Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 2.djvu/207

Rh iron, and they fabricated all sorts of iron-work for shipping. They also made great quantities of hats, many of which were exported, as was complained of by the Hatters' Company of London, to Spain and Portugal as well as to the West Indies. There were besides, the report states, several still-houses (for making rum) and sugar bakers established in New England. It is affirmed, however, that, after all, the iron-works in the province of Massachusetts were not sufficient to supply the twentieth part of what was required for the use of the country, and that, the quality of the little that was made was greatly inferior to that of the iron imported from Great Britain. Some iron was also made in Rhode Island, but not to the extent of a fourth part of the consumption. From another account of nearly the same date, a work published at London in 1731, entitled, "The Importance of the British Plantations in America to this Kingdom considered," we gather some other interesting particulars. Pennsylvania, this author states, though the youngest of our American colonics, had already a more numerous white population than was spread over all Virginia, Maryland, and both the Carolinas. The produce of this province for exportation consisted of wheat, flour, biscuit, barrelled beef and pork, bacon, hams, butter, cheese, cider, apples, soap, myrtle-wax candles, starch, hair-powder, tanned leather, bees'-wax tallow candles, strong beer, linseed oil, strong waters, deer-skins and other peltry, hemp, some little tobacco sawed boards and timber for building of houses, cypress-wood, shingles, cask-staves, headings, masts, and other ship-timber, and various dyeing substances, or drugs as they were called. The shipping which they employed in their own trade might amount to about six thousand tons, and the quantity they built for sale was about two thousand tons annually. "They send," the account continues, "great quantities of corn to Portugal and Spain, frequently selling the ship as well as cargo; and the produce of both is thence sent to England, where it is always laid out in goods and sent home to Pennsylvania. . . . They receive no less than from 4000 to 6000 pistoles from the Dutch isle of Curaçoa