¹ This paper is part of a much broader study on business fluctuations now in progress.

² At Philadelphia the average price of salt for the last quarter of 1758 stood 32 per cent above that of the first quarter of 1756, while molasses rose 40 per cent and domestically distilled rum advanced by 57 per cent. For New York, the price rise of salt was 65 per cent, molasses 38 per cent, and rum 9 per cent. Over the same period the quarterly average price of salt at Boston advanced by 20 per cent, molasses by 31 per cent, and rum by 17 per cent. Price statistics are based on the average monthly wholesale prices as quoted in Bezanson, Anne, Gray, Robert D., and Hussey, Miriam, Prices in Colonial Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1935), pp. 395 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Cole, Arthur H., Wholesale Commodity Prices in the United States, 1700-1861 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938), Statistical Supplement, pp. 37 ffCrossRefGoogle Scholar. Unless otherwise stated, all further references to prices will be based on those sources.

³ As the army moved into the interior, many farmers in those areas probably increased their income through supplementary occupations, such as carting supplies to army posts or engaging in construction work during the slack season. To Jacob Wendell, September 17, 1755, and to John Osborne, September 29, 1755, Robert Sanders, Letter Book of Robert Sanders of Albany, 1752-58. MS. in New-York Historical Society (hereafter referred to as N.-Y.H.S.). Accounts of firewood delivered at an army post at Schenectady, New York, include over eighty names per year, with amounts delivered varying from one to 1,231 loads per person. The majority of persons listed in those accounts delivered under one hundred loads. Berent Sanders, Account Book, 1746-59. MS. in N.Y.H.S.

The movement of provisions from interior points to the major seaports was partly diverted as die army moved inland. Thus, inland farmers might have obtained higher prices than the price indexes indicate. For example, the price of flour at Albany, usually based on the New York price current minus transportation charges, owing to army demand, was at limes quoted at higher rates than prices at New York. To Osborne, November 7, 1755, May 15, 1756, R. Sanders, Letter Book. Or, inland farmers might have sold their products to army purchasing agents at prices below diose current at the major shipping points and actually made greater gains by reducing or eliminating transportation and handling charges. Sec Gage to Whately, August 10, 1764, Carter, C. E., ed., The Correspondence of General Thomas Gage with the Secretaries of State, 1763-1775 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 19.51-33), II, 238Google Scholar.

⁴ Boston Gazette and Country Journal, 08 24, 1761Google Scholar. Boston News-Letter, August 27, 1761.

⁵ For evidence of farm distress, cf. Fitch to Egrernont, April 15, 1762, Filch Papers (Connecticut Historical Society, Collections, XVH-XVIII), II, 200. Ward to Sherwood, Kimball, G. S, ed., Correspondence of the Colonial Governors of Rhode Island, 1723-1775 (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1902-1903), II, 336Google Scholar. To Collinson, December 7, 1762, Smythe, A. H., ed., The Writings of Benjamin Franklin (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1905-1907), IV, 182 fGoogle Scholar. To Scott, Pringle, Cheap and Company, June 20, 1762, The Letter Book, of John Watts (N.-Y.H.S., Collections, LXI), p. 62. Smith to H. Lloyd, May 21, 1762, Papers of the Lloyd Family (N.-Y.H.S., Collections, LIX-LX), II, 628. To Bradshaw and Alexander, August 9, 1762, Gerard Beekman, Letter Book. MS; in N.-Y.H.S. For urban complaints, cf. New York City, Common Council, Minuter of the Common Council of the City of New York, 1675-1776 (hereafter referred to as N.Y.C, M.C.C.) (New York, 1905), VI, 336. For details of the Common Council's attempt to depress food prices, see Morris, Richard B., Government and Labor in Early America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1946),pp. 160–61Google Scholar.

⁶ Acts and Resolves of the Province of Massachusetts Bay (Boston, 1869-1910), IV, 631-33 695-96 n., 783-86 nGoogle Scholar. Barlett, J. R., ed., Records of the Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations in New. England (Providence, 1856-1865), VT, 347 ffGoogle Scholar.

