File:Boston, the place and the people (1903) (14741229296).jpg

Identifier: bostonplacepeopl00howem (find matches)
Title: Boston, the place and the people
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: Howe, M. A. De Wolfe (Mark Antony De Wolfe), 1864-1960
Subjects: Boston -- History. (from old catalog)
Publisher: New York, The Macmillan company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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if brought first to NewEngland could not even be carried to England inBritish ships. This prohibition was followed in 1784by that of exporting anything from the West Indies tothe United States except in British vessels. Here thecitizens of Boston asserted themselves, and entered asof old into agreements to buy none of the wares soimported. The Massachusetts legislature passed meas-ures of retaliation ; and the national laws of navigationand commerce reflected for some years the Britishpolicy of restriction. If success is determined byobstacles, the commercial enterprise of Boston couldnot have had a more favorable beginning. Not content with the difficulties nearest home, themerchants of America, in the earliest days of peace,began turning their eyes to the distant trade of China.To New York belongs the credit of sending out thefirst vessel in this trade, the Empress of the Seas, whichset sail for Canton in February of 1784, and was backin New York in May of the next year. Her super-
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THE HUB AND THE WHEEL 163 cargo was a Boston youth of twenty, Samuel Shaw byname, whose service on General Knoxs staff in theRevolution had already won him the rank of major.In his journal of the outward voyage he tells of land-ing at St. Jago, an island of the Cape de Verde group.Ihe officer of the port was a Portuguese. On tellinghim, says Shaw, by the interpreter, a negro, thatwe were Americans, he discovered great satisfaction,and exclaimed with an air of pleasure and surprise, Bostonian ! Bostonian ! With this — and theBoston supercargo — to remember, the New Englandtown may comfortably orient herself with the first ofthe Chinese traders. It was not long, however, before the town couldclaim as her own a commercial venture of the firstimportance and magnitude. The journals of CaptainCook the navigator were published in 1784.Through them the great possibilities of the fur tradeon the northwest coast of America were made known.Five Boston merchants, including the Bulfinch whosea

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