largely the exchange of products between different sections of the
country. What it meant at that day to be reduced to communication by
land may be realized from a contemporary quotation: "Four wagons loaded
with dry goods passed to-day through Georgetown, South Carolina, for
Charleston, _forty-six days_ from Philadelphia."[24] Under the heading
"New Carrying Trade" a Boston paper announces on April 28 the arrival of
"a large number of teams from New Bedford with West India produce, and
four Pennsylvania wagons, seventeen days from Philadelphia."[25] "The
enemy has commenced his depredations on the coasting trade of the
Eastern States on a very extensive scale, by several ships and
sloops-of-war, and five or six active privateers. The United States brig
"Argus" cruises at the entrance of Long Island Sound for the protection
of trade, latterly jeopardized;"[26] a position from which she was soon
driven by an overwhelming force. Hull, now commanding at Portsmouth,
reports April 9, "several privateers on the Eastern coast, which have
been successful in cutting coasters out of several harbors east." May 7:
"A small force is indeed needed here; the enemy appear off the harbor
nearly every day. A few days since, a little east of this, they burnt
twelve coasters and chased several into this port."[27] The town is
defenceless. The Governor of Rhode Island laments to the Legislature
"the critical and exposed situation of our fellow-citizens in Newport,
who are frequently menaced by the ships and vessels about Point Judith";
mentioning beside, "the burning of vessels in Narragansett Bay, and the
destruction of our coasting trade, which deprives us of the usual and
very necessary supplies of bread stuffs from other States."[28] The ship
"Maddox," blockaded for two or three months in the Chesapeake, escaped
in May, and reached Newport with five thousand barrels of flour. This is
said to have reduced the price by $2.50 in Boston, where it was ranging
at $17 to $18; while at Cadiz and Lisbon, thanks to British licenses
and heavy stocking in anticipation of war, it stood at $12 to $13. The
arrival at Machias of a captured British vessel, laden with wheat, was
hailed "as a seasonable supply for the starving inhabitants of the
eastward."[29]

[Illustration: THE NEW CARRYING TRADE.
_Drawn by Stanley M. Arthurs._]

Ships returning from abroad necessarily had to pass through the
cruisers which interrupted the coasting trade. "Many