⁷ There is no agreement on dating among scholars who have dealt with the subject. For example, Arthur M. Schlesinger has dated the beginning of the business depression in 1763. The Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution (New York: Columbia University, 1918), pp. 56 ffGoogle Scholar. Charles M, Andrews has dated the business depression as beginning in 1762. “The Boston. Merchants and the Non-Importation Movement,” Colonial Society: of Massachusetts, Publications, XIX, 181Google Scholar. Berg, Harry D.-has presented evidence of the existence of a business depression in Philadelphia as early as the fall of 1760. “Economic Consequences of the French and, Indian War for the Philadelphia Merchants,” Pennsylvania History, XIII (07 1946), 187–8.8. Since classification of periods of “prosperity”, and “depression” is based mainly upon statements made by merchants or found in newspapers, a subjective element is introduced. Deciding when the transition from one phase to another occurred is rendered still more difficult by the fact that the order of events of business fluctuations in the eighteenth century did not necessarily follow the same sequence of those usually associated with business cycles in the modern sense. Virginia D. Harrington, for example, although dating the depression from 1763, has characterized “wartime prosperity” asGoogle Scholar“gradually disappearing in New York since 1760.” The New York Merchant on the Eve of the Revolution (New York: Columbia University Press, 1935), p. 316Google Scholar.

⁸ Baxter, William T., The House of Hancock.: Business in Boston, 1724-1776 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1938), pp. 142-43, 162–66.Google Scholar, Watts, Letter Book, pp. 20, 45, 178Google Scholar. To Nicholson, March 16, 1762, Daniel Clark, Letter Book, 1760-63. MS. in Historical Society of Pennsylvania (hereafter referred to. as H.S.P.). S. Mifflin to S. Galloway, June 16, 1761, Samuel Galloway, Correspondence. MS. in New York Public Library (hereafter referred to as N.Y.Pub.Lib.). To Southwick and Clark, August 26, 1762, G. G. Beekman, Letter Book. Shannon, Fred A., America's Economic Growth (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1951), p. 53Google Scholar.Adams, James T., Revolutionary New England, 1691-1776 (Boston: The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1923), pp. 262–63Google Scholar.Gipson, Lawrence H., fared Ingersoll: A Study of American Ijoyalism in Relation to British Colonial Government (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1920), p. 261Google Scholar.

¹⁰ Theoretically, it is possible for farm income to increase as a result of a poor crop, if over a given range of output demand is less than unity. In view of the complaints of farm distress and the widespread practice of subsistence agriculture, that such was the result for a substantial majority of farmers is highly improbable.

¹¹ Price movements at New York paralleled those of Philadelphia. However, last quarterly averages in 1763 were somewhat below those of 1759 and 1760, about equal to quarterly averages of 1758 but above fourth quarterly averages of 1756 and 1757. Boston price data are more meager than that of the other two ports. Prices of wheat, however, indicate a similar trend. Fourth quarterly averages of wheat, in shillings per bushel, were as follows: 1756-336; 1757-4-50; 1758-500: 1759-6.17; 1760-5.16; 1763-5.58.

¹² Brown, Abram E., John Hancock. His Book (Boston: Lee & Shepard, 1898), pp. 29-30, 35. 38Google Scholar.

¹³ To P. and J. Benson, January 28, 1764, , Watts, Letter Book., p. 222Google Scholar. Also see to Erving, September 26, 1763, to Franks, January 28, 1764, Ibid., pp. 187, 223.

¹⁴ To Maer, to Hilton, December 15, 1763. Also, see to Younghusband, November 20, 1763, John Van Cortlandt, Letter Book, 1762-69. MS. in N.Y.Pub.Lib.

¹⁵ To Scott, Pringle, Cheap and Company, , Watts, Letter Book., pp. 214 fGoogle Scholar.

¹⁶ To Scott, July 29, 1763. Riche finally loaded the ship with lumber. To Scott, August 3, 1763. Riche also informed his other correspondents in a similar vein. To Cornell, November 31, 1763, to Searle, December 29, 1763. As late as April 5, 1764, he wrote to Parr and Buckley, “… our wheat is high and not readily to be had.” Riche, Letter Book. MS. in H.S.P. The firm of James and Drinker of Philadelphia was looking toward Ireland for supplies of pork. To Parvin and James, November 30, 1763, to Clitherall, December 1, 1763, James and Drinker, Letter Book. MS. in H.S.P.

¹⁷ For details of the affair, see , Gage, Correspondence, II, 23, 237-43, 245-49, 251, 254, 279, 307-8, 310, 381Google Scholar. Note that Gage, although vigorously opposing the demands of the contractors when the issue was brought before the Secretary of War, admitted the' claims of the contractors that provisions were not readily obtainable.

¹⁸ C. Biddle to S. Galloway, June 13, 1764, Galloway, Correspondence. To D. Lux, May 23, 1764, to Lux and Potts, June 13, 1764, William Lux, Letter Book, 1763-69. MS. in N.-Y.H.S. To Maer, March 19, 1764, Van Cortlandt, Letter Book. To J. Riche, April 16, 1764, o t Cornell, August 18, 1764, Riche, Letter Book. Newport Mercury, October 22, 1764. Pennsylvania Gazette (hereