been very careful to guard against any infringements of those Laws and do wish all concern'd with us may never depart from our uniform practice of adhering to a legal trade ,"46 As an example of a non-Quaker who adhered strictly to British laws and regulations in conducting his trade, the case of Daniel ( Roberdeau may be cited. Unlike Reynell, James, and Drinker who | were men of fundamentally conservative outlook and temperament, Roberdeau was an ardent patriot in the developing struggle with the smother country and ultimately became an officer in the Revolution­ ary Army. With these views, Roberdeau might easily have taken refuge behind the mask of patriotism in explaining any participation in illegal trade ventures. Yet he was able towrite that "I can truly say in all my Trade I never gave the least cause for suspicion,” and he warned a firm in Curasao who wanted to employ him as a factor that he was willing to serve them only "within the laws of trade ."4? His letterbook gives no indication that these claims were anything but the whole truth. Roberdeau’s steadfast adherence to fair trading is made even more impressive when it is noted that practically all of Roberdeau's dealings were with the West Indies where the temp­ tations to smuggle were probably the greatest. There were enough such people in Philadelphia to enable the officers of the port to as­ sure the Board of Customs Commissioners in 1768 that smuggling was by no means a "Generalpractice, the large sums we have col­ lected for duties since Septr, 1764 are a proof to the contrary.” At the same time the officers admitted that "if smuggling should

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once become fashionable it would not be in our power to prevent it, / because of the difficulty of detecting offenders .”48 If Swift may be considered a reliable judge, the amount of il- . legal trade did begin to increase as the struggle between Great Bri- [ tain and the colonies increased in intensity . In 1771 Swift was forced to the opinion that" smuggling was never carried to such a height as it has been lately. I do believe there has been more goods smuggled into this Port within the last six months than there was before in as many years." Even more noticeable to Swift was the changing at­ titude on the part of the mercantile community with which he had always maintained friendly relations . "The Officers of the Customs are but few," he sadly remarked, ”& they have to contend with the whole body of the Merch ts many of whom think it no crime to cheat the King of his Duties.” Even more despondent was the tone of a letter written two years later: "In this Country an Officer of the Customs ought to see his way clear before he ventures to make a seizure, because he is very sure to have every possible difficulty thrown in his way; he is looked upon as an enemy to the community, & is treated accordingly and whether he succeeds or not is sure never to be forgiven and thinks himself very fortunate if his pun­ ishment is defer'd to a future day .”49 Undoubtedly Swift looked upon I these developments as symptoms of growing colonial resentment ' against Great Britain, although he did not specifically say so in the t letters. Customs officers, of course, we re in a particularly' vulnerable position since they were among the few royal officials to come in daily contact with any considerable segment of the people and since the laws and regulations they enforced were the most tangible expression of British authority over the colonies. These considerations may apply with special force to Philadelphia and Penn­ sylvania in contrast to the royal colonies. For the latter, the gov­ ernor, directly appointed by the Crown, was an even loftier and more direct symbol of British authority, Some of the resentment directed against the governor in the royal colonies may have been heaped upon the Philadelphia customs officers simply by default. Concrete expressions of resentment toward British authority in general and customs officers in particular were contained in attacks upon and attempts to hamper the routine work and collection of fees by the Philadelphia customs officers . An extreme instance of this, kin'd of attack is contained in a charge by "B" in a newspaper article published in 1768 that any collection of feesby customs officers was equivalent to Parliamentary taxation since it was by Acts of Parlia­ ment that vessels were required to enter and clear at the customs houses. "If this is a constitutional taxation, " he charged, "the Pa rliament may establish fifty officers in every port, with what fees they shall judge proper, and by this single authority, may distress

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us to what degree they please ."50 n0 one seems to have taken this charge seriously, but in 1769 there was an attempt to show that the customs officers were taking fees over and above those prescribed by provincial law. Contained in a newspaper report and purporting to originate with "a number of merchants," the charges included a challenge to the officers to deny the allegations. If the accusations proved to be correct, said the "merchants," "we cannot doubt but the merchants of the city will exert their usual good sense and firm­ ness to relieve themselves from such of the above charges as are "51 Although this ac­ found really grievous and unwarrantable . .. ."51 cusation seems more substantial than the previous allegation that paying fees to customs officers was equivalent to Parliamentary taxation, it, too, failed to raise any concerted campaign of resist­ ance to the payment of the fees. The merchants were, however, seriously disturbed by an effort to force them to pay fees to an officer called the searcher of the port, apost established by the American Board of Customs Com­ missioners after they took over control of the American customs establishment in 1768. The searcher, William Shepherd by name, insisted that no vessel could load without his written permission. Of course he expected a fee for issuingand signing the loading per­ mits . Such permits to load had never been used in the Philadelphia customs house, but the merchants expressed themselves as being perfectly willing to use them. Paying him a fee was another mat­ ter. Such fees could be authorized only by act of Parliament or Assembly, and the merchants challenged Shepherd to show them any statute which said that fees must be paid to a searcher. The merchants finally agreed to pay the fees if the lawyers of the pro­ vince said that he was entitled to them. While awaiting the legal opinion, Shepherd signed several of the loading permits and then became enraged when the merchants refused to pay the fees. By this time, the case had become something of a popular issue, and Shepherd was treated to a sample of rude popular opposition to his pretensions in the form of an anonymous letter which warned him that if he persisted in his attempt to execute his office, "your per­ son and life will be in great danger; if you continue in it you must blame yourself for the consequences. I wish you well in another employment." Convinced that the chief officers of the port were in collusion with the merchants in opposition to his claims, Shepherd finally departed for Boston in November 1768 in order to make a personal appeal to the Customs Commissioners. Shepherd seems to have beenaprotegS of one of the commissioners; for when he returned to Philadelphia in the spring of 1769, his hand was strengthened by an additional commission as surveyor as well as searcher of the

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port. Moreover, the commissioners provided Swift with an opinion written by Robert Auchmuty, judge of the district court of vice-ad­ miralty at Bostor. to the effect that Shepherd was entitled to fees for the signing of the permits to load. The Philadelphia merchants countered this with their own legal opinion signed by the most prom-, inent lawyers of Pennsylvania, Benjamin Chew, Joseph Galloway, and' John Dickinson, which stated thatthere was no warrant for the pay­ ment of fees to this officerand that the collector would be liable for a civil suit if he refused to clear out vessels because the owners had not paid the searcher's fees . Faced with the ire of the com missioners on the one hand and the threat of a civil suit on the other,' Swift asked the advice of the inspector-general, John Williams, who happened to be in town at the time . Williams gave him written in-] structions to clear out vessels as usual until the commissioners had time to see the opinion of the Philadelphia lawyers. There the mat-> ter rested when further decision was rendered unnecessary by a riot, not directly connected with the issue, in which Shepherd was severely injured and after which he fled to Boston in fear of his life. He made no effort to return to his disputed post, and the commis­ sioners made no attempt to fill the vacancy. Still another symptom of public and mercantile impatience with' the enforcement of customs regulations was the growing hostility) toward those who, for money or other reasons, turned informer, in aid of the customs officers . Informers undoubtedly bore a much! heavier weight of public resentment than was expressed toward the customs officers themselves. Thus, when Samuel Patterson, shal- J lop owner and smuggler, narrowly escaped seizure by the officers, he wrote his friend Levi Hollingsworth in Philadelphia asking him to "Try to find out Mr. Informer Till I see him phaps I may have some opportunity to oblige him for his Real Services.” Just a year later the same Patterson was in the positionof havingto defend him­ self against an accusation of informing, and the vehemence of his denial shows how seriously he regarded the charge: "I do hereby declare before God & you, I never did to you, you must know I never did." Even more impassioned and impressive is the cry of another man whom Levi Hollingsworth had publicly accused of being an in­ former: I have the mortification of being charged here . . . with the odious and detestable name of an Inform er & that you are the person to whom I am indebted for the character . .. .1 cannot be persuaded or even suppose that you would attempt, in socruela man­ ner, the robbing one, who had not willingly or knowingly offended or injured you, of what...is dearer than Life, that of his good Name & the

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Esteem of his Friends ... .It is needless for me, Sir, to take notice of the deserv'd Consequences attending a Report of this Nature, when true, nor need I observe to you the affects such have with the rash & violent part of Mankind even when groundless .53 Increasing difficulties in the legal procedures connected with customs enforcement also testified to the growing strain in the imperial-colonial relationship. Pennsylvania customs officers found themselves unable to obtain permanent writs of assistance from the Supreme Court of the province . Dubious themselves of the legality and wisdom of such general warrants, the Philadelphia officers applied for them only in accordance with the most explicit orders of their superiors in the Bostonheadquarters of the American customs service . Chief Justice William Allen refused to grant the perpetual writs on the ground that such a "dormant General War­ rant" was illegal and that "the act never intended such warrants should issue, but only occasionally and pro hoc vice." A second request to the courts for the permanent writs brought the same ada­ mant refusal, and the Customs Commissioners were forced to drop their attempt to add this weapon to the arsenal of customs enforce­ ment in Pennsylvania. The courts, however, were perfectly will­ ing to, and did, grant writs of assistance for specific cases of al­ leged violations of the acts of trade .54 The Philadelphia customs officers also found it more and more difficult to prosecute their cases once they had made a seizure. John Swift recorded an instance of his problems in this regard in 1771 when he seized a vessel and its cargo of foreign rum. The case appeared so clearcut to Swift that he did not think that anyone wouldcontest the seizure. To his surprise, the ownerputina claim for the ship and cargo in the Admiralty Court; and Swift found that "great pains .. .will be taken to get the Rum acquitted. The Claim­ ants have much the advantage in respect to Lawyers - they have got Mr. Chew the late Attorney General at the head of them & the D Collr can get nobody to appear for him except Mr . A lien the present Attorney General who is a young man and has not had much exper­ ience ."55 Not only did Allen lackexperience, he lacked enthusiasm for this kind of work as well. In his diary a year after the previous instance Allen noted thathe had libelled several ships in the Admir­ alty Court at the request of Captain Talbot of the Lively, the British , man-of-war on the Delaware station at the time; but he was, he said, "doing as a lawyer what I would not do as a politician; being fully persuaded of the oppressive nature of those laws."56 The Board of Customs Commissioners was anxious to pursue enforcement of the laws of trade beyond the simple seizure and

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condemnation of ships and cargos by subjecting offenders to per­ sonal suits for triple damages, as provided in one section of the & Revenue Act of 1764. John Swift's reply to this instruction was that such suits were hopeless; for even if the offenders could be found they were usually men of small means who could not possibly afford to pay the triple damages . After Swift was replaced as collector in!, 1772, the new officers did try to make such prosecutions. They! were balked in their effort by the flat refusal of the Attorney Gen­ eral to undertake such suits for the Crown since he had no salary from the Crown. Indeed, "all the Law here have combin'd not to undertake any of the like prosecutions, and we have been told who­ ever did, would meet a worse fate than ever the Informers have done Most serious of all the manifestations of growing resistance to customs enforcement was the wave of riots which occurred in the late colonial period and in which informers and customs officials were severely manhandled and seized cargos and vessels were re­ leased from the custody o f the customs officials. Conservative Philadelphians had always prided themselves on the relative free­ dom of their city from the riots and public disturbances which had plagued more turbulent cities like Boston. As late as 1768, in fact, Governor John Penn was able to assure the Earl of Hillsborough, who occupied the new cabinet postof Secretary of State for America, that "none of the Officers of his Majesty's Customs in the ports within my Government, have, as vet, received the least Interruption in the discharge of their duty ."5° But within a few months after Penn had written this reassuringreportabout the law-abiding habits of his province, there occurred the first of several serious riots which harassed the customs officers in their enforcement efforts at intervals until the Revolution. This particular riot concerned several pipes of wine which had been smuggled in and hidden in a store. Informed of the smuggling, the collector went to the store and made a formal seizure by placinga padlock on the door . Durirg the night of 1 April 1769 a mob assembled, broke open the lock, and loaded the wine into river boats. This job done, the mob paraded the streets past the collector's house, breaking several windows. The next night, the mob seized William Shepherd and beat him un­ mercifully. Shepherd was undoubtedly singled out for special atten­ tion on this occasion because of the resentment already existing toward him in connection with his demand to be paid fees for sign­ ing loading permits as searcher of the port. The city constables had beencalled to the scene of the original riot and rescue of the seized wines, but they had arrived too late to be of any assistance to the customs officers or to apprehend any of the rioters. The next day, however, several of the "leading citi-

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zens” of the city then went to the collector, expressed their horror at this riot, and engaged that the wines should be returned to his custody as, in fact, they were within a short time . Swift, however, suspected that a substitution had been made; for he thought that the wines he had seizedwere good quality Madeira while those returned were poor quality Fayal, "sad stuff” hardly worth the smuggling, which brought in less than two hundred pounds when sold by the Ad­ miralty Court. 59 In October of the same year, Swift, acting again upon advice from an informer, seized several pipes of Fayal wine . This time the mob apparently made no attempt to rescue the cargo, perhaps because they had found out the name of the informer and preferred to pour out their resentment on him . They tarred him, beat him, dragged him about the streets, and then took him across the river to the Jersey shore where they left him with a warning not to return to the Pennsylvania side . The informer properly chastised, the mob then conducted its customary parade in front of the collector's house, and wrote "Wo be to the Collector" on walls throughout the city. Swift identified the participants in this riot as "some sailors who were I suppose set on by the merchantsHe professed to be so fearful of the temper of the people at this time that he converted all of the cash in the customs house to bills of exchange and sent them to the commissioners in Boston. The civil authorities were not overly vigorous in attempting to suppress this riot any more titan they had been in the previous one; but prosecution was almost im­ possible anyway "from the backwardness most people have to become informers," as the proprietors pointed out to Hillsborough in re­ porting the riot to him .“0 Mob resentment in Philadelphia was next directed, ironically enough, against the same John Hatton, collector of Salem, whose dealings with smugglershave already beenexamined . Perhaps Hat­ ton had reformed his ways, or perhaps the smugglers had been negligent in making the customary payments . In any event, Hatton seized a pilot boat in Delaware Bay in September, 1770, which he suspected of having illegal goods on board . No sooner had he made the seizure than the smugglers were reinforced from the shore, and the pilot boat was retaken. During the course of the skirmish both Hatton and his son were severely beaten. That same night, young Hatton, recovered from the day's beating, came up to Phila­ delphia lookingfor the pilot boat. He enlisted the aid of John Swift’s son, and the two of them set off for the waterfront. They had not gone far from Swift's house when they were set upon by the usual mob of sailors . Young Swift made his escape, but Hatton was not so lucky. Despite his previous injuries, the mob beat him again, tarred him, dragged him through the streets with a rope around his

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neck, and then carried him to the Jersey shore where they left him more nearly dead than alive .61 The seizure of another pilot boat in the Bay in November, 1771, provoked still another violent demonstration of popular wrath against the customs officials. On this occasion the seizure had been made by the Philadelphia customs house schooner . The officers apparently had the pilot boat safely in their custody when the ebbtide forced them to make an overnight stop on their way up the river to Phila­ delphia . While the customs schooner and its captive pilot boat were tied up for the night, more than thirty menboarded the two vessels, "armed with cutlashes, clubs, and otheroffencive weapons." They severely injured the commander and two of the crew of the customs schooner, confined them below the deck, cut the rigging to pieces, and sailed away in the pilot boat. The collector asked the governor to issue a proclamation and offer a reward for the apprehension of any of those involved. The governor did issue a proclamation which promised amnesty to informers but offered no reward . Needless to say, no informers stepped forward; and none of the offenders were ever brought to justice . John Swift's opinion was that "we have too much reason to believe that they were some of the principle mer ch ts in this City in disguise that had Sailors Jackets & their faces were black'd but some of them had white stockings." He considered it strange that none of the tidesmen could identify any of the attackers, for they were quite familiar with all of the merchants in the city. He suspected that they were either afraid of the consequences if they identified the attackers or else had been bribed not to do so 62 A lapse in rioting seems to have occurred after 1771; at least, no further reports of such incidents occur until 1774 when the rev­ olutionary pot was actively boiling once again. On 22 September of that year, a mob prevented the customs officers from entering a waterfront store to make a seizure of some foreign sugar on which no duty had been paid. Later the same night, the mob removed the sugar from the store and put it out of the reach of the officers. No physical injuries were reported as a result of this episode .63 Not so fortunate, however, was the object of the mob's attention in October, 1774. This time the "Sons of Liberty" had found out the name of a man who had given information about some pipes of wine and "demonstrated to the public, how much they abhorred and de­ tested the villain who would lodge an information of this kind, by ducking of him, fixing him in the public pillory.. .besmearing him with tar, and bestrewing him with feathers, and exposed him in that condition to the inhabitants of this city, who expressed their satis­ faction at seeing a people so justly sensible of the injury that such a detestable wretch must be to the traders of this place ."64 It is, of course, virtually impossible to ascertain how much

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the "merchants" were concerned in any of these proceedings. Ex­ cept for Swift's belief that some of the"principle merchants" may have been concerned in the attack on the customs schooner in November^l??!, there seems to be general agreement that the active rioters were mostly members of the "lower orders," particularly sailors. As John Swift pointed out, there were usually "not less than a thousand Seamen here. . .and they are always ready to do any mischief that their Captain or Owners set them upon.”65 A few merchants may, of course, have been active participants in the riotous proceedings against the customs officers and informers, and others of them were certainly concerned in the instigation of the mobs. On the other hand, it is difficult to imagine staid, solid, and wealthy members of the mercantile community like Abel James, Henry Drinker, or John Reynell having had anything to do with the riots in any capacity. To generalize the activities of a few into the prevailing habits of the many is no doubt as much a mistake in deal­ ing with the Philadelphia merchants as it is with any other partic­ ular group of human beings. To expect unanimity of thought, at­ titudes, or actions among such a diverse group simply on the basis of a common identification as "merchants” is probably expecting a great deal more than is possible within the realm of human nature. Whatever the specific role of the merchants may have been in these pre-revolutionary riots in Philadelphia, there seems to be little doubt that many, if not a majority, of the ordinary citizens of Philadelphia openly or silently approved of them; or if they did net actually approve of them, they had been intimidated into silent ac, quiescence by fear of reprisals from the active minority if they had dared to raise their voices in opposition. It was this public attitude which made the role of the customs officials and the civil govern­ ment in general, however much disposed to enforce the laws and maintain order, so difficult, as John Swift lamented: the truth of the matter is the hands of the govern­ ment are not strong enough to oppose the numer­ ous body of people who wish well to the cause of smuggling, even if they were ever so well dis­ posed to do it. What can a governor do without the assistance of the govern'd? What can the mag­ istrates do unless they are supported by their fel­ low citizens? What can the King's Officers do if they make themselves obnoxious to the people amongst whom they reside?66

11.

British Policy and Mercantile Reaction, 1763-1767

No student of American history is unaware of the fundamental importance of the year 1763 as marking a major turning point in the relationship between England and her colonies in North America. The conclusion of the "Great War for Empire" left Great Britain with great military glory, a vastly expanded empire, a large debt, and many new and complicated problems of administration. Even before the war had begun many theorists of imperial problems and persons concerned with the practical administration of the empire had been dissatisfied with the somewhat casual nature of the re­ lationship between the mother country and her colonies. This gen­ eral, if somewhat vague, discontent had been reinforced during the war by much sharp dissatisfaction with several aspects of the col­ onial war effort. Both theoretical and practical considerations, I then, were combined in the British decision to end the "salutary' neglect" which had been more or less characteristic of British pol- I icy toward the colonies before the war. In place of the old policy,! the central government of the empire in London began in 1763 to enforce old laws and regulations with new rigor and to institute i a whole new ar ray of administrative and legislative measures, the purpose of which was to integrate the colonies more closely into the political, fiscal, and commercial structure of the empire. The; story of these new policies and of the colonial reaction to them con­ stitutes a major part of the story of the coming of the American Revolution, and it is far beyond the purpose of this study to attempt any retelling or reinterpretation of that familiar story in detail. Many of the new measures, however, did have a direct or indirect! effect upon Philadelphia commerce and the activities and attitudes ! of the Philadelphia mercantile community; and it will be the purpose I

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of this and the following chapters to examine these policies, their effects, and the response which they evoked from the Philadelphia merchants. Symptomatic of later policies were two measures of 1763: an Order in Council reforming customs procedures and the decision to use ships and officers of the Navy to assist the regular colonial customs establishment in their duties. The first measure was only administrative and required no approval from Parliament. The use of the Navy, however, required an act of Parliament to regulate the I division of the proceeds from the sale of vessels and cargos con­ demned for violation of the laws of trade, in cases where the initial seizure had been made by naval officers deputized to act as customs officers.^ This act provided the financial incentive necessary to in­ sure that such officers would be diligent in carrying out duties which perhaps seemed somewhat inglorious to them after the exciting and triumphant battles of the Seven Years War . The effects of the se measures have been discussed above in connection with the ques­ tion of illegal trade and smuggling. Of far greater consequence to Philadelphia commerce and the (whole imperial-colonial relationship was the Revenue Act of 1764, I more commonly called the Sugar Act. This act imposed a duty of ' three pence per gallon on foreign molasses imported into the col­ onies, continued the duties on foreign sugars, prohibited imports of foreign rum, and imposed a new duty of seven pounds per tun of j wine imported into the colonies from Madeira or the Azores. The proceeds from these duties were to be placed in a special fund to "protect and defend” the colonies. The colonies were no longer al­ lowed to send lumber or iron to anyEuropean country except Great Britain. A new and elaborate framework of customs regulations made it clear that the British government intended to enforce not only this act but all of the other acts of trade as well. Among the new regulations were a closer control of the coasting trade and a requirement that all vessels must have dockets signed by a customs officer for every item of their cargo .2 At the same session, Parliament passed another act which had a direct effect on the activities of the Philadelphia merchants . The Currency Act prohibited any further issues of legal tender paper money in the colonies. All issues then outstanding were allowed to circulate until the date originally set for their retirement, butthere­ after the colonies would have to make do with what specie they could obtain and with paper which did not carry the legal tender provi­ sion. 3 Although the British government had always had a theoret­ ical objection to legal tender paper issues in the colonies, the im­ mediate occasion for the passage of the act seems to have been the protests of a few merchants in England who thought that they were

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being injured by legal tender currency in Virginia. English observers were aware, well in advance of their actual passage, of the general nature of the new policies under considera­ tion by the British government; and they had transmitted this infor­ mation to their colonial correspondents . Thus, Thomas Penn ha d written to Pennsylvania with the news that "twenty Regiments will be left in America and some dutys it is said will be laid on sugar and molasses imported into the plantations, next year toward main­ taining them Strangely enough, his view of the possible conse­ quences of these new policies was entirely optimistic; he actually welcomed the new duties on the ground that they would "entirely put an end to disputes about raising money for public services."4 His lack of understanding of the colonial state of mind may perhaps be regarded as typical of much of the ignorance which prevailed in official and unofficial circles in England at the time and undoubt­ edly contributed much to the growing breach with the colonies. It is true, however, that the prospect of the Revenue Act and the other policies did not seem to arouse as much resentment and excitement in Pennsylvania as it did in some of the other colonies . The merchants, for example, drew up no "State of the Trade" as did those of Boston. Nor did the Philadelphia merchants ask the Legislature to petition Parliament against the proposed act, as did those of Massachusetts and Rhode Island . The actual passage of ; the act seems to have caused hardly a ripple of interest among the mercantile community of Philadelphia. Pennsylvanians, said John J Dickinson in retrospect, "busy in guiding our ploughs, selling our timber, or sailing in the circuits of traffic prescribed to us," failed to take any alarm at the provisions of the Revenue Act which struck at the "vitals” of American liberty. Notwithstanding the lack of any major, formal, or organized, protest among the Philadelphia merchants against the new regula - I tions, they were by no means popular or well-received in the city./ James Pemberton, for instance, noted "those inconveniencies we are subjected to by some late Acts of Parliament." Governor John Penn reported that the acts had been "ill received"by the Philadel­ phia merchants and said that they blamed the West India interest in Parliament for their passage . Commentingon the new policy, James and Drinker remarked that "many parts of it would prove extremely Injurious to the Colonies and no sort of benefit to our Mother Gaun­ try." It was "generally agreed" in Philadelphia that the new policies would hurt American trade in general and, in particular, would "very deeply" injure the trade of the northern colonies which had no staple product for remittance to England.6 Yet, strangely enough, the features of the act which these and other merchants mentioned as being particularly injurious and ob-

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jectionable were not the molasses duty or other parts of the act which are usually cited in discussing the connection between this act and the movement of colonial protest. Instead, they dwelt on the iniquity of putting a duty on the importation of "several articles formerly free; and not providing Drawbacks on such as we may slip off as a Remittance to you." Among these products were French indigo, coffee from the British and foreign islands, and French su­ gars . Without a drawback of the import duty such things could not be used as remittances to England. Even more onerous than this provision was the prohibition of exports of iron and lumber to any European country except Great Britain. "This is very hard indeed," wrote James and Drinker. Richard Wain was especially alarmed at the restriction of the export of lumber. He assumed that it had been included in the act at the behest of the West Indian planters who wished to insure themselves of a supply of cheap lumber; but the only result of this restriction, wrote Wain, would be to cut down the total supply of lumber products available for export. Lumber supplies would therefore be no cheaper for the West Indian planters than they had been in past years, and the Philadelphia merchants would be deprived of a very useful source of profit which could be employed in making remittances to England.7 The Currency Act also seemed a severe blow to the Philadelphia merchants, accustomed as they were to an adequate circulating medium in the form of a well-managed and stable paper currency. The blow seemed especially hard in that English merchants dealing with Pennsylvania had neither been injured by nor complained about the operation of the Pennsylvania paper currency system. To suf­ fer for the alleged sins of a sister colony in the management of its paper money system seemed particularly unjust to all Pennsylvan­ ians and not just the merchants. Because it directly affected more people, the Currency Actwas probably more unpopular in Pennsyl­ vania than the more widely publicized Revenue Act. Among the consequences of the Currency Act for their own businesses, the merchants foresaw decreased sales of English dry goods, greater difficulty in collectingdebts, reduced exports of produce to overseas markets, and, in the end, a return of the province to a pure barter economy. ® The first formal protest from Pennsylvania against the new laws came from the Assembly in the fall of 1764. The outgoingAssembly instructed the provincial agent in London, Richard Jackson, to work against the passage of the proposed Stamp Act and also to seek the repeal or amendment of the Sugar Act "which we apprehend must prove extremely detrimental to the trade of the continental colonies in America, particularly in the prohibition of exporting lumber to Ireland and other parts of Europe ." Again, the emphasis on the

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less well-known features of die act should be noted. When the new Assembly met in October, one of its first acts was to send a more detailed protest against British policy to Jackson for his guidance . This letter did note the harmful effect that the duties on West Indian produce would have on the economy of the colony since the British islands alone were unable to absorb all of the surplus agricultural commodities of Pennsylvania. The new British restrictions would j inevitably, therefore, result in a decrease in the amount of manu- / factured goods which the province would be able to buy from Eng- / land . The requirement that all wines from the European continent had to be imported by way of England resulted in much "trouble ,l loss of time, double freights, and a great increase of expence.”' The agent was to work for liberty to import these wines directly from the place of their growth, "paying reasonable duties here on the importation." Restrictions on the export of iron and lumber were particularly injurious since both of these products were of I great importance to the trade of the province and it was essential I that they be freely exportable. Finally, the Currency Act would I deprive the province of a "necessary medium of trade."9 —I These and other colonial protests produced one Parliamentary action long before that body undertook a general modification of the restrictive policies of 1764. An act passed in 1765 relaxed the', quasi-enumeration of iron and lumber, against which the Pennsyl - I vanians had complained so bitterly, to allow the colonies to export I iron to Ireland and both products to south Europe and Ireland.I This relaxation satisfied most of the colonial objections to this part of the act of 1764 although there was some dissatisfaction over the failure to allow exports of iron as well as lumber to south Europe. This objection was a minor one, however, since little ironhadever been sent to the south European market.^! General attention in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania as well asl in the other colonies next turned to the Stamp Act which had been under consideration in Englandfor two years. Thoughfully expeced, its actual passage provided a new focus for American opposition to/ British policy. Ina sense, the limited indignation over the trade' restrictions of 1764 was swallowed up in the general resentment which the Stamp Act provoked . It is a commonplace of historical writing about the revolutionary movement to point out that the new act had a direct effect upon many influential classes of people as well as upon ordinary citizens and that it was therefore especially easy to stir up a movement of protest against the act. Merchants, of course, were directly affected in that all of the documents which they needed to enter and clear their ships and cargos at the customs house had to be executed on the stamped paper . Yet during the sum­ mer of 1765, after the act had been passed but before its effective

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date of 1 November had drawn close, Philadelphia wore an air of calm which maybe called deceptive in retrospect but apparently did not appear so at the time . There were few signs of the approaching storm which would ultimately nullify the actin Pennsylvania as well as in the other colonies . Amongother observers, James and Drirker fully expected that the act would go into operation on schedule; and they began to make preparations to use the stamped paper . 12 There were no public disturbances in Philadelphia during that summer as there were in some of the other colonies . Only one newspaper art­ icle of any note appeared during the summer, and its counsel was one of moderation. Its author, "Americanus," later identified as Joseph Galloway, did not pretend to like the act; but he cautioned Philadelphians to be moderate and prudent in their opposition and to convert "idle threats into dutiful remonstrances In an age nota­ ble for its violent newspaper controversies and polemics, it is somewhat strange that no champion of American liberties stepped forward to chai 1 enge this mild approach to the Stamp Act. 13 With the approach of the first of November, the public temper­ ature began to rise and the tempo of events began to quicken. Ch 21 September the Pennsylvania Assembly passed a series of reso­ lutions against the Stamp Act in which it laid heavy stress uponthe constitutional, objection Jhat no one but the legally elected repre­ sentatives of the citizens of the province had any right to levy taxes on them. Almost as an afterthought, one of the resolutions also protested against the general restrictions on trade which it alleged were "fatal” to the prosperity of the colony. 14 While the legislature was drawing up its formal protest, the town was agitated by reports of violent riots already taking place against the Stamp Act in New England. 15 Stirred up, perhaps, by these reports of vigorous action in towns to the northward, the people of Philadelphia assembled at the State House on Saturday, 5 October, and listened to speeches which threatened John Hughes, the col­ lector of the stamp duties, with the destruction of his house and other property if he did notresign his commission. More moderate counsels prevailed, however, and the meetingbroke up after agree­ ing only to send a note to Hughes demanding that he resign by ten o'clock on Monday morning. The populace assembled again onMonday morning and sent delegates to Hughes' house to demand his resignation. Given no protection, support, or encouragement by any of the provincial or city officials, Hughes reluctantly wrote a letter in which he agreed to make no attempt to enforce the act or collect the duties so long as it was not put into execution in the neighboring colonies . Although this answer was at best equivocal, the populace chose to accept it as a satisfactory resignation .16 \ What role, if any, did the merchants, as a group, play in

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these proceedings leading to Hughes' resignation? Certainly no merchant could have been found to give approval to the act; but there must have been very many of them, especially of the "better disposed” sort who agreed with the view of James and Drinker that the I Stamp Act was "grievous, and cannot long continue to be executed, I without ruining the Trade of the Colonies to our Mother Country, "J but who, at the same time, felt that popular assemblies and "riotous! Proceedings" of all kinds were "a very injudicious method" of ob­ taining redress . They proudly noted that no member of the Society 1 of Friends in Philadelphia had taken any part in, or given any coun­ tenance to, any of the "tumultuous proceedings" of the citizens. 1? Indeed, the Quaker influence in Philadelphia was widely credited with having kept the lower orders of the citizenry in that city from I the violent uprisings which had taken place elsewhere . Merchants were perhaps as much concerned with the prospec­ tive stagnation of their business as they were by any other feature of the Stamp Act. They feared that the first of November would see a complete stoppage of their trade, for they realized that pop­ ular feeling toward the act was so intense that they would never be able to use stamped clearanceseven if they were available . There ) was also the additional fear that even if their vessels were allowed to leave Philadelphia without stamped clearances they would be! seized by the naval vessels for havingsailed without them .19 They1 did what they could to load and dispatch as many vessels as pos­ sible before the deadline, but much of the fall crop would still be unshipped when the first of November arrived. A device called "post-entry,” however, gave promise that ad-/ ditional ships mightbe able to sail duringNovember. It had always) been the practice for customs officers, for an additional fee, to al­ low merchants to make additions to the cargo lists of their vessels after they had already been "entered outward" at the customs house . Taking advantage of this loophole, many merchants hastened to make outward entries for partially loaded vessels. Collector Swift pro­ mised that he would permit post-entries for these vessels and that he would duly clear them without stamps when they had completed their loading. On the strength of this promise, almost forty partly loaded vessels were entered at the customs house before 1 Novem­ ber . After the deadline, however, Swift threatened to go back on his word and refuse clearance to these vessels without stamps. After negotiations and consultations with the governor, the stamp collector, and the merchants themselves, Swift finally agreed to clear all of these vessels. On their side, the merchants agreed to reimburse Swift for any penalties he might suffer for having dis­ obeyed the Stamp Act. Vessels which had been entered at the cus-\ toms house before 1 November were allowed to depart from the port

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The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

without stamped clearances all during the month, some of them as late as 28 November .20 The merchants, in the meantime, had taken direct action against the Stamp Act by adopting a non-importation agreement on 7 Novem­ ber. The preamble to this association stated both the constitutional and economic arguments against the Stamp Act: taxation without representation was a violation of the rights of Englishmen, and the burdens which itimposedon trade would prevent making remittances to England. In consideration of these circumstances, the merchants agreed not to import any more goods until the Stamp Act was re1 pealed and to countermand orders already sent. The only excep­ tions allowed were "Coales, casks of earthenware, Grindstones, Pipes, Iron Pots, empty Bottles & such other bulky articles" which served as ballast for ships, and also medicines, dye-stuffs, and utensils necessary for manufactures. The agreement was binding upon the honor of the signers until 1 May, 1766, at which time an­ other meeting would outline a course of action to be taken if the Stamp Act had not been repealed by that time. A committee of eleven merchants solicited signatures, and more than 400 "mer­ chants and traders" eventually signed the agreement.21 It is apparent that no long campaign of popular pressure was necessary to force the merchants to adopt non-importation. Yet the letters of the merchants to their English factors, announcing the agreement and countermandingtheir previous orders for goods, made it clear that they were acting not entirely as free agents in this campaign of economic coercion against the merchants and man­ ufacturers of Great Britain. The temper of the people, they as­ serted, was such that they had no choice but to cease the importa­ tion of British goods. Charles Thomson, who had apparently not yet deserted commerce to become the radical leader of the revo­ lutionary movement in Philadelphia, was as explicit as any of the other merchants on this point: "So exasperated are the People that to appease them and indeed for our own Safety the merchants are obliged to pawn their word and honour and give from under their hands that they will not import any more Goods from Great Britain until that Act is repealed." A postscript added that the people had not been satisfied with a promise that the merchants would import no more goods from England but had "insisted" that every merchant cancel orders already sent. To insure that all merchants sent uni­ form and unequivocal instructions to their English factors, printed forms for this purpose were provided; and the merchants were ex­ pected to send these forms along with their letters.22 Correspondence of other merchants bears out Charles Thom­ son’s assertion that the merchants were acting, at least to some extent, in fear of popular reprisals if they failed to join the non-

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importation movement or even if they did not express sufficiently I vigorous opposition to the Stamp Act. John Reynell's letter to his j principal suppliers of English goods explained that he had deter­ mined to stop business for a while and added that even if he could get stamps he would not dare to use them; "if I did, should be afraid of having my house ruined." James and Drinker sent the printed cancellation forms to all of their English suppliers with the addi­ tional remark that "no Person dare Attempt to use a Stamp Paper, or in the least Degree propose any Thing short of the most fix'd Opposition to it. . . .Peopleof all Ranks and Parties that usually im­ port from England are obliged to conform to the agreement." Dane! Roberdeau expected "a deluge of blood", if any movement was made to submit to the Stamp Act.23 How decisive was popular pressure in determining the speed and unanimity with which the merchants adopted economic coercion as a means of protesting against the Stamp Act? Many merchants, especially strict Quakers, would probably have preferred obedience to the act while protesting against it through regular and constitu­ tional channels instead of the extra-legal proceedings of popular gatherings and economic boycotts. James and Drinker were per­ fectly willing to use stamps if they had been available and, in fact, instructed their agents in North Carolina to use the stamps if they were available there .24 Yet it is clear that if differences of opinion did exist, they re­ lated only to the question of the proper means of opposition; for the merchants appear to have been whole-hearted in their opposition to the principle of the act. Conservatives and radicals, merchants and popular leaders all seemed to agree that the act was a violation i of fundamental American rights and liberties. The views of John i Reynell and Charles Thomson, two men whose outlooks were quite dissimilar, maybe used to illustrate this point. Thomson charac­ terized the act as a "monstrous tax. . .imposed on us without our Consent and enforced by ways unknown in Britain or the British Con­ stitution, destructive of our Liberties and subversive of our most valuable rights." Reynell agreed that the act was unconstitutional. The new burdens on trade were bad enough, but they were at least tolerable. The Stamp Act, however, "takes from us not only our money, but what is more precious, our rights & privileges as Eng­ lishmen, of being taxed only by our representatives .”25 it is es-1 pecially notable that these expressions of the constitutional objec-/ tion to the Stamp Act occur not in polemics intended for public con-sumption but in private letters to business correspondents . If such! expressions of sentiment are at all valid as evidence, it seems thaf, merchants, as well as others, were primarily concerned with the! constitutional, rather than the economic, aspects of the Stamp Act.i .

