A History of the American People

entirely clothe themselves in their own woollens, and generally the people are sliding into the
manufactures proper to the Mother Country, and this not through any spirit of industry or
economy, but plainly for want of some returns to make to the shops.’ Another report at the same
time suggested that American producers were competing successfully with English ones, even in
exports, in cotton yarn and cotton goods, hats, soap and candles, woodwork, coaches, chariots,
chairs, harness and other leather, shoes, linens, cordage, foundry ware, axes, and iron tools.
American spokesmen, like Benjamin Franklin, were anxious to play down how well the
colonies were doing in this respect, for fear of arousing the wrath of the jealous Mother Country.
As Agent of Pennsylvania, he informed a House of Commons committee in 1766 that his colony
imported half a million pounds' worth of goods from Great Britain but exported only £40,000 in
return. Asked how the difference was made up he replied: The balance is paid in our produce to the West Indies, or sold in our own island, or to the French, Spaniards, Danes or Dutch; by the same carried to other colonies in North America, or to New England, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Carolina and Georgia; by the same carried to different parts of Europe, as Spain, Portugal and Italy: in all which places we receive either money, bills of exchange or commodities that suit our remittance to Britain; which together with all the profits on the industry of our merchants and mariners, arising in those circuitous voyages, and the freights made by their ships, center finally in Britain, to discharge the balance and pay for British manufactures... ' Separating 'visibles' frominvisibles,' distinguishing between all the different
elements in triangular or quadrilateral trading patterns-it was all too difficult for an amateur
group of parliamentary gentlemen, and all too easy for Franklin to bamboozle them, though it is
very likely that his own figures were inaccurate and many of his assumptions misleading. The
truth is, by the mid-18th century, mercantilism was on its last legs, overwhelmed by the
complexity of global trade and the inability to distinguish what was in the true long-term
interests of a country with burgeoning self-sustaining dominions. Entrepreneurial capitalism,
spanning the Atlantic, was already too subtle and resourceful for the state to manage efficiently.
In any case, the British economic strategists-if that is not too fancy a name for classically
educated Whig country gentlemen advised by a handful of officials who had never been to
America (or, in most cases, to the Continent even)-were slow to grasp the speed with which the
American mainland colonies were maturing. The conventional wisdom in London was to treat
them as poor and marginal. They had played little part in the great wars of King William and
Queen Anne's day. Tobacco was the only thing they produced of consequence. In the early 18th
century they accounted for only 6 percent of Britain's commerce, less than one-sixth of the trade
with northern Europe, two-thirds or less of that with the West Indies, even less than the East
Indies produced. Almost imperceptibly at first this situation changed. By 1750 the mainland
American colonies had become the fastest-growing element in the empire, with a 500 percent
expansion in half a century. Britain, with the most modern economy in Europe, advanced by 25
percent in the same period. In 1700 the American mainland's output was only 5 percent of
Britain's; by 1775 it was two-fifths. This was one of the highest growth-rates the world has ever
witnessed.
It seems as though everything was working in America's favor. The rate of expansion was
about 40 percent or even more each decade. The availability of land meant large family units,
rarely less than 60 acres, often well over 100, huge by European standards. Couples could marry
earlier; a wife who survived to forty gave birth on average to six or seven children, four or five
of whom reached maturity. Living standards were high, especially in food consumption. Males
ate over 200 pounds of meat a year, and this high-protein diet meant they grew to be over two