Page:Immigration and the Commissioners of Emigration of the state of New York.djvu/22

8 her port; Baltimore was the centre of the tobacco trade for Maryland, Virginia, and Ohio; Philadelphia monopolized the greater portion of the coasting business; but New York had first to build up her export trade. The interior was not sufficiently developed to offer commodities for European markets; even wheat, which forms in our days one of the most important export staples, was imported from the Baltic and Portugal as late as the years 1836 to 1838. About 1830, New York commenced with the export of whale oil, which the whalers brought to New Bedford, Sag Harbor, and smaller ports, where it was purchased by New York merchants for shipment to Europe. Tobacco soon followed, which was sent to New York from the interior, and, in consequence of the Tobacco Inspection established in 1834, could be assorted and purchased here just as well as in Baltimore and Richmond. Every subsequent year added a new article of export. Philadelphia, once paramount to New York, did not follow the latter in the path of progress, and European merchants became every year more satisfied that they would find at all times ready return freights from New York, and for this reason they preferred it before all other Atlantic ports. Thus, with her daily growing commerce, with her better facilities for shipping and freighting, and with her better inland communications, she naturally attracted more emigrants than any other port of the Union, and entered upon the second third of the present century as the great receiving depot of European immigration.

The facts connected with the immigration of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are only imperfectly known to us, and have almost exclusively an historical interest for the present generation. They can be explained in a few short paragraphs.

Under the Dutch rule (1625-1664) emigrants were attracted by land grants and other substantial inducements. At times they obtained a free passage; at other times they had to pay the small charge of one shilling per day. A ship or two per year carried all the reinforcements and supplies to the colony. During that whole period immigration did not exceed a few thousand.

The English Colonial Government did little or nothing for the encouragement of European immigration to New York.