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The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

The repeal of the Stamp Act came too soon to allow any severe test of the strictness with which the non-importation agreement would be enforced in Philadelphia. Only one instance of a shipment of goods arriving contrary to the association has been recorded, and the issue presented by this case was far from being clear-cut. A Liverpool merchant shipped goods on consignment in the Lark which arrived late in April, 1766, after it was known that the Stamp Act would be repealed but before news of the actual repeal had reached Philadelphia . Notwithstandingthe expected news of repeal, the com­ mittee of merchants administering the non-importation agreement voted to store the goods until word of repeal was officially con­ firmed. 26 Merchants were actually deprived of only one season's supply of goods: those which would have arrived in the spring of 1766. Formal news of repeal arrived in time for them to dispatch their orders for the normal fall supplies. Many merchants per­ haps welcomed the brief moratorium on shipments as a convenient opportunity for them to dispose of surplus stocks at favorable prices. Up to and including the adoption of non-importation, the pro­ gram of nullification of theStampAct was largely negative in nature; if public and private business could not be transacted without the use of stamps, then let such business be suspended. Newspapers ceased publication, the customs house closed, and the courts and i all other government offices ceased operation. Such complete stagi nation, however, was intolerable for any length of time . The next and obvious step was to turn the negative defiance of the Stamp Act ; into positive violation by forcing the resumption of public and pri; vate business without the use of stamps . Such a step no doubt ex1 pressed the ideas of the more violent opponents of the act, but it also suited the interest of more conservative elements like lawyers and merchants whose normal means of earning a living would be closed to them while public offices and agencies remained closed. Joseph Shippen proved to be an accurate prophet when he predict­ ed early in November that the merchants and people in general would "insist on business of all kinds going on as if no Stamp Act pass'd, and I make no doubt they will take every Measure to oblige all pub­ lick officers to open their Offices or resign their Commissions ."27 The first organs to resume more or less normal functions with­ out stamps were the newspapers, at first with such subterfuges as the omission of regular titles, names of publishers, and serial numbers. By mid-November, however, both Philadelphia papers I had reappeared in their normal guise.28 Not far behind in Philadel­ phia, however, was the customs house in the opening of which, of course, the merchants had the most vital and immediate interest. The collector was basically in sympathy with the position of the merchants. Inorder to protect himself, however, from any pos-

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sible reprisals for violating the Stamp Act, he joined with the naval officer of the colony and the comptroller of the customs in a formal request to the stamp collector for a supply of stamped clearance papers. Hughes' somewhatacid reply was that ", . .cannot but infer . . .that you are Strangers in pensylvania, since . . .you appear to be unacquainted with the Things that are come to pass, in these our Days." He then went on to relate the story of his resignation as stamp distributor and added that the governor had committed the stamped paper to the care of Captain Hawker of H .M .S . Sardoine . He was therefore "at present incapacitated to supply y ou with Stamp Papers, &C.29 The problem of clearances from the pert was not particularly acute in Philadelphia during early November because of the liberal I use of the device of post-entry, previously described. The latter, part of the month, however, saw many new vessels arriving in port and waiting to load and sail. The owners of thse vessels began to cry for Swift to take some action; for as Swift himself pointed out: the winter is near at hand, and We may expect in a short time that our Navigation will be stopt by Ice. The Harbour is full of Vessels, and If We don't begin soon to permit them to depart, they will probably be shut up all the Winter, which will occasion great distress and perhaps Ruin, to many of his Majesty's subjects, and at the same time be a means of lessening the Revenue of Customs . If the merchants decided to take matters into their own hands, added Swift, there was no way to prevent them from sending their vessels away without any clearances at all. He made no serious attempt to resist the pressure from the merchants, and on 2 December he1 announced that he would begin clearing out all vessels without the1 use of stamps.30 Philadelphia was the first of the major ports to resume business in open defiance of the Stamp Act.31 The opening of the port, though it accomplished the merchants' immediate objective, did notcompletely solve their problems. Some anxious moments resulted from fears that ships would be seized at their destinations for having sailed without the stamped papers. These anxieties were sharpest in the case of ships sailing to islands in the British West Indies, for several of those colonies were known to have submitted to the Stamp Act. Some merchants chose to keep their ships in Philadelphia rather than run the risk of seizure in the West Indies . Bolder spirits, however, insisted that England would never enforce the act by seizing ships which had sailed without the required stamps. The mother country was too dependent upon the trade to the colonies to be able to take such action, for "at leasta million of her inhabitants depend entirely on the commerce with the

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The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

colonies for their daily bread ." Newspaper essays such as this were probably less effective in reassuring the merchants than the actual reports which soon be­ gan to come in from the West Indies; the collectors there were en­ tering without question all ships from the continent which had cer­ tificates stating that no stamped papers were available in the ports from which they had sailed. A typical letter was this one from a Philadelphia captain who had sailed to Antigua: 'I found not the least difficulty arising from my papers not being stamp'd as the people in general instead of calling us a damn’d set of rebellious rascals now applauds the noble spirit & grand opposition made by the once senseless insignificant but now great N. Americans." Letters in a similar vein were published in the newspapers and doubtless had the effect of allayingthe fears of the merchants about possible seizure of their vessels. 32 Still another step which the merchants took in their campaign against the Stamp Act was to draw up a memorial to the merchants and manufacturers of Great Britain. The text of this document is not available, but the newspaper account of its adoption said that it requested the English merchants to use their "Interest with the Parliament, for the repeal of that most unconstitutional law (the STAMP ACT) and for removing the Restrictions laid on the Trade of the Colonies." The memorial laid heavy stress on the economic hardships which would result among British as well as American merchants if the grievances of which it complained were not quickly redressed. Copies of the memorial were forwarded to selected merchants in all of the major cities of Great Britain, along with personal requests to these merchants to support the drive for re­ peal .33 Long before this memorial reached England, the merchants there had begun an intensive and effective campaign for repeal of the Stamp Act. In fact, the activity of the London merchants on be­ half of American trade had begun in 1764 in advance of passage of the Stamp Act itself. These efforts had been unsuccessful in pre­ venting the passage of the Stamp Act; but continued commercial distress in the manufacturing towns of England combined with re­ ports of American opposition to the Stamp duties caused a renewal of English mercantile activity in the fall and winter of 1765. A merchants' committee, formally organized on 4 December, 1765, co-ordinated and directed further efforts toward the repeal of the Stamp Act. A flood of petitions from the trading towns detailed the economic distress under which they labored and requested Parlia­ ment to repeal the act. For political reasons, the Rockingham ministry was favorable to repeal and actually worked in collusiai with the merchants' committee in promoting the petitions to Par-

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liament.34 -phe repeal of the Stamp Act, therefore, was one of the/ first items of business in the session of Parliament which met inf December 1765. Although debate was bitter, the ministry and the. - G merchants carried the day; and repeal became an accomplished fact early in March. To sweetenthe bitter pill for opponents of repeal, it was accompanied by the significant Declaratory Act which affirmed the right of Parliament to legislate for the colonies in any respect whatsoever .35 It would be difficult to underestimate the part played by the 1 English merchants in obtaining repeal. "It may justly be thought that the North American Merchants Here," commented one Englidv observer, "would bestir themselves zealously for their own interest sake; but they have done more: they have so effectually served the whole British Empire, that their diligence, that their indefatigable, united, efficacious endeavours to serve the whole community at this juncture ought never to be forgot."36 Some Philadelphia merchants were indeed aware of the services rendered by their English friends and expressed heartfelt gratitude to them .37 Most Americans, how- ' ever, probably overestimated the importance of their own protests ' and underestimated the influence of the British merchants . Their failure to express proper gratitude, coupled with reports of Amer­ ican violence in opposing the Stamp Act, may have helped to dis­ illusion some of the English merchants in regard to their activities on behalf of the colonies . This may help to explain, too, why Eng­ lish merchants were somewhat less sympathetic toward pleas of American distress at the time of the Townshend Acts. In the meantime, however, the English merchants, flushedwith their success in the repeal of the Stamp Act, pressed on with their general program of commercial reform . The London committee drew up a comprehensive and far-reaching plan for presentation to Parliament. Its major points were; reduction of the duty on molas­ ses to one penny a gallon; permission for the colonies to import foreign sugars, coffee, cocoa, and indigo free of duty upon condi­ tion that they would be warehoused for re-export; reduction of the duty on foreign sugar; abolition of the duty on English coffee and pimento; permission to import wine, fruit, and oil directly from Spain and Portugal upon payment of import duties in the colonies; reduction of the duty on Madeira wine from seven to four pounds a tun; abolition of the import duties on certain East Indian and French goods; making the island of Dominica a free port; restraining the powers of the colonial vice-admiralty courts to "matters merely marine;" permission for the colonies to issue some kind of paper currency; and permission for decked vessels to travel on inland colonial waterways without bonds and dockets. The newspaper re­ port confidently asserted that "there was great reason to believe,”

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The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

that all of these points would be granted by Parliament .39 Only the wildest kind of optimism could have led anyone seri­ ously to believe that Parliament would enact this entire program which would have amounted to an almost complete concession to the colonial point of view on matters of trade regulation. The Rock­ ingham ministry was, however, favorable to some measure of com­ mercial reform beyond repeal of the Stamp Act if only to placate the mercantile element which constituted one of the few props to its very shaky basis of power. Even more sympathy for reform might have been evident if reports of American violence had not aroused such resentment in the mother country .40 Even so, after the repeal of the Stamp Act had been accomplished, Secretary of State Conway officially notified Governor Penn that Parliament would proceed immediately to a program of general reform . Not even re­ ports of American violence, he wrote, would prevent "the full oper­ ation of that kind and indulgent disposition prevailing both in his Majesty and his Parliament, to give to the trade and interests of America every relief which the true state of their circumstances demands or admits." Credit for further reform, however, prob­ ably belongs less to the "kind and indulgent disposition" of the min­ istry and Parliament than to the merchants’ committee which had seized the initiative from a ministry which had never been strong (and was now tottering to its collapse .41 The program which finally passed in Parliament, hammered out after bitter disputes between the West Indian interests and the North American merchants, fell considerably short of the original proposals of the London merchants. The Revenue Act of 1766 re­ duced the duty on molasses to one penny a gallon and applied it to all molasses, British as well as foreign. Thus ended the attempt, never very successful, to force the colonies to use British rather than foreign molasses in their rum-distilling industry. Duties on foreign sugar imported into the colonies were reduced; but all sugar re-exported from the colonies to England was to be regarded as French and to pay duties accordingly. The colonies were not al­ lowed to send goods of any kind to any port on the European continent north of Cape Finisterre . Otherwise, the enforcement machinery of the Revenue Act of 1764 remained unchanged .42 The other major commercial reform enacted at this time was the creation of free ports in Jamaica and Dominica. Such ports, it was hoped, would attract the trade of the Spanish islands and mainland and thus in­ crease the flow of coin and bullion into the British Empire .43 If this program did not represent anything like complete ac­ complishment of the aims of the English merchants, it nevertheless seemed to them a major achievement. In a letter to the Philadel­ phia committee, the London merchants summarized their successes

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and failures. The new acts, they thought, were "the basis of an extensive system of trade between Great-Britain and her colonies, framed on liberal principles of reciprocal advantage, relieving the Colonies from injudicious restrictions, and severe duties, enlarging old, and opening to them new channels of commerce." Opposition to reform had prevented the enactment of the whole program, but the new acts were the be st which could be obtained under the circum­ stances. If the colonies obeyed them, they would undoubtedly be amended to correct their defects. Action on paper currency had been deferred pending the results of a plan to establish a general colonial currency system. The proposal to allow direct imports of wine, oil, and fruit from Spain and Portugal had likewise been de­ ferred for reasons not specified. Nor had they been able to obtain liberty for the colonies to export iron to foreign countries in Eur­ ope . Aside from these points, the London merchants wrote that they had obtained redress of all of the grievances noted in the Phil­ adelphia memorial of the previous fall .44 Other Englishmennot concerned with the merchants'committee also looked upon the new acts as the beginningof a new commercial millenium of some kind, removing all colonial grievances and es­ tablishing the basis of a new relationship between the mother country and her colonies. Both Thomas Penn and John Fothergill told Amer- ' ican correspondents that trade would now flourish, gold and silver be plentiful, and smuggling would no longer be necessary. Ameri­ cans should be duly grateful to the king, the ministry, and other in- ■ dividuals who had worked so hard to obtain these benefits .45 Not­ withstanding these enthusiastic comments from England, the news of the reforms fell far short of evoking the enthusiasm which had greeted the repeal of the Stamp Act. In Philadelphia, the inveterate smuggler, Thomas Riche', noted that it would no longer be necessary to smuggle molasses in view of the nominal duty; and other mer­ chants duly expressed gratitude for the relief which had been given, but tempered their thanks with regrets for omissions in the program of reform .46 One unfortunate provision of the Revenue Act of 1766 aroused not gratitude, but great resentment in Philadelphia. Section XXXV of the act, which prohibited the export of non-enumerated goods to non-English ports in Europe north of Cape Finisterre, amounted to a complete prohibition of the Irish trade includingthe important ex­ port of flaxseed . Coming so soon after the difficulty about the ship­ ment of iron and lumber to Ireland which had arisen from the Rev­ enue Act of 1764 and which had only been corrected in 1765, the new prohibition seemed like a gratuitous slap in the face to Philadelphia merchants . They lost no time in protestingto Governor Penn and to the Assembly, and both the outgoing and incoming legislatures sent

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The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

prompt instruction to the agent to work for repeal of the oner o u s restriction .47 The prohibition of the Irish trade aroused as much alarm in Ireland as it did in the northern colonies. Petitions from all of the trading towns to the lord-lieutenant pointed out that even the tem­ porary execution of this prohibition would have "the most pernicious consequences," and if it were continued, must result in the total ruin of the Irish linen industry which was almost wholly dependent on American flaxseed. American provisions were also necessary in years of famine . Since most of the proceeds of American trade to Ireland were remitted to England in bills of exchange, the pro­ hibition would injure the mother country as well as Ireland. The lord-lieutenant, receiving these petitions from the trading towns, gave his assurance that the whole thing must have been a mistake which would be rectified as soon as Parliament met.48 Parliament did admit its mistake at the beginning of the new session in 1767. An amendment to Section XXXV of the Revenue Act of 1766 noted the unintentional omission of Ireland from the provisions of that section and restored to the colonies their previous freedom to export non-enumerated goods to Irish ports . Irish cus­ toms officers had full power to cancel the bonds required for such goods under the act of 1766.49 Although this flaw in the reforms of 1766 was quickly repaired, other grievances were not so quickly remedied. Philadelphia mer­ chants, as well as other inhabitants of the province, were especially irked at Parliament's failure to repeal or modify the Currency Act. The Assembly stated the provincial view of paper currency in a long and able petition to Parliament early in 1766. This document re­ viewed the experience of the province with paper money and asserted that it was obvious "from the most evident experience, that the growth and increase of this province has been, in a great measure, occasioned by the moderate sums of paper money which...have been emitted by and under the direction of its Legislative Author­ ity.” Amongthe other advantages of a well-managed paper currency, the petition asserted the existence of a direct relationship between the amount of the circulatingmedium and the import of manufactured goods from Great Britain. Without paper currency, "the price of all kinds of labour is lessened, the numbers of our poor are encreased, the value of our estates greatly sunk, our trade and im­ portations from Britain evidently decreased, the further settlement of the Province is obstructed, and the people reduced to the greatest distress ."50 Philadelphia merchants joined fully in the sentiments of the legislative petition, and they warned the London merchants canmitlee that the full effects of the reform which they had worked so hard to

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obtain could not be felt unless the colony was provided with an ade­ quate medium of commerce .51 The London merchants' committee did continue to press for repeal of the currency restriction. Its hopes for repeal, however, were dashed by the final collapse of the feeble Rockingham ministry combined with resentment in official circles in England over the failure of the New York Assembly to comply with the Quartering Act .52 in Pennsylvania the dire conse­ quences predicted for the provincial economy as the Currency Act went into operation were deferred at least temporarily by a fort­ unate combination of high produce prices and low cost of sterling exchange which brought large amounts of gold and silver into the province and alleviated the currency shortage .53 Other flaws in the reforms of 1766 also brought forth legislative protests from the Pennsylvania Assembly and instructions to the agent to continue to work for modification . Most significant of these changes were "the introduction of fruit, wine, and oil directly from Spain, Portugal, and Italy, into the Colonies, and the exportation of iron from thence to foreign ports, as they are the regulations which our merchants have much at heart, and which are really ne­ cessary to the true interest of Great-Britain and her colonies ."54 Benjamin Franklin had by this time joined Richard Jackson in rep­ resenting Pennsylvania interests in England, and he reported that efforts of the two men to obtain permissionfor the colonies to bring the desired products directly from south Europe had been blocked by the "clamour" raised by English merchants who traded with Spain and Portugal so that "it seems we are to labour a little longer under the inconveniences of the restraint ."55 The Assembly's committee of correspondence, however, re­ peated its instructions to the agents to work for this point and, at the same time, mentioned another flaw in the reforms of 1766 which had not previously appeared in public protests: the section of the Reve­ nue Act of 1766 which stated that all sugar shipped from the mainland colonies to England should be regarded as French. This provision, said the committee, was one which the Philadelphia merchants "con­ ceive to be a great hardship, and equally injurious to the trade of both countries, as they are hereby deprived of shipping this com­ modity, formerly a considerable remittance to the mother country, in exchange for the manufactures and merchandize taken from thence ."56 These protests, however sincere, lack the urgency of the out­ cries against the Stamp Act, the Currency Act, and the more objec­ tionable features of the Revenue Act of 1764. They seem, in fact, almost perfunctory, repeated as they were at the beginning of each legislative session. The private correspondence of the merchants during the years 1766 and 1767 gives no indication that they were

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The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

especially agitated by these grievances or that they regarded them as major points requiring adjustment. On the whole, they were well satisfied with the concessions they had won in regard to the trade with the West Indies. Shipping reports in the newspapers as well as reports of duties collected under the acts of 1764 and 1766 show that the Philadelphia merchants took increasing advantage of their greater freedom to trade with the foreign islands?? Had not new acts of British policy intervened, it seems likely that the dis­ pute between England and her colonies, at least so far as the Phil­ adelphia merchants were concerned, might have lapsed into a state of truce, characterized by peaceful negotiations f or a complete settlement.

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12 .

The Townshend Acts and Non­ importation, 1767-1770

Acts of British policy tended to come in clusters in the pre­ revolutionary decade . This is true of the restrictive and enforce­ ment measures of 1763-1765, and it is also true of the retreat from those policies which came in 1766. And hardly had the colonists/ had time to finish their celebrations of the repeal of the Stamp Act when a new series of British measures, some legislative and some administrative, came to disturb their relations with the mother country. The sponsorship of these new policies is usually associ- ; ated with the name of Charles Townshend, who, as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Pitt-Grafton ministry, seized the initiative when the nominal leaders of the cabinet proved to be incapable or undesirous of exercising leadership. The items of Townshend’s policy? which most directly affected Philadelphia maritime commerce and' the activities of the merchants were: an act creating an American; Board of Customs Commissioners; an Order in Council creating four new regional vice-admiralty courts in Halifax, Boston, Phila­ delphia, and Charleston; and a new revenue act which placed duties; on tea, paper, glass, painters’ colors, and red and white lead im­ ported into the colonies and also authorized the customs officers in America to apply to the provincial courts for permanent writs of assistance to aid them in the enforcementof allBritish trade laws.^ The creation of the new Board of Customs Commissioners seems to have passed virtually unnoticed in Philadelphia where it seemed to make little difference whether supervision of the Customs House' came from London, as before, or from Boston under the new ar­ rangement. The newregional vice-admiralty court could hardly go unnoticed in Philadelphia, but its existence never provoked any or­ ganized protest and never constituted more than a minor factor in

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the development of revolutionary sentiment .2 Itwasthenew Revenue ~7 Act which was of greatest importance inarousingcolonial opposition and stimulating colonial protest, particularly because the revenues arising from the act were to be used for " . . .making a more certain and adequate provision for defraying the charge of the administration of justice, and the support of civil government in such provinces where it shall be found necessary . . . ." Coupled with the old colonial grievance against any British taxation without representation, the new threat to render governors and judges financially independent of colonial assemblies made resistance to the new act seem imper­ ative, at least to the more advanced theorists of colonial rights. Unlike the protest against the Stamp Act, however, which had been nearly immediate and unanimous, colonial reaction to the new duties materialized slowly. This proved to be particularly true in Philadelphia where the merchants fought a vigorous delaying action against the same kind of non-importation agreement which they had adopted with such apparent alacrity at the time of the Stamp Act. Their tactics were successful in preventingopposition to the Town­ shend duties from reaching full force in Philadelphia until nearly two years after Parliament had imposed them. Philadelphians knew in the spring of 1767 that the ministry in England was considering new plans for taxing the colonies; in July they knew the nature of the bill being debated in Parliament; and in October the Philadelphia newspapers printed the complete text of the new revenue act ? None of these reports or publications pro­ voked any noticeable reaction among the merchants or among the general population in Philadelphia. To a Pennsylvanian, however, does go the distinction of making the first significant literary pro­ test against the new taxes. It is worth noting that this was the work, not of a merchant, but of a lawyer . John Dickinson's "Let­ ters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania" began appearing serially in the Philadelphia newspapers in early Decemberj 1767, and were soon republished many times in America and in Europe as well. Full of weighty classical allusions, Dickinson's message was basically simple: Parliament had no right to tax the colonies without their consent. He buttressed this political-constitutional argument with < ’’ the usual assertion that the duties were economically inexpedient even from the British point of view because they would, in the end, inevitably reduce American imports from the mother country and thus injure her merchants, manufacturers, and artisans . If Dick­ inson's quarrel with the Townshend duties was fundamentally con­ stitutional, his pre script ion for dealingwith them was strictly eco­ nomic: the immediate adoption of non-importation agreements to force the British merchants and manufacturers to work for their repeal .4 This was to remain the keynote of the radical approach

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to the problem: economic pressure to force the redress of a con­ stitutional grievance. Dickinson's essays won him immediate and immense fame and j popularity and a permanent pseudonym as "the penman of the Amer- I ican Revolution " The practical effect of his counsel is more diffi­ cult to detect ./On one hand, the Boston Town Meeting had already taken the initiative in proposing a program of economic protest against the duties more than a month before the "Farmer’s Letters" began to appear ,/6n the other hand, the merchants in Dickinson's own province were so little affected by his writing that they waited ■' more than a year before they succumbed to popular pressures and joined the boycott of British goods which the radicals urged as the road to salvation. In Boston, radical pressures were stronger or the merchants had lower powers of resistance than their brethren in Philadelphia; for in March, 1768, they adopted a non-importation agreement, conditional upon its acceptance by New York and Phila­ delphia . The New York merchants fell into line during April but not without considerable wrangling. The Philadelphia traders held a meeting on 26 March 1768 to consider the Boston proposal, but their response was somewhat less than enthusiastic . The only rem­ nant of the proceedings of this meeting is the text of a speech de­ livered by the "Farmer" himself in which he urged the merchants to hark back to their patriotic stand for non-importation at the time of the Stamp Act. He denied that non-importation would be injur­ ious and asserted instead that it would be "universally beneficial by inclining us to be more frugal, affording our merchants time to collect their debts, and enabling them to discharge those thev owe to the mother country." His peroration told the merchants cf Phil­ adelphia that they alone were responsible for the fate of the Town­ shend duties. If they joined with New York and Boston, the English merchants and manufacturers would force Parliament to repeal the . odious taxes. Without Philadelphia the non-importation movement would collapse and further impositions on America would be easy. This impassioned plea to the patriotic sentiments of the merchants fell on deaf ears, and the meeting adjourned without taking any ac/ tion .5 At another meeting of the merchants on 25 April Dickinson re­ newed his plea for economic action against British taxation. This time he undertook a lengthy historical review of the constitutional foundations of American settlement, asserting that the colonists had retained all of the rights of English freemen including that of being taxed only by representatives of their own choosing. Never­ theless, the colonies had submitted without protest to many injurious economic regulations because they seemed good for the empire as a whole . But now England was attempting to impose a new sover- j

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eignty over the colonies that would destroy their freedom. The Townshend duties were the latest in a series of acts which included the Stamp Act, the Quartering Act, the Declaratory Act, and the suspension o f the New York Assembly. The revenues from the duties were to be used in "such a manner as to render our assem­ blies altogether useless, and to make governors and judges.. .and the whole executive powers of government, nay, the defence of the country, independent of the people.” To oppose this design of des­ potism, petitions and memorials were ineffective unless supported by the "peaceable and constitutional” method of non-importation. Once more, the merchants remained unmoved by his pleas for unity with New York and Boston in the fight against British tyranny; and the meeting ended without any agreement to join the inter-colonial non-importation movement. 6 The merchants' determination to resist non-importation at these general meetings caused the proponents of the plan to circulate the Boston agreement among individual merchants in the hope that enough of them would sign it to force the others to fall into line . A few of the less important traders of the city did sign, but the plan was doomed to failure when it appeared that "many & indeed the princi­ pal importers here have not nor will they sign the resolves relating thereto.” In particular, the adamant opposition of "eight or ten" of the major dry goods merchants proved to be the rock on which the hopes for the adoption of non-importation were dashed.? On 6 June the New York merchants reminded those in Philadelphia that their own agreement would lapse on 14 June unless Philadelphia had taken action by that time.8 The refusal of the Philadelphia mer­ chants to abandon their stand spelled the doom of the attempt to unite the importers of the three largest mercantile towns of the colonies in a non-importation agreement to force the repeal of the Townshend duties. During the spring and summer of 1768, both before and after the collapse of the inter-colonial non-importation movement, radical spokesmen exerted unrelenting pressure on the merchants, mostly in the form of newspaper propaganda, in their futile attempt to coI erce the merchants into the boycott of British goods. The tone of I these polemics ran the gamut from appeals to the patriotic feelings of the merchants to threats that the populace would take matters \ into its own hands if the merchants did not fall into line . "A Free­ born American," for example, wrote thatall eyes were on the Phil­ adelphia merchants in the present crisis. The merchants must not prefer their own immediate profit to the general welfare of the country. If they allowed their selfish interests to prevail over patriotism, the "curses of thousands" would descend upon them . "A . L." feared that the spirit of liberty had become lukewarm in

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die city; the merchants had been "diverted from the pursuit of great attainments, by smaller considerations." He warned that the "pros­ perous career of Philadelphia would soon be ruined by the "vices of slavery” unless the city returned to its former pattern of virtue and liberty. A writer from Lancaster County urged the small clubs and societies of Philadelphia, particularly the fire companies, to take the initiative away from the merchants byresolving to wear nothing but American cloth, to eat no lamb, and to publish their proceedings as "lasting testimonies of their public spirit, and noble zeal, in the cause of LIBERTY and their COUNTRY.? The merchants were by no means without defenders in this , newspaper war. Perhaps die cleverest of these was "A Chester County Farmer” who insinuated that the non-importation movement was a scheme hatched by Bostonians envious of the "flourishing and great increase of our Trade," in contrast with their own "long- ■ declining State .” The merchants of Philadelphia, who had brought the city to its pre sent condition of prosperity, could safely be relied upon to adopt the wisest course of action. As for pleas for heme i( manufactures, the writer asserted that the farmers had no inten­ tion of repeating their unfortunate experience at the time of the Stamp Act, when they had made great efforts to produce wool and cloth, only to find that the city patriots refused to buy American cloth after the Stamp Act had been repealed .10 A more formal defense of the merchants' position was under­ taken by "A . Bin the form of a series of questions to the mer­ chants' committee. The burden of his message was that a boycott of dutied articles was preferable to a general ban on imports of all British goods, that measures adopted in the "Eastern Governments " were not necessarily good for Philadelphia, that non-importation would needlessly irritate the people of Great Britain, that the mer­ chants would do everything in their power, short of economic co­ ercion, to persuade their friends in England to workfor repeal, and that there must be some degree of submission to the mother country, the extent of which ought not to be determined by "Vox Populi."H Spurred by these defenses of the conservative position, the radicals once more moved to the attack. "Marterius Scribblerius" resorted to satire in a reply to the "Chester County Farmer" which emphasized the alleged inconsistencies in the latter's arguments. The quality of the piece is illustrated by its conclusion: We believe that what is white in New England is black here; that the same thing to the same people in the same circumstances, is good at one time, and bad at another; that two years ago Philadelphia was Boston, and that Boston is now what Philadel­ phia was then; that effects do not follow causes,

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nor causes produce effects; that internal manu­ factures is the way to destruction, and luxury the high road to prosperity; that the sun is the moon, and a public spirit the greatest rebellion; that in­ justice is justice, and a tame submission to Egyp­ tian bondage, the surest means of obtaining re­ dress . The queries of "A . B," drew a reply from "C" to the effect that the merchants had already done all they could to persuade their friends in England to join the fight for repeal of the Townshend duties and had found that "no arguments can procure one moment's attention, but such as are founded on the interests of their selfish brethren." The only way left to obtain redress was to adopt a general non­ importation agreement. 12 Another piece from the pen of John Dickinson exceeded both of these in the virulence of its attack on the merchants. Under the title of "A Letter from a Gentleman in Virginia to a Merchant in Philadelphia," Dickinson charged that the merchants were activated by the most narrow and selfish economic considerations in their stand against non-importation . Why had the merchants, then, been so eager to go into non-importation at the time of the Stamp Act? Simply because "yourpatriotism and private interest were so inti­ mately connected, that you could not prostitute the one without en­ dangering the other." But now the case was different: the merchants felt that they could simply pass the burdenof the new taxes on to the consumers in the form of increased prices for the goods which bore the taxes. "You did not esteem it your duty to oppose it; BECAUSE IT DID NOT DIRECTLY AFFECT YOUR °RIVATE INTERESTS . The Parliamentary right of taxing America, you tho’t of little con sequence, when compared with your own ease and safety." Only quick action to adopt non-importation could remove the jealousies and suspicions which the delay had created. 13 Despite the vigor of the radical propaganda offensive, the mer­ chants gave no sign that they would capitulate to the pressure being exerted upon them . Even the news that Boston and New York had adopted individual non-importation agreements during August did nothing to change the position of the merchants. With the mer­ chants thus bitterly and successfully resisting the attempt to thrust them into the forefront of the Pennsylvania opposition to the Town­ shend duties, the burden of official protest fell upon the Assembly. That body had already listened to the reading of the circular letter from the Massachusetts House of Representatives calling for a joint petition against British policy without taking any immediate action on it, and Governor Penn had been hopeful that conservative ele­ ments in the Assembly would be successful in maintaining their

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policy of refusing to take any notice of the Massachusetts appeal . The situation in the Assembly changed completely, however, with the arrival of a letter from the Earl of Hillsborough, the new Sec-'] retary of State for America, directing the governor to adjourn the ' Assembly if it took any notice of this "flagitious attempt to disturb ; the public peace." So incensed were the citizens of Philadelphia \ —at this attempt to interfere with the deliberations of the Assembly, | that they met publicly on 30 July to instruct the city representatives { to vote in favor of joining in a general colonial protest as requested ' in the Massachusetts letter. Such general meetings for the in­ struction of representatives were virtually unknown in Philadelphia and demonstrate the high feeling aroused by Hillsborough’s letter .14 Spurred on by pressure from their constituents and also, no doubt, by their own resentment of Hillsborough's high-handed tac­ tics, the Assembly reconsidered the Massachusetts Circular Letter in September. While still making no move to join in a general col-' onial petition, the Assembly did adopt formal petitions to the king, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons, all of which em- | phasized the colonial contention that Parliament had no right to tax the colonies without their consent. A letter to the agents ampli­ fied the argument of the petitions, pointing out that all arguments based on the economic inexpediency of the Townshend duties had deliberately been omitted from the petitions for fear that the mentio n of the economic issue would weaken the constitutional opposition. But the duties were clearly bad economic policy for England and ' \ec the colonies as well, for they would serve only to encourage the growth of manufactures in America . Furthermore, the proposal to [ use the revenues from the duties for the payment of civil officials j would strike a serious blow at the independence of the Assembly .J For all of these reasons, the agents were to use their best efforts to obtain repeal of the duties, and they were to continue their ef­ forts to obtain redress of grievances previously noted .15 Legislative protests against the Townshend duties failed to ap-1 pease the radical desire for drastic measures, and newspaper prop­ agandists continued their attacks on the merchants for their selfidi opposition to non-importation. "A Tradesman" and "Agricola," for example, both alleged that most imports from Great Britain were actually harmful to the country and urged the artisans of Philadel­ phia to take matters into their ownhands by refusing to buy any dry goods of British origin. "A North American," writingin a New York paper, specifically charged that "a few selfish dry goods merchants were thwarting the willof the greatmajority of the citizens of Phila­ delphia . 16 This last attack brought forth another long and able exposition of the merchants' position, this time from the pen of "Philadelphus ."

