e industries, which would include lumbering, fishing, and even
the fur trade, as well as the ordinary agricultural pursuits. Save for
a few industries, of which shipbuilding was one of the most important,
there was relatively little manufacturing apart from the household
crafts. These household industries had increased during the war, but as
it was with the individual so it was with the whole country; the general
course of industrial activity was much the same as it had been before
the war.

A fundamental fact is to be observed in the economy of the young nation:
the people were raising far more tobacco and grain and were extracting
far more of other products than they could possibly use themselves; for
the surplus they must find markets. They had; as well, to rely upon the
outside world for a great part of their manufactured goods, especially
for those of the higher grade. In other words, from the economic point
of view, the United States remained in the former colonial stage of
industrial dependence, which was aggravated rather than alleviated by
the separation from Great Britain. During the colonial period, Americans
had carried on a large amount of this external trade by means of their
own vessels. The British Navigation Acts required the transportation
of goods in British vessels, manned by crews of British sailors, and
specified certain commodities which could be shipped to Great Britain
only. They also required that much of the European trade should pass by
way of England. But colonial vessels and colonial sailors came under
the designation of "British," and no small part of the prosperity of
New England, and of the middle colonies as well, had been due to the
carrying trade. It would seem therefore as if a primary need of the
American people immediately after the Revolution was to get access to
their old markets and to carry the goods as much as possible in their
own vessels.

In some directions they were successful. One of the products in greatest
demand was fish. The fishing industry had been almost annihilated by the
war, but with the establishment of peace the New England fisheries began
to recover. They were in competition with the fishermen of France and
England who were aided by large bounties, yet the superior geographical
advantages which the American fishermen possessed enabled them to
maintain and expand their business, and the rehabilitation of the
fishing fleet was an important feature of their pro