to have exceeded the exports by the same route. A New Bedford
town meeting, in August, affirmed that gold was already at a premium,
from the facility with which it was transported through the country,
and across the frontier, in payment of purchases.[254] At the end of
the summer one hundred and fifty vessels were despatched from Quebec
with full cargoes, and it may be believed they had not arrived empty.
"From a Canada price current now before us, it will be seen that since
the embargo was laid the single port of Quebec has done more foreign
business than the whole United States. In less than eleven months
there cleared thence three hundred and thirty-four vessels."[255] An
American merchant visiting Halifax wrote home: "Our embargo is an
excellent thing for this place. Every inhabitant of Nova Scotia is
exceedingly desirous of its continuance, as it will be the making of
their fortunes."[256] Independent of the _entrepot_ profit, the
British provinces themselves produced several of the articles which
figured largely among the exports of the middle and eastern states;
not to the extent imagined by Sheffield, sufficient to supply the West
Indies, but, in the artificial scarcity caused by the embargo, the
enhanced prices redounded directly to their advantage. Sir George
Prevost, governor of Nova Scotia, summed up the experience of the year
by saying that "the embargo has totally failed. New sources have been
resorted to with success to supply deficiencies produced by so sudden
an interruption of commerce, and the vast increase of export and
import of this province proves that the embargo is a measure well
adapted to promote the true interests of his Majesty's American
colonies."[257]

Upon the British Islands themselves the injury was more appreciable
and conspicuous. It was, moreover, in the direction expected by
Jefferson and his supporters. The supply of cotton nearly ceased. Mr.
Baring, March 6, 1809, said in the House of Commons that raw material
had become so scarce and so high, that in many places it could not be
procured. "In Manchester during the greatest part of the past year,
only nine cotton mills were in full employment; about thirty-one at
half work, and forty-four without any at all."[258] Flaxseed,
essential to the Irish linen manufactures, and of which three fourths
came from America, had risen from L2-1/2 to L23 the quarter.[259] The
exports for the year 1808 had fallen fifteen per cent; the imports th