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After reviewing at length the history of the attempt to force Phila­ delphia to join the intercolonial non-importation agreement of the previous spring, the author asserted that the large dry goods im­ porters, whose opposition had defeated the plan, had voluntarily stopped the importation of dry goods, except for necessary articles . The merchants were just as conscious as everyone else of the "many impolitic regulations, and grievous impositions, laid on our trade , and the more alarmingcircumstance of raising a revenue in Amer­ ica.” Violent opposition, however, served only to bring violent re­ prisals, and the merchants joined with the "general voice of the most sensible thinking people throughout the province" who desired to suspend further action until the results of the Assembly's peti­ tions were known. Ln the meantime, the merchants were preparing a memorial to the merchants of GreatBritain which would reinforce the petitions of the Assembly. In conclusion, the author remarked that "the colonies have only to fear, arbitrary ministerial tyranny on the one hand, and Republicanism on the other; the former, it is to be hoped, may be convinced of their mistake, by a steady conduct in the colonies, and by the voice of the commercial interest in Eng­ land, relinquish their claims to taxation in the colonies; and the latter, I hope, may be prevailed on to think wisely, and act prudently in the present important crisis."17 "Riiladelphus" accurately represented the public position of the merchants, and their private opinion was much the same: they did not like the Townshend duties, butthey were equally fearful of hasty measures of opposition. Richard Wain, an importing merchant, substantially echoed the arguments of "Philadelphus" when he told his English factors that Americans of every class were unanimous in opposing Parliamentary taxation. Philadelphia's reluctance to take drastic measures did not indicate that its citizens were less unanimous than those of the other colonies, but only that they had been persuaded to wait and see if Parliament would repeal the duties in its approaching session. William Allen likewise noted the unan­ imity of the continent in opposition to Britsh policy. Pennsylvania was "the most moderate of all theColorys, but none of them are more fixed then we are in not givingup the right of being taxed by our own representatives. I know of no man among us hardy enough to say the contrary; the Quakers in their way are as zealous in claiming that right as their neighbours."!® The committee of merchants completed its work on the mem­ orial mentioned by "Philadelphus" and dispatched it to England early in November, 1768 . The preamble of this document dwelt once more on the unconstitutionality of the Revenue Act of 1767 but pointed out that this aspect of the problem had been fully considered in the peti­ tions of the Assembly. The body of the memorial, therefore, con-

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centrated on a restatement of the economic hardships caused by recent British policy. It concluded with the assertion that trade with England would increase if all of the recent restrictions were removed. If the restrictions, especially the Townshend duties, re­ mained in effect, "it is our serious and candid opinion, the com­ merce between G. Britain and her colonies must of necessary con­ sequence, greatly diminish, and the general importation of goods suddenly cease ." More than 200 merchantsand traders signed this memorial. Radical elements were by no means pleased with the cautious tone of the memorial. A Bostoncommentator termed the sentiments "laudable" but doubted if these efforts would be equally effective "with the more spirited and disinterested measures of their brethren in the neighbouring colonies."20 The threat of non-importation implicit in the last sentence of the memorial indicates that radical pressures were steadily pushing the merchants in the direction of economic coercion regardless of their own desires . So intense was that pressure, recalled one merchant in retrospect, that " . . .their mouths were stopped:—No person must speak or write but on one side the question---- ifa merchant said anything in favour of importa­ tion (on any terms) he must be told, he was no friend to his country, perhaps was an enemy .”21 Most of the merchants had probably been aware for some time that the pressure could not be resisted indefinitely; their only hope was that they could delay action until they heard that there was some prospect of repeal of the duties . John Reynell had reached this conviction as early as August.1768 , and the events of the fall only served to strengthen his conviction that non-importation was inevitable unless Parliament acted very quickly to repeal the duties . Other merchants had reached similar conclusions .22 English factors of the Philadelphia merchants were unable to report any prospect of favorable results from the legislative peti­ tions or the merchants' memorial. Reluctantly, then, the Phila­ delphians took the first step toward non-importation with the signing of a preliminary agreement dated 6 February 1769. The signers agreed not to send any more orders to England until March 10 unless some favorable word from England arrived in the meantime . They also agreed to countermand all previous orders which could not be shipped from England by the first of April. Most of the merchants signed this preliminary agreement.23 The waiting period came to its end without the arrival of any i encouraging news from England. The merchants, therefore, adopted a full-fledged non-importation agreement on the tenth of March . Byd its terms, they pledged themselves not to import any English goods with the exception of some twenty-odd items used for ballast, medi-

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cinal purposes, and manufactures . To discourage smuggling, the agreement stated that none of the prohibited goods could be brought directly from Europe with the exception of linens and provisions from Ireland. Non-importation was to continue until a general meeting of the subscribers voted to amend or terminate the agreement unless the Townshend duties were repealed in the meantime .24 Once they had adopted non-importation, the merchants attempted to place their conduct in the best possible light. In reply to letters from the committee of the London merchants, the Philadelphia com­ mittee asserted the unity of the Philadelphia merchants with other classes of people in the colonies in their resistance against British taxation for the purpose of raising a revenue . If they had delayed in adopting non-importation, it was only because they wished to try every other method before resorting to economic coercion. When it became apparent that chances of relief were slight, "they unani­ mously entered into the very agreement which some months before, when proposed to them, they had declined. This agreement being formed on mature deliberation, we are of opinion the people of this province will firmly adhere to it.” The emphasis in this letter on the unconstitutionality of British policy is of crucial importance in understanding tire nature of colo­ nial opposition. The London merchants had hinted that requests for repeal would be more favorably received in England if they were based on grounds of inexpediency rather than constitutional rights. The Philadelphia committee, however, flatly declined to change its position. If repeal depended on the surrender of American princi­ ples, there was little hope that repeal would ever take place. The merchants would never "presume to petition Parliament on the prin­ ciple of inexpediency only when every assembly on the continent are applying for a repeal on the principle of right. The merchants are too sensible how jealous the Americans are of their liberty ever to hazard such a step."25 It was not only in public statements that merchants avowed their belief in the unconstitutionality of British taxation. Even those of conservative outlook expressed the same opinion in private corre­ spondence. John Reynell, for example, wrote: . . .if that grand pillar of English liberties is taken from them of taxing themselves & they are to be tax'd at will & pleasure by the Parliament of Great Britain without being at all represented there they will no longer be free born Englishmen, but vas­ sals and slaves to Great Britain. . . .my wife has got a new spinning wheel & is spinning away al­ ready & rather than fail I will give up nv beloved article of tea & put on a leather jacket .*6

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Somehow or other, the picture of wealthy, conservative, Quaker John Reynell giving up his tea and putting on a leather jacket while Mrs. Reynell busily spins yarn for homespun cloth testifies more eloquently than many words could do to the reality of colonial ob­ jections to the principle of British taxation. Such sentiments as his; and those expressed in the public letter of the merchants'committee previously cited, seem highly significant in view of the thesis, widely held at one time, that constitutional arguments were no more than catch-words, used by the merchants to drum up popular supportfor their real goal, commercial reform, and to mask the essentially 7° economic nature of the opposition to British policy .2? But the mer- T' chants, as we have seen, delayed the adoption of the economic pressure favored by the radicals as long as they could. Further-more, they insisted on stating their opposition in terms of rights even after they had been assured that this would lessen the chance for redress of their grievances . If commercial reform was the only goal of the merchants, it is difficult to understand why they continued a course which would make the attainment of that goal less certain? If the only testimony to the importance which the merchants placed upon the constitutional rights of the colonies were the open letter to the London merchants, its sentiments, of course, might be dis­ counted or discredited onthe grounds that itwas really only a piece of propaganda intended for public consumption. But it is less easy to account for the way in which the merchants emphasized the consti-i tutional point in private letters to business correspondents and per­ sonal friends in England. In such letters they were surely under no I constraint to express views which they did notreally hold. One can , only conclude, therefore, that the questionof constitutional right did seem important and significant to merchants as well as to others in America and that it really did seem to them that England was at­ tempting to destroy American liberty by taxing them without theix J consent. Once the merchants had succumbed to popular pressure and adopted non-importation, questions of enforcement and interpreta­ tion inevitably arose . Many merchants feared that their English factors would send them goods contrary to instructions, and so they made a point of emphasizing strength of popular feeling on the poirt. John Reynell spoke of the "bad consequences and perhaps.. .riots and tumults” which would occur if any attempt were made to intro­ duce goods contrary to the agreement?8The first actual test of the agreement came in July 1769 when a cargo of malt arrived in Pniladelphia from Yarmouth. The committee called on the alleged owner, Amos Strettell, for an explanation. He denied any know ledge of the cargo, and said that it had been consigned to the cap­ tain for sale. The committee decided to call a meeting of the sub-

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scribers to the agreement since this was the first attempt to violate it. At this meeting the subscribers voted that the importation of malt was contrary to the agreement and unanimously agreed not to purchase any part of the cargo . The brewers of the city joined in similar resolutions.2^ A more serious problem of enforcement arose in late July when a ship arrived from Liverpool with a cargo reported to contain dry goods for several of the merchants . The committee inspected the ship's papers and found that there were actually few goods on board which violated the agreement and that these had all been or­ dered before the adoption of the agreement. Because the import of these goods contradicted the spirit, if not the letter, of the non­ importation association, the owners readily agreed to put them into public stores until the duties were repealed. The affair, neverthe­ less, threw "a Disgrace on the owners of them ."30 Questions also began to arise regardingthe disposition of goods sent to Philadelphia on consignment, and the merchants met on 2 August 1769 to consider this problem . The meeting resolved that all such goods ought to be sent back to England instead of being stored. Any person who received such goods or anyone who was found to have ordered goods for himself after 6 February "shall be deemed an Enemy to the liberties of America, and the Printers shall be justified in publishing his name ."31 This last threat illustrates the only means of enforcement at the disposal of the supporters of the economic boycott of British goods: public disclosure of violations and the resultant public odium and disgrace, if not outright vio­ lence. This weapon, though extra-legal, was effective enough so long as the public temper remained high. Two tests of the agreement regarding goods sent on consign­ ment occurred in the fall of 1769. In the first instance, the New York factor of an English merchant wrote for permission to send some dry goods for sale or storage. The committee refused to accept any responsibility for the goods if they came to town, and the affair went no further .32 In the second case, a ship actual^ came into port early in October carrying large quantities of prohib­ ited goods from Hull on consignment to various Philadelphia mer­ chants . The persons to whom the goods were addressed refused to accept them, and the committee announced that they could not be stored. One of the English merchants involved in the shipment of these goods later apologized for his action, admitting that he had received the non-importation resolutions but "this I did not appre­ hend wd been so universally adopted or I had not shipped a bale ."33 On the basis of these incidents of attempted violation of the agree­ ment, it seems fair to say that the Philadelphia agreement wasboth strictly interpreted and strictly enforced .

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By the fall of 1769 the entire Atlantic coastline from New Eng-' land to Georgia was, theoretically at least, closed to most imports from England by local, unilateral, "voluntary" non-importation agreements or associations. These boycotts, of course, varied widely in their details and in the effectiveness with which they were' enforced. All of them, however, stated acommon goal: the repeal of the Townshend duties. When this had been accomplished, the/ agreements would automatically cease to be binding upon the signers'. Many radicals were dissatisfied with the limited goals established in these originalagreements and soughtto have them altered to ac­ complish a more general modification of the relationship between the colonies and the mother country. Bostonradicals, in particular, conducted a successful campaign to force the merchants there to alter the agreement so that its goal became the repeal of all British laws imposing duties in the colonies, including those on molasses and wine . Letters from the Boston committee administering the agreement suggested the same alteration in the Philadelphia non­ importationassociation. The Philadelphia committee in reply agreed that the duties imposed under the Revenue Acts of 1764 and 1766 were fully as "exceptionable" as the Townshend duties since they were for the purpose of collectinga revenue which could be used for the same destructive purposes as those imposed under the Act of 1767. Submission to the acts of 1764 and 1766, therefore, would establish a dangerous precedent for British taxation and regulation even if the Townshaxl duties were repealed. Yet the Philadelphia committee admitted that it was unable to influence the merchants to extend the scope of their agreement; since this point had already been so long neglected, "our Merchants are extremely averse to making it now an object of their non-importation agreement ."34 This incident suggests that the committee and the body of the merchants were, at least to some extent, working at cross pur­ poses . Asa matter of fact, the committee had probably been under the control of a radical faction, led by Charles Thomson, almost from the beginning of non - importation. Severalof the conservative merchants chosen to serve on the committee at that time had de­ clined the honor, leaving Thomson's faction in the majority. The few remaining conservatives, despairingof their ability to moderate the actions of the hot-headed najority, withdrew during the winter of 1769-1770.35 None of the remaining members of the committee are recognizable as dry goods merchants of any consequence . Thus the committee had lost all pretense of speaking for those whose in­ terest and views it was presumed to represent, especially the dry goods importers who were most deeply affected by the non-importation agreement. , This belief that -the "merchants committee" had become little ;

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more than a sounding board for the radical political opinions of : Charles Thomson is reinforced by a letter which the "committee" wrote to the London merchants' committee in November, 1769. This letter contains no discussion or even mention of economic grie­ vances; instead it admits that "it is true the impositions laid are not very grievous." The entire emphasis of the letter is on constitutional objections to the Townshend duties and toother British policies such as the multiplications of officers not subject to local control andan enlargement of the powers of vice-admiralty courts which deprived British subjects of their right to trial by jury. All of these acts were attempts to "break down the barriers, which their forefathers have erected against arbitrary Power, and enforce their Edicts by fleets and Armies. To such a system of Government the Americans cannot tamely submit." Thomson sent the letter, or a copy of it, to Benjamin Franklin together with a covering letter so similar in content and phraseology that it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the radical spokesman was the actual author of both of the let­ ters . Franklin promptly turned both letters over to the London papers for publication, thus confirming the impression that the whole affair was concocted for its propaganda value.36 It has been asserted above that, despite conflicts of interest and goals between the merchants and "their" committee, the Phila­ delphia agreement was strictly interpreted and enforced. It would be convenient if this assertion could be documented by reference to customs statistics . Unfortunately, it is impossible to do this for the simple reason that statistics were compiled on a calendar-year basis while the non-importation agreementwas not in effect for any full calendar year. Some goods were ordered and shipped in the spring of 1769 before the agreement went into effect; and, as we shall see in detail below, the agreement was broken in time to allowfall shipments in 1770. The most that can be said, then, on the basis of statistics is that the non-importation agreement did seri­ ously curtail shipments of English goods into Fniladelphia. The official valuations of the English customs service show that the exports from England to Pennsylvania declined from L371,830 in 1768 to £199,909 in 1768 to £134,881 in 1770, and then shot up meteorically to £728,744 in 1771, the first full calendar year after the end of non-importation .37 More complex than the problem of the extent to which the Phila­ delphia and other non-importation agreements actually reduced ex— of — ports of British goods to the colonies is the-------question what influence the agreements actually had on the British merchants and on the policy of the government itself. The entire theory and practice of non-importation, of course, was based upon the assumption that English merchants and manufacturers were so dependent upon trade

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with the American colonies that they would immediately and vigor-\ ously assert their influence to secure the modification of whatever ■ policies threatened the existence of thatessential trade. The theory/ had, it seemed, received ample empirical verification at the time of the Stamp Act when the English merchants had leaped into instant and successful action to obtain repeal of the offending policy. Sup-\ porters of non-importation were convinced that the same results would follow in the case of the Townshend duties as soon as the campaign for non-importation agreements had been universally / successful in the colonies. English merchants did exert themselves/ to obtain repeal of the duties, but their response was by no means as unanimous or vigorous as it had been in 1765 and 1766. Perhaps i this partial breakdown of the theory of non-importation may be traced back, as Benjamin Franklin suggested, to the English merchants ' 1 resentment at the lack of gratitude shown by Americans at the time I of the repeal of the Stamp Act.38 More fundamental, no doubt, was/ the discovery that English manufacturers were no longer quite so' dependent upon the American market as they had been before, that ' they had succeeded in finding other outlets for their goods, mostly / on the European mainland. A veritable rash of reports, originating/ in the principal trading and manufacturingtowns of England in 17691770 when the colonial non-importation movement was at its peak of effectiveness, asserted that cloth had never been in such great de­ mand and prices so high. A few merchants specializing in the North American trade were suffering, but the general run of merchants and manufacturers were enjoying substantial prosperity.39 The/ moral was plain: why exert themselves on behalf of a rebellious and probably ungrateful groupof colonists when their trade had ap­ parently ceased to be of crucial importance? The attitude of the British ministry toward repeal of the Town-l shend duties was also subject to complex and conflicting considera- I tions. On the one hand, the successful implementation of non-im-/ portation in the colonies would, so longas the colonies could maintain it, certainly defeat the original purpose of the duties, the collection of a revenue, and would, in addition, deprive the British merchants and manufacturers of a valuable, if no longer essential, market for their goods. On the other hand, proponents of a "hard line" in col­ onial policy could argue that the time was ripe for a test of wills with the colonies; if no revenue was to be forthcoming from the act anyway and if the merchants and manufacturers were not going to raise a great outcry for repeal, why not make a firm stand on the principle of Parliamentary right to tax the colonies? Appeasement of the colonists, as at the time of the Stamp Act, could only result in further demands and greater erosion of British authority over the colonies.

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The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

Bereft of any effective leadership and beset by internal troubles relating to the Wilkes affair among other things, the Grafton ministry left determination of colonial policy pretty much in the hands of the Earl of Hillsborough, its new Secretary of State for America. Hills­ borough seems to have considered repeal of the duties as early as the spring of 1769 but was said to have been deterred by reports of non-importation in the colonies.40 By May, however, Hillsborough and the cabinet had arrived at a decision, which he reported to col­ onial governors, to "propose in the next session of Parliament to take off the Duties upon Glass, Paper, and Colours upon consider­ ation of such Duties having been laid contrary to the true principles Of Commerce.”41 This proposed partial repeal, of course, satis/fied neither the desires of the colonists nor the ideas of the "hard . line" advocates in England who felt that any submission to colonial 'claims would be fatal. Nevertheless, the ministry pressed on with its plan for partial repeal. Final action was temporarily deferred while the feeble Grafton cabinet was replaced by the more stable i administration led by Lord North in January 1770. The act of par! tial repeal finally achieved passage in April 1770 . Hillsborough's letter about the prospects of partial repeal does not seem to have been givenany publicity in Philadelphia, but there were plenty of rumors and reports that the duties would be removed. Some of these reports predicted complete repeal while others ac­ curately said that the duty on tea would remain in effect. It seemed unlikely, however, that any kind of action would come in time to al­ low the merchants to send orders for goods to be shipped in the spring of 1770. Under these circumstances many of the merchants became restive under the restraints of non-importation, and Henry Drinker predicted that they would not hold firm. "Interest, all powerful Interest," he wrote, "will bear down patriotism... Irather apprehend that it is but skin deep with a great many and princi­ pally with the fierce and violent, as they appeared to be at first setting out. Already do we see those makingbreeches in the Agree­ ment who were first in promoting it."42 Some dry goods merchants actually circulated a report around town that the agreement would be abandoned even if Parliament failed to repeal the duties. Their reason for wishing to end the agreement was that "their case is particularly hard, as that branch of trade by which they maintain themselves and families, is entirely stopt, while those merchants who trade to the West Indies, or foreign parts, still carry on their business as they did before the Agreement." The Gazette, how­ ever, assured its readers that the great body of the dry goods men were determined to adhere faithfull to non-importation .43 While the Philadelphia merchants anxiously awaited word of Parliamentary action, their English factors knew that Parliament

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would repeal only part of the duties . They gloomily reported this fact to their American correspondentsand said that in consequence they would ship no goods to New York and Philadelphia on the as­ sumption that partial repeal would not satisfy the colonies. One merchant wrote that the only hope of ever reopening the trade was to modify the agreements, for "there is not the least hopes of re­ dress here as the M — 1 interest is so strong that there is not the least probability of removing or carrying one single point with them ."44 Evenbefore final word of Parliament's action reached Philadel- , phia, the uneasiness and discontent among the importers reached such a pitch that several of them asked the committee to call a meet­ ing of the subscribers . Among the reasons were: that importers j of wines and molasses were carrying on their business as usual while paying large sums to the customs for the duties on those art- i icles; that the agreements in the other colonies allowed them a greater latitude in importing from GreatBritain, so that Philadelphia trade was passing into other hands; that many of the subscribers to the agreement were not dry goods importers at all and hence it was not fair for them to have a voice in determiningthe fate of that trade; and that many small importers and shopkeepers were being ruined by non-importation. The committee agreed to call a meetingof tte_ subscribers on the first of May. On 28 April a number of dry goodsmerchants met privately to determine their policy at the general meeting. The only agreement reached was to delay the general meeting until 15 May. Most of the dry goods merchants probably | favored modification of the agreement at this time to allow importation of all except dutied articles from England, although there were I a few who favored complete abandonment of non-importation.45 , Official word of the partial repeal of the duties arrived in Phil­ adelphia during the first week of May. Clement Biddle was certain that this news would prompt the merchants to modify the agreement, and at least one other merchant assumed that partial repeal would surely result in the resumption of all imports from England with the exception of tea.46 The general meeting of the subscribers on 14 May, however, after "warm debates" was unable to reach any de­ cision except to meet again on 5 June to consider the question.47 A great air of uncertainty seemed to pervade the counsels of the merchants in the interim between the two meetings. Word from New York reported that the merchants there were delaying their decision until they knew what action the Philadelphia traders would take. In their turn, the Etiladelphia merchants dispatched a hasty letter to Boston to find out the sentiment there .48 Clement Biddle was still sure that the Philadelphia merchants would alter their agreement at the coming meeting, while Governor Penn was

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equally positive that "their Determination will then be to prolong the former Agreement of Non-importation from Great Britain 'till the Duty on Tea shall be repealed ."49 Startling news from Rhode Island in late May precipitated a new element into the Philadelphia situation. The merchants' committee of Newport officially confirmed prevalent rumors that the traders there had broken through their agreement. This "betrayal" of the American cause prompted a meeting of the tradesmen, artificers, and mechanics of Philadelphia at the State House on 23 May. The importing merchants could not hope to control a mass meeting of this kind, and those present resolved that they would "by all prudential ways and means, endeavour to render the non-importation, as it now stands, permanent, and prevent any least violation of it." The meeting also promised to encourage manufacturesand to purchase nothing from violators of non-importation. It ended with a resounding condemnation of the perfidy of the Newport mer­ chants, ordered a ship which had just come in from the Rhode Island port to go back without unloading, and promised to have no further dealings with Rhode Island until the Newport agreement was put into effect once again.50 The strong resolutions of this meeting served warning on the dry goods merchants that the same popular pressure which had driven them into non-importation would be exerted to prevent the alteration of the agreement. The importers, therefore, resigned themselves to the probability that non-importation would be con­ firmed in its present form. Richard Wain, who had already ordered goods from England, hastily countermanded the orders, "for it new seems the sense of the People that the non-importation agreement be adhered to." Clement Biddle, so confident before of the ability of the merchants to modify the agreement, now believed that the merchants' plan to resume most imports from England "seems to me now to be at an end ." Henry Drinker agreed that popular senti­ ment was so strong that"little doubt remains, but on the 5th of next mo. . .it will be carried without much difficulty, to continue the pre­ sent plan without adding a single article ."51 Drinker's position at this time is of great interest and significance. As a wealthy and conservative Quaker merchant, he had 1 fought non-importation as long as he dared . He had then served on 'the merchants' committee for a time but had resigned during the winter of 1769-1770 as a protest against the controlling radical group led by Charles Thomson. Yet in the springof 1770 he seemsto have felt sincerely that the only honorable course for the Philadelphia merchants was to adhere to their agreement as it was. The letter quoted above expressed deep contempt for Newport's action in ending ■ its agreement: "the little dirty Colony of Rhode Island," he called

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it. "This flagrant violation and breach of their Plighted honour," he added, "has not staggered the merchants of New York or this place, but rather left them more determined than ever to persever untill the Revenue on Tea is removed." Yet scarcely four months > later, Drinker was a leader in the successful campaign to end ncn- / importation in Philadelphia. If nothing else, the variations in his/ stand illustrate the futility of too many generalizations about "mer-'l chant opinion" and show that consistency of thought and action is ( not necessarily to be expected either in groups with common eco- . nomic interest, or even in individuals . In any event, the meeting of the subscribers, held according to plan oh5 June, agreed "almost unanimously.. .that there should not at this time be any alteration made in the agreement, so gen­ erously entered into by the merchants of this city, on the 10th of March 1769."52 This unanimity was more apparent than real; ac­ cording to one report, the continuation of non-importation had only been possible because Charles Thomson, "the Leader, all along for the opposition.. .Introduc'd tis Suposed the body of disaffected Mechanics, among the Subscribers, who were only appointed to meet, & by this Artifice Carry'd his point."53 Many merchants undoubtedly agreed with Clement Biddle who still felt that "a small regulation would be necessary. . .as I am rather doubtfull’ of the present agreement being too confined for our Interest that a small regulation may not hurt the cause ."54 The results of the meeting ended for the time being the plan of the dry goods merchants to modify the non-importation agreement. The arrival of unexpected news from New Yorkon 11 July presented them with what seemed to be a splendid opportunity to reopen the question. The merchants of New York had been engaged in a cam­ paign to end their agreement, and they had achieved success by the device of conducting a house-to-house poll in the city. The vote, counted by the merchants no doubt, favored the end of non-impor­ tation; and the merchants were once more ordering goods from Eng­ land .55 The popular party in Philadelphia, acting with speed and firmness, defeated the hopes of the merchants that they could fol-;1 low those of New York in ending non-importation. A bitter reply from the Philadelphia "merchants' committee" set the tone of the radical response to the news from New York; "The disposition you shewed on a former occasion, and the letters we received from you, since the passing of the Act of 7 Geo . Ill promised a different conduct. We cannot forbear telling you, that however you may col­ our your proceeding, we think you have in the day of trial deserted the cause of liberty and your country ."56 Even more drastic was the stand taken on 14 July at a public meeting in Philadelphia. The meetingbeganwith a strong resolution

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190

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The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

reaffirming Philadelphia's own non-importation agreement despite the defection of other northern cities . The resolves then proceeded to a denunciation of the actionof New York as "a sordid and wanton Defection from the common Cause,” which "weakened the Union of the Colonies, wounded the public character of America, strengthened the hands of our enemies, and encouraged them to prosecute their Designs against our Common Liberty." Not satisfied with verbal condemnation alone, the meeting agreed to break off all commercial intercourse with New York until it revived its agreement or until the Townshend duties were completely repealed . The name of any person found dealing with a New Yorker would be published in the newspapers .57 ' Popular control of the situation regarding non-importation in Philadelphia was undoubtedly at its zenith just before, during, and after this meeting of 14 July. The reaffirmation of the agreement by a meeting which made no pretense of being composed of sub­ scribers only shows the extent to which the popular leaders had seized what initiative the merchants had ever had. As Clement Biddle pointed out, "the lead of affairs here is (I think) now got too much out of the hands of the merchants & not conducted by more able leaders." Early in August, he was still doubtful that any fur­ ther moves toward endingnon-importationwould be successful, for "a set of people Who have taken the Lead here will. . .greatly oppose an Importation. I dont Chuse to reflect on them but think they are misled by a set of people here who have perticular Views to An­ swer ." A sample of the kind of people and opinion to which Biddle was referring is provided in the reaction of James Patterson, a Lower Counties storekeeper and riverboat owner, to the ending of non-importation in New York: "Maythe NYorkers&all such scoundrells go to the Deavell I will sooner (tho’ badly I want a Coat) make me a sute out of our old Castaway sail than buy a farthing worth of suchdamd F[arliamenjt[ari^n (fori know it must be such) scoundrells to speake short I have no Charity &c to them .”58 t Defeated by the apparently invincible popular forces in all efforts ,to end or modify non-importation, the merchants and their conser­ vative supporters resorted to another campaign in the newspapers. -The radicals replied in kind, and the result was a paper war fully as acrimonious as the battle over the adoption of non- importation had been. "Nestor,” speaking for the popular group, admitted that the dry goods importers suffered most from the continuation of non­ importation but was cheerfully willing to let a "few individuals" sacrifice their economic welfare to the "general safety." Any re­ laxation of the agreement would serve only to open the way for its total abolition. "Philo-Veritas," replying for the dry goods mer­ chants, favored limiting non-importation to articles which were

