a failure, and after further disheartening experience Fitch committed suicide in 1793.

At the same time that Fitch was struggling with the problem of steam navigation, James Rumsey was conducting a series of similar experiments upon Potomac River. On the 11th of December, 1787, he made his trial trip and ran his boat four miles in an hour against the current of the river. The mechanism of the boat was imperfect and even crude. Good results could hardly be expected. Some pipes that had been broken by water freezing within them had been clumsily repaired by wrappings of rags. The feasibility of the principle of steam navigation, however, had been demonstrated by both Fitch and Rumsey. The contest for the honor of priority between the two men was a bitter one. They assailed each other with great vigor by means of pamphlets. The public is not so much interested, however, in the question of priority as in the epoch-making character of the inventions.

The whale fishing industry was an important one in the United States and particularly in New England. The Revolution checked it, but after the peace there was a revival of the industry. Nantucket was the most important whaling port, but Barnstable, Falmouth, Martha's Vineyard, Cape Ann, New Bedford, and New London were also prominent. points of outfitting. In 1775, Massachusetts granted a bounty to encourage the industry, and the result was that the products of the whale fisheries were vastly increased, but prices fell. In 1788, an increase in the number of lighthouses increased the demand for oil, and once more the business became a very profitable one. In 1789 one ship put into Nantucket with one thousand barrels of whale oil. This was considered an enormous cargo, and the captain thought that his record would remain unsurpassed. It is perhaps needless to say that it did not. Whaling was also carried on in the Pacific. The industry is one of the most interesting and sensational features of early American life. Whaling reached its greatest importance about the

middle of the nineteenth century, but even in its decline New England continued to be its centre.

The cod fisheries that were gathered about the famous banks of Newfoundland were also one of the important and growing industries of the time. "In 1786-90," says Weeden, in speaking of the industry in connection with the State of Massachusetts, "the annual fleet was five hundred and thirty-nine vessels of nineteen thousand one hundred and eighty-five tons, with three thousand two hundred and seventy-eight men." In 1790 and later, Congress granted bounties to stimulate the industry.

Manufacturing was, of course, in its infancy and confined for the most part to the household. Those great inventions which revolutionized the textile and other industries in England and America had not yet done their work. The manufactures of the United States, however, even at this time, were of some importance, and the epoch is one of transition to the factory system.

The manufacture of cotton cloth, of whose beginnings. we have spoken, was flourishing. Cotton duck was produced in large quantities, as the revival of commerce and the fisheries created an active demand for this commodity. Distilleries were also conducted with profit. In 1777, Rhode Island repealed its law which prohibited the use of grain for distillation, and Nathan Read, of Salem, improved the process then in vogue. A stimulus was thus given to

the business.

Iron in bars and rods was imported from Russia, and Jacob Perkins, of Newburyport, invented a machine for making nails about 1790. Their manufacture increased from the demands of the times, and their production was a matter of great importance. Wood was to be had in abundance, for with the introduction of saw mills planks and boards were easily and, because of the abundance of timber, cheaply procurable; and with the use of nails comfortable houses were readily built. These dwellings were a great improvement upon log and treenail construction.

The textile industries, however, were the most important of the manufactures of the time. In 1783, Daniel Hinsdale was instrumental in establishing a woollen mill near Hartford. It was built by a company with a capital stock of $6,250. The mill, when in full operation, produced annually about five thousand yards of cloth. Its product consisted of broadcloths, "coatings, cassimeres, serges, and everlastings." Washington was much interested in the enterprise and was one of its patrons. He purchased broadcloth for a suit for himself, and afterward pronounced the goods to be very satisfactory.

