. He began as an apprenticed mechanic. For more than fifty years
he rose at dawn and was shaved and dressed. His letters and papers were
then spread before him and the day's business was begun. At his death in
1825 no inventory of his estate was taken. The present millions of the
Brown fortune of Rhode Island came largely from the trading activities
of Nicholas Brown and the accretions of which increased population and
values have brought. Nicholas Brown was born in Providence in 1760, of a
well-to-do father. He went to Rhode Island College (later named in his
honor by reason of his gifts) and greatly increased his fortune in the
shipping trade.

It is quite needless, however, to give further instances in support of
the statement that nearly all the large active fortunes of the latter
part of the eighteenth and the early period of the nineteenth century,
came from the shipping trade and were mainly concentrated in New
England. The proceeds of these fortunes frequently were put into
factories, canals, turnpikes and later into railroads, telegraph lines
and express companies. Seldom, however, has the money thus employed
really gone to the descendants of the men who amassed it, but has since
passed over to men who, by superior cunning, have contrived to get the
wealth into their own hands. This statement is an anticipation of facts
that will be more cognate in subsequent chapters, but may be
appropriately referred to here. There were some exceptions to the
general condition of the large fortunes from shipping being compactly
held in New England. Thomas Pym Cope, a Philadelphia Quaker, did a brisk
shipping trade, and founded the first regular line of packets between
Philadelphia and Baltimore; with the money thus made he went into canal
and railroad enterprises. And in New York and other ports there were a
number of shippers who made fortunes of several millions each.

THE WORKERS' MEAGER SHARE.

Obviously these millionaires created nothing except the enterprise of
distributing products made by the toil and skill of millions of workers
the world over. But while the workers made these products their sole
share was meager wages, barely sufficient to sustain the ordinary
demands of life. Moreover, the workers of one country were compelled to
pay exorbitant prices for the goods turned out by the workers of other
countries. The shippers who stood as middlemen between the workers of
the different countries reaped the great re