Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 7.djvu/385

 1803-7] War and manufactures. 353 denominations of 6^, 1, 25, and 50 cents; and the New York and New Jersey Steamboat and Ferry Companies did likewise. When peace was proclaimed in 1815, it was supposed that specie payments would speedily be resumed. But 1815 passed and 1816 came without a bank showing any signs of resumption. Then Congress, in desperation, determined to exercise its powers to regulate the currency, chartered the second Bank of the United States as a regulator, and fixed a day in February, 1817, on and after which nothing but specie, or bank -paper convertible on demand into specie, should be received for duties, taxes, and debts due to the United States. These measures forced the State banks to resume. Specie again went into circulation, and, with the notes of the new Bank of the United States, formed a circulating medium which passed at its face-value in every State of the Union. Congress next turned its attention to manufactures, for the protection of which urgent appeals had come from many States. The extraordinary development of commerce which followed the opening of the war in Europe had done much to retard the growth of manufactures. The demands for ships and cargoes to put into them, the ready markets for fish, lumber, flour, grain, cotton, and food products of every sort, had greatly stimulated the shipping and agricultural interests of the Eastern and Middle States and of Kentucky. The demand for cotton had already made it the staple of the Southern States ; and, under the stimulus thus afforded by the long war abroad, capital, enterprise, and business energy had been drawn into commerce and agriculture rather than into manufacturing. So far had this gone that when, in 1806, it was proposed in Congress to cut off all intercourse with Great Britain, it was clearly shown that the people of the United States were so dependent on Great Britain for manufactures of prime necessity that such a measure would be ruinous. China, glass, pottery, hardware, cutlery, edged tools, blankets, woollen cloths, linen, cotton prints, and a hundred other articles of daily use came from Great Britain in such quantity that the value of each year's imports amounted to $35,000,000, and the duties paid on them to $5,500,000, or nearly one-half the entire receipts of the Treasury from customs. In spite of these facts measures of retaliation soon became imperative ; and when the Orders in Council and the Berlin Decree placed American ships and commerce under ban, the " long embargo " was laid ; and in December, 1807, all trade with Europe and her dependencies was cut off. From that moment the encouragement of home manufactures became the duty of every patriotic American. The Embargo Act was not eight days old when the men of Baltimore organised the Union Manufac- turing Company of Maryland. The Philadelphia Premium Society offered prizes for the best specimens of broad-cloth, fancy cloths for vests, raven duck, and thread in imitation of that made at Dundee. The c. M. H. vii. OH. xr. 23