The improvements which were at this time made in the textile industries are interesting and important. The separating and arranging of the fibres of cotton or wool have always been important items in textile manufacture. This is done by means of cards or bands of leather containing innumerable fine wire teeth and revolving upon cylinders. The fixing of the teeth in the leather was a tedious and expensive process, as hundreds of them were set in a square inch of surface. In 1784, Chittenden, of New Haven, invented a machine with which he could make thirty-six thousand teeth per hour. Factories for the manufacture of cards were established on a comparatively large scale. One is said to have employed one thousand two hundred persons, mostly women and children, who were engaged in setting the teeth in the leather. In many instances

this work was done outside of the factory and almost as a pastime, as knitting is done in our own day. It was quite customary for women of the time, in certain sections of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut, to take a supply of leather and teeth with them when they went to spend the afternoon with a neighbor, and deftly to insert the teeth while the gossip ran on. This laborious and expensive process was greatly improved upon in 1797 by Amos Whittemore. "One machine held and pierced the leather, drew the wire from a reel, cut and bent the looped tooth, inserted it and bent the knees, passing out a whole card

of any size or shape." This was truly an epoch-making invention and completely transformed the business of card manufacture in the United States. It was also introduced into England.

In discussing the social and economic conditions of the period, a word must be said in regard to slavery and the slave trade. At the close of the Revolution there was a marked anti-slavery sentiment in most of the States. This was particularly true of the New England States, where slave labor was not so profitable as in the South. In some of the Southern States there was a strong feeling against the institution of slavery, due largely to the Quaker element. In Virginia the great leaders of thought, Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Lee, Randolph, Henry, Mason, and others, were outspoken in its denunciation. At this time, however, slavery was not so essential to the economic life of Virginia as it appeared to be to that of the States further south. But a few years later a great change was effected. The invention of the cotton gin and the development of English manufacturing created a great demand for slave labor, and after the slave trade was abolished in 1808 it became profitable for Virginia to raise large numbers of slaves to be sold to the people further south. However, there was much antipathy to slavery among the States during the period of the Confederation. Delaware had provided for gradual emancipation in its Constitution of 1776. Virginia and Maryland removed all restraints upon emancipation and prohibited the introduction of additional slaves. North Carolina discouraged the slave trade by the imposition of a duty upon slaves. New Jersey took action similar to that of Virginia, and Pennsylvania in 1780 provided that no more slaves should be brought into the State and that the children of slaves born in the future should be free. New York took an advanced step and admitted the freedmen to the ballot. Slavery in New England died an early and a natural death, owing largely to economic causes. Slave labor was immensely profitable in the extensive agricultural enterprises

of the South, but could not be employed to advantage on the small farms or in the manufacturing establishments of New England. There was, too, among the Puritans a very strong opposition to the institution from the moral standpoint. The Massachusetts Supreme Court decided in 1783 that slavery could not exist under the Constitution of that State. The Constitution had been adopted in 1780, but its framers were not aware at the time that they were abolishing the institution of slavery. No tears were shed, however, at the discovery, and Massachusetts was thus the first State of the American Union to deprive slavery of a legal status. Other New England States displayed the same spirit toward slavery at this time. In 1784 the Rhode Island legislature declared that no person born after the 1st of March following should be a slave. Rhode Island also prohibited the slave trade in 1787. In New Hampshire there was gradual emancipation. Belknap said of the State in 1792: "Slavery is not prohibited by any express law Those born since the constitution was made are free." Connecticut emancipated its slaves in 1784. In the two remaining States, South Carolina and Georgia, slavery seems to have been more firmly intrenched, and no action whatever was taken against it at this time. It might be well to note in this connection that the slave trade in New England did not cease when the various States of that section declared it abolished by statute. It was carried on illicitly for many years after it was theoretically abolished.

The trade relations of the time were grievously disturbed by the evils incident to a disordered and unstable currency. Even the unit of value was not uniform throughout. The pound and the dollar were both used in the transactions of the time, and these varied in the different States. The pound contained from nine hundred and sixty-six to one thousand five hundred and forty-seven grains of silver, according to the standard of the State of its use. It was subdivided into shillings and pence, and these subdivisions varied accordingly. The English coins, however, were for the most part