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had not been allowed to practise his profession and took his revenge by writing in his Plaine Dealing a scathing criticism of the colony's method of doing justice. Lawyers seem to have been allowed in East New Jersey;' but the Quakers in Pennsylvania were bitterly opposed to law-suits in every form. Gabriel Thomas rejoiced that Pennsylvania did not need either the tongue of the lawyer or the pen of the physician, both, he says, being "equally destructive of men's estates and lives.' Alsop, in Maryland, said that if the lawyer there had "nothing else to maintain him but his bawling, he might button up his chops and burn his buckram bag"; and Cook shows his opinion of lawyers when he speaks of them as breaking the peace and wrangling for plaintiff and defendant. The hostility for this class of professional men became in Virginia so marked as to lead to legislation against the practice of law. A few years later Colonel Byrd said that while there were a few men in the colony who called themselves doctors they were "generally discarded.” As for North Carolina, a resident of Albemarle County wrote to his father in England that "those who profess themselves doctors and attorneys are scandalous to their profession, impudence and notorious impertinence making up their character."

3

1 Whitehead, East Jersey, 166.

2 Thomas, Account of the Province of Pensilvania, 32. Alsop, Character of the Province of Maryland, 47; Cook, Sot-Weed Factor, 12, 19; Hening, Statutes, I., 495, 71; Stowe MSS., in British Museum, 748, f. 12; Sloane, 4040, f. 151.

II..

CHAPTER XIX

COMMERCIAL AND ECONOMIC CONDITIONS IN THE COLONIES

(1652-1689)

HOUGH education and religion were neglected,

THO

and the colonists were content with home-made remedies for disease and home-made methods of settling disputes, their material needs had to be provided for. During the first seventy years, life in the colonies was largely agricultural, and the settlers busied themselves with cutting down the forests and extending the cultivable area. It was not an easy matter for them to discover at once the natural staples of the country, though as early as 1616 Virginia appreciated the merits of the tobacco industry and by 1640 Maryland made tobacco her leading product. South Carolina, though experimenting with rice and indigo at an early date in her history, did not realize till after 1700 that either was especially adapted to her climate and soil.1 In fact, the colonists, often urged on by those pecuniarily interested at home, were continually

1 Rivers, South Carolina, 172, n.; McCrady, Hist. of South Carolina, I., 349.

trying experiments to make the new country more profitable and to supply England with materials that she herself could not produce.

To the men of the seventeenth century the New World was a kind of Eldorado, capable of supplying not only herbs, drugs, and fruits unknown to Europeans, but also an infinite variety of valuable products for which Englishmen were dependent on other and rival countries. For this reason many of the descriptions that have come down to us of the proprietary colonies must be taken at something less than their face value.

During the first twenty years of its career as a settled colony South Carolina developed very slowly, owing to the small number of the colonists and to their inexperience as agriculturists and farmers. As elsewhere, the finer grains, such as English wheat and barley, though successfully cultivated in Carolina, were generally disregarded owing to the greater profitableness of Indian-corn, which was not only easy to raise but was also more useful as food. In addition, each family had its stock of pigs and cows, with the increase of which it was able to build up a small export trade. Planters who lived on larger estates outside the town, notably on the southern side of the Ashley River, devoted themselves to raising cattle and corn; while others, nearer the pine belts, prepared tar and pitch and made clapboards. After supplying their own needs the settlers were able to furnish vessels,

privateers and others, which came into the harbor for victualling; and often on this account the colonists were charged with harboring pirates, of whom there were many along the coast. They also sent cattle, corn, pork, pitch, tar, and clapboards to Barbadoes more cheaply than the other plantations, because of their nearness to the West Indies. In return they received sugar, rum, molasses, and ginger, the greater part of which was sent to England and exchanged for manufactured goods. We are told that in 1680 "sixteen sail of vessels, some upwards of two hundred tons, came from divers parts of the king's kingdom to trade at Charles Town."

The colony had, however, little trade with England in staples of its own, for fur and cedar wood were the only articles available for that purpose, and there is reason to believe that none of the latter commodity had actually been exported at this time. In truth, South Carolina was still more closely connected with the island plantations than with those of the main-land. Its isolation, southerly location, and the character of its economic life during the seventeenth century, place it apart from the northern colonies, in a group with the English plantations in the West Indies.1

After 1616 the shipping of tobacco to England from Virginia became regular, and though Indian

1 Wilson, Account of Carolina; Ashe, Carolina, in Carroll, Historical Collections, II., 19–35; Rawlinson MSS., in Bod. Lib., D 810, ff. 53-55.

corn and some English wheat were grown, they were kept in the colony for home consumption. A few other things were exported;1 but as tobacco was the superior commodity, and the most lucrative, various attempts to cultivate flax, rice, and cotton failed utterly. Tobacco became the chief source of Virginia's wealth, the staple product that contributed most largely to her material prosperity, inasmuch as in colonial days it was the only product that could be exchanged with the mothercountry for manufactured goods at a reasonable profit.

Virginia could not be roused to take an interest in domestic manufactures except so far as they aided agriculture. Many attempts were made to bring over mechanics and artisans, but their employment was always uncertain, and in some instances they succumbed to the seductive influence of tobacco and became agriculturists. Shipbuilding was confined to small craft used for local transportation; and other industries, such as glassmaking, were undertaken with but little success. Attempts at mining and smelting iron and the plan of exporting linen made of flax spun in the colony came to nothing. Cotton was spun and woven on the plantations, and clothing from both cotton and wool was made, but only for domestic

1 Brown, Genesis of the United States, I., 783; Cal. of State Pap., Col., 1574-1660, 17; Tyler, England in America, chap. v, Bruce, Econ. Hist. of Virginia, II., 413,