The Townshend Acts and Non-Importation

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subjected to a duty for revenue purposes . He laid great stress on the damaging assertion that among the most violent supporters of non-importation were those whose business interests were not di­ rectly affected butwho, atthe same time, were carrying on a brisk trade in wine, molasses, and foreign sugar, all of which paid im­ port duties which were levied for the purpose of collecting a reve­ nue . These men were more than willing to cast aspersions on the patriotism of the dry goods traders, eventhough "the love of private interest has not yet suffered you to give up one commercial advan­ tage for the public good." A look into the waste books and ledgers of such people to see how much they had contributed to the revenue of the customs in America would expose the real public enemies of the country .59 The charges made by "Philo-Veritas” had much truth and logic on their side, and they stupg”Jurisprudens" into an immediate reply , which argued rather lamely thatthe duties on wine, molasses, for­ eign sugar, and coffee were not for revenue purposes at all but were intended to regulate trade and encourage the British sugar colonies. This view might be tenable in the case of the duties onforeign sugar , but certainly does not apply in the case of molasses where the duty was collected on both the British and the foreign variety. "Jurisprudens" also professed to see some distinction in principle between the West Indian goods which could be imported directly from the place of their growth and tea which had to be imported by way of England. Like other supporters of the popular cause, he was per­ fectly willing to admit that the heaviest burden of non-importation fell on the dry goods merchants but consoled them with the thought that the more their sacrifice, "the more their glory—the fewer that suffer the better." The continued imports of wine and molas­ ses while still subject to a duty were more bothersome to "Amor Patriae." Those duties, he felt, had first seemed regulatory in their nature and intent; but it was now apparent that they were just as injurious and unconstitutional as the tea duty. The importers of those articles should, therefore, step forward immediately and join the dry goods importers in their virtuous opposition to Parliamentary taxation .60 "Philo-Veritas" returned to the war on the side of the merchants in a piece which stressed the advantage that other colonies were taking of Fniladelphia's obstinate refusal to end or modify non-im­ portation. The onlyresult of continuing the boycottwould be to lose trade to these colonies . "A Philadelphiari' joined in the plea to e nd non-importation and added a particularly significant note in his ad­ mission that the merchants had been forced into non-importation against their better judgment in the first place . Popular pressure had been so great at the time that "in compliance with the prevailing

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opinion, the merchants, from a principle of complaisance, more than a sense of propriety were foolishly led into a measure, unsup­ portable in its nature, and ineffectual in its tendency.”61 This statement, though written after the event, helps to correct the assertion that non-importationhad been instituted by the merchants as a means of obtaining commercial reforms . The popular party's most elaborate defense of its position in relation to the importation of wine, molasses, and similar goods which paid a duty upon coming into the colonies came from the pen of "A Pennsylvanian." Evading the issue of whether or not these duties were as unconstitutional as the tea duty, he made a direct and unvarnished appeal to the economic interests of the city's working classes. The articles inquestion, he pointed out, came from the foreign islands, whose trade was of vast importance to Philadelphia. If the importation of these goods were to be prohibited, the carpen­ ters and tradesmen who depended on shipping for a livelihood would be ruined together with those merchants whose livings came directly from the importing of wine, molasses, and sugar. Furthermore, prohibiting imports of those articles would do no injury to the Brit­ ish merchants and manufacturers against whom non-importation was specifically directed. The writer then went on to allejp that the period of non-importationhad beenoneof unparalleled prosper­ ity in the city and province . The merchants had sold off their sup­ plies of dry goods athigh pricesand had paid off their debts in Eng­ land at low rates of exchange . "The balance of trade is much in our favour; money flows in apace from every side; and oeconomy and frugality, with many useful manufactures, begin to raise their heads amongst us ." All of these advantages must not be sacrificed to a few selfish importers whose vast imports only tended to ruin the province anyway.62 The propaganda war in the newspapers, of course, brought no "victory" to either side; but, in spite of the apparent invincibility of the popular party, there were strong forces working on the side of those who wished to modify or end non-importation ,_One of these was the realization that non-importationhad not fully accomplished its purpose of bringing sufficient economic pressure to bear upon the English merchants and manufacturers to force them into vigorous activity on behalf of the American cause . The merchants made ef­ fective use, in newspapers and elsewhere, of the reports reaching them about the scarcity and high price of goods in England and the ability of the English merchants and manufacturers to find markets for their goods other than the North American colonies. The moral of these reports, of course, was plain; if non-importation was not accomplishing its intended purpose, thenwhy continue it any longer? The merchants also could point to the danger of Hiiladelphia's

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losing trade to the neighboring colonies which had abandoned non-, importation or whose agreements had allowed them more latitude to import certain types of dry goods . Just after the adoption of non­ importation in Philadelphia, the Gazette published a letter from Eng­ land which warned that exports to Maryland had increased sharply. When the struggle over the end of non-importation began to take shape, reports of increased exports to other colonies began to be published with increasing frequency in the Philadelphia papers. Some of these reports told of large exports to places like Boston which were still theoretically observingnon-importation .63 The ef­ fect of such reports, of course, cannot be determined with any de­ gree of accuracy; but it seems reasonable to assume that even rad­ ical leaders had no particular desire to see the dry goods trade of Pniladelphia fall into outside hands. Whatever the causes, the tide during mid-August seemed to be turning in favor of the merchants. Clement Biddle reported that the "minds of the people Except Some few seems to be much cooled," ' and felt that the circumstances were becoming more propitious for an end to non - importation. He was even able to sell two Rhode Island vessels which he had previously not even dared to bring up to town for fear they would be destroyed. Radical spokesmen may have felt the same change in public opinion which Biddle noted, for two of them hastened into print to assert that the tempers of the people were not cooling and that they were as firm in support of non-importation as ever . In contrast to Biddle's opinion, it should be noted that Governor ftenn, as late as 5 September saw no chance of any alteration in the agreement even though the majority of the subscribers clearly supported such a move.6? At the very time when Governor Penn was most pessimistic, a group of merchants were planning the campaign which was soon to bring non-importation in Philadelphia to an end . Fourteen signers of the agreement, among them John Reynell, Abel James, Henry Drinker, and Clement Biddle took the first step by writing a letter to the committee submitting a formal proposal for a vote on ending non-importation . Two of the signers, two of the committee, and two or three other reputable citizens were to make a canvass of all the signers of the agreement. Those wishing to end non-importation except for tea were to sign a statementto that effect, and those wishing to continue the agreement would be noted separately. If a majority of the subscribers agreed toend non-importation, then the authors of the proposal would consider themselves free to import goods from England as usual. Obviously the merchants felt that the chances of ending non­ importation were better if they relied on a poll rather than a public meeting. The New York merchantshad successfully used a similar

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plan. The popular leaders were much more likely to be able to ex­ ercise control of a public meeting; the merchants had had bitter ex­ periences with such proceedings during the summer . But the com­ mittee, still under radical control, refused to agree to'the plan for a poll of the subscribers . Its reply to the merchants' proposal stated that the only legitimate way to end the agreement was the one pointed out in the agreement itself: a general meeting of the subscribers. Rebuffed in their plan to end non-importation without taking the /risk of a public meeting, the dry goods merchants themselves called \ a meeting of the subscribers to take place on 20 September atDavenSport's Tavern. They chose the meeting place carefully; it was small enough to insure that only legitimate subscribers would be admitted. Furthermore, they made an intense effort to see that all those who agreed with them were at the meeting. Many adherents of the popular party, on the other hand, stayed away. The com­ mittee, though opposingall plans for endingor modifying the agree­ ment, attended the meeting in the hope of influencing its decision. As the meeting began the committee attempted to seize the ini­ tiative byproposinga series of resolutions reaffirmingnon-importation. The meeting promptly voted to defer these resolutions and, instead, agreed by a "great majority" that the non-importation agreement should be altered to allow the importation of all articles from Great Britain, except tea and such other articles "as are, or maybe, subject to duties, for the purpose of raising a revenue." This vote, of course, sounded the death knell for the resolutions sponsored by the committee . The radicals, nevertheless, attempted to salvage something from the debacle by proposingthat final determination on ending the agreement be deferred until the other colonies could be consulted. The vote on this question was recorded; it was defeated, eighty-nine to forty-five . The meeting then made the empty assertion that the agreement was only altered, not broken, and agreed not to accept any goods which were shipped from England before 15 January. Charles Thomson then announced that the members of the committee could no longer serve under these circumstances. The meeting promptly accepted the resignation, gave them a vote of thanks, and adjourned, leaving the dry goods merchants, no doubt, well satis­ fied with their evening's work and the radicals embittered by their defeat. 65 The former members of the committee reported that "the people in general are uneasy" at the decision to abandon non-importation and probably many of the "lower orders" agreed with James Part­ ridge's bitter remark that "yrPhilada Gent are Clever Fellow happy for them had they never entered into any Association, the Parlemt will never repeal any Act that shall or may be layd on the Shoulders

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of us poor Americans ." Relying on the tested technique of public gatherings, the radicals, indeed, made one last-gasp effort to pre­ vent the merchants' plan from going into effect. They called for a general meeting of the city on 27 September to consider "the resolutions formed by a number of the dry goods importers .. .whic h reflect dishonour on this city and province ." The meeting passed a series of resolutionscensuringthe conductof the merchants, advo­ cating the adoption of the Maryland agreement (which was consider­ ably weaker than the old Philadelphia agreement), and appointing a committee to work with the former committee in an attempt to per­ suade the merchants to reconsider their decision. The meeting, however, took no action on a suggestion from Boston that there be a meeting of committees from Boston, Philadelphia, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and perhaps New York to form some kind of a joint non-importation plan. Despite the brave tone of the proceedings of this meeting, the radicals probably had little real hope that the merchants would change their decision. Even Daniel Roberdeau, a member of the citizens' committee, was highly pes­ simistic: " .. .alas! I fear it is a forlorn hope ."66 The hope was indeed forlorn; the dry goods merchants had, in fact, begun to dispatch large orders to England for dry goods im­ mediately after the meetingof 20 September, some of them the very next day. Their readingof the public mind proved to be accurate .6' To be sure, "A Citizen" rushed into print to threaten the merchants with a non-consumption agreement among "artisans, landholders, and freemen” inretaliation fortheir treachery, but nothing came of this threat. As Clement Biddle pointed out, "the Alterations made in our non-importation Agreement seem to be generaly approved of."68 Non-importation thus passed from the Philadelphia scene without \ serious convulsions or disturbances. Perhaps the people were just j worn out with the constant exc itement and agitation of the previous 1 two years and were ready for a period of comparative peace and ' quiet in their relations with the mother country. For their part, 1 the merchants undoubtedly retired from the political arena with a I sigh of relief and settled down to the more familiar problems of buying and selling for profit. ■'

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13 .

Armed Truce and Renewed Conflict, 1770- 1774

A state of truce, uneasy, perhaps, but at least peaceful, was // / the dominant note in the relationship between Great Britain and her ; boisterous North American colonies from 1770 to 1773. Except for extremists, both sides seemed content to let well enough alone. The British could point to the continuance of the tax on tea as evi­ dence that they had successfully maintained the right to tax the colonies. Colonial patriots, on the other hand, could show that the non-importation agreements were still in effect so far as tea was concerned and that they had not conceded the right of Parliament to tax them without their consent. Trade statistics show that the Philadelphia merchants made no serious attempt to import tea from England, and it could thus be argued that the tea duty had been ef­ fectively nullified.^ Meanwhile, in Philadelphia as in other colonial ports, the customs officers continued without ostentation to collect, and the colonial patriots without protest to pay, the duties on mo­ lasses, sugar, wine, and other products provided for in the revenue acts of 1764 and 1766. Abel James, surveyingthe state of American ■ affairs in 1772, concluded that Americans in general and Pennsyl­ vanians in particular would never give up their opposition to taxation by Parliamentbut that "matters are generally peaceably and Quietlyconducted and abundant prosperity seems to attend this new Wild .’2 Defeated by the conservative reaction associated with the end of non-importation, the Philadelphia radicals had by no means left the field completely. In the Assembly election of 1772, for exam­ ple, they made a vigorous attempt to unseat Joseph Galloway who had made himself obnoxious by his firm stand against non-importa­ tion and also had made himself personally obnoxious to William Goddard, the radical publisher of die Chronicle . Before the election

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took place, it seemed to Abel James that "die Patriots .. .would ap­ pear almost as weak and contemptible as they reallyare But when the election was over, James had to admit that he and the other con­ servative Quakers had underestimated the strength of the popular party. Galloway was reelected, but several other members of the "Quaker Party" were not. In Philadelphia County, "even William Goddard” received more than 600 votes.3 The ideological over­ tones of this struggle, however, were obscured by the intense per­ sonal animosity between Galloway and Goddard .4 More clearcut in its ideological and social implications was a dispute which enlivened the elections of 1773. Thomas Wharton had apparently made some disparaging remarks about the political ac­ tivities of the tradesmen and mechanics, and "A Citizen" immed­ iately came to their defense, warningthe farmers, tradesmen, and mechanics not to elect anyone who would "not scruple to make mer­ chandize of you and your Liberties forever." "Pacificus" pleaded for an amicable solution of the dispute; but "A Mechanic" promptly charged that "Pacificus” was worried about the increased political activity of the "Lower orders." He warned the conservatives that the lower orders would continue to exercise their right to hold meetings regarding the choice of representatives in the Assembly notwithstanding the fact that such proceedings aroused the dis­ approval of the "House of Wharton."5 Local politics, however exciting, could scarcely provide the issue which would unite the colonies or reawaken the struggle for colonial liberties. Such intercolonial issues were remarkably few between 1770 and 1773 and those that there were - the Gasp^e inquiry, the formationof intercolonial committees of correspondence, \ the payment of judges' salaries from Crown revenues - which agi- \ tated some of the other colonies during these years seem to have caused little stir in Eiiladelphia. John Dickinson deplored the ‘ "political lethargy" of Pennsylvania at this time while Josiah Quincy,. Jr., a Boston radical on tour in 1773, noted in his diary that "the political state of Pennsylvania is at this time the calmest of any on the continent."6 The British government, however, soon provided another issue j which colonial radicals could use to unite the colonies and rekindle I the apparently dying spark of patriotism in Philadelphia . That issue/ of course, was 'tea. The smuggling of tea from Holland and other European countries was, as we have seen, an ancient and honorable American custom, popular long before tea was subjected to an im­ port duty payable in the colonies . The prevalence of tea smuggling can be attributed to the relatively high price of "English" tea which in turn related to the import and inland duties which the East Ind ia Company had to pay uponthe original import of tea into England and

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which the company in turnpassed on to the consumers . The Amer­ icans reacted to these high prices by using, according to most testi­ mony, very little English and much Dutch tea; according to John Kidd, writing in 1757, not more than sixteen chests of tea legally imported from England had been consumed in Pennsylvania in the two years previous although the total yearly consumption must have been about 200 chests.7 The duty of three pence a pound imposed in the Revenue Act of 1767 served only to aggravate an existing situation, not to create a new one, regarding the consumption of English tea in Pennsylvania and the other colonies. As a result, large supplies of unsold tea began to pile up in the London ware­ houses of the East India Company. Partly because of its declining tea sales and partly because of mismanagement in other respects, the Company was in severe fi­ nancial difficulties in the late 1760's and early 1770's. Increased tea sales seemed to be one answer to the Company's problems, and recapturing the colonial market seemed to be the obvious way to accomplish this goal. The entering wedge for legal English tea in the colonial market was to be lower prices . Parliament took the first step in this direction in an act passed in 1767 which granted to the East India Company a drawback of all English import and inland duties on tea which it re-exported to America and Ireland. However, the Company was required to indemnify the Treasury for any net loss of revenue arising from these drawbacks .8 The effect of this policy could never be determined, for the non-importation agree­ ments went into effect in the colonies soon after its passage. If anything, sales of English tea in the colonies declined to even lower levels than those previously existing. Partial repeal of the Town­ shend duties in 1770 did not aid the situation, of course, since the non-importation agreements remained in effect with respect to tea, the one product on which the colonial import duty was retained . Parliament made another attempt to remedy the situation in an act passed in 1772 which reduced the drawbacks granted to the Company to three-fifths of the import and inland duties but dropped the re­ quirement that the Company must reimburse the Treasury for reve­ nue lost by the drawback policy. 9 This act had no more success than the previous one in increasing sales in the colonies; and meanwhile surplus stocks continued to pile up in London to such a degree that by the spring of 1773 these had reached 17,000,000 pounds, an amount sufficient for three years’ normal consumption in England. Still haunted by the dream of in­ creasing sales in the colonies, the Company consulted various ad­ visers, among whom was Thomas Wharton of Philadelphia. He es­ timated total colonial consumption at not less than 5,000,000 pounds yearly and argued that lower prices were the only way to capture

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this big market so that smugglingwould no longer be profitable . The way to do this, thought Wharton, was for the Company to send tea directly to America from China and offer it for sale there at auc­ tions, just as it did in England.10 The final Tea Act of 1773, when passed by Parliament, did not follow Wharton's recommendation of allowing direct shipments from China to America; but it did allow the Company to re-export tea to the colonies without first offering it for sale in England. This provision accomplished Wharton's pur­ pose, the elimination of the English middleman or wholesaler . The act also granted a drawback of all the English duties on tea re-ex­ ported to the colonies and did not require any reimbursement of the Treasury for lost revenue.il The savings made possible by the elimination of the English wholesaler and by the drawback of all English duties would have made it possible for the East India Com­ pany to sell its tea in the colonies on terms at least competitive with smuggled Dutch tea . The Company immediately asked for suggestions on the hand­ ling of its shipments to the colonies under the new act. Some were in favor of Company warehouses, while others favored the plan of consigning tea shipments to merchants in the principal commercial towns.The Company eventually chose the latter plan; and after receiving various recommendations from English merchants and from Americans visiting in England, named the consignees . Those chosen for Philadelphia were Thomas and Isaac Wharton, James and Drinker, Jonathan Browne, and Gilbert Barkly. Trial shipments were immediately prepared for Boston, New York, and Charleston as well as Philadelphia. The agents were to dispose of the tea at public sales at stated prices. Remittances were to be made in bills of exchange within four months after the date of sale . Commissions on sales were six percent, to be divided equally amongthe four firms in Philadelphia. The ships carrying the first consignments of tea under this plan left England late in September and early in October. 1773.13 All of these actions relating to tea had taken place without re­ peal of the three-pence import duty levied in the colonies. There had been, to be sure, various reports that such action would be taken. 14 When the expected repeal failed to take place, Americans in England and some Englishmen sympathetic to the colonial point of view immediately suspected that the ministry was engaged in a Machiavellian design to trick the colonies into paying the duty by offering them the opportunity to buy tea even more cheaply than it could be bought in England . This suspicion was quickly communi­ cated to correspondents in the colonies and may have been the basis for at least some of the colonial reaction. 15 There is no absolutely unquestionable evidence, one way or the other, as to the ministry's

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real intent. On the one hand, Lord North himself was reported to have said that "the duty had entirely escaped his attention." On the other hand, one of the directors of the Eastlndia Company was said to have told a London merchant that the ministry's real "motives are to make a cat’s paw of the Company, and force them to estab­ lish the 3d. per pound American duty.” 16 Other "evidence" and considerations on both sides of the question could be cited, includ­ ing the interesting point that the customs revenues would have been enriched by the handsome sum of L62,500 each year if Thomas Wharton's estimate, cited above, of a yearly consumption of 5,000,000 pounds of tea in the colonies was correct and if all of this had been imported legally from England and paid the duty. This must have been at least a powerful temptation to a government always eager for new sources of revenue . In any case, the question of the ministry's actual motive in passing the Tea Act is actually academic, if notunimportant. Colo­ nial radicals, in Philadelphia as elsewhere, always on the lookout for an issue of intercolonial proportions, chose to believe that the ministry was trying to trick the colonies into sellingtheir birthright of liberty for a mess of cheap tea; and they reacted according to this belief whether it was accurate or not. The extent of this re' action, however, was not immediately apparent, at least in Phila­ delphia, when word of the Tea Act and the Company's plans first reached America. James and Drinker, learning in late August that they had been proposed as one of the houses to share in the consign­ ment of the tea, set about to discover how the public would react to these shipments. They reached the conclusion that it was generally agreed "that if not received immediately from England it will find its way from Boston. And we have no doubts, but a great number of very respectable People who are principl'd against every branch of Illicit Trade and Smugllng will countenance the sale of what comes agreeable to Law & upon the whole we think it will be admitted on its arrival at this port.” By 3 October, after the agents had re­ ceived official notification of their appointments, opposition to the Tea Act had begun to manifest itself. James and Drinker noted that "much is & we expect will be said to make a party and raise Oppo­ sition to the purchase of them.” They and the other agents, however, were still "not apprehensive of any Violent Opposition to the Landing the Teas when they arrive here ."17 The opposition which James and Drinker had noted began to take concrete form and assume greater proportions than they had fore­ seen early in October . The first public expression of opposition seems to have been a handbill, signed "Scaevola," which equated the agents for the tea with the collectors for the old stamp tax. 18 This early agitation against the Tea Act quickly culminated in a

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public meeting in Philadelphia on 16 October, the first such meeting! of protest to be held in any colonial city . The proceedings of this gathering followed the usual pattern of speeches and resolutions, the , latter asserting that: parliamentary taxation violated the right of the) freeman to dispose of his own property; the duty on tea amounted to a forced contribution; the tax was levied for the express purpose of! rendering assemblies useless and of introducing arbitrary govern- 1 ment into the colonies; itwas the duty of every American to oppose these schemes; the Tea Act was "an open attempt to enforce this ministerial plan, and a violent attack upon the liberties of America;" and anyone aiding it was an enemy to the liberties of America. The meeting adjourned after appointing a committee to meet with the agents and request their resignation.-19 Thomas and Isaac Wharton resigned their "commission” without delay and in terms unequivocal enough to satisfy even the Chronicle which had been taking potshots at Thomas Wharton for his political activities. This paper announced that Wharton had actually made "a decent Renunciation of his dangerous and disgraceful office of Tea Commissioner, sothathe is 'now despised something less than he used to be ."'20 james and Drinker, however, did not make a satisfactory resignation. Exactly what reply they made to the com­ mittee is not known, but they were subjected to considerable abuse from the public and even from the other agents daring the next few weeks. As late as 2 December, a public "card” asked whether or not they would make a satisfactory resignation, so that the public could regulate its actions accordingly .21 In response to this threat, Abel James, according to one touching but undocumented account, met a large group of people outside his store and, placing his hand on the head of his small, golden-haired daughter, gave the "guaran­ tee of his word and property that the tea should not be landed but that the ship should go back to England. ”22 No further public threats against James and Drinker appeared. No record exists of the ne­ gotiations with Jonathan Browne; presumably he resigned without protest. The other Philadelphia agent, Gilbert Barkly, was enroute to Philadelphia on the same ship which was bringing the tea. During October there was a rumor in NewYorkand Philadelphia that the duties on the tea were to be paid by the Company in England. This report came from English sources and caused the New York agents to write James and Drinker that "this is joyful news and will be so heavy a stroke upon the Smugglers, that we shall not wonder if it drives them to some act of desperation." But the Philadel­ phians, suffering from the campaign of vilification against them, were not so sanguine about the prospects in Philadelphia even if the report about the payment of the duties in England turned out to be accurate. Events of the preceding weeks had caused them to revise

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completely their earlier opinion that there would he little opposition to the Tea Act in Philadelphia, and they were now convinced that "the present Spirit & disposition of the people” were such that the tea would be opposed in "all and every shape, either if it arrives sub­ ject to the payment of a Duty here, or if the Duty had been paid in England, Nay, we believe a strong opposition & much noise would be made if the Act of Parliamentwas repealed & no Revenue raised or to be raised from the Tea." Although one of the "principal mer­ chants" of the city assured Abel James that he expected a sudden change in popular sentiment, "the weather is not clear'd up yet nor the Storm over from all the information we getl"23 With popular opinion satisfactorily stirred up, the problem cf the radical leaders was to keep the pot boiling until the tea actually arrived. This event was unpredictable and depended pretty much on sailing conditions on the Atlantic. James and Drinker were at first hopeful that delay would work in their favor, that "the more tine that is given to the late heated spirits to cool and reflect, the less opposition will be given." At about the same time, however, Wil­ liam Pollard could detect no signs of any moderation in the oppo­ sition to the tea.24 The popular leaders certainly did their utmost to keep up the temper of the people during the period of waiting for Y the arrival of the ship. In addition to the campaign against James and Drinker noted above, they edified the public with a series of handbills signed by "The Committee for Tarring and Feathering." These notices, appearing late in November and early in December, warned all Delaware pilots to have nothing to do with bringing the tea ship Polly upto Philadelphia and threatened Captain Ayres of that vessel with "a halter around your neck. . .ten gallons of liquid Tar decanted on your pate . . .with the feathers of a dozen live geese laid over that to enliven your appearance ."25 These activities were ef­ fective enough to cause James and Drinker to revise their earlier opinion that delay would work in favor of the tea scheme; they now (admitted that popular opinion had reached such a pitch that it was unlikely thatthe tea would ever be landed in Philadelphia . Notevery: 'one, by any means, approved of violent opposition, "but most of ; them are so averse to the Revenue Act, & so unwilling to Engage openly in Opposition to the multitude, or even to press any less spirited measures, that the Torrent is not likely to be Stem'd by them ."26 Htiladelphia's glory at havingbeen the first colonial city to take a public stand against the Tea Act was somewhat diminished by the vagaries of wind and weather on the Atlantic which decreed that the first shipments of tea should arrive in Boston late in November, al­ most a month before the Polly was to arrive in Riiladelphia. The Boston Tea Party, of course, took place on the night of 16 Dec-

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ember, just in time to prevent the Boston customs officers from seizing the tea for non-payment of the duties. When the news of this event arrived in Philadelphia, an unofficial committee, of which Charles Thomson and Thomas Mifflin were the most prominent members, expressed approval of Boston's patriotic action, although they noted that "the Mode of opposition adopted here as the most eligible and unexceptionable has been to send the . . .Tea back to Eng­ land." When the time for action came in Philadelphia, its citizens would support their resolutions with "utmost firmness and Vigour. "27 The Polly finally put in a belated appearance at Chester on the evening of ^5"December . Gilbert Barkly, the agent who had come as a passenger on the ship, disembarked at Chester and upon hearing of die sentiments of the people promptly resigned. A Committee of citizens went down to Chester the next morning, but the ship had already sailed up the river. Captain Ayres anchored her below the city and went ashore where he found a large public meeting in ses­ sion. The meeting passed a series of resolutions which ordered him to take his ship back to England without making any attempt to unload her, commended the merchants who were allowing goods to return with die tea ship, and applauded the citizens of Boston, New York, and Charleston for their opposition to the tea scheme . Con­ \ fronted with this impressive demonstration of public sentiment, the captain agreed to take his ship back to England without making an entry at the customs house. Before sailing, he made a formal pro­ test before a notary to protect himself from any legal action which might result from his failure to deliver his cargo. As soon as the ship took on stores, she sailed for England, and a news­ paper exulted: "Thus this important affair . . .has been brought to a public issue, by which the force of law, so obstinately persisted in .. .for the sake of the principle on which it is founded, (a right of taxing the Americans without their consent,) has been effectually broken, and the foundation of American liberty more deeply laid than ever ."28 The exact nature and source of Philadelphia's opposition to the Tea Act, like most historical problems, is a complex question which can hardly have a simple answer. Schlesinger has fitted it neatly into his general thesis of the origins of the revolutionary movement. Opposition to the Tea Act, according to his view, was ! initiated by the merchants as a protest against a British policy which I injured them commercially. In this case, the injury was two-fold: the establishment of English tea in the American market would ruin the business of the tea smugglers, and, more important, direct ■ shipment by the East India Company would eliminate the middleman's I profit and might well be the entering wedge for direct shipment of \ other Indian goods and the establishment of a widespread Company I

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Cmonopoly in America . In this analysis, the three pence duty on tea was of no importance whatever; for the merchants would have op; posed the tea even if there had been no duty . Cries against "taxation i without representation" were used merely for rhetorical effect in I stirring up the populace to join the merchants in opposing the Act.29 This view is by no means without supportingevidence . Charles Thomson, for example, explicitly stated that it was the merchants ..who led the people into opposition against the Tea Act. Another im­ portant statement is that of Joseph Reed who claimed that "the merI chants, as might be expected, first expressed their uneasiness, but in a few days it became general.” Reed added that merchants and 'other leading citizens were instrumental in calling the first public meeting. James and Drinker’s belief that some opposition would be offered to the tea, duty or no duty, has already been cited. In \another letter, they amplified this remark, writing that if there ;was no duty to be paid on the tea, "the plea is monopoly."30 Some merchants were undoubtedly among the leaders in ex­ pressingopposition to the Tea Act, but contemporary evidence makes it clear that leadership did not long remain in mercantile hands. Charles Thomson's account of the affair affirms this point by as­ serting that, after the merchantshad initiated opposition to the Tea Act, "those who considered that matter only as a manoevre of the Ministry to renew the Disputes between G. B. &America, & who were firmly persuaded that the dispute would terminate in blood, immediately adopted measures to bringtte whole body of the people into the dispute and thereby put it out of the power of the merchants, as they had done before, to drop the opposition when interest dictated the measure ." James and Drinker's Information that the tea would be opposed on monopoly grounds came from "Wm Bradford & others, who are stiled the Sons of Liberty.” Whatever Bradford was - publisher, coffee house operator, insurance bro­ ker - he was not a merchant. Yet he was clearly a leader of the opposition to the Tea Act.31 To argue that the anti-monopoly argument implies mercantile leadership or inspiration of the movement against the importation of tea ignores, too, the powerful effect thatfearsof monopoly might have on the general body of citizens. These people were, after all, mostly Englishmennurtured in the age-old English tradition of hos­ tility toward any combination in restraint of trade and particularly toward any monopoly patent granted by the government. One of the most effective pieces of propaganda against the Tea Act in Philadel­ phia, in fact, was a handbill signed "A Mechanic" and addressed to the tradesmen and mechanics of the province . After pointingout the usual constitutional objections to the Tea Act, the author went on to stress the sufferings which would come to the mechanics and artisans

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if the East India Company once became established in the Pennsyl­ vania trade . The Company would undoubtedly use its own ships and employ its own tradesmen and artificers to maintain them and thus deprive local tradesmen of work which they normally did them­ selves ,32/Finally, if it was the merchants who were worried by the threat of an East India Company monopoly in the colonies, it! seems strange that they did not express this fear in their private correspondence. Not one merchant whose papers were used for this study even so much as mentioned a personal fear of monopoly as a reason for opposing the Tea Act. To approach the problem of interpreting Philadelphia's oppo­ sition to the Tea Act froma somewhat different angle, it is difficult to see how the constitutional question can be lightly dismissed as mere window dressing for the more fundamental economic question when there is an impressive amount of contemporary testimony, private as well as public, to the contrary. Every piece of public propaganda portrayed the Tea Act as a scheme to enforce the pay­ ment of the three pence duty which in turn was an attempt to tax the colonies without their consent. Public propaganda, of course, might be dismissed if it were not supported by statements in private let­ ters as well. James and Drinker’s opinion about the extent of gen­ eral opposition to the "Revenue Act" has already been quoted above . Joseph Reed was equally emphatic about the importance of the con­ stitutional point. In a letter to the Earl of Dartmouth, who had sucdeeded Hillsborough as Secretary of State for America, Reed wrote that the Townshend duties had been generally considered as a law imposing a tax with­ out the consent of Americans, and therefore to be resisted. Thereasoninguponwhichthis inference is drawn is founded on the distinction between du­ ties for the regulation of trade and raising a reve­ nue and upon the obligation of the colonists to take those articles from Great Britain only. Notwith­ standing the many objections to which these posi­ tions are liable among speculative men, they are too grateful to America not to be universally re­ ceived and practised upon. This letter was writtenin December,1773,while Philadelphia awaited the arrival of the tea ship. After the tea had arrived and been sent back to England Reed commented that the proceedings on that oc­ casion showed "how general and unanimous the opinion is, that no article subject to a duty, for the purpose of raising a revenue, ought to be received in America".33 Further strong support for the argument relating to the funda­ mental importance of the constitutional question in the opposition to

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the Tea Act is provided by the attitude of at least some of the mer­ chants to whom the tea had been originally consigned. Convinced that the tea would be admitted to Philadelphia, Thomas Wharton wrote to his friend Thomas Walpol e in England to ask him to use his influence with the officials of the Company to secure his reappoint­ ment as agent "after the Duty is repealed by Act of Parliament." At the same time the Whartons joined Jonathan Browne and Gilbert Barkly in a letter to the East India Company which stated even more explicitly the conviction that the tea could be sold in Philadelphia if the duty were repealed: Permit us to remark, that while a duty payable in America continues on your teas, they will not meet with an admission into these colonies; but we are persuaded when that incumbrance is removed, there will be a liberal use of them on this Contin­ ent; indeed if the Actwere repealed, and this ship to return here with those teas, we are under no doubt they would meet with quick sale .34 Statements such as these, from those who should have been in a position to know something about the situation, must be accounted for before one is safe in making dogmatic assertions about the basic importance of economic, as opposed to constitutional, objections to the importation of tea under the act of 1773 and about the role of the "merchants" in the opposition. Finally, one must always re­ member to distinguish among the various groups of merchants who often had divergent interests. Smugglers like Thomas Riche, John / Kidd, or Daniel Clark might well have a powerful economic motive | for opposing the Tea Act, but "fair traders" like John Reynell.Abel James, Henry Drinker, or the Pembertons surely could losenothing by the legal importation of tea. To generalize the probable role of some smugglers into a thesis about the role of the mercantile body as a whole certainly results in the oversimplification and distortion of a complex historical problem . News of the general American reaction to the Tea Act aroused some excitement in England; but, quite naturally, it was the actual destruction of the tea inBoston which caused the bitterest comment. Many who were sympathetic to the American cause undoubtedly joined Benjamin Franklin in his concern " . . .thatthere should seem to any a Necessity of carrying matters to such an Extremity, as, in a Dispute about Publick Rights to destroy private Property ."35 In the wave of resentment against the violence of the Boston radi­ cals, the non-violent proceedings of the Philadelphians excited little comment. The ministry, to be sure, took an officially dim view of the proceedings in Philadelphia; and the Earl of Dartmouth censured Governor Penn for not havingtakeneffective steps to prevent damage

