Those of the southern colonies, from Maryland to Georgia, were classed
as "enumerated," and, with the exception of the rice of South Carolina
and Georgia, partially indulged as before mentioned, must be directed
upon Great Britain. Tobacco, cotton, indigo, pitch, tar, turpentine,
and spars of all kinds for ships, were specifically named, and
constituted much the larger part of the exports of those colonies.
These were carried also chiefly by British vessels, and not by
colonial. The case was otherwise in the middle colonies, Pennsylvania,
New York, New Jersey, and in Connecticut and Rhode Island of the
eastern group. They were exporters of provisions,--of grain, flour,
and meat, the latter both as live stock and salted; of horses also. As
the policy of the day protected the British farmer, these articles
were not required to be sent to Great Britain; on the contrary, grain
was not allowed admission except in times of scarcity, determined by
the price of wheat in the London market. The West Indies, therefore,
were the market of the middle colonies; the shortness of the voyage,
and the comparatively good weather, after a little southing had been
gained, giving a decisive advantage over European dealers in the
transportation of live animals. Flour also, because it kept badly in
the tropics, required constant carriage of new supplies from sources
near at hand. Along with provisions the continental vessels took
materials for building and cooperage, both essential to the industry
of the islands,--to the housing of the inhabitants, and to the
transport of their sugar, rum, and molasses. In short, so great was
the dependence of the islands upon this trade, that a well-informed
planter of the time quotes with approval the remark of "a very
competent judge," that, "if the continent had been wholly in foreign
hands, and England wholly precluded from intercourse with it, it is
very doubtful whether we should now have possessed a single acre in
the West Indies."[44]

Now this traffic, while open to all British shipping, was very largely
in the hands of the colonists, who built ships decidedly cheaper than
could be done in England, and could distribute their tonnage in
vessels too small to brave the Atlantic safely, but, from their
numbers and size, fitted to scatter to the numerous small ports of
distribution, which the badness of internal communications rendered
advantageous for purposes of supply. A committee of the Privy Counci