yed, the capital engaged,
and the profits gleaned, the commerce of European nations. A modern
historian has said: "The enterprising merchants of New England developed
a network of trade routes that covered well-nigh half the world." This
commerce, destined to be of such significance in the conflict with the
mother country, presented, broadly speaking, two aspects.

On the one side, it involved the export of raw materials and
agricultural produce. The Southern colonies produced for shipping,
tobacco, rice, tar, pitch, and pine; the Middle colonies, grain, flour,
furs, lumber, and salt pork; New England, fish, flour, rum, furs, shoes,
and small articles of manufacture. The variety of products was in fact
astounding. A sarcastic writer, while sneering at the idea of an
American union, once remarked of colonial trade: "What sort of dish will
you make? New England will throw in fish and onions. The middle states,
flax-seed and flour. Maryland and Virginia will add tobacco. North
Carolina, pitch, tar, and turpentine. South Carolina, rice and indigo,
and Georgia will sprinkle the whole composition with sawdust. Such an
absurd jumble will you make if you attempt to form a union among such
discordant materials as the thirteen British provinces."

On the other side, American commerce involved the import trade,
consisting principally of English and continental manufactures, tea, and
"India goods." Sugar and molasses, brought from the West Indies,
supplied the flourishing distilleries of Massachusetts, Rhode Island,
and Connecticut. The carriage of slaves from Africa to the Southern
colonies engaged hundreds of New England's sailors and thousands of
pounds of her capital.

The disposition of imported goods in the colonies, though in part
controlled by English factors located in America, employed also a large
and important body of American merchants like the Willings and Morrises
of Philadelphia; the Amorys, Hancocks, and Faneuils of Boston; and the
Livingstons and Lows of New York. In their zeal and enterprise, they
were worthy rivals of their English competitors, so celebrated for
world-wide commercial operations. Though fully aware of the advantages
they enjoyed in British markets and under the protection of the British
navy, the American merchants were high-spirited and mettlesome, ready to
contend with royal officers in order to shield American interests
against outside interference.

[Illustration: THE DUTCH WEST INDIA WAR