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to private property interests and an insult to the authority of the king.36 This reprimand, however, seems purely perfunctory; and all of the measures of active punishment and reprisal were aimed at Boston and Massachusetts Bay. These were embodied in the In­ tolerable Acts which Parliament passed with great haste in the spring of 1774. In Philadelphia, meanwhile, there was a period of "watchful waiting" to see what action the ministry would take in response to American opposition. Popular leaders seem to have been reasona­ bly successful in keeping the people stirred up after their sue cessful resistance to the tea scheme . James and Drinker continued to be "much abused" because of the stand they had taken in favor of landing and storing the tea.37 Some further excitement was pro­ vided by the seizure of a river vessel for failure to enter properly at the customs house . This seizure, and the subsequent trial of the vessel in the district vice-admiralty court in Philadelphia, pro­ voked a long and tedious newspaper controversy over the justice of this particular case as well as the dangers inherent in a court, the judge of which, Jared Ingersoll, had a fixed salary arising partly from the sale of vessels which he condemned . The opponents of the court tried to give the impre s s ion that Ingersoll had aneconomic interest in condemningas many vessels as possible, so that he would be sure to collect his salary. Asa matter of fact, the salaries of the judges of these courts were guaranteed to them even if they con­ demned no vessels at all. The whole dispute has the earmarks of an issue trumped up for its effect on the popular mind, for the court had been in operation for at least four years without arousing any serious opposition or protest in Riiladelphia. Joseph Reed saw the dispute as a project "to distress and harass the admiralty courts, so as to make all the offices in them odious and disgraceful ."38 Whatever its virtues, the attack on the vice-admiralty court"! was soon superseded by the fight against the Intolerable Acts. The text of the Boston Port Act, which shut up the port of Boston until the tea had been paid for, arrived in Philadelphia from New York ' on 14 May 1774 and was printed in the Gazette four days later. As in previous disputes with England, the popular party immedia tely jumped to the conclusion that commercial coercion was the proper method to deal with this new manifestation of British tyranny. TheJ body of the dry goods merchants, however, were this time deter­ mined to oppose this measure firmly, especially since many of them' were "dissatisfied with the former conduct of the Bostonians ."39 Radical talk about non-importation was reinforced on 19 May by the receipt of the resolutions of a Boston Town Meeting calling for a program of drastic commercial coercion, in the form of agreements to stop exports to England and the West Indies as well as imports

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from England. Some 200 merchantsand lawyers met in Philadelphia on 20 May to consider the Boston resolutions . Charles Thomson proposed im­ mediate compliance with the Boston request, while John Dickinson, who had taken no active part in the proceedings against the tea, re­ commended delay of this drastic step until the sentiments of the other colonies could be more fully determined. He also suggested that the inhabitants petition the governor to call the Assembly into session to consider the problem. Other speakers at the meeting were Thomas Mifflin, who supported Thomson's appeal, and Joseph Reed who joined Dickinson in his counsel of moderation. The group finally decided against approval of the Boston proposal until all al­ ternate measures of resistance had been tried. The meeting also appointed a committee to return a friendly answer to the Boston appeal without committing Eiiladelphia to any specific course of action, recommended the calling of a general congress of the colo­ nies, and agreed to circulate a petition asking the governor to call the Assembly into session.40 In rejecting the Boston appeal for immediate commercial co­ ercion, this meeting seems to represent a complete triumph for the position of the conservative merchants and could be so interpreted if it were not for an account of the meeting written many years later by Charles Thomson. In this retrospective account, the radical Teader alleged that the whole course of the meeting, from beginning to end, had been planned by the strategists of the popular party. Aware that the opposition to immediate commercial coercion, espec­ ially among the Quakers, was so strong that it would never be ap­ proved, the popular leaders decided to work for the more modest goals of recommending a colonial congress and returning a friendly but non-committal answer to the Boston letter . The four leaders, Thomson, Dickinson, Mifflin, and Reed, agreed beforehand on the tenor of their speeches; Thomson and Mifflin were to support the more radical view, while Dickinson and Reed were to urge moder­ ation, "and thus by an apparent dispute prevent a farther opposition and carry the point agreed on.” The meeting proceeded according to this carefully laid plan, and "the company broke up in toleiaHe good humour, both thinking they had in part carried their point ."41 Full credence might be granted this account if it had been con­ temporary with the events it describes . Thomas Mifflin's own ac­ count, written at the time, made no mention of this elaborate plan. On the contrary, it indicates that the popular party was serious in its demands for immediate non-importation and non-exportation. But the merchants, still smartingfrom their experience with the old non-importation agreement, had takenpainsto muster their strength in opposition to the radical plan. The result was that many came

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to the "Meeting in Tempers not well suited to the unhappy Occasion, and by their Clamours prevented the Expediency of the Measure, proposed by you, from being properly considered." Thepcpular leaders, nevertheless, were pleased with the general acceptance of the idea of a congress and felt that such a measure might "in the end secure what you desire and have so much reason to expect fro m us ."^2 Thomas Wharton, on the other side of the fence, also felt that the conservatives had won a major victory at this meeting. In an account especially significant for its assertion that many conserva­ tives took this occasion to join the public proceedings for the first time, Wharton said: Several persons who had never before met at any of their meetings thought it quite time to inter­ pose, and not suffer those warm and violent men to carry measures as they pleased, attended that evening, among whom I was one, and we entered the lists and opposed their measures with so much resolution and firmness, that every step which appeared to have a tendency to inflame was entirely set aside . .. .thus after the warmest and greatest expectations by particulars, we were capable of quickly (for the present) putting aside any rash resolutions .43 James and Drinker, who had not attended the meeting, nevertheless welcomed the moderate tone of its proceedings . They were certain that "much time will be taken before any plan is form'd and have no doubt but the people of weight in all or most of the Counties of this Province, will let the Citizens know, that they will not be silent spectators to any measure which may be likely to affect the Trade ofthisCity and of consequence the Price of Country produce or Arti­ cles of Importation."^4 The committee chosen at this meeting wrote an answer to the Boston letter on 21 May. In conformity with the line established at the meeting, the letter expressed deepest sympathy with Boston's plight but made no mention of commercial coercion of any kind. It suggested that the calling of a general congress would be the plan most agreeable to the people of this Province, and the first step that ought to be taken."45 The committee also immediately began to circulate a petition asking the governor to summon the Assembly. Nine hundred people quickly signed the petition, and Governor Penn received it on the ninth of June . The governor promptly replied that he knew of no provincial business requiring the attention of the legislature ,46 His refusal had been anticipated by those circulating the petition, and

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they went ahead with plans to call a public meeting to decide upon a general plan of opposition as well as the proper method of select­ ing delegates to a congress. Before the day of the general meet­ ing, a group of "gentlemen of different classes, societies, & par­ ties" met on 10 June to layout a course of action. They agreed that the general meeting should be asked to resolve that the Port Act was oppressive, that the proper way of securing redress was by a con­ gress, and that the best way to choose delegates was in the legis­ lature . Since the governor had refused to call the Assembly, John Dickinson recommended that each city and county be asked to choose delegates to a convention for the purpose of selecting and instruct­ ing delegates to a congress . Many groups opposed this method: the Quakers because they disliked all extra-legal public gatherings, the proprietary party because it did not wish the government to ap­ pear weak and ineffectual in the eyes of the ministry, and Thomas Wharton and others because they were "soliciting a grant of lands from the Crown & are therefore afraid of doing anything that will disoblige the ministerThe meeting, nevertheless, finally con­ cluded that the delegates would probably have to be chosen by a pro­ vincial congress if no other method was available .47 The general meeting assembled on 18 June in the yard of the State House with John Dickinson and Thomas Willing as joint chair­ men. After William Smith had admonished the lower classes to refrain from "suchoutward marks of approbation or disapprobation as clapping or hissing," the meetingpassed a series of resolutions which followed the line laid down at the preliminary meeting of 10 June . They expressed sympathy with Boston, recommended a con­ gress as the "most probable and proper" method of securing re­ lief, and appointed a large committee, the first duty of which was to consult on the proper method of selecting delegates to the con­ gress .48 The only significant disagreement during this meeting came over the selection of the committee . The organizers of the meeting had prepared a printed list of proposed committee mem­ bers, and there was some feeling that pressure was being exerted to insure the election of this slate . After both of the chairmen had pleaded for unity, the meeting accepted the printed slate without voting for the individualsone by one . Then, to satisfy the Germans, four men of that nationality were added to the list, making fortyfour in all .49 Conspicuously absent from the committee were such strict Quaker merchants as the Pembertons, John Reynell, Abel James, and Henry Drinker. The strict Friends had held themselves aloof from all public proceedings, although they had been urged to par­ ticipate in them as a means of exerting a moderating influence. They had considered the idea seriously but eventually decided that

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it would be improper for members of their Society to give any de­ gree of countenance to such proceedings, even in the cause of mod­ eration. James Pemberton's name was originally on the list of the committee; but he had it removed as soon as he found out about it, since he had "allways disapproved of these Town Meetings wch are not supported by Charter nor any of our Laws, and have uniformly used my influence to diswade others from attending them ."50 The problem of selectingdelegates to the congress was quickly solved. The radicals, as noted above, had neither been surprised nor had they been disappointed when the governor refused to call the Assembly; Joseph Galloway’s influence in the legislature was powerful and would presumably be exerted to secure the choice of moderate delegates . Before the extra-legal methods preferred by the radicals could be put into operation, the governor suddenly de­ cided to call the Assembly into session ostensibly to deal with Indian troubles in the West. The Indian troubles were no fiction, but it is at least probable that conservatives had pressed on him the ur­ gency of Pennsylvania's representation by a moderate slate of dele­ gates to the continental congress which was certain to meet in any case. Once the Assembly was called, it was generally assumed that it would choose the delegates. Forestalled in their plans to choose the delegates at a provincial convention, the Philadelphia committee immediately invited all county committees to send rep­ resentatives to town on 15 July in order to draw up instructions for the delegates to the congress .51 This gathering met on schedule and drew up a set of instructions which were largely the work of John Dickinson. Extremely com­ prehensive in scope, they contemplated nothing less than a return to the "old colonial system” of the days before the French and Indian War with the addition of some spec if ic guarantees against the kind of British policies which had tyrannized the colonies since 1763 . In Dickinson's view, the ministry must; renounce all powers under the act of 35 Henry VIII, c. 2 by which Great Britain claimed authority to bring colonial political offenders to the mother country for trial; renounce all powers of internal legislation, including all kinds of taxes and trade regulations; repeal all acts for quartering troops; strictly curtail colonial admiralty jurisdiction; and repeal the Bostai Port Act and all laws imposing duties in the colonies . If these farranging concessions to colonial ideas were granted, the colonies would consent to obey the Navigation Act, settle an annual revenue on the Crown, and reimburse the Eastlndia Company for its losses in the tea affair. Radical as they were, these instructions did not contemplate an immediate stoppage of trade . Before this step was taken, a firm statement of grievances should be sent to the king; moreover, the convention warned the delegates against any plancf

212

The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

of commercial coercion other than a boycott of imports from Eng­ land and that only as a last resort. Members of the convention at­ tended the Assembly to lobby for the adoption of this set of instruc­ tions .52 Cautious as they were about measures of commercial coercion, these instructions were still too radical for many people, the con­ servative merchants in particular, who hoped that the Assembly would be able to resist popular pressure for their adoption. The Assembly upheld the hopes of the conservatives, first of all, by electing a preponderantly moderate slate of delegates: Joseph Gal­ loway, Samuel Rhoads, Thomas Mifflin, Charles Humphreys, George Ross, and Edward Biddle. In addition, it completely disregarded the instructions recommended by the Philadelphia convention with the pointed remark that specific instructions were impossible . The Assembly instead simply told the delegates to "exert your utmost Endeavours to form and adopt a Plan, which shall afford the best Prospect of obtaining a Redress of American Grievances, ascer­ taining American rights, and establishing that Union and Harmony which is most essential to the Welfare and Happiness of both Coun­ tries." The delegates were also "strictly charged to avoid every Thing indecent or disrespectful to the Mother State ."53 Pennsylvania conservatives no doubt rejoiced in the moderation shown by the Assembly in its choice and instruction of delegates to the general colonial congress, but there continued to be throughout the spring and summer much radical sentiment for the immediate adoption of some kind of commercial coercion. Samuel Patterson, who has been used before as an example of grass-roots radical opinion, was convinced that "You must all Enter into the non-Importation again no way else will bring them wicked Jack Asses to a Sense of their Proceedings in the Comms." Edward Shippen in Lancaster County perhaps spoke for many country patriots when he warmly advocated complete prohibition of trade with England and the West Indies as the only way to obtain a redress of grievances. Non-importation alone, he warned, would not be sufficient; it must be accompanied by non-exportation as well: if we should send no provision, nor Staves & hoopes to ye West Indies now, the People there would not only be half starved (I am not for starving them intirely) but could not be makingcasks for the pro­ duce of their Plantations; and as soonas their Res­ olutions should reach ye ears of the Parliament those Solomons .. .must call upon the Premier to open our Ports & repeal the Tea Act. "Anglus Americanus," writing in the Journal, blamed the selfish merchants for not adopting non - importation. If such a program

Truce and Conflict, 1770-1774

213

the money-making careers of a few New York and Philadelphia merchants and stopped their fortunes short of L100.000, "it cer­ tainly is disagreeable; but I cannot help thinking it would be still harder that the liberties and properties of this great continent should be sacrficed to their inordinate views."54 Some public proceedings of the mechanics and tradesmen in Philadelphia during the summer of 1774 indicated their dissatisfaction with the moderation of the Hiiladelphia proceedings. Conservatives were much alarmed by a meeting of 1,200 mechanics on 9 June, fearing that its purpose was to intimidate the meeting of leading citizens which was scheduled to take place the next day. The mech­ anics did appoint their own committee to correspond with their New York brethren and to "cooperate” with the other committee .55 A similar meetingof the mechanics on 11 July provoked so much con­ servative criticism that "Russel" was moved to a public defense of the purposes of the meeting. The minds of the people, he wrote, turned naturally to restrictions on trade as the best method of ob­ taining relief from oppressive policies; and the mechanics wanted the city and county resolutions amended to make sure that the dele­ gates to a congress were expressly empowered to agree to a pro­ gram of complete commercial coercion. The tradesmen had no desire to cast aspersions on the committee chosen on 18 June; they only desired a union of different interests, and were "extremely surprized at hearing it hinted by some persons, that the tendency of such meetings was to form a party or to create divisions .”56 "Russel's" assertion of the popular, rather than mercantile, origins of the idea of commercial coercion of one kind or another as the best means of resistance to British policies is especially important in understanding the nature of the revolutionary movement in Philadelphia, if not the other colonial cities as well. Added to other evidence already pointed out, it makes it very difficult to give much credence to the thesis of the essentially mercantile origins of the protest movement. Much of this thesis seems to rest upon the belief that non-importation, since it involved most directly the activities of the merchants, must have been a mercantile idea . But it seems apparent that the reverse was true; the mercantile inter­ est lay in continuing, not prohibiting, commerce; and in every case popular or radical pressureshad to be exerted on the merchants to secure its use as a weapon against British policy. The movement to force immediate non-importation in Phila­ delphia in the summer of 1774 never really posed a serious threat to the merchants who opposed it so firmly. Two considerations may help to account for this fact. One was the decision of many con­ servatives to join in the public proceedings for the first time on this occasion in the hope of controlling them . This tactic, as we have

214

The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

seen, met with at least initial success. Conservatives, too, felt that their activity was having some success in affecting the temper of the general public. When the "Presbyterians,” as James and Drinker called them, promoted a day of public fasting on 1 June, the day on which the Boston Port act was to take effect, they had the "mortification to find that the Measure is disclaimed by all others, a few only excepted." They also sensed that much of the earlier resentment against them because of their stand in favor of storing the tea had disappeared by midsummer and that "divers perhaps three fourth of the weighty and serious part of the Community are now ready to say that had our proposal been accepted, it would on all accounts have been the best." James Pemberton also asserted that the radicalism of the general public had been misrepresented by the newspapers, "it being agreed by most that the proceed gs last fall in sendg away the Tea Ship was a very arbitrary (?) of law & Justice & that Restitution ought to be made to the sufferers ."57 A second factor enabling the merchants and other conservatives to restrain the drive for immediate commercial coercion in the summer of 1774 was a very real confidence that the proposed con­ gress would adopt the best possible measures of resistance. This feeling was present at the grass roots level as well as among the leaders of opinion. As early as 26 May, Thomas Mifflin was able to assert that: All ranks with us agree to the Proposal of a gen­ eral Congress previous to the fixing on any plan of Reconciliation or Opposition - They justly ob­ serve that One Colony ought not to begin with the Nonimportation; butthat all should, by their dele­ gates, fix on the Time & extent of that Measure whether partial or general - for one year or More - and likewise determine the Exception which some colonies may necessarily require ... .A Non Im­ portation to be urged immediately, without some previous step taken to obtain Redress, may dis­ unite us and ruin the Cause of America . Samuel Patterson, a fervent supporter of non-importation,was even more emphatic in his willingness to defer to the judgement of the forthcoming congress. "The Congress is the whole Secritt," he wrote/What they do, I have no doubt will answer, for I suppose never in any Part of the world ever appear'd so many bright Lum­ inaries in all probability as will there .”58 The same kind of faith is expressed in the resolutions of many town and county meetings throughout Pennsylvania during the summer of 1774, all of them firmly asserting their confidence in the wisdom of any action taken by the congress and their determination to adhere to its measures.

Truce and Conflict, 1770-1774

215

Impressive as was the conservative success in stalling off the demand for immediate economic coercion in Pniladelphia, only the most unrealistic kind of optimism could have induced them to be­ lieve that it was anything more than a delay. Part of the confidence which the public placed in the outcome of a congress resulted from the general expectation that such a body would certainly adopt some kind of trade boycott as part of its program . What is more, it was made increasingly clear to the merchants that they would not be able to evade or delay or disobey the recommendations of a congress . As early as 29 June, James and Drinker, though pleased with the conservative success in forestalling immediate non-importation, were well aware that "if the deputies when at the Congress shou'd adopt such a measure, we can't doubt but every measure, that can be devis'd or advis'dwill be taken to carry it into execution hard as it will be to get many Importers in this city and we believe New York into it." The merchants had already been publicly threatened with a non-consumption agreement among the mechanicsand trades­ men if the congress recommended non-importation and the mer­ chants failed to adopt it.59 The actual proceedings of the First Continental Congress, when its sessions began in Philadelphia on 5 September, were kept a secret. There was nodearth of rumors, of course, and all of these agreed that Congress was almost certain toadoptboth non-importa­ tion and non-exportation. Merchants still disliked both measures but were pessimistically pre dieting that "the mob here may enforce these measures among us peaceable folk," and reporting that "the language among some of the Heroes are, let any Man dare oppose or counteract the Decrees of the Congress, he ought to be forthwith say they treated as a Traitor and bang'd without Judge or Jury on the first high Tree ."50 The Assembly elections in October. 1774also provided evidence of the resurgent radicalism of the general public in Philadelphia. The conservatives, still trying to maintain their influence of the spring and summer, supported Edward Penington and Thomas Wil­ ling for the City of Philadelphia. The "Presbyterians," however, mustered the "lower Class of People” so effectively that the popu­ lar party leaders, Thomas Mifflin and "that inf-s fellow C Thomp­ son," defeated the two conservatives .51 The conservative trend of the summer had spent whatever strength it had possessed and the popular party was firmly in control, at least in the city. The prevalent rumors about the nature of the action to be taken by the Congress proved to be true. Indeed, the "Association" it adopted provided for a commercial boycott more drastic than per­ haps even some of the radicals had foreseen. All imports from Great Britain, Ireland, and Madeira were to cease after 1 December

216

The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

1774, and exports to Great Britain, Ireland, and the West Indies were to stop after 10 September 1775.62 Enforcement of the new boycott depended on local committees and machinery of an extralegal nature in Philadelphia and throughout the colonies. The basis for this machinery had already been laid in the committee of fortyfour, appointed at the public meeting on 18 June. This committee immeciately called a meeting to consider ways and means of se­ curing the acceptance and enforcement of the agreement in Phila­ delphia . Its first decision was that there should be a new commit­ tee, representing only the city and suburbs, which should serve at least until two weeks after the next meeting of the Continental Con­ gress . A public meeting on 12 November followed this recommen­ dation by appointing a new committee of sixty members, most of whom had been members of the old committee of forty-four. Still conspicuous by their absence were the major dry goods importers .63 The new committee immediately showed that it took its major task of enforcement of the Association seriously by publishing a set of rules, relating in particular to the procedure to be followed with goods imported between 1 December 1774 and 1 February 1775. This was a kind of transition period during which the importer was allowed the alternatives of sending the goods back to their place of shipment, storing them under the supervision of the committee, or turning them over to the committee for public sale . The committee announced that it would openand inspectall bales and packages im­ ported during this period and set maximum and minimum markups for goods delivered to it for sale .64 These "new Laws of these new Lords,” as Jamesand Drinker called them, byno means met univer­ sal approval among the more conservative merchants. As one ar­ dent patriot put it, "For notwithstanding we have a many discreet brave patriots in this City, who I hope will exertthemselves in order to preserve a faithful adherence to the Mode established, yet there is a many ill inclined (who as snakes in the grass) will endeavour to Circumvent and prevent their honest endeavours ."65 The com­ mittee, of course, had no legal authority tocope with these "snakes in the grass," but it did have the approval of Congress to publish the names of violators in the newspapers . In the existing state of public opinion, exposure to the resentment of the citizens was per­ haps the only weapon which the committee needed to enforce its decisions and regulations. There can be, in fact, little doubt that the Association was re­ markably effective in cutting off imports from England at least. In 1774 these were valuedat L625.652 sterlingbut in 1775 dropped off to a purely nominal LI, 366. There are no statistics to show if non­ exportation was equally effective, but there seems to be no reason to doubt that it was . It was, therefore, the adoption of the Associ-

1 Truce and Conflict, 1770-1774

217

ation in 1774, rather than the beginning of armed hostilities in 1775 or the declaration of independence in 1776, which signalled the end of the colonial period of Philadelphia commerce and provides a log­ ical terminal point for this study.

Epilogue

The whole period from 1763 to 1774 was one of more or less, constant turmoil and agitation for the Philadelphia merchants and| the commerce which they carried on. During most of these years,/ the dry goods merchants suffered, or thought they suffered, from a severe depression. Yet in their private business correspondence^ they never placed primary blame for their difficulties on British', policies, and this fact is important in interpreting the nature of the ; revolutionary movement i n Philadelphia and Pennsylvania. They were, of course, irritated by and resentful of many of the purely commercial or broadly economic aspects of British policy in these years; and this resentment found expression, on the part of some merchants, in an increased willingness to condone, if not to parti­ cipate in resistance to the enforcement activities of the customs officers of the port. The major avenues ofFniladelphiacommerce, however, continued to be free from the restraining hand of the mo­ ther country after 1763 as they had been before that year . The re- \ forms of 1766 ameliorated, if they did not entirely remove, the I major grievances of the Philadelphia merchants which were strictly i commercial in their character. If this is a valid analysis, it cannot be true that the strictly economic aspects of British policy after 1763 goaded the merchants into the instigation and leadership of the revolutionary movement in Philadelphia . On the contrary, much of the available evidence-, and the sequence of events after 1763 seems to support the belief I that the merchants, as a group, were at best unwilling partners of I a group of popular or radical leaders in the movement of protest, against British policies. These popular leaders chose commercial I coercion as one of the primary weapons in their struggle against'/' British policies; and they were able to invoke sufficient public opinion j on their behalf so that the merchants were forced into measure si which injured them financially and were, in their opinion, unwise tactically. Even at the time of the Stamp Act, when the merchants! adopted non-importation without great delay, they made it clear that they did so at least in part because of popular pressuresand:

218

The Maritime Commerce of Colonial Philadelphia

and under threat of popular retribution if they did not do so. The apparent pattern established at that time became even more evident in later struggles with the mother country. At the time of the Townshend Acts the popular party again demanded that the mer­ chants adopt measures of economic coercion against Great Britain to force the redress of grievances which were essentially political and constitutional in nature. This time, however, the merchants resisted stoutly and were successful in delayingnon-importation for nearly two years after the original passage of the act imposing the duties . Furthermore, they abandoned the agreement at first oppor­ tunity even though the popular leaders demanded that it be retained until it had obtained its objective of complete repeal of the odious duties. Opposition to the Tea Act similarly seems to have been in the hands of the radical leaders from the beginning, although, in this case, merchants who had an economic interest in smuggling Dutch or other foreign tea may have contributed something to the leader­ ship . When the popular leaders demanded immediate non-importation as the appropriate response to the Intolerable Acts in 1774, the merchants resisted with such vigor and firmness that they were able to stall the popular machine . This victory was only temporary, of course, and in the end the radical leaders of all of the colonies were able to secure the adoption of a comprehensive and continental plan of commercial coercion to which the Philadelphia merchants were forced to adhere whether they liked it or not. The foregoing analysis is not intended, of course, as an asser­ tion that no Biiladelphia merchants participated in the revolutionary movement in Philadelphia at any level of activity. Many individual merchants undoubtedly did so, but none of them are identifiable as being among the ranks of the more important dry goods merchants who were the aristocrats of the Philadelphia mercantile commun' ity. Failure to lead or participate in the revolutionary movement must by no means be interpreted to mean that Philadelphia mer­ chants of any variety or degree of affluence actively approved of British policies after 1763. They all heartily disliked the Revenue Acts, the Stamp Act, the Tea AcfT'the Intolerable Acts, and the j rest of them. They disliked the economic effects of these policies; and, like most of their fellow Americans, they disliked the consti­ tutional implications of laws which taxed them without their consent. But their natural conservatism led them to shun violent ways of protest against acts which they disliked as much as anyone else, and their economic interest dictated the maintenance of close com__mercial ties with the mother country. In the case of the Quaker merchants, these considerations were reinforced by their religious beliefs which dictated a scrupulous observance of all laws which did not directly contradict their Quaker principles against bearing arms

Epilogue

219

and swearing oaths . Thepre-revolutionaryperiod, therefore, saw most Philadelphia merchants trying to walk gingerly on a thin line between abject submission to British policies which they considered unwise and unjust and support of measures of opposition which thev ' feared could lead only to bloodshed, separation from the mother country, and eventual economic ruin.

NOTES

1 .

The Growth and Nature of Philadelphia Commerce

1. William Penn, "Letter to the Committee of the Free Society of Traders.. .," A. C. Myers, ed., Narratives of Early Pennsylvania, West New Jersey and Delaware, 1630-1707 (New York, 1912),

I

237 2. William Penn, "A Further Account of the Province of Penn­ sylvania . . .,” ibid ., 261.

3. James Claypoole to Edward Claypoole, 2 Dec . 1683, Claypoole Letterbook, 1681-1684. 4. William Penn, "A Further Account," Myers, Narratives, 273. 5. Message to Assembly, 16 Oct. 1744, Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives of Pennsylvania (Pennsylvania Ar­ chives, 8th ser., 8vols., Harrisburg, 1931-1935), IV, 3018.

6. Petition to Assembly, 26 Feb. 1772, ibid., VIII, 6799.

7. The Pennsylvania Chronicle, 28 Nov. 1768. 8. John Reynell to Samuel Mellor & Son, 28 March 1753, Reynell Letterbook, 1752-1754.

9. The charter is printed in Samuel Hazard, Annals of Penns^i-

Notes for Chapter 1

221

vaniafromthe Discovery of the Delaware (Philadelphia, 1850), 541550. 10. James Claypoole to Norton Claypoole, 14 July 1682, Claypoole Letterbook, 1681-1684.

11. Hazard, Annals of Pennsylvania, 577-579. 12. Much information about the formation, organization, and ac­ tivities of the Society is contained in the Letterbook of James Clay­ poole who was its treasurer. Relevant letters are those dated 14 July 1682, 2 Dec. 1683, 13 Feb. and 29 May 1684. A good, brief ac­ count is in S . E . Baldwin, "American Business Corporations Before 1789," American Historical Review, VIII (1902-1903), 452-454.

13. "Some few & Short Hints of the Settlement of the Province of Pennsylvania to the year 1739," Etting Collection, Miscellaneous Manuscripts, I. 14. Address to the Assembly, Pennsylvania Gazette, 27 Septem­ ber, 1739.

15. WilliamTill to Lawrence Williams, 25 Oct. 1743, Till fhpers, 1735-1744. 16. G. Taylor, A Voyage to North America (Nottingham, 1771), 177. 17. Thomas Collinson to Stephen Ayrault, London, 20 March 1764, The Commerce of Rhode Island (2 vols., Boston, 1914-1915), I, 707. 18. William Allen to Thomas Penn, 12 Nov. 1766, Penn Manu­ scripts, Official Correspondence. 19. See Table I, Appendix, for clearances from the port.

20. Isaac Norris to William Penn, 3 April 1707, Edward Arm­ strong, ed., Correspondence Between William Penn and James Logan., .and Others (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1870-1872), LL 203; DavidMacPherson, Annals of Commerce, Manufactures, Fisheries, and Navigation. , , (4 vols., London, 1805), III, 564. 21. Fletcher to the Board of Trade, 10 June 1696, Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies, 15 May 1696 - 31 October 1697 (London, 1904), 11.

!

222

Notes for Chapter 1

22. See Table III, Appendix, for a comparison of entrances and clearances for the three major colonial ports in 1730. 23. British Public Record Office, Customs 16/1, "Exportsandim­ ports, America, 1768-1772" (Library of Congress Photostats).

24. William Allen to Thomas Penn, 12 Nov. 1766, Penn Mss., Official Correspondence . 25. Address to Assembly, 1723, Votesand Proceedings, II, 1494; Message of Speaker to Assembly, Penn. Gazette, 27 Sept. 1739; Pe­ tition of Philadelphia merchants to Assembly, 6 Feb. 1770, Votes and Proceedings, VII, 6502. 26. Message of Speaker to Assembly, Penn, Gazette, 27 Sept. 1739; Address of Assembly to Proprietor, 22 Oct. 1741, ibid., 10 June 1742; William Allen to Thomas Perm, 12 Nov. 1766, Penn Mss., Official Correspondence.

27. Report of committee on trade and currency, 6 Feb. 1754, Votes and Proceedings, V, 2627; petition of Philadelphia Freehold­ ers, 31 Jan. 1772, ibid., VIII, 6779. 28. Message to Assembly, 1726, ibid., II, 1765. 29. Richard H. Shryock, "British Versus German Traditions in Colonial Agriculture," Mississippi Va 1 ley Historical Review, XXVI (1939-1940), 39-54. 30. William Penn, "A Further Account,” Myers, Narratives, 273.

31. James Claypoole to Edward Haistwell, 13 Feb. and 1 Feb. 1684, Claypoole Letterbook, 1681-1684. 32 . Samuel Carpenter to Phineas Pemberton, 16 April 1691, fit­ ting Collection, Pemberton Papers, I; Edward Shippen to John Crouch, 17 March 1701, EttingColl., Misc. Mss., I. 33. Curtis P. Nettels, The Money Supply of the American Colo­ nies Before 1720 (Madison, 1934), 121.

34. William Penn to James Logan, 24 March 1703, Penn-Logan Correspondence, I, 170. 35. William Fishbourne, "Some few & short Hints," EttingColl.,

Notes for Chapter 1

223

Misc . Mss ., I.

36. PRO, Customs 16/1. 37. Lord John Sheffield, Observations on the Commerce of the American States (6th ed ., London, 1784), 74. 38. Mary Alice Hanna, Trade of the Delaware District Before the Revolution (Northampton, Mass., 1917), 250-251. 39. Robert Proud, The History of Pennsylvania in North America (2vols., Philadelphia, 1797-1798), II, 265.

40. See Table IV, Appendix, for exports of flour from Philadel­ phia, and Table V for exports of wheat. 41. See Table VI, Appendix, for exportsof lumber products from Philadelphia. 42. James Birket, Some Cursory Remarks (Made In His Voyage to America 1750-1751) (New Haven, 1916), 64; James and Dr ini?7 er to Joseph Jones, 4 Dec. 1765, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1764-1766; Report of committee of New York Chamber of Commerce, 3 Oct. 1769. Colonial Records of the New York Chamber of Commerce (New York, 1867), 57-58.

43. See Table VII, Appendix, forexports of salted beef and pork from Philadelphia.

44. See Table VIII, Appendix, for exports of bar and pig iron from Philadelphia. 45. Arthur C . Bining, British Regulation of the Colonial Iron In­ dustry (Philadelphia, 1933), 77n. 46. Anne Bezanson, Robert D. Gray, and Miriam Hussey, Brices in Colonial Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1935), 160-161.

2 .

