ABSTRACT

Although the vast stretches of virgin land were the young nation’s greatest resource, in the 1790s commerce was still the fulcrum on which American prosperity rested. Importers in the seaport cities and merchants in inland towns had to furnish many of the supplies homesteaders needed in settling new territory, just as farmers with surplus produce to sell had to ship it to the nearest town. Markets

58 made accessible by ocean-going ships, river craft, or wagons on overland highways were as important to the tillers of the soil as to city and town merchants. And as settlement spread westward, new towns sprang up. Until the end of the War of 1812, commercial relations with Europe, to be sure, hung in rather precarious balance. The Jay Treaty, negotiated with Britain in 1794, opened the British West Indies to small American vessels for a limited period of time and so removed some of the difficulties that had beset American shipping interests. Along the waterfront of the seaport cities activity immediately quickened. But the Royal Navy’s impressment of American sailors and French search of American ships on various pretexts continued to imperil American foreign trade and eventually led to war with Britain. Yet in the face of all hazards the commercial and financial position of the United States gradually strengthened. The growing power of particular cities may help to explain that phenomenon.