emselves, the employment
rose from 16,453 in 1814 to 48,147 in 1816;[214] the difference
doubtless being attributable chiefly to the reopening of the cod
fishing on the banks of Newfoundland, necessarily closed to the
American flag by the maritime hostilities.

The influence of the peace upon prices is likewise a matter too
interesting to a correct appreciation of effects to be wholly passed
over. In considering it, the quotations before the receipt of the news
doubtless represent conditions more correctly than do the immediate
changes. The official tidings of peace reached New York, February 11,
1815. The Evening Post, in its number of February 14, says, "We give
to-day one of the effects of the prospect of peace, even before
ratification. Our markets of every kind experienced a sudden, and to
many a shocking, change. Sugar, for instance, fell from $26 per
hundredweight to $12.50. Tea, which sold on Saturday at $2.25, on
Monday was purchased at a $1.00. Specie, which had got up to the
enormous rate of 22 per cent premium, dropped down to 2. The article
of tin, in particular, fell from the height of $80 the box to $25. Six
per cents rose from 76 to 88; ten per cents and Treasury notes from 92
to 98. Bank stock generally rose from five to ten per cent." In
Philadelphia, flour which sold at $7.50 the barrel on Saturday had
risen to $10 on Monday; a testimony that not only foreign export but
home supply to the eastward was to be renewed. The fall in foreign
products, due to freedom of import, was naturally accompanied by a
rise in domestic produce, to which an open outlet with proportionate
increase of demand was now afforded. In Philadelphia the exchange on
Boston reflected these conditions; falling from twenty-five per cent
to thirteen.

It may then be concluded that there is little exaggeration in the
words used by "a distinguished naval officer" of the day, in a letter
contributed to Niles' Register, in its issue of June 17, 1815. "No
sooner had the enemy blockaded our harbors, and extended his line of
cruisers from Maine to Georgia, than both foreign and domestic
commerce came at once to be reduced to a deplorable state of
stagnation; producing in its consequences the utter ruin of many
respectable merchants, as well as of a great multitude besides,
connected with them in their mercantile pursuits. But these were not
the only consequences. The regular supply of foreign commodities being
thereby cut off, many articl