The Organization and Conduct of Business

1. See especially Harry D. Berg, "The Organization of Business in Colonial Philadelphia," Pennsylvania History, X (1933), 157-177;

I 224

Notes for Chapter 2

and Frederick B . Tolles, Meeting House and Counting House; the Quaker Merchants of Colonial Philadelphia, 1682-1763 (Chapel Hill, 1948), passim ., although the latter deals more with the meeting house than the counting house . Amongstudies ofmerchants inother colonies which are also useful in reference to this chapter special mention should be made of W. T. Baxter, The House of Hancock (Cambridge, Mass., 1945); Bernard Bailyn, The New England Merchants in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1955); and Glenn Weaver, Jonathan Trumbull: Cainectfcut?s Merchant Magis­ trate (1710-1785)(Hartford, 1956). 2. James Pemberton to John Pemberton, 27 July 1750, Pemberton Papers, VI; James and Drinker to Neate and Pigou, 11 May 1763, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1762-1766.

3. John Reynell to Michael Dicker, 25 Sept. 1731, Reynell Let­ terbook, 1729-1732. 4. Jones and Wister, Daybook A, 1759-1761. 5. Norris Ledger, 1735-1750. 6. James Hamilton to David Barclay and Sons, 4 Feb. 1764, Ham­ ilton Letterbook, 1749-1783. 7. James and Drinker to Neate and Pigou, 29 Nov. 1762, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1759-1762. In 1737 John Reynell took Elias Bland of London as an apprentice upon condition that Bland's father pay Reynell 100 guineas; Daniel Flexney to John Reynell, London, 26 Aug. 1736, Reynell Papers, 1736-1737.

1

8. Articles of co-partnership, dated 27 Dec . 1774 (an endorse­ ment says that the partnership actually began on 1 March 1773), Pemberton Papers, XXIV.

9. James and Drinker Letterbook, 1750-1758.

10. Joseph Shippen to Edward Shippen, 4 March 1760 and Edward Shippen, Jr. to Edward Shippen, 3 Dec. 1760, Balch Papers, Ship11. John Hunt to Israel Pemberton, 12 Sept. 1746, Pemberton Pa­ pers, IV. 12. Elias Bland to James Pemberton, 7 Feb., 23 Aug., and 25

225

Notes for Chapter 2

Oct. 1743 and 24 April 1745, Pemberton Papers, III. 13. James and Drinker to William Neate, 22 Nov. 1757, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1756-1759.

14. Samuel Bean to John Reynell, 20 Jan. 1756, Reynell Papers, 1756-1757. 15. James and Drinker to George and Abraham White, 21 Dec. 1758, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1756-1759. Other references to partnerships between Philadelphia merchants and those outside the city are: John Watkins to Thomas Clifford, St. Kitts, 22 Sept. 1757, Clifford Corr., I; A . Sandiford and Son to Pemberton and Ed­ wards, Barbados, 11 Sept. 1773, Pemberton Papers XXV; JohnPemberton to James Pemberton, 29 April 1749, ibid., V (referring to a partnership with a merchant in Charleston).

16. Abel James to John Dandridge, 4 Sept. 1770, James Letter­ book, 1770-1774. 17. William Smith to John Smith Letterbook, 1771-1775; sall, 6 January, 1774, James John Swift to John White, 30 1747-1751.

and Joseph Shotwell, 6 July 1773, James and Drinker to Thomas Pear­ and Drinker Letterbook, 1772-1786; May 1747, John Swift Letterbook,

18. James and Drinker to John Woolmer, 20 Oct. 1757, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1756-1759; John Reynell to Francis Rybot, 27 Feb. 1771, Reynell Letterbook, 1770-1774. 19. James Logan to Thomas Penn, 1 July 1730, Logan Letter books, HI.

20. Abel James to John Lyons, 24 Jan. 1769, Chaloner and White Papers, 1774-1777. 21. William Pollard to Peter Holme, 16 May 1772, Pollard Letter­ book, 1772-1774; also John Kidd to Rawlinson and Davison, 6 July 1751, Kidd Letterbook, 1749-1763.

22. Orr, Dunlope, and Glenholme to William Beath, llAug. 1769, Orr, Dunlope, and Glenholme Letterbook, 1767-1769. 23. Thomas Wharton to Thomas Crowley, 17 May 1755, Wharton Letterbook, 1752-1759.

I

JI 226

Notes for Chapter ■

24. Thomas Willing to Thomas Willing of London, 10 Jan. 1757 Willing Letterbook, 1754-1761. 25. Daniel Flexney to John Reynell, 3 Dec. 1745 and 7 Mar cl 1745, Reynell Papers, 1744-1745.

26. James and Drinker to Charles McDonnell, 21 Aug. 1765, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1764-1766.

27. John Reynell to Daniel Flexney, 1 Aug. 1737 and to Michael Dicker, 5 Nov. 1746, Reynell Letterbooks, 1737-1747; William Till to Lawrence Williams, 12 June 1736, Till Papers, 1735-1744; Dan­ iel Clark to John Clark, 15 March 1761, Clark Letterbook, 17591762. 28. Samuel Harris to Thomas Clifford, 27 March 1755, Clifford Corr ., I.

29. John Reynell to Richard Deeble, 6 July 1737, Reynell Letter­ book, 1737-1738. 30. Thomas Willing to Coddrington Carrington, 26 May 1755, Willing Letterbook, 1754-1761; John Kidd to Rochell and Shrapen, 10 Dec. 1750 and to Rawlinson and Davison, 27 Aug. 1752, Kidd Letterbook, 1749-1763; Thomas Wharton to John Harris, 6 April, 1754, Wharton Letterbook, 1752-1759. 31. Thomas Willing to Coddrington Carrington, 26 May 1755, Willing Letterbook, 1754-1761; also John Reynell to Michael Dick­ er, 5 Nov. 1746, Reynell Letterbook, 1745-1747 and James and Drinker to John Clitherall, 3 Sept. 1761, James and Drinker Letter­ book, 1759-1762. 32. William Till to Lawrence Williams, 12 June 1736, Till Pa­ pers, 1735-1744.

33 . The credit relationships with English factors are discussed in detail in Chapter 7 . 34. James and Drinker to Thomas and John Phillips of Barbados, 25 Nov. 1762, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1759-1762; William Smith to Thomas Clifford, St. Kitts, 4 and 18 Nov. 1770, Clifford Correspondence, V.

35. James Hamilton to David Barclay and Sons, 4 Feb. 1764,

Notes for Chapter 2

227

Hamilton Letterbook, 1749-1783; Samuel Rhoads to Richard Neave 6 Oct. 1763, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, XIV (1890), 442.

36. Thomas Willing to Samuel Horner, 26 May 1756 and to John fterks, 20 Sept., 1755, Willing Letterbook, 1754-1761.

37. Opinion of Joseph Galloway, n. d., Clifford Corr., III. 38. David Monvielle to Parr and Reynell, 9 Sept. 1734, Reynell Papers, 1733-1735; Reynell and Coates to Samuel Souther, 2 Dec. 1772, Reynell and Coates Letterbook, 1769-1785. 39. John Reynell to Michael Dicker, 10 July 1734, Reynell Let­ terbook, 1729-1734; Edward Stouts to John Yeates, 30 March 173 9, Yeates Papers, Corr., 1738-1759. 40. William Shippen to John Askew, 30 Nov. 1727, Powel Papers, Samuel Powe 1, Commercial Corr., 1683-1747. 41. John Reynell to David Monvielle, 16 Oct. 1731, Reynell Let­ terbook, 1729-1734.

42. James and Drinker to Harris and Armstrong, 10 April 17 62, James and Drinker Letterbooks, 1759-1762 . 43. Samuel Bean to John Reynell, 20 Jan. 1756, Reynell Papers, 1756-1757.

44. Taylor and Leyborne to John Reynell, 18 Dec. 1759, 1758-1759.

ibid ., ~

45. Richard Wain to Robert Wilson, 26 Feb. 1763, Wain Letterbook, 1762-1766. 46. John Harper to Thomas Clifford, 27 Jan. 17 65, Clifford Corr., IV. 47. Thomas Willingto Robert Morris, 2 March and 30 Oct. 1756, Willing Letterbook, 1754-1761.

48. David Fogo to John Reynell, 14 January 1754 and 27 January 1755, Reynell Papers, 1754-1755; John Reynell to David Fogo, 29 March 1756 and to Jacob Goul, 7 August 1761, Reynell Letter­ books, 1754-1762.

228

Notes for Chapter 2

49. Ezekiel Edwards to James Pemberton, 11 Sept. 1772, Pem­ berton Papers, XXIV. 50. William Pollard to Brian Bentley, 9 March 1773, Pollard Let­ terbook, 1772-1774.

51. Cadwallader Morris to Keppele and Steinmetz, 25 Aug. 1773, John Steinmetz Mercantile Corr ., 1768-1789; James Hardingto Rich­ ard Wain, Wain Collection, Box I. 52. David Fogo to John Reynell, 15 Feb. 1753, Reynell Papers, 1753 .

53. Ezekiel Edwards to James Pemberton, 11 Sept. 1772, Pem­ berton Papers, XXIV. 54. Leyborne, Rossey, and Rockcliff to John Reynell, 6 Oct. 1739, Reynell Papers, 1739. 55. Daniel Flexney to John Reynell, 1 December 1741, Reynell Papers, 1740-1741; also Flexney to Reynell, 3 September 1740, Coates and Reynell Papers, 1729-1764; Flexney to Reynell, 23 August 1746 and Richard Deeble to John Reynell, 25 June 1734, Reynell Papers, 1734.

56. James Pemberton to Phineas Pemberton, 12 April 1772, Pem­ berton Papers, xxin.

57. James Logan to William Penn, May 1704, 16 Feb. 1705, and 3 Jan. 1706, Penn-Logan Correspondence, I, 301, 352-353; II, 197. --------------------------58. N.S.B. Gras and Henrietta Larson, Casebook in American Business History (New York, 1939), 141. 59. Quoted in J.A . Fowler, History of Insurance in Philadelphia for Two Centuries (1683-1882) (Philadelphia, 1888), 11. The first three chapters of this work contain much detail about the colonial period.

60 . Ways and Means for the Inhabitants of De laware to Be c o m e Rich (Reprinted, Philadelphia, 1878), 62-63. 61. William Till to Lawrence Williams, 5 Aug. 1743, Till Papers 1735-1740.

Notes for Chapter 2

229

62. Elias Bland to James Pemberton, 14 March 1745; John Hunt to Israel Pemberton, 7 Sept. 1745; RobertFoster to James Pember­ ton, 11 Jan. 1750, Pemberton Papers, III and V; Thomas Willing to John Perks, 25 Dec . 1754, Willing Letterbook.

63. Gras and Larson, Casebook, 142 . 64. Isaac Cox to Thomas Clifford, New Providence, 22 Aug. 1756; Ambrose Page to same, Providence, R.I., 15 March 1758, Clifford Corr., I and II; John Moffatt to John Reynell, Portsmou th, 9 March 1758 and 5 Oct. 1759, Reynell Papers, 1758-1759; John Pleasants to Israel Pemberton, Virginia, 28 Sept. 1762, Pember­ ton Papers, XVI; Isaac Cox to Thomas Clifford, New Providence, 2 March 1763, Clifford Corr., IV. 65. Michael Hillegas to Mr. Clopper, 20 Feb. 1757, Hillegas Letterbook, 1757-1760. 66. William Griffitts to John Rockett, 10 Sept. 1759, Clifford Corr., II; John Reynell to Colborn Barrell, 6 March 1762, Reynell Letterbook, 1760-1762; James and Drinker to David Chollet, 8 May 1759, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1759-1762. 67. John Moffatt to John Reynell, 22 Aug. 1759, Reynell Papers , 1758-1759; John Downes to James Pemberton, 19 April 1773, Pem­ berton Papers, XXIV.

68. Articles of Agreement, 8 Oct. 1757, William Bradford Papers II, and printed in Gras and Larson, Casebook, 144-146. 69. Willingand Morris to Lawrence Read, 13 Oct. 1757 and Thom­ as Willing to Thomas Willingof London, Willing Letterbook, 17541764.

3 .

The Legal Framework of Philadelphia Commerce

1. Governor Nicholson to theDukeof Shrewsbury, 14 June 169 5, Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, America and West Indies, January 1693^14 May 1696 (London, 1903), 510-511. 2. Memorial of Robert Quary, 1696, PennMss., Assembly and Provincial Council, 1681-1774.

5

Notes for Chapter 3

230

3. "Articles of high crimes: misdemeanours charged upon the governors in the several proprieties, on the continent of America and islands adjacent," 24 March 1701, Robert N. Toppan, Edward Randolph, including his Letters and Official Papers (5 vols., Bos­ ton, 1898-1899), V, 26.T-T6T.

4. The whole question of the early reaction to the Navigation Acts in Pennsylvania, the charges by Quary and Randolph, and the defense of the province by Penn and other officials is discussed at length in Winfred T. Root, The Relations of Pennsylvania Withte British Government, 1696-1765 (Philadelphia, 1912), 45-68. 5. Votes and Proceedings, III, 2101, 2127.

6. Isaac Norris to Richard Partridge, 6 July and 7 Sept. 1751, Norris Letterbook, 1735-1755.

7. A. A. Giesecke, American Commercial Legislation Before 1789 (Philadelphia, 1910) is a convenient summary of the provisions of such laws in various colonies, but it devotes no attention to the forces behind their passage or to the question of their general en­ forcement and effectiveness. 8. Petition of Philadelphia freeholders, 31 Jan. 1772, Votes and Proceedings, VIH, 6779. 9. This discussion of inspection laws is a condensed version of the author's "The Inspection of Exports in Colonial Pennsylvania ," Penn. Mag, of Hist, and Biog., LXIV (1954), 275-297.

10. James T. Mitchell and Henry Flanders, eds., The Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania from 1682 to 1801 (16 (15) vols., Harris­ burg, 1896-1911}; II, 95-98.

11. Ibid., m, 288-291. 12. Message to Assembly, Votesand Proceedings, II, 1460;Peti­ tion of merchants, ibid., 1503. 13. Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania, III, 380-381. 14. Petition of Samuel Carpenter, 6 May 1724, Votes and Pro­ ceedings, II, 1578.

15. Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania, IV, 248-257.

unmiii

Notes for Chapter 3

231

16. Ibid., IV, 248-257; V, 38-42, 102-104, 374-376; VI, 5-6; VII, 57-61.

17. Votes and Proceedings, III, 1813. 18. Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania, IV, 73-77. 19. Petition of Philadelphia merchants, 7 May 1747, Votes and Proceedings, IV, 3130.

20. Ibid., 3486-3487. 21. Ibid., VI, 4901 22. Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania, V, 400-405. 23. Report to Assembly, 4 March 1761, Votes and Proceedings, VI, 5211. 24. Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania, VI, 112-113. 25. Votes and Proceedings, VII, 5960.

26. Petition of merchants and traders to the governor, 19 Feb. 1767, Statutes at Large of Pennsylvania, VII, 412-413. The amendment itself is printed ibid ., 120-121. 27. Petition of cordwainers to Assembly, 5 Jan. 1770, Votes and Proceedings, VII, 6457-6458. For the act itself, see Statutes at Large, VIII, 220-226: for the repeal, ibid., 313. 28. Ibid., 403-406. 29. James Partridge to Levi Hollingsworth, 14 Sept. 1771, Hol­ lingsworth Mss., Correspondence. Other letters from the same collection illustrating the same point are: Partridge to Hollings­ worth and Rudulph, 13 June and 24 Dec. 1769, 4 and 12 May 1770, and to Levi Hollingsworth, 10 July 1773; Samuel Patterson to Levi Hollingsworth, 9 May 1772 and 28 July 1773.

30. Reynell and Coates to Samuel Souther, 9 July 1773, Reynell and Coates Letterbook, 1769-1784. 31. David Fogo to John Reynell, 27 Sept. 1755, Reynell Papers, 1755. Other complaints about the quality of flour are: Birkett and

p 232

Notes for Chapter 3

Booth to John Reynell, Antigua, 15 Sept. 1747and 7 Dec. 1751, John Sinclair to John Reynell, Charleston, 11 April 1752, Reynell Pap­ ers; (?) Pollock to Hollingsworth and Rudulph, St. Eustatius, 24 Sept. 1758, Hollingsworth Mss ., Corr ., 1768; William Welch to Richard Wain, Barbados, 7 Nov. 1769, Wain Coll., Box G.

32 . John Reynell to John Sherburne, 15 April 1761, Reynell Let­ terbook, 1760-1762. 33 . James Partridge to Hollingsworth and Rudulph, 20 June and 6 Dec. 1766; Samuel Patterson to same, 17 March 1768, Hollings­ worth Mss., Corr., 1767-1768.

34. James Partridge to Hollingsworth and Rudulph, 21 May 1766, Samuel Patterson to Levi Hollingsworth, 14 Sept, and 28 July 1773, Thomas Pryor to same, 2 July 1771, and Amos Alexander to same, 20 Nov. 1773, Hollingsworth Mss., Corr., 1766-1773. 35. Isaac Norris to David Monvielle and Son, 15 Nov. 1737, Nor­ ris Letterbook, 1734-1739. 36. Votes and Proceedings, VII, 5869-5871, 5942-5943. 37. Thomas May to Levi Hollingsworth, 26 July 1774, Hollings­ worth Mss., Corr., 1774-1776. 38. John Stamper to David Fogo, 1 Jan. 1757, Stamper Letter­ book, 1751-1752; James and Drinker to JohnWickham, 11 July 1765, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1764-1766; Reynell and Coates to Samuel Souther, 9 July 1773, Reynell and Coates Letterbook, 17691784. 39. Votes and Proceedings, III, 2533, 2540. 40. Petition of coopers to Assembly, 11 Sept. 1761, ibid., VII, 5258.

41. Thomas F. Gordon, The History of Pennsylvania (Pailadelphia, 1829), 185; Hanna, Trade of the Delaware District, 252.

42. Isaac Norris to David Monvielle, 15 Nov. 1737, Norris Let­ terbook, 1734-1739. 43. Petition of ropemakers, 20 Jan. 1766, Votes and Proceed­ ings, VII, 5835.

I

Notes for Chapter 3

233

44. Statutes at Large, V, 663, 728-729

45. Petition of merchants to New York Assembly 26 Oct. 175 0, Journal of the General Assembly of New York (New York, 17641768), II, 294-295. 46. William Alexander to John Provoost, Nov. 1750, quoted in Virginia D. Harrington, The New York Merchant on the Eve of the Revolution (New York, 1935), 280. 47. The Colonial Laws of New York from the Year 1664 to the Revolution (Albany, 1894), III, 788-794 . 48. Petition of Philadelphia tanners, 22 Jan. 1770, Votes and Pro­ ceedings, VII, 6481-6482; petitionof tanners, 14 Feb. 1771, ibid., VIII, 6640. 49. Essay by William Livingston in The Independent Ref lector (New York), 10 May 1753 . 50. Statutes at Large, III, 314-315; IV, 184-189, 231-232. 51. Petition of Philadelphia merchants, Votes and Proceedings, II, 1742-1743.

52. Minutes of the Council, III, 248 . 53. Message of governor to Assembly, Votes and Proceedings , in, 2453.

54. Minutes of the Council, III, 248 . 55. Statutes at Large, II, 105-108, 284-286, 382-388; III, 112117, 150-156, 382-388.

56. Ibid,., HI, 363-367, 416. 57. Statutes at Large, III, 363-367, 416. 58. Ibid., 145-149.

59. Ibid., 363-367, 416. 60. Petition of iron-makers, Votes and Proceedings, III, 1921.

1861,

Notes for Chapter 3

234 61. Votes and Proceedings, LU, 2165, 2167. 62. Statutes at Large, VI, 73-74.

63. Votes and Proceedings, VH, 5775-5776. 64. Statutes at Large, VI, 302-305, 372-379; VH, 40-43; VUI, 124-1307

65. Petition of merchants, Votes and Proceedings, VH, 5710. 66. Statutes at Large, VH, 19-27. 67. Ibid., 110-120; 311, 354-355; VIII, 58-68. 68. Ibid., 264-284.

69. Ibid., H, 86. 70. Ibid., IV, 171-183; 211-215; VI, 392-393.

71. Ibid., HI, 96-111; V, 161-178. 72. Ibid., V, 507-508; VU, 579. 73. Ibid., II, 551. 74. Ibid,, VI, 763. 75. Minutes of the Council, II, 585 .

76. Petition of merchants, Votes and Proceedings, VI, 4905. 77. Ibid,, 5288-5289.

4 .

The British and Foreign West Indies

1. James Claypoole to Joseph Grove, 19 April 1682 and to Ed­ ward Claypoole, 2 Dec. 1683, Claypoole Letterbook, 1681-1683.

2. Samuel Carpenter to Etineas Pemberton, 16 April 1691, EttingColl., Pemberton, I; Edward Shippen to John Crouch, 30 Dec. 1700, EttingColl., Misc. Mss., I; James Logan to William Penn,

Notes for Chapter 4

235

March and 2 Oct. 1702 and 26 May 1704, Penn-Logan Corr., ITn. 137, 288. 3. Quoted in Penn. Gazette, 5 Jan. 1731. 4. See Table I, Appendix, for numbers of ships cleared to and entered from the West Indies.

5. Some idea of the variation in the average tonnage of the ships used in each of the various trade areas may be obtained from the following figures, compiled from PRO, Customs 16/1: British Isles 110 tons; south Europe, 88 tons; West Indies, 58 tons; coastwise, 41 tons; all trades, 59 tons. 6. See Table II, Appendix, for tonnage of ships cleared to arri entered from the West Indies . 7. See Chapter 8 for a further discussion of the patterns of track. 8. Edward Shippen to John Crouch, 30 Dec. 1700, Etting Collec­ tion, Misc. Mss., I. 9. Freight list, 21 July 1764, Wain Coll., Box G.

10. James Harding to Richard Wain, 12 May 1770, Wain Coll., Box I. 11. See Table IV, Appendix, for exports of bread and flour to the West Indies.

12. See Table VI, Appendix, for exports of lumber products to the West Indies. 13. See Table VII, Appendix, for exports of beef and pork and Table IX for exports of corn to the West Indies. 14. See Table X, Appendix, for imports of rum from the West Indies. 15. See Table XI, Appendix, for imports of sugar from the West Indies. 16. See Table XII for imports of molasses from the West Indies.

17. Thomas Willing to Joseph Manesty, IJan. 1757, Willing

23o

Notes for Chapter 4

Letterbook, 1754-1761.

18. Lowell J. Ragatz, The Fall of the Planter Class in the Brit­ ish Caribbean (Washington, 1928) 91-92 . 19. Herbert C. Bell, "The West India Trade Before the Revolu­ tion," American Historical Review, XXII (1916-1917), 273-274.

20. John Reynell to Michael Dicker, 10 March 1731, ReynellLetterbook, 1729-1734. 21. See, for example, John Rossington to James Pemberton, An­ tigua, 31 Aug. 1750, Pemberton Papers, VI; John Reynell to Henry Bonnin, 9 Feb. 1731 and to David Fogo, 20 Oct. 1755, Reynell Let­ terbooks .

22. John Reynell, et. al., to Birkett and Booth, 19 July 1746;& John Reynell to David Fogo and to Birkett and Booth, 8 April 1754, Reynell Letterbooks. 23. James and Drinker to Jacob Gaule, 25 Nov. 1756 and to Wil­ liam Neate, 22 Nov. 1757, James and Drinker Letterbook, 17561759.

24 . James and Drinker to Thomas and John Phillips, 25 July 1761, ibid., 1759-1762. 25. James and Drinker to Harris and Armstrong, 19 November 1764 and same to Parvin and James, 30 October 1765, ibid., 1764-1766. 26. John Watkins to Thomas Clifford, 9 March 1757, Clifford Corr., I. 27. John Watkins to Richard Wain, 7 April 1770, Wain Coll., Box I.

28. Sims and Sims to John Yeates, 13 July 1744, Yeates Papers, Corr., 1738-1769. 29. Charles Willing and Son to Whatley, Meyler, and Hall, 24 Aug. 1754, Willing Letterbook, 1754-1761. 30. Thomas Tipping to Thomas Clifford, 15 Oct. 1757, Clifford Corr., II.

■ Notes for Chapter 4

237

31. Oldman and Shewell to Wain and Shoemaker, 9 June 1765, Wain Coll., Box G. 32. John Harper to Thomas Clifford, 14 Feb. 17 53, Clifford Corr., II. 33. Birkett and Booth to John Reynell, 15 Aug., 1747, Reyne 11 Papers, 1746-1747.

34. JohnRossington to James Pemberton and Peter Reeve, 28 Feb. 1759, Pemberton Papers, XIII; Harper and Hartshorne to Thomas Clifford, 2 Nov. 1765, Clifford Corr., IV; Ezekiel Edwards to James Pemberton, 11 Sept. 1772, Pemberton Papers, XXIV. 35. Henry Bonnin to John Reynell, Antigua, 8 July 1734, Reynell Papers, 1733-1735; Thomas Whartonof London to Thomas Wharton of Philadelphia, St. Kitts, 24 July 1749, Wharton Correspondence, 1757-1759.

36. James Harding to Richard Wain, 7 April 1770, Wain Coll., Box I. 37. William Moore and William Logan to James ftemberton, 11 April 1749, Pemberton Papers, V. 38. Michael Atkins to John Reynell, Bristol, 5 July 1751, Reynell Papers, 1750-1751. 39. John Reynell to Michael Dicker, 19 June 1731 and to Henry Bonnin, 9 Feb. 1731, Reynell Letterbook, 1729-1734. 40. Thomas Willing to Robert Morris, 6 March 1756, Willing Letterbook, 1754-1761.

41. Bayley and Bedford to John Yeates, Barbados, 17 Sept. 1742, Yeates Papers, Corr., 1738-1759; also John Batho to Willing and Taylor, Jamaica, 31 Jan. 1768, Batho Letterbook, 1765-1768. 42. Quoted in Penn. Gazette, 5 Jan. 1731. 43. Joseph Richardson to Samuel Powel, 19 Jan. 1742, Powel Papers, Samuel Powel, Commercial Corr ., 1740-1749. 44. John Kidd to Farmer and Galton, 6 July 1751, Kidd Letter­ book, 1749-1763.

238

Notes for Chapter 4

45. Samuel Bean to John Reynell, 14 April 1756, Reynell Papers, 1756-1757. 46. David Fogo to John Reynell, 11 Feb. 1752, Ibid., 1752.

47. Thomas Wharton to Thomas Wharton of Philadelphia, Nevis, 26 Sept. 1757 and St. Kitts, 16 March 1758, Wharton Correspond­ ence, 1757-1759. 48. Willing and Morris to Thomas Potter, 22 Oct. 1757, Willing Letterbook, 1754-1761. 49. Penn, Gazette, 11 July 1765.

50. Order in Council, 29 July 1767, Penn. Gazette, 3 March 1768.

51. Charles Read to James Pemberton, St. Croix, 16 Dec. 1773 and 8 March 1774, Pemberton Papers, XXV, XXVI; Penn. Gazette, 9 March 1774.

52. John Rossington to James Pemberton, 14 Sept. 1751, Pem­ berton Papers, VII. 53. Birkett and Booth to John Reynell, 14 Sept. 1751, Reynell Papers, 1750-1751. 54. John Rossington to James Pemberton, 2 Oct. 1751, Pember­ ton Papers, VII; Birkett and Booth to John Reynell, 4 Oct. 1751, Reynell Papers, 1750-1751.

55. Charles Willing and Son to Whately, Meyler, and Hall, 24 Nov. 1754 and Thomas Willing to John Perks, 25 Dec. 1754, Wil­ ling Letterbook, 1754-1761. 56. Ralph Payne to John Penn, Antigua, 14 Sept. 1772 and Penn's proclamation, 9 Oct. 1772, Minutes of the Council, X, 57-58.

57. Proclamation dated 2 Sept. 1772, Penn. Gazette, 7 Oct. 1772. 58 . Robert Robertson to Parr and Reynell, Barbados, 6 May 1734, Coatesand Reynell Papers, Corr., 1729-1764; Birkettand Booth to John Reynell, Antigua, 14 June 1752, Reynell Papers, 1752; Nath­ aniel Booth to John Reynell, Antigua, 16 Jan. 1754, Coates & Rey­ nell Papers, Corr., 1729-1764; Bayly, Elworth, and Bayly to John Reynell, Jamaica, 13 April 1754, Reynell Papers, 1754; Nathaniel

Notes for Chapter 4

239

Booth to Clifford and Shoemaker, Antigua, 1 April 1754, Clifford Corr., I; Penn. Gazette, 20 June 1754.

i

59. Birkett and Booth to John Reynell, 14 June 1752, Reynell Pap­ ers, 1752. 60. Henry Bonnin to John Yeates, 9 Jan. 1743, Yeates Papers Corr., 1738-1759. 61. Birkett and Booth to John Reynell, 26 Oct. 1752 and 20 June 1753, Reynell Papers, 1752-1753. 62. Thomas Tipping to Thomas Clifford, 15 Oct. 1757, Clifford Corr., IV. 63. Thomas Gilbert to James Pemberton, 14 March 1772, Pem­ berton Papers XXIII. Other references to the same point are: Mi­ chael Lovell to John Reynell, 15 Aug. 1741, Birkett and Booth to same, 10 July and 7 Dec. 1751, Reynell Papers; Birkett and Booth to James Pemberton, 17 Jan. and 27 Oct. 1752, Pemberton Papers, VII, VIII; Nathaniel Booth to Clifford and Shoemaker, 1 April 1754, Clifford Corr., I; Booth to James Pemberton, 27 Oct. 1757, Pem­ berton Papers, XII. 64. John Reynell to Michael Dicker, 10 Marchl731, Reynell Let­ terbook, 1729-1734.

65. James Logan to William Penn, I' March and 2 Oct. 1702, 26 May 1704, Penn-Logan Corr., I, 81, 137, 288. 66. Reynell to Michael Dicker, 25 Aug. 1731, to Samuel Parr 17 Jan. 1732, and to Dicker, 28 June 1738, Reynell Letter books’ 1729-1738. 67. Bayley and Bedford to John Yeates, 28 Aug. 1742; Fairchild, Knight and Caddell to same, 18 Nov. and 9 April 1743; and Sims & Sims to same 13 July 1744, Yeates Papers, Corr., 1738-1759. 68. Haynes Gibbes to John Yeates, 27 April 1746, Yeates Papers Corr., 1738-1759. 69. John Pemberton to James Pemberton, 13 March 1749; William Moore and William Loganto same 11 April 1749; and William Moore to same, 19 May 1749, Pemberton Papers, V; Penn. Gazette, 14 March, 3 Aug., and 5 Dec . 1749; Birkett and Booth to John Reyne 11,

E

240

Notes for Chapter 4

21 May 1751, Reynell Papers, 1750-1751; same to James Pember­ ton, 15 Oct. 1751, Pemberton Papers, VII; Same to John Reynell, 7 Jan. 1753, Reynell Papers, 1753-1754. 70. Nathaniel Booth to John Reynell, 5 Oct. 1753, Reynell Papers, 1753; Thomas Willing to Robert Coode, 16 Dec . 1754, Willing Let­ terbook, 1754-1761.

71. Penn. Gazette, 3 May, 21 June 1753, 1 May 1755. 72. Thomas Tipping to Thomas Clifford, 29 Dec. 1758, Clifford Corr., II; also David Fogo to John Reynell, 15 Jan. 1756, Reynell Papers, 1756-1757; John Thorp to Thomas Clifford, 18 Jan. 1757, Clifford Corr ., I; John Rossington to James Pemberton, 1 Aug. and 30 Sept. 1758, Pemberton Papers, XII, XIII; Thomas Wharton to Thomas Wharton of Philadelphia, 16 June 1759, Wharton Corr ., 1757-1759; Cowpland and Gordon to Thomas Clifford, 30 Sept. 1759, Clifford Corr., II; Thomas Wharton to Thomas Wharton, 29 Oct. 1759, Wharton Corr ., 1757-1759. 73. Daniel Clark to Levi Trump, 17 July 1761, Clark Letterbook, 1759-1762. 74. John Harper to Thomas Clifford, 9 March 1766 and Harper and Hartshorne to same, 13 June 1766, Clifford Corr., IV. Re­ ports of low markets in the West Indies at this time are: Cowpland and Gordon to Thomas Clifford, 20 April 1760, Samuel Leacock to same, 22 April 1760, Benjamin Conly to same, 12 Aug. 1760, John Harper to same, 22 Oct. 1763 and 17 June 1764, Clifford Corr., Ill, IV; James and Drinker to Harris and Armstrong, 19 Nov. 1764, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1764-1766; John Harper to Thomas Clifford, 12, 15, and 27 Jan. 1765, Clifford Corr., IV; Thomas Story to Wain and Shoemaker, 6 and 25 Oct. 1766, Jacob Grantham to Jacob Shoemaker, 2 Nov. 1767, and Isaac Jones to Richard Wain 3 Nov. 1767, Wain Coll., Box I. 75. John Batho to Benjamin Marshall, 10 March 1768, Batho Let­ terbook, 1765-1768. 76. Orr, Dunlope, and Glenholme to Park Henderson, 25 May 1768, Orr, Dunlope, and, Glenholme Letterbook, 1768-1769. 77. Penn. Gazette, 18 Feb. 1768. 78. James Harding to Richard Wain, 5 Jan. 1770, Wain Coll .,

Notes for Chapter 5

241

Box I; William Smith to Thomas Clifford, 31 July 1770 Clifford Corr., V; James Harding to Richard Wain 25 Sept. 1770 ’ 25 Tan 6 May, 3 June 1771, Wain Coll., Box I.

