n for its poetical intuitions. Latrobe was quite
right when he wrote that in America the labor of the hand took
precedence over that of the mind.

The American people were still engaged almost exclusively in agriculture
and commerce. Manufacturing was in its infancy. In his report on
manufactures in 1791, Hamilton had named seventeen industries which had
made notable progress, but most of these were household crafts. In 1790,
Samuel Slater had duplicated the inventions of Hargreaves and Arkwright,
and had, with Moses Brown, of Rhode Island, set up a successful cotton
mill at Pawtucket; but ten years later only four factories were in
operation in the whole country.

The wars in Europe had created an unprecedented and ever-increasing
demand for American agricultural products. The price of foodstuffs like
flour and meal reached a point which made possible enormous profits.
Shipping became, therefore, the indispensable handmaid of agriculture,
as Jefferson observed. The volume of trade expanded at an astonishing
rate. The total value of exports mounted from $20,000,000 in 1790 to
$94,000,000 in the year of Jefferson's inauguration. One half of this
amount, however, represented the value of commodities like sugar,
coffee, and cocoa, which had been brought into the country for
exportation. The easy and almost certain profits of this trade attracted
capital which might otherwise have gone into manufacturing.

[Map: Distribution of Population 1800]

Shipping was stimulated also by the Navigation Act of 1789, which
imposed lower tonnage duties in American ports on vessels built or owned
by American citizens, and by the Tariff Act of the same year, which
allowed a ten per cent deduction from the customs duties levied on goods
imported in American vessels. These discriminating duties, together with
the law of 1792, which excluded foreign-built ships from American
registry, would have aided materially in the building of an American
marine, even in less prosperous times. The registered tonnage engaged in
foreign trade increased from 346,254 in 1790 to 718,549 in 1801; and in
coast trade, from 103,775 to 246,255. Yet there was an artificial
quality in this prosperity. "Temporary benefits were mistaken for
permanent advantages," writes a contemporary; "so certain were the
profits on the foreign voyages, that commerce was only pursued as an
art; ... the philosophy of commerce, if I am allowed the expression, was
totally neglected .