whether other
countries found the commerce not as profitable as they had expected, as
certainly was the case with France; whether "American merchants and
sea captains found themselves under disadvantages due to the absence
of treaty protection which they had enjoyed as English subjects";* or
whether it was the necessity of trading on British capital--whatever the
cause may have been--within a comparatively few years a large part
of American trade was in British hands as it had been before the
Revolution. American trade with Europe was carried on through English
merchants very much as the Navigation Acts had prescribed.

* C. R. Fish, "American Diplomacy," pp. 56-57.

From the very first settlement of the American continent the colonists
had exhibited one of the earliest and most lasting characteristics
of the American people adaptability. The Americans now proceeded to
manifest that trait anew, not only by adjusting themselves to renewed
commercial dependence upon Great Britain, but by seeking new avenues of
trade. A striking illustration of this is to be found in the development
of trade with the Far East. Captain Cook's voyage around the world
(1768-1771), an account of which was first published in London in 1773,
attracted a great deal of attention in America; an edition of the New
Voyage was issued in New York in 1774. No sooner was the Revolution over
than there began that romantic trade with China and the northwest coast
of America, which made the fortunes of some families of Salem and Boston
and Philadelphia. This commerce added to the prosperity of the country,
but above all it stimulated the imagination of Americans. In the same
way another outlet was found in trade with Russia by way of the Baltic.

The foreign trade of the United States after the Revolution thus passed
through certain well-marked phases. First there was a short period of
prosperity, owing to an unusual demand for American products; this
was followed by a longer period of depression; and then came a gradual
recovery through acceptance of the new conditions and adjustment to
them.

A similar cycle may be traced in the domestic or internal trade. In
early days intercolonial commerce had been carried on mostly by water,
and when war interfered commerce almost ceased for want of roads. The
loss of ocean highways, however, stimulated road building and led to
what might be regarded as the first "good-roads movement" of the new
nation,