79. William Pollard to Brian Bentley, 9 March 1773, Pollard Let­ terbook, 1772-1774. 80. William Pollard to Sericold and Jackson, 18 Dec. 1772, ibid. 81. Ibid.

5 .

South Europe and the Wine Islands

1. Edward Shippen to John Crouch, 30 Dec. 1700, Etting Coll. , Misc. Mss., I.

2. James Logan to William Ftenn, 26 May 1705, Penn-Logan Correspondence, I, 291. 3. Isaac Norris to William Penn, 3 April 1707, ibid ., II, 203-204. 4. See Table I, Appendix, for numbers of ships clearing to and entering from south Europe and the wine islands. 5. See Table II, Appendix, for tonnage of ships clearing to and entering from south Europe and the wine islands . 6. Edward Shippen, Jr., to Joseph Shippen, Jr., 12 May 1760, Balch Papers, Shippen, I. 7. Based on shipping reports, Penn, Gazette .

8. Joseph Turner to Plumsted and Powel, 22 May 1731, Powel Papers, Samuel Powel, Commercial Corr., 1683-1747.

9. Parr and Bulkeley to Thomas Riche, 21 May and 5 Dec. 1761 Autograph Collection of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. 10. James Hamilton to David Barclay, 3 July 1749, Hamilton Let­ terbook, 1749-1783; Thomas Penn to Richard Peters, 17 July 1752, 1 Feb.and 10 June 1754, and to John Penn, 11 Jan. and 5 April 1766, Ftenn Letterbooks; Francis Lewis to Thomas Riche, 5 March 1761, Autograph Collection; John Penn to Thomas Penn, 20May 1765, Penn

t

242

Notes for Chapter 5

Mss., Official Corr., James and Drinker to Neate, Pigou, and Booth, 28 May 1766, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1764-1766.

11. Humphrey Clase to John Reynell, 24 July 1750 and Laye and John Stevens to same, 4 Aug. 1750. 12 . Nathaniel Donnell to John Reynell, 20 Dec . 1753, Coates and Reynell Papers, Corr., 1729-1764; Thomas Penn to Richard Peters, 1 Feb. 1754, Penn Letterbooks; Penn. Gazette, 25 Aug. 1763.

13. John Reynell to Michael Dicker, 19 Nov. 1736, Reynell Let­ terbook, 1734-1744. 14. William Till to Lawrence Williams, 11 Sept. 1740, Till Pa­ pers, 1735-1744.

15. Thomas Willing to Thomas Willing of London, 1 Oct. 1757, Willing Letterbook, 1754-1761. 16. Clement Biddle to Thomas Richardson, 24 April 1770, Bid­ dle Letterbook, 1769-1770; John W . Swift to John Swift, 7April 1771, Hildeburn Papers, 1767-1778. 17. Joseph Turner to Plumsted and Powel, 22 May 1731, Powel Papers, Samuel Powel, Commercial Corr ., 1683-1747; William Till to Lawrence Williams, 24 Dec. 1739, Till Papers, 1735-1744. 18. See Table IV, Appendix, for exports of bread and flour to south Europe and the wine islands .

19. See Table IX, Appendix, for exports of corn to south Europe and the wine islands . 20. By the Revenue Act of 1764, iron, although not enumerated, could not be sent to any European port except to England. Never­ theless, small quantities of ironactually appear in the customs re­ ports as having been sent to south Europe in the period 1768-1772. These very small amounts of iron may have gone to the wine is­ lands rather than to the continent proper . 21. James and Drinker to Hasenclever, Seton, and Croftes, 16 Dec. 1764, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1764-1766.

22. See Table XIII, Appendix, for imports of salt into Philadel­ phia from south Europe .

Notes for Chapter 5

243

23. Isaac Norris to Patrick Purcell, 26 Nov. 1734, Norris Letter­ book, 1734; John Reynell to Stubbs and Taylor, 26 Oct. 1753, Rey­ nell Letterbook, 1752-1754. 24. Thomas Willing to Benjamin Tasker, 17 March 1756 Willing Letterbook, 1754-1761. B

25. See Table XIV, Appendix, for imports of wine into Philadel­ phia from south Europe and the wine islands. 26. Michael Dicker to John Reynell, 27 Jan. 1732, Reynell Papsrs, 1729-1732; Isaac Norris to Pantalion Fernandez, 19 March 1736, Norris Letterbook, 1734-1739.

27. John Reynell to Michael Dicker, 5 July 1737, Reynell Letter­ book, 1737-1738. 28. Stevens, Porter, and Co. to John Reynell, 8 May 1748 and Laye and John Stevens to same, 24 Sept. 1749, Reynell Papers, 1748-1/49. 29. Thomas Riche to John and James Searles, 24 Sept. 1741, Riche Letterbooks, 1750-1771. 30. John Reynell to Catanach and Murdoch, 12 Dec . 1753 nell Letterbook, 1752-1754.

Rev-

31. Charles Willing and Son to Laurence Read, 24 June 1754, Willing Letterbook, 1754-1761. 32. James and Drinker to Anthony Merry, 15 Oct. 1765, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1764-1766.

33. Edward Shippen to John Crouch, 30 Dec. 1700, Etting Coll., Misc. Mss., I; James Logan to William Penn, 26 May 1704, PennLogan Corr., I, 291. ’ --------34. WilliamTillto Lawrence Williams, 1 Aug. and 28 Nov. 1737 Till Papers, 1735-1744. 35. John Kidd to Neate and Neave, 7 June 1750, Kidd Letterbook 1749-1763. 36. Parr and Bulkeley to Thomas Clifford, 13 Dec. 1765, Clifford Corr., IV.

t

I

244

Notes for Chapter 5

37. William Till to Lawrence Williams, 11 Sept. 1740, Till Pap­ ers, 1735-1744. 38. Daniel Flexney to John Reynell, London, 22 Oct. 1738 and Leyborne, Rossey, and Rockcliff to same, Lisbon, 10 Feb. 1742 , Reynell Papers; Elias Bland to James Pemberton, London, 27 Aug. 1744 and Henton Brown to same, London, 11 June 1753, Pemberton Papers, III, IX; Parr and Bulkeley to Thomas Clifford, Lisbon, 22 April 1765, Clifford Corr., IV; Mayne and Co. to Israel Pember­ ton, Lisbon, 5 July 1771, Pemberton Papers, XXIII.

39 . Thomas Riche to John and James Searles, 9 May 1763, Riche Letterbooks, 1750-1771; William Pollard to Thomas Earle, 19 June 1772, Pollard Letterbook, 1772-1774. 40. Leyborne, Rossey, and Rockcliff to John Reynell, Lisbon, 12 May 1741, Leyborne and Stubbs to same, 19 Aug. 1745 and 13 July 1747, Henry Steers to same, 14 July 1747, Reynell Papers; John Hunt to Israel ftemberton, London, 10 Sept. 1751, Pemberton Pap ers, VII; Parr and Bulkeleyto Thomas Riche, Lisbon, 10 May 1756, Autograph Collection; Harford and Powell to Richard Wain, London, 16 Sept. 1767, Wain Coll., Foreign Corr., 1763-1790; John W. Swift to John Swift, 7 April, 21 June, and 6 July 1771, Hildebirn Papers, 1767-1778. 41. Reynell Papers, 1744-1745.

42. Ibid., 1746-1747. 43. Joseph Turner to Plumsted and Powell, 22 May 1731, Powel Papers, Samuel Powel, Commercial Corr., 1683-1747; Daniel Ar­ thur to Richard Wain, July 1768, Wain Coll., Foreign Corr., 17631790. 44. Thomas Hyam to Samuel Powel, Jr., London, 18 July 1734, Powel Papers, Samuel Powel, Commercial Corr., 1683-1747; Dan­ iel Flexney to John Reynell, London, 25 Oct. 1740, Reynell Papers; Parr and Bulkeley to Thomas Clifford, Lisbon, 22 April and 26 Aug. 1765, Clifford Corr., IV.

45. John Ayrey and Co. to Thomas Wharton, 15 April 17 61, Wharton Corr., 1760-1761.

46. Elias Bland to James Pemberton, 23 Oct. 1753, Pemberton Papers, IX; Capt. Donnell to John Reynell, 20 Dec. 1753, Coates

Notes for Chapter 5

245

and Reynell Papers, 1729-1764; Stubbs and Taylor to same, 9 Jan­ uary 1754, Reynell Papers; Penn. Gazette, 16 Nov. -769. 47. James and Drinker to Devonshire and Reeve, 10 July 176 4, James and Drinker Letterbook 1762-1764. 48. William Pollard to Sericold and Jackson, 18 Dec. 1772, Pol­ lard Letterbook, 1772-1774. 49. Parrand Bulkeley to Thomas Riche, 21 May and 5 Dec. 17 61, Autograph Collection.

50. Clifford Corr., IV. 51. PRO, C.O. 5/1268, quoted in Hanna, Trade of the Delaware District, 264. 52. The text of one of these embargoes, imposed by the governor, can be found in Minutes of the Council, IV, 480 .

53. Laye and John Stevens to John Reynell, 16 May 1750, Reynell Papers, 1750-1751. 54. John Smith to James Logan, Jr., Smith Corr., 1740-1770.

55. John Hunt to Israel Pemberton, 10 Sept. 1751, Pemberton Papers, VII. 56. Samuel Emlen, Jr. to John Pemberton, 29 Nov. 1751 and James Pemberton to John Pemberton, 13 June 1752, Pemberton Ripers, VII, VIII.

57. Henton Brown to James Pemberton 11 June 1753 and Elias Bland to same, 23 Oct. 1753, Pemberton Papers, IX; Capt. Nath­ aniel Donnell to John Reynell, 20 Dec. 1753, Coates and Reynell Papers, 1729-1764.

58. Dominick Joyce and Co. to James Pemberton, 29 April 1756, Pemberton Papers, XI; Charles WillingandSon to Connell and Mor­ oney, 28 June 1754, Willing Letterbook, 1754, 1761. 59. 30 Geo. II, c. 9, Pickering, Statutes at Large, XXII, 27-33.

60. Thomas Willing to Thomas Willing of London, 1 Oct. 1757, Willing Letterbook, 1754-1761.

■

246

Notes for Chapter 5

61. Unaddressed letter, 5 Oct. 1761, Riche Letterbooks, 17501771; also John Ayrey and Co. to Thomas Wharton, 15 April 1761, Wharton Corr ., 1760-1761.

62. Parr and Bulkeley to Thomas Rich6, 5 and 29 Dec. 1761, Autograph Coll., same to Thomas Clifford, 8 Dec. 1761, Clifford Correspondence, IE. 63. Parr and Bulkeley to Thomas Clifford, 6 Feb., 21 May, and 31 July 1764, Clifford Corr., IV; same to Thomas Riche, 1 Aug. 1764, Autograph Coll. 64. James and Drinker to William Hartshorne, 6 April 1765, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1764-1766. 65. James and Drinker to Neate, Pigou, and Booth, 18 April, 1765, ibid .; Parr and Bulkeley to Thomas Clifford, 22 April and 26 Aug. 1765, Clifford Corr., IV; James and Drinker to Thomas Pear­ sall, 11 Dec. 1765, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1764-1766. 66. Robert Herries to Thomas Walpole, 4 Oct. 1766, Wharton Corr., 1766-1767. 67. William Allen to Thomas Penn, 25 May 1767, Penn Mss., Official Correspondence. 68. Harford and Powell to Richard Wain, 16 Sept. 1767, Wain Coll., Foreign Corr., 1768-1790.

69. Clement Biddle to Thomas Richardson, 4 March 1770, Biddle Letterbook, 1769-1770; John Swift to Nathaniel Coffin, 16 April 1770, Custom House Papers, X . 70. Penn. Gazette, 16 Nov. 1769. 71. Richard Wain to William Lucas, 28 Sept. 1770, Wain Coll ., Wain Letterbook, 1766-1799. 72. John and David Rhea to Parr and Bulkeley, 26 Feb. 1771, Hollingsworth Mss ., Corr., 1770-1771.

73 . John W. Swift to John Swift, 7 April 1771, Hildeburn Papers, 1767-1778.

74. John W. Swift to John Swift, 21 June and 6 July 1771, ibid.;

I

Notes for Chapter 6

247

Mayne and Co. to Israel Pemberton, 5 July 1771 and Peter and John Garmault to Joseph and Charles Pemberton, 23 Oct. 1771, Pember­ ton Papers, XXIH. 75. Parr, Bulkeley, and Co. to Keppele and Steinmetz, 8 Nov. 1773, John Steinmetz, Mercantile Corr ., 1770-1789. 76. Reynell and Coates to William Wyer, 4 Feb. and 13 March 1774, Reynell and Coates Letterbook, 1769’-1784. 77. Parr, Bulkeley, and Co. to Keppele and Steinmetz, 26 April 1774 and 31 Jan. 1775, John Steinmetz, Mercantile Corr., 17701789.

78. Only one paragraph is devoted to the south European trade in Hanna, Trade of the Delaware District, 263-264.

6.

The Coastwise Trade

1. Hanna, for example, devotes just three paragraphs to the coastwise trade in The Trade of the Delaware District, 261-262 . 2. See Table I, Appendix, for numbers of ships entering and clearing coastwise . 3. See Table II, Appendix, for tonnage of ships entering and clearing coastwise. 4. See Table IV for coastwise exports of bread and flour .

5. See Table VIII for coastwise exports of bar iron. 6. See Table VII for coastwise exports of beef and pork. 7. See Table X for coastwise exports and imports of rum .

8. See Table XII for coastwise imports of molasses . 9. See Table V for coastwise imports of wheat.

10. See Table XV for coastwise imports of naval stores. 11. See Table XVII for the distribution of Philadelphia's coastwise

248

Notes for Chapter 6

Trade by geographical areas. 12. Thomas Hyam to Samuel Powel and Clement Plumsted, 26 Dec. 1727, Powel Coll., Samuel Powel Commercial Corr., 16831747.

13 . John Reynell to Daniel Flexney, 4 Jan. 1738, Reynell Letter­ book, 1737-1738.

14. Petition of Philadelphia merchants, 20 Dec . 1752, Actstf the Privy Council, Colonial Series, 1745-1766, 180. 15. Proclamation of Commodore Warren, Pennsylvania Gazette, 25 July 1745; Letter of Commodore Warren, 25 July 1745, Ibid., 22 Aug. 1745.

16. Journals of the Commissioners for Trade and Plantations, January, 1749 to December, 1753, 73 .

17. Israel Pemberton to David Barclay, 16 Feb. 1755, Pemberton Papers, X. 18. Willing and Morris to Thomas Potter, 6 Aug. 1757, Willing Letterbook, 1754-1761.

19. John Rocketts to William Griffith, Louisbourg, 21 Sept. 1759 , and Joseph Jones to Thomas Clifford, Newfoundland, 7 Aug. 1759, Clifford Corr., II. 20. James and Drinker to John Franks, 3 Aug. 1761, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1759-1769; Thomas Wharton, Jr., to Thomas Wharton, 23 March 1761, Bill of lading, 4 May 1761, and Thomas Wharton, Jr., to Thomas Wharton, 27 May and 12 June 1761, all in Wharton Corr., 1760-1767. 21. William Pollard to Peter Holme, 23 Sept. 1773, Pollard Let­ terbook, 1772-1774. 22. However, a letter of James and Drinker to Devonshire, Reeve and Lloyd, 17 Aug. 1761, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1759-1762, says that they are investigating the Newfoundland trade as a means of making remittances to England .

23. James and Drinker to Anthony Merry, 15 Oct. 1765, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1764-1766.

Notes for Chapter 6

249

24. Nettels, Money Supply, 110.

25. Letterbook of Peter Baynton, 1721-1726. 26. John Reynellto John Sherburne, 7 Aug. 1746, Reynell Letter­ book, 1745-1747. 27. Andrewand Peter Oliver to John Reynell, 30 May 1737, Rey nell Papers, 1736-1737. 28. William Redwood to John Pemberton, 4 Sept. 1749, Pember­ ton Papers, V.

29. Edmundand Josiah Quincy to JohnReynell, 24 July 1738, Rey­ nell Papers, 1738-1739. 30. William Redwood to John Pemberton, 21 Oct. 1751, Pember­ ton Papers, VII. The following letters, all written to Thomas Clif­ ford, contain urgent requests for shipment of flour to Newport and Providence: Walter Rodman, 13 July 1752; John Collins, 4 Oct. 1754; Thomas Lawrence, 9 Nov. 1754; Joseph Lawrence, 9 Sept. and6Dec. 1756; John Collins, 6 Dec. 1757 and 17 Oct. 1758, all in Clifford Correspondence, I, II.

31. Samuel Pope to Thomas Clifford, Boston, 23 May 1756, 15 Aug. 1763, and 28 Feb. 1765, Clifford Corr., I, III; John Sherburne to John Reynell, Portsmouth, 21 Dec. 1740 and 21 Dec. 1752, Rey­ nell Papers. 32. Joseph Stamper to John Mackenzie, 8 Aug. 1769, Stamper Letterbook, 1751-1772.

33. JohnReynell to Noah Parker, 1 June 1764, Reynell Letter­ book, 1751-1772.

'

34. Arthur P. Middleton, Tobacco Coast; A Maritime History of the Chesapeake Bay in the Colonial Period (Newport News, 1953), 199-200.

35. Joseph Clarke to James Pemberton, 24 Feb. 1743, Pember­ ton Papers, III. 36. Middleton, Tobacco Coast, 200

37. James Louttit to John Reynell, 18 Aug. 1753, Reynell Papers;

I

250

Notes for Chapter 6

Robert Pleasants to Israel Pemberton, 4 June, 3 and 6 Aug. 1756, and William Cox to John Pemberton, 6 May 1757, Pemberton Papers, XI, XIII; James and Drinker to Preeson Bowdoin, 20 Nov. 1772 and Robert Pleasants, same date, James and Drinker Letterbook, 17721786.

38 . Clement Biddle to Thomas Richardson, 24 May 1770 and to James Maccubbin, 16 April 1770, Clement Biddle Letterbook, 1769-1770; William Pollard to Peter Holme, 20 July 1772, William Pollard Letterbook, 1772-1774; James and Drinker to Robert Pleasants, 7 October 1774, James and Drinker Letterbook, 17721786. 39. Robert Pleasants to Israel Pemberton, 4 June 1756, John Pleasants to same, 21 Sept. 1763, and Israel ftemberton to John Pemberton and Edward Stabler, 14 Nov. 1766, Pemberton Papers, XI, XVI, XIX. 40. James Louttitto John Reynell, 18 Aug. 1753, Reynell Papers, 1753-1754. 41. Robert Pleasants to Israel Pemberton, 6 April 1755, Pem­ berton Papers, X; also R. Langley to James Pemberton, 31 May 1765, ibid., XVIII; and Edward Parrish to Stephen Collins, 23 July 1767, Stephen Collins Papers (Library of Congress), VII.

42. William Pollard to Benjamin and John Bower, 24 July 1773, Pollard Letterbook, 1772-1774. 43. William Till to Lawrence Williams, 2 Oct. 1743, Till Papers, 1735-1744; John Kidd to John Perks, 22 Oct. 1760, Letterbook, 17491763. 44. Thomas Riche to James (?), 2 Jan. 1756, Richfi Letter books, 1750-1771.

45. Zebulon Hollingsworth to Hollingsworth and Rudulph, 24 Feb. 1770, and James Partridge to same, 26 Mar . 1770 and 31 July 1773, Hollingsworth Mss ., Corr., 1770-1773. 46. Forexample, see "Publicola," Penn , Chronicle, 26 Jan. 1767. This whole subject is fully discussed, with citations to other de­ mands for roads and bridges, in Charles H. Lincoln, The Revolu­ tionary Movement in Pennsylvania, 1760-1776 (Philadelphia, 1901), 61-71.

Notes for Chapter 6

251

47. Reynell and Coates to Stephen Hooper, 1 April 1774, Reynell and Coates Letterbook, 1769-1784. 48. James and Drinker to John Clitherall, 22 Dec. 1757, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1756-1759.

49. Same to Same, 26 Nov. 1764, ibid,, 1764-1766. 50. John Craven to Thomas Clifford, 1 April, 1757, Clifford Correspondence, I. 51. Daniel Clark to Richard Carroll, 25 June and 13 July 1761, Clark Letterbook, 1759-1762; also James and Drinker to Bernard Parkinson, 2 Sept. 1761, to Whitehouse Hadnot, 17 Aug. 1764, to Moses Holstein, 3 Oct. 1765 and to Jones and Shepherd, 2 April 1766, James and Drinker Letterbooks, 1759-1766. 52. To James Parkinson, 13 June 1758 and to John Clitherall, 16 June 1757, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1756-1759. 53. James and Drinker to John Clitherall, 30 Dec. 1753 and to David Palmer, 6 June 1759, ibid., 1752-1762. 54. John Chaloner to Thomas Emory, 6 June 1771, Chaloner and WhitePapers, 1744-1777. 55. James and Drinker to Capt. William Barnes, 18 Aug. 1764, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1764-1766; Daniel Major to Richard Wain, 24 Dec. 1771 and 23 Jan. 1772, Wain Coll., Box I. 56. To David Palmer, 20 Dec. 1758, to Charles Crawford, 27 Aug. 1763, to Jacob Blount, 27 Aug. 1763, and to Joseph Jones, 21 June 1766, James and Drinker Letterbooks, 1756-1766. 57. Capt. Timothy Sheehan to Thomas Wharton, 21 April 1760, Wharton Corr., 1760-1761. 58. To A . Matthews, 22 March 1725, Baynton Letterbook.

59. Daniel Flexney to John Reynell, 24 Sept. 1741, John Scott to John Reynell, 10 June 1743, Reynell Papers; Invoices of shipments, 22 Feb. 1742 and 10 Feb. 1743, Reynell Letterbook, 1741-1744.

60. GabrielManigaultto SamuelPowel, 12 Aug. 1747and to Cole­ man and Pemberton, 24 May 1748 and 4 April 1749, Powel Papers,

252

Notes for Chapter 6

Samuel Powel Commercial Corr., 1740-1749. 61. Same to same, 28 Nov. 1747, ibid .

62. James and Drinker to Sheedand White, 13 Sept. 1766, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1764-1766. 63. William Smith to Mercer and Ramsay, 13 March 1771, Smith Letterbook, 1771-1775. 64. Daniel and Isaac Bourdeaux to James Pemberton, 17 April 1771, Pemberton Papers, XXII.

65. Alice Blanchfield to John Rudulph, 20 March 1768, Hollings­ worth Mss., Corr., 1768. 66. Elias Bland to James Pemberton, 18 Feb. 1744, John Sinclair to same, 18 March 1751, and Peter Reeve to same, 18 March 1751, Pemberton Papers, III, VII; Downes and Nicholson to Thomas Clif­ ford, 15 Feb. 1762, Clifford Corr., Ill; Daniel and Isaac Bourdeaux to James Pemberton, 1 Nov. 1770, Pemberton Papers, XXII; William Pollard to Danieland Isaac Bourdeaux, 2 April 1774, Pollard Letter­ book, 1772-1774.

67. Walter Franklin to Thomas Clifford, 6 Oct. 1764, Clifford Corr., IV. 68. John Watts to Thomas Astin, New York, 1 Jan. 1762, Letter book of John Watts, 1762-1765 (New York Hist. Soc . Collections, 1928), 3 69. Nettels, Money Supply, 118-119. 70. Governor Evans to the Board of Trade, 13 Feb. 1705, Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, America and West Indies, 1704-1705 ,"3757 71. Thomas Riche to Downing and Turnbull, 10 Nov. 1752, to Samuel Cornell, 18 Dec. 1755, and to (?), 30 March 1763, RichS Letterbooks, 1750-1771; James and Drinker to Thomas Nickelson, 29 April 1773, James and Drinker Foreign Letters, 1772-1785. 72. Samuel Browne to James Pemberton, 7 April 1751 and 24 Jan. 1761, Pemberton Papers, XII, XIV; WillingandMorris to Lawrence Reade, 24 Aug. 1757, Willing Letterbook, 1754-1761; Gerard G.

Notes for Chapter 7

253

Beekman to Thomas Wharton, 6 Nov. 1756, Wharton Corr., 16791756; Beekmen to Thomas Clifford, 2 July and 23 Aug. 1759, 7 Jan. 1760, Clifford Corr., II. 73. Gerard Beekman to Thomas Clifford, 23 Aug. 1759, ibid , 74. John Swift to John White, 30 May 1747, Swift Letterbook, 17471751; John Glover to John Steinmetz, 12 Nov. 1770, John Steinmetz Mercantile Corr. 75. Penn. Gazette, 23 Jan 1772. 76. Thomas Riche to Downing and Turnbull, 10 Nov. 1752, Riche Letterbooks, 1750-1771. 77. James and Drinker to Thomas Nickelson, 29 April 1773, Foreign Letters, 1772-1785.

78. To Thomas Clifford, 9 April 1761, Clifford Corr., III. 79. To Jacobus van Zandt, 7 May 1761, Riche Letterbooks, 17501771.

80. To John Fell, 15 Nov. 1763, James and Drinker Letter book, 1762-1764. 81. To Thomas Clifford, 30 Nov. 1766, Clifford Corr., XV.

82. James and Drinker to Parvinand James, 15and23 Aug. 1765, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1764-1766. 7.

The British Isles

1. See Table I, Appendix, for numbers of ships entering from and clearing to Ireland . 2. See Table II, Appendix, for tonnage of ships engaged in the trade with Ireland.

3. John Reynell to Michael Dicker, 1 Nov. 1737, Reynell Letter­ book, 1737-1738. 4. Report of committee on the state of the trade, 6 Feb. 1754

254

Notes for Chapter 7

Votes and Proceedings, V, 3628-3630. The figures are actually given in hogsheads, but a note says that a hogshead of flaxseed is to be reckoned as seven bushels.

5. See Table XVI, Appendix, for exports of flaxseed to Ireland. 6. See Table VI, for exports of staves to Ireland. 7. Thomas Wharton to John Carnan, 9 Feb. 1757, Wharton Let­ terbook, 1752-1759; William Hodgson to Thomas Clifford, 13 April 1757, Clifford Corr., I.

8. Daniel Roberdeau to William Turnbull, 25 Nov. 1766, Roberdeau Letterbook, 1764-1771. 9. Daniel Clark to John and Andrew French, 31 May 1762, Clark Letterbook, 1759-1762.

10. Robert Turner to James Harrison, 24 Oct. 1686, Pemberton Papers, III. 11. James and Drinker to Thomas Pearsall, 24 July 1766, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1764-1766. 12. William Smith to James Parsons, 21 Nov. 1773, Smith Let­ terbook, 1771-1775. 13. PRO, Customs 16/1 reports imports of provisions from Ire­ land for only two years . They were as follows; Beef, 451 bbls, in 1769 and 736 bbls . in 1770; Butter, 482 firkins in 1769 and 56,736 cwt. in 1770. 14. John Reynell to Michael Dicker, 13 April 1731, Reynell Let­ terbook, 1729-1734.

15. Memorial of merchants of Londonderry to Parliament, Penn. Journal, 30 Oct. 1766 . 16. James Logan to William Penn, 2 6 May 1704, Penn-Logan Correspondence, I, 191.

17. See Table I, Appendix, for numbers of ships entering from and clearing to England . 18. See Table II, Appendix, for tonnage of ships entering from

Notes for Chapter 7

255

and clearing to England .

19. Article in London Chronicle, quoted in Penn. Chronicle, 6 March 1769. 20. See Table XVIII, Appendix, for value of exports to and im­ ports from England, 1760-1775. 21. Accounts of Philadelphia's trade with England are incomplete in PRO, Customs 16/1, the major statistical source used for this study. Fortunately, Customs 17/1, 17/2, and 17/3 contain a com­ plete picture of British trade with the colonies for the years 1772, 1773, and 1774. These tables also compute the official valuation of the various products. For a compilation of the value of major dry goods imports into Philadelphia based on this source, see Table XIX, Appendix. 22. Customs 17/1, 17/2, 17/3. 23. Ibid. 24. See Table VIII for exports of iron to England.

25. Daniel Flexney to John Reynell, 3 May 1740, Coates and Rey­ nell Papers, 1729-1764; invoices of shipments, 26 March and 29 April 1741, Reynell Letterbook, 1738-1741. 26. James and Drinker to Nehemiah Champion, 3 March 1757 James and Drinker Letterbook, 1756-1759; Hillary and Scott to Tohn Reynell, 2 May 1757, Reynell Papers, 1756-1757. J

27. Robert Foster to John Pemberton, 13 Aug. 1757, Pemberton Papers, XII.

28. Hillary and Scott to John Reynell, 17 Dec. 1757, Reynell Papers, 1756-1757; the act is 30 Geo. II, ", c. 7, Pickering, Statutes at Large, XXII, 9-10. 29. The act is 6 Geo. Ill, c. 3, ibid., XXVII, 3; Penn. Gazette 19 Feb. 1767; Daniel Roberdeau to William Turnbull, “2b Nov. 1766’ Roberdeau Letterbook, 1764-1771; Richard Wain to Edmund Skinner’ 29 Nov. 1766, Wain Letterbook, 1766-1799.

I

30. Joseph Bullock to Thomas Clifford, 1 Aug. 1767, Clifford Correspondence, V.

256

Notes for Chapter 7

31. 7 Geo. Ill, c. 4, Pickering, Statutes at Large, XXVII, 315; Penn. Gazette, 25 Feb. 1768. 32. Christopher Scott to Thomas Clifford, 17 Jan. and 31 March 1771 and Thomas Clifford, Jr., to Thomas Clifford, 27 Jan. 1771, Clifford Corr., V. 33. 12 Geo. Ill,c. 33, Pickering, Statutes at Large, XXIX, pt. 2, 86; Penn. Gazette, 29 July 1772. 34. 13. Geo. Ill, c. 2, Pickering, Statutes at Large, XXX,2-3; Richard Champion to Willing and Morris, 28 July 1774, G. H. Guttridge, ed., The American Correspondence of a Bristol Merchant Letters of Richard Champion (Berkeley, 1934), 23-25.

35. William Pollard to Peter Holme, 20 July 1772 and 23 Sept. 1773, Pollard Letterbook, 1772-1774. 36. 5 Geo. Ill, c. 45, Pickering, Statutes at Large, XXVI, 431444. 37. Thomas Penn to James Hamilton, 27 Aug. 1750 and 25 Feb. 1751, Penn Letterbooks; other letters on iron as a remittance to England and the difficulties of its shipment are: James and Drinker to William Freeman, 7 Sept. 1765 and 23 July 1766 and to Devon­ shire and Reeve, 21 Sept. 1765, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1764-1766, and John Swift to John White 14 July 1747, Swift Letter­ book, 1747-1751. 38. Gilbert Dixon to Barclay and Sons, 18 April 1765, Board of Trade Papers: Plantations General, XX (Hist. Soc. of Penn. Tran­ scripts) .

39. Thomas Penn to Rev. Barton, 11 Feb. 1762, Penn Letter­ books . 40. James Pemberton to John Pemberton, 18 Dec. 1752, Pem­ berton Papers, VIII.

41. Thomas Penington and Son to Thomas Clifford, Bristol, 6 Marchand 15 Oct. 1759, Clifford Corr., II. 42. James Pemberton to Judah Foulke, 10 March 1749, Pember­ ton Papers, V. Good quality spermacetti was much in demand in the colonies as well as in England for candle-making.

Notes for Chapter 7

257

43. John Reynell to Daniel Flexney, 24 March 174 6, Reynell Letterbook, 1745-1747; James and Drinker to Neate and Pigou, 27 Feb. 1764 and to Neate, Pigou, and Booth, 14 March 1765, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1762-1764.

i

44. James and Drinker to Parvin and James, 22 Aug. 1764, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1762-1764; Richard Neave to Thomas Whar­ ton, 7 Aug. 1762, Wharton Correspondence, 1762-1766.

45. Reynolds and Tapper to John Reynell, 6 March 1731, Michael Dicker to same, 23 April 1731 and 29 Dec. 1736, and John Bell to same, 5 Sept. 1741, Reynell Papers, 1729-1741. 46. John Reynell to Richard Tapper, 19 Aug. 1732, Reynell Let­ terbook, 1729-1734; John Pemberton to James Pemberton 30 Sept 1750, Pemberton Papers, VI; James and Drinker to Neate and Pigou Joseph Borden, and others, 27 June 1762 and to Neate and Pigou 1 July 1762, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1759-1762.

47. Oscar Barck and HughT. Lefler, Colonial America, York, 1958), 338.

(New

48. William Neate to Stephen Collins, 4 Dec. 1771, Collins Pa­ pers, XIII; Abel James to Frederick Pigou, 2 June ’1771 [amec Letterbook, 1770-1774. ’ James 49. William Backhouse to Israel Pemberton, 13 March 1753 and 2 Jan. 1755, John Kelsall to John Pemberton, 5 April 1755, and John Kendall to John Pemberton, 20 Oct. 1762, Pemberton Papers VIU X, XVI; Francis Rybot to John Reynell, 1 December 1759, Reynell Papers, 1759.

50. James and Drinker to Neate, Pigou, and Booth, 6 Nov 1764 and to Anthony Merry, 15 Oct. 1765, James and Drinker Letterbook 1764-1766; Gough and Carmalt to William Neate, 4 April 17 5 9’ Gough and Carmalt Letterbook, 1759-1761.

51. Samuel Mellor and Son to John Reynell, 21 May 1755, Rey­ nell Papers, 1755. 52. John Reynell to Thomas Jewell, 27 April 1741, Reynell Let­ terbook, 1738-1741. 53. Bernard Bailyn, The New England Merchants in the Seven­ teenth Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1955), 81, 91.

'.I'

258

Notes for Chapter 7

54. John Reynell to Elias Bland, 1 April 1761, Reynell Letter book, 1760-1762, Israel Pemberton to John Pemberton, 30 May 1753, Pemberton Papers, IX.

55. John Kidd to Amos Strettell, 27 Sept. 1757, Kidd Letterbook, 1749-1763; Abel Jamesto Frederick Pigou, 2 June 1771, James Let­ terbook, 1770-1774. 56. Amos Strettell to John Kidd, 18 March 1757, Hildeburn Pa­ pers, 1749-1759; other letters from English factors objecting to the use of credit are: John Hunt to James Pemberton, 23 May 1751, John Kelsall to John Pemberton, 29 Oct. 1759, Pemberton Papers, VII, XLH; Huntand Greenleafe to Henry Haydock, 1 Sept. 1748, Hunt and Greenleafe Letterbook, 1747-1749. 57. John Hunt to Israel Pemberton, 17 Nov. 1750 and to James Pemberton, 15 Feb. and 23 May 1751, Pemberton Papers, VI, VII. 58. Thomas Wharton to Elias Bland, 30 April 1755, Wharton Letterbook, 1752-1759; James and Drinker to William Neate, 2 Nov. 1758, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1756-1759.

59. Richard Neave to Thomas Wharton, 21 Nov. 1757, Wharton Correspondence, 1750-1759; William Logan to James Pemberton, 14 Nov. 1761 and Elias Bland to same, 9 Jan. 1761, PembertonPapers, XV. 60. James and Drinker to Daniel Mildred, 25 Aug. 1760, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1759-1762. 61. James and Drinker to Neate and Pigou, 11 May 1763,ibid., 1762-1764; other letters objecting to overextension of credit in Philadelphia are: John Hunt to James Pemberton, 23 May 1751, Pem­ berton Papers, VII; John Reynell to Elias Bland, 1 April 1761, Rey­ nell Letterbook, 1760-1762; Reynell and Coates to Mildred and Rob­ erts, 30 Aug. 1773, Reynell and Coates Letter book, 1769-1784. 62. David and John Barclay to James Pemberton, 14 Jan. 1771, Pemberton Papers, XXII; same to Richard Wain, same date, and Harford and Powell to Wain, 21 Jan. 1771, Wain Coll., Box I.

63. Abel James to Frederick Pigou, 2 June 1771, James Letter­ book, 1770-1774. 64. Harford and Powell to Stephen Collins, 17 Nov. 1767, Col-

Notes for Chapter 7

259

lins Papers, VII; also John Kidd to Amos Strettell, 27 Sept. 1757, Kidd Letterbook, 1749-1763, Christopher Rawson to Thomas Whar­ ton, 5 June 1764, Wharton Corr., 1762-1766.

!

65. James and Drinker to Devonshire and Reeve 8 Oct 1763 James and Drinker Letterbook, 1762-1764; Israel Pemberton to Tohn Pleasants, 29 April 1762, Pemberton Papers, XV. J 66. James and Drinker to John Clitherall, 7 Sept. 1759, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1759-1762.

67. James and Drinker to Benjamin and JohnBower, 19 Oct. 1757, to John Lindoe, 26 Aug. 1760, to Christopher Rawson, 25 Sept’ 1762, and to John Elam, 12 Oct. 1763, James and Drinker Letter­ books, 1756-1764; John Reynell to Hillary and Scott, 17 Aug. 1762 Reynell Letterbook, 1760-1762. 68. John Reynell to Daniel Flexney, 18 Dec. 1741, ibid., 17411744; Peter Baynton to Thomas Randall, 15 May 1725, Baynton Let­ terbook, 1721-1726; Thomas Wharton to Benjamin and John Bower, 11 Aug. 1756, Wharton Letterbook, 1752-1759. 69. Gough and Carmalt to William Neate, 26 June 1757, Gough and Carmalt Letterbook, 1757-1761.

70. Thomas Wharton to Thomas Crowley, 2 June 1756, Wharton Letterbook, 1752-1759; Gough and Carmalt to William Neate 22 March 1761, Gough and Carmalt Letterbook, 1757-1761. 71. Orr, Dunlope, and Glenholme to Galan Thompson, 5 May 1768, Orr, Dunlope, and Glenholme Letterbook, 1767-1769; Peter Bayntonto Thomas Randall, 15 May 1725, Baynton Letterbook,’ 1721-

72. James and Drinker toBenjaminand John Bower, 19 Oct. 1757 and to William Neate, 22 Oct. 1761, James and Drinker Letterbooks, 1756-1762; John Reynell to Elias Bland, 18 July 1761, Reynell Letterbook, 1760-1762. 73. Abel James to Frederick Pigou, 2 June 1771, James Letter­ book, 1770-1774. 74. John Reynell to Elias Bland, 14 Nov. 1745, Reynell Letter­ book, 1745-1747; John Swift to John White, Oct. 1748, Swift Let­ terbook, 1747-1751; Gough and Carmalt to William Neate, 4 Dec .

fl

260

Notes for Chapter 7

1757, Gough and Car malt Letterbook, 1757-1761; James and Drinker to Hyde, Hamilton, and Hyde, 3 July 1766, James and Drinker Let­ terbook, 1764-1766; Richard Wain to Harford and Powell, 25 Jan. 1769, Wain Letterbook, 1766-1799. 75. John Reynell to Elias Bland, 1 April 1761, Reynell Letter­ book, 1760-1762; Richard Wain to Harford and Powell, 24 Jan. 1769, Wain Letterbook, 1766-1799. 76. Amos Strettellto John Kidd, 25 Feb. 1760, Hildeburn Papers, 1760-1766; Robert Hamilton to Thomas Wharton, 5 Jan. 1767, Whar­ ton Correspondence, 1767-17 7 0; Harford and Powell to Richard Wain, 15 Feb. 1768, Wain Coll., Foreign Corr., 1768-1790. 77. Benjamin and John Bower to Thomas Wharton, 12 Dec. 1757, Wharton Correspondence, 1757-1759.

78. James and Drinker to Neate and Pigou, 20 Dec. 1763, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1762-1759.

I

79. William Pollard to Benjamin and John Bower, 12 Oct. and 21 Dec. 1772, and 28 April 1773, Pollard Letterbook, 1772-1774. 80. John Reynell to Robert Stevenson, 24 Sept. 1732, Reynell Letterbook, 1729-1734. All statements about the cost of sterling exchange in Philadelphia are based on Bezanson, Prices in Colonial Pennsylvania, 432, where a table of the average yearly prices of sterling bilTs in Philadelphia during the colonial period may be found. 81. John Bell to John Reynell, 5 Sept. 1741, Reynell Papers; John Swift to John White, ? 1748, Swift Letterbook, 1747-1751; John Pem­ berton to James Pemberton, 13 March 1749, Pemberton Papers, V; John Swift to John White, 16 April 1749, Swift Letterbook, 17471751. 82. James and Drinker to John Clitherall, 14 June 1758 and26 Nov. 1764, and to Bernard Parkinson, 10 June 1762, James and Drinker Letterbooks, 1756-1766.

8 .

Routes of Trade

1. Cadwalader Morris toKeppeleand Steinmetz, 25 Aug. 1773,

Notes for Chapter 8

261

John Steinmetz Mercantile Corr., 1768-1789. Other references to this circuit are: Peter Hunter to John Reynell, 7 July 1749, Reynell Papers, 1748-1749; James and Drinker to Thomas and John Phillips 27 March 1759, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1759-1762- Orders to Captain Bolitho, 1760, Clifford Corr ., II; James and Drinker to Neate and Pigou, 24 May 1762 and to Parvin and James, 26 Dec 1764, James and Drinker Letterbooks, 1759-1766.

2. William Pollard to Sericold and Jackson, 18 Dec. 1772, Pol­ lard Letterbook, 1772-1774. Other lettersmentioningEnglish ves­ sels in the West Indies-England-Pniladelphia circuit are: John Rey­ nell to Daniel Flexney, 30 July 1739, Reynell Letterbook, 17381741; Charles and Samuel Norris to William Griffiths, 4 May 1745, Norris Letterbook, 1744-1747; John Radburne to John Pemberton ’ 9 May 1749, Pemberton Papers, V; Michael Atkins to John Reynell, 23 Feb. 1750, and 15 Jan. and 8 Oct. 1755, Reynell Papers, 17481755; William Pollard to Friswell and Priest, 20 July 1772, Pollard Letterbook, 1772-1774. 3. Charles Willing and Son to Mayne, Burn, and Mayne 26 Sept 1754 and to Samuel Munckly, 5 March 1755, Willing Letterbook 1754-1761.

4. James and Drinker to Anthony Merry, 15 Oct. 1765, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1764-1766. 5. John Swift to Henry Hulton, 21 March 1770, Custom House Papers, X. Other references to this trade are: Elias Guillot to John Reynell, 1 Nov. 1738, Reynell Papers, 1738-1739- Willing and Morris to Coddrington Carrington, 23 May 1758, Willing Letterbook 1754-1761; Joseph Jones to Thomas Clifford, 11 Sept. 1759 Clif­ ford Corr., II; Hill, Lamar and Hill to J. Fox & Co., 16 Feb’ 1760 ibid., Ill; John Searle to Thomas Riche, 26 June 1764, Hildeburn Pipers, 1760-1766.

6. James Logan to William Penn, 5 Dec. 1703, Penn-Logan Cor­ respondence, I, 255. 7. Reference to the Philadelphia-Charleston-London circuit is made in: Peter Baynton to Christopher Smith, 18 May 1726, Baynton Letterbook, 1721-1726; orders to Capt. Budden, n. d., Clifford Corr., Ill; John James to Keppeleand Steinmetz, 2 April 1772, John Steinmetz Mercantile Corr ., 1770-1789; William Pollard to Daniel and Isaac Bourdeaux, 2 April 1774, Pollard Letterbook, 1772-1774. All of these refer to the use of Philadelphia-owned ships .

262

Notes for Chapter 9

8. John Smith to James Pemberton, 14 Dec. 1748, Daniel and Isaac Bourdeaux to same, 17 April 1771, and William Dillwyn to same, 2 7 Jan., 12 Feb., and 25 May 1773, Pemberton Papers, V, XXII, XXIV. 9. James and Drinker to John Fell, 14 Jan. 1762, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1759-1762.

10. John Reynell to Richard Deeble, 19 June 1731 and to Michael Dicker, 31 July 1732, Reynell Letterbook, 1729-1734. 11. Thomas Wharton to Perriott, Dawson, and Co., 28 Feb. 1759, Wharton Letterbook, 1752-1759. 12. Daniel Clark to John andAndrewFrench, 31 May 1762, Clark Letterbook, 1759-1762. 13. James and Drinker to Capt. William Barnes, 20 Sept. 1764, James and Dr inker Letterbook, 1762-1764. 14 . Accounts of the travels of the Hazard may be found in: Join Smith to James Pemberton, Beaufort, S.C., 14 Dec. 1748; John Pemberton to James Pemberton, Phila., 31 Dec. 1748; James Pem­ berton to Israel and Rachel Pemberton, London, 9 Feb. 1749; Wil­ liam Moore to James Pembertonand Elias Bland, Barbados, 9 Feb. 1749; James Pemberton to John Pemberton, London, 10 Feb. 1749; John Pitts to James Pemberton, Barbados, 11 Feb. 1749; John to James Pemberton, Phila., 29 April 1749 and 15 and 27 May 1749 . All in Pemberton Papers, V. 9 .

Economic Conditions in Philadelphia Before the Revolution

1. This is the point of view of Arthur M . Schlesinger, The Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution, 1763-1776 flavYirk, 1919) . The same analysis is specifically applied to Philadelphia in Harry D. Berg, "Economic Consequences of the French and Indian War for the Philadelphia Merchants," Pennsylvania History, XIII (1946), 185-193. 2. James Logan to William Penn, 14 March 1704, Penn-Logan Corr., I, 278; Peter Baynton to (?), 3 May 1724, to G. Campbell, 27 July 1726, and to Isaac Beuchampt, 5 Aug. 1726, Baynton Letter-

Notes for Chapter 9

263

book, 1721-1726; Pennsylvania Gazette, 18 Feb. 1729.

3. John Reynell to Richard Deeble, 2 May 1734, 31 May 1735, and 13 March 1736 and to Michael Dicker, 31 May and 15 Sept. 1735, Reynell Letterbooks, 1729-1737. 4. William Till to Lawrence Williams, 4 Sept. 1739, Till Papers, 1735-1744; John Reynell to Michael Dicker, 21 Dec . 1739, Reynell Letterbook, 1738-1741. 5. John Reynell to Michael Dicker, 11 May, to Thomas Smith 4 Sept., to John Williams, 13 Oct., to Thomas Taylor, 26 Oct and to Mathias Aspden, 14 Nov. 1741, Reynell Letterboo’k, 1741-1744

6. William Till to Lawrence Williams, 25 Oct. 1743, Till Papers 1735-1744; also John Reynell to Daniel Flexney, 10 May 1742 Revnell Letterbook, 1741-1744. 7. Message, 22 Aug. 1740, Minutes of the Council IV, 464-465 8. John Reynell to Daniel Flexney, 29 May 1744, Reynell Letter­ book, 1744-1745; Elias Bland to John Reynell, 19 April and 16 June 1744, and Michael Dicker to same, 28 Jan. 1745, ReynellPapers

9. John Reynell to Michael Dicker, 26 Feb. 1745, Reynell Letter­ book, 1744-1745; Benjamin Franklin to William Strahan 11 Dec 1745, Leonard W. Labaree, ed., The Papers of Beniamin Franklin (New Haven, 1961), III, 49. —---------------------10. John Reynell to Thomas Sanders, 17 Dec. 1755, Reynell Let­ terbook, 1754-1756.

11. John Swift to John White, 22 Oct. 1748, 2 June and 25 Oct. 1749, Swift Letterbook, 1747-1751; also John to James Pemberton, 21 Nov. 1748 and 2 Feb. 1749 and John Smith to James Pemberton^ 28 April 1749, Pemberton Papers, IV, V. 12. John Kidd to Neate and Neave, 25 April and to Rawlinson and Davison, 7 June 1750, Kidd Letterbook, 1749-1763; James to John Pemberton, 12 July 1750, Pemberton Papers, VI. 13. William Logan to John Pemberton, 12 and 25 July 1750 and James to John Pemberton 28 July, 12 Sept, and 16 Oct. 1750, Ibid., VI; John Kidd to Neate and Neave, 15 Oct. 1750 and to Rochell and Sharapen, 10 Dec. 1750, Kidd Letterbook, 1749-1763; John Hopkins

264

Notes for Chapter 9

to John White, 15 Oct. 1750, Hildeburn Papers, 1749-1759. 14. John Kidd to Neate and Neave, 2 May 1751, Kidd Letterbook, 1749-1763; also John Stamper to John and George Okill, 17 April 1751, Stamper Letterbook, 1751-1752.

15. John Smith to Edward Cathrall, 13 June 1751, John Smith Cor­ respondence, 1740-1770; James to John Pemberton 29 June and 20 Sept. 1751, Pemberton Papers, VII. 16. John Kidd to Neate and Neave, 21 March 1752, Kidd Letter­ book, 1759-1763; Samuel Emlen to John Pemberton, 9 and 29 May 1752 and James Pemberton to same, 18 Dec. 1752 and 15 Nov. 1753, Pemberton Papers, VIII, IX.

17. Charles Willing and Son to Robert Hibbert, 30 July 1754, to John Perks, 2 Oct. 1754, to Day, Bristow, and Stratton, 25 Oct. 1754, Willing Letterbook, 1754-1761; Thomas Wharton to John Carnan, 16 Dec. 1754, Wharton Letterbook, 1752-1759; John Reynell to Thomas Sanders, 19 Dec. 1754 and to Michael Atkins, 30 April 1755, Reynell Letterbook, 1754-1756. 18. Neate and Neave to Thomas Wharton, 8 July 1755, Wharton Correspondence, 1679-1756. 19. Thomas Wharton to John Carnan, 16 Sept. 1755, Wharton Letterbook, 1752-1759; John Reynell to Thomas Sanders, 17 Dec. 1755, Reynell Letterbook, 1754-1756. 20. Thomas Wharton to Elias Bland, 28 Feb. 1756, Wharton Let­ terbook, 1752-1759; Joseph Broadbent to John Pemberton, 18 March 1756, Pemberton Papers, XI; Thomas Willingto Perron and Edwards, 14 June 1756, to John Perks, 4 Jan. 1757, and to Robert Hibbert, 18 July 1757, Willing Letterbook; Gough and Carmalt to William Neate, 4 Dec . 1757, Gough and Carmalt Letterbook, 1757-1761; Thomas Willing to Robert Hibbert, 2 8 March 175 8, Willing Letterbook, 1754-1761; Thomas Wharton to Richard Neave, 25 May 1758 and to Christopher Rawson, same date, Wharton Letterbook, 1752-1759.

21. Henry Drinker to Abel James, 24 Jan. 1760 and 30 March 1760, Thompson Collection, Abel James Papers, 1747-1800; James and Drinker to John Clitherall, 9 May 1760, James and Drinker Let­ terbook, 1759-1762. 22. Edward Shippen to Joseph Shippen, Jr., 19 Feb . 1760, Balch

Notes for Chapter 9

265

Papers, Shippen, I; John Strettell to John Kidd, 11 June 1760, Hildeburn Papers, 1760-1766; James Gorrell to John Perks, 22 Aug. 1760, John Kidd Letterbook, 1749-1763; James and Drinker to William Neate, 26 Sept. 1760, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1759-1762; Daniel Clark to William Neate, 16 Oct. 1760, Clark Letterbook', 1759-1762. 23. James and Drinker to Hillary and Scott, 14 Nov. 1760; to William Neate, 15 Nov. 1760, 30 April, 1 June and 22 Oct. 1761;to John Lindoe, 22 Aug. 1761; to John Elam, 21 Oct. 1761; to David Barclay and Sons, 4 Nov. 1761, James and Drinker Letterbook, 17591762.

24. Daniel Clark to Mildred and Roberts, 25 May 1761, to Wil­ liam Howard, 8 July 1761, to William Neate, 14 and 17 July 1761, to Levi Trump 17 July 1761, to Hall and Dunbar, 14 Nov. 1761, to Mildred and Roberts, 25 Jan. 1762, and to William Nickelson, 16 March 1762, Clark Letterbook, 1759-1762. 25. William Neate to Stephen Collins, 4 Jan. 1761, Collins Pap­ ers, I; William Logan to James Pemberton, 27 May 1761 Pember­ ton Papers, XIV. 26. Neate and Pigouto Stephen Collins, 13 July 1762, and Thomas Browning to Collins and Emlen, 15 June 1762, Collins Papers, II. 27. James and Drinker to John Clitherall, 23 April 1762 and to David Barclay and Sons, 19 May 1762, James and Drinker Letter­ book, 1759-1762. 28. Hyde and Hamilton to Thomas Clifford, 6 Dec. 1762, Clif­ ford Corr., IV; same to Thomas Wharton, same date, Wharton Corr., 1762-1766; Welch, Wilkinson, and Startin to Thomas Clif­ ford, Clifford Corr., IV; Hyde and Hamilton to Stephen Collins, 6 Aug. 1763, Collins Papers, III. 29. James and Drinker to William Ruth, 27 Jan. 1763, to Thomas Lawrie, 3 March 1763, to David Barclay and Sons, 7 March and 16 Nov. 1763, and to Devonshire and Reeve, 8 Oct. 1763 Tames and Drinker Letterbook, 1762-1764.

-

30. James and Drinker to Neate and Pigou, 9 Oct. 1763 and 20 Dec. 1763 and to Devonshire and Reeve, 14 Dec. 1763, ibid. 31. Thomas Perm to Richard Hockley, 11 Feb. 1764, Penn

266

Notes for Chapter 9

Letterbooks.

32. James and Drinker to David Barclay and Sons, 23 June 1764 and to John Oseland, 20 Oct. 1764, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1764-1766; Anna Clifford to Thomas Clifford, 25 and 30 Aug. 1764, Clifford Corr., IV; Mildred and Roberts to Stephen Collins, 27 Nov. 1764, Collins Papers, IV. 33. James and Drinker to Neate, Pigou, and Booth, 19 June 1765, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1764-1766; English merchant's art­ icle quoted in Penn. Gazette, 20 June 1765.

n

34. John Reynell to Henry Groth, 5 Nov. 1767, Reynell Letter­ book, 1767-1769.

35. Abel James to David and John Barclay, 26 Nov. 1770 and to John Strettell, IDec. 1770, James Letterbook, 1770-1774.

36. William Pollard to Thomas Earle, 19 June 1772 and to John Woolmer, 1 July 1772, Pollard Letterbook, 1772-1774; James and Drinker to Lancelot Cowper, 4 Aug. 1772 and to Thomas Pearsall, 5 Dec. 1772, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1772-1786. 37. William Pollard to Benjamin and John Bower, 28 April 1773, Pollard Letterbook, 1772-1774.

38 .William Barrell to Samuel Eliot, 24 Dec . 1771, Stephen Col­ lins Papers, XIII. 39. Penn. Gazette, 6 Feb., 13 Feb. 1772. 40. William Barrell to Samuel Eliot, 20 July 1772, Stephen Col­ lins Papers, XIV. 41. William Pollard to Benjamin and John Bower, 27 Sept. 1773 and to William Crosbie, 6 May 1773, Pollard Letterbook, 17721774.

42. William Pollard to Peter Holme, 6 May 1773, ibid,; James and Drinker to Rsach and Pierce, 3 July 1773, James and Drinker Foreign Letters, 1772-1785; Reynell and Coates to Benjamin Light­ foot, August 1773, Coates and Reynell Letterbook, 1772-1774.

43 . William Pollard to Benjaminand JohnBower, 24 July 1773 and to John Swire, 13 Sept. 1773, Pollard Letterbook, 1772-1774; James

Notes for Chapter 9

and Drinker to David and John Barclay, 4 Oct Drinker Foreign Letters, -772-1785.

267

1773, James and

44. James and Drinker to Thomas Pearsall, 6 Jan. 1774, to Pigou and Booth, 24 March 1774, and to Brown and Finley, 21 June 1774, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1772-1786. 45. William Waddell to Thomas Wharton, 28 May 1764, Wharton Corr., 1762-1766; William Pollard to Benjamin and John Bower 24 July 1773, Pollard Letterbook, 1772-1774. 46. John Glover to Stephen Collins, 14 Aug. 1771 and Samiel Eliot to William Barrell, April 1773, Collins Papers, XII, XV. 47. J. Thomas Scharf and Thompson Westcott, History of Phila­ delphia, 1609-1884 (3 vols., Philadelphia, 1884), I, 260. ~

48. Thomas Riche to John Searles, 9 May and 29 Nov. 1763, Riche Letterbooks, 1750-1771; James and Drinker to Parvin and James and to John Wickham, 3 Nov. 1764, James and Drinker Let­ terbook, 1764-1766; William Pollard to Thomas Earle, 19 June 1772 and 6 May 1773, to William Plummer, 9 March 1773, and to Peter Holme, 23 Sept. 1773, Pollard Letterbook. 49. Rev. Thomas Barton to Thomas Penn, 28 Anril 1773 Mss., Official Correspondence. p

Fenn

50. William Pollard to Ely Hill, 16 March 1774, Pollard Letter­ book. This Thesis regarding agricultural prosperity is amplified and extended to the other northern colonies in William S Sachs "Agricultural Conditions in the Northern Colonies Before the Rev­ olution," Journal of Economic History, Xin (1953), 274-290. 51. William A lien to Thomas Penn, 12 Nov. 1766, andRev. Thom­ as Barton to same, 28 April 1773, PennMss., Official Corr .■ Abel James to (?), 22 Sept. 1772, James Letterbook, 1770-1774.

52. James and Drinker to John Clitherall, 26 Nov. 1764 and Drinker Letterbook, 1764-1766. 10 .

Illegal Trade and Resistance to Customs Enforcement

1. Hanna, Trade of the Delaware District. 321,

James

i1

268

Notes for Chapter 10

2. For example, Oliver M. Dickerson, The Navigation Acts and the American Revolution (Philadelphia, 1951), passim .

3 . Witt Bowden, Michael Karpovich, and Abbott Payson Usher, An Economic History of Europe Since 1750 (New York, 1937), 321. 4 . The following letters are merely a sampling of letters refer­ ring to illegal trade inforeignmolasses: SamuelEmlen to John Pem­ berton, 24 Feb. 1751, Pemberton Papers, VII; Thomas Willing to Coddrington Carrington, 6 Aug. 1755 and to Andrew Lessley, 25 March 1756, Willing Letterbook, 1754-1761; John Stamper to John Williams, 17 March 1758, Stamper Letterbook, 1751-1771; Robert Wilson to Richard Wain, 11 June 1763, Wain Coll., Box H; Thomas Riche to Peter Gurley, 23 Aug. 1765 and to John RichS, 7 Nov. 1765, Riche Letterbooks, 1750-1771; Samuel Patterson to Hollingsworth and Rudulph, 2 6 Feb 1767, Hollingsworth Mss., Corr., 17611767.

5. Thomas Richi to Vouga and Ocks, 13 Dec. 1766, Riche Let­ terbooks, 1750-1771.

6. Thomas Willing to Coddrington Carrington, 8 July 1754, 16 Oct. 1754, and 4 April 1755, to John Perks, 2 Oct. 1754, to Andrew Lessley, 25 March 1755, and to Philip Houghton, 19 June 1756, Wil­ ling Letterbook, 1754-1761. 7. Jamesand Drinker to John Wickham, 16 Dec. 1764, James and Drinker Letterbook, 1764-1766.

8 . Thomas to John Rich£, 7 Nov. 1765, Rich£ Letterbooks, 17501771. Other references to sugar smuggling after 1764 are Riche to Vouga and Ocks, 13 Dec. 1766, ibid., and (?) Pollock to Hollings­ worth and Rudulph, 26 Oct. 1768, Hollingsworth Mss ., Corr., 1768 . 9. Thomas RichS to Capt. Samuel Devonshire, 16 Oct. 1766, Rich^ Letterbooks, 1750-1771; Charles Read to James Pemberton, Pemberton Papers, XXVI.

10. Peter Gurley to Thomas Riche, 5 Dec. 1764, Autograph Col­ lection; Thomas Riche to Capt. Samuel Devonshire, 16 Oct. 1766, RichS Letterbooks, 1750-1771. 11. Thomas Riche to Peter Gurley, 28 June 1764, ibid.; Richard Wain to Elijah Brown, 26 May 1770, Wain Letterbook, 1766-1799; Samuel Patterson to Levi Hollingsworth, 22 Aug. 1771, Hollings-

Notes for Chapter 10

269

worth Mss., Corr., 1771.

12. William Leyborne to John Reynell, 6 April 1743, Reynell Papers, 1742-1743; Thomas Wharton to Capt. Sage, 12 July 1753 and to Capt. Stamper, 3 Dec. 1753, Wharton Letterbook, 1752-1759; Willing and Morris to Mayne, Burn, and Mayne, 6 May 1757, Wil­ ling Letterbook, 1754-1761. 13. Edward Shippen, Jr. to Joseph Shippen, Jr., 19 and 21 Feb. 1760; Joseph Shippen, Jr ., to Edward Shippen, Sr., 4 March and 13 July 1760; Edward Shippen, Jr., to Edward Shippen, Sr., 3 Dec . 1760, all in Balch Papers, Shippen, I; also Joseph Shippen, Jr., to Edward Shippen, Jr., 4 July 1760, Shippen Papers, XI.

14. John Kidd to Rawlinson and Davison, 22 Dec. 1753 and 1 Oct. 1755, Kidd Letterbook, 1749-1763; Thomas Riche to Capt. John Dawson, 31 March 1763, Richfi Letterbooks, 1750-1771. 15. John Kidd to Rawlinson and Davison, 24 Sept. 1750, 2 June, 23 Nov., and 14 Dec. 1755, and William Gough to John Kidd, 3 Oct.’ 1754, Kidd Letterbook, 1749-1763. 16. John Kidd to William Neate, 24 July 1759 and to Rawlinson and Davison, 10 Oct. 1762, ibid.; Thomas Riche to George Clifford 18 Sept. 1762 and to Q. Hodshon, 7 Oct. 1762, Riche Letterbooks.’

17. John Reynell to Daniel Flexney, 4 May 1741 and to Mathias Aspden, 14 Nov. 1741, Reynell Letterbook, 1738-1741. 18. Jane and Thomas Usher to Hollingsworth and Rudulph 12 July 1769, James Patterson to same, 23 May and 6 June 1772 Hol­ lingsworth Mss., Corr.; ClementBiddleto Thomas Richardson 22 Oct. 1770, Biddle Letterbook, 1769-1770. 19. John Reynell to Thomas Greer, 10 Nov. 1770 Revnell I pre­ book, 1769-1770. y ellLetcer

20. Thomas Riche to Capt. Taylor, 2 July 1763, and to John Manby, 6 Aug. 1764, RichS Letterbooks, 1750-1771; Hollingsworth and Rudulph to S. Galloway and S. Seward, 18 Jan. 1770, and Thorras Ringgold to Levi Hollingsworth, 1 Aug. 1773, Hollingsworth Mss Corr., 1769-1773. 6 ” 21. John Waddell to Sayre and Wharton, 6 and 27 May, 7 and 28 June, 20 Sept. 1756, Wharton Corr., 1679-1756; Thomas Wharton

.k.

I 270

Notes for Chapter 10

to Robert Moulder, 2 July, to John Waddell, 3 and 7 July, 5, 20, and 26 Aug. 1756, Wharton Letterbook 1752-1759; Thomas RichS to Jac obus van Zandt, 13 Aug. 1755, Richd Letterbooks, 1750-1771; John Kidd to Rawlinson and Davison, 21 Sept. 1756, Kidd Letterbock, 1749-1763. 22. Parr, Bulkeley, and Co. to Keppele and Steinmetz, Lisbon, 7 Sept. 1773, John Steinmetz Mercantile Correspondence, 17701773. 23. Thomas Wharton to Perriott, Dawson, and Co. 28 Feb. 1759 Wharton Letterbook, 1752-1759; John Kidd to Farmer, Nerbel, and Montague, 21 March 1752, Kidd Letterbook 1749-1763; Daniel Clark to John and Andrew French, 31 May 1762, Clark Letterbook, 1759-1762.

I

24. Order in Council, 5 Oct. 1763, Acts of the Privy Council, Colonial, IV, 569; DanielClarkto ThomasDromgoole, 22 June 1761, Clark Letterbook, 1759-1762; Thomas Richd to George Granson and to Edward Scott, 23 Dec. 1762, Rich6 Letterbooks, 1750-1771. 25. Alexander Barclay to the Commissioners of Customs, 13 March 1764, Philadelphia Custom House Papers, II.

26. Thomas Riche to Moreau and Lamott, 2 Aug. 1763, to Isaac Caton, 12 Aug. 1763, to William Turnbull, 3 Oct. 1763, and to Peter Gurley, 26 Oct. 1764, Rich6 Letterbooks, 1750-1771. 27. BenjaminMarshalltoJamesBrooks, 28 July 1764, Penn, Mag, of Hist, and Biog., XX (1896), 207; John Reynell to Francis Rybot, 29 Aug. 1764, Reynell Letterbook, 1762-1767; Daniel Roberdeau to Meyler and Hall, 23 July 1764, Roberdeau Letterbook, 1764-1771; Joseph Shippen to Robert Rutherford, 28 July 1764, Balch Papers, Shippen, I. 28. Thomas Riche to Peter Gurley, 17 Sept. 1765 and to Warner and Blyden, 7 Nov. 1765, Riche Letterbooks, 1750-1771; Orr, Dunlope, and Glenholme Letterbook, 1767-1769.

29. William Dudingston to John Swift, 23 Oct. 1770, John Swift to William Dudingston, 16 Jan. 1771, Custom House Papers, X, XII; Clement Biddle to Thomas Richardson, 22 Oct. 1770, Biddle Letter­ book, 1769-1770; Penn. Journal, 29 June 1769. 30. Story from Philadelphia, 11 June 1772, Boston Gazette, 22

Notes for Chapter 10

271

June 1772. 31. John Swift and Alexander Barclay to Commissioners of Cus­ toms, 18 April 1768, Custom House Papers, VIII. 32. Samuel Patterson to Hollingsworth and Rudulph, 9 May 1768, Hollingsworth Mss., Corr., 1768; Thomas Rich6 to Capt. Samuel Devonshire, 20 July 1767, Riche Letterbooks, 1750-1771; Patterson to Hollingsworth and Rudulph, 14 May 1768, Hollingsworth Mss ., Corr., 1768 . 33. Customs Commissioners to Charles Steuart, 7 June 1765 and to John Swift and Alexander Barclay, same date, Custom House Pa­ pers, IH; Gurley and Riche to Thomas Riche, 11 April 1764 Auto­ graph Collection; John to Thomas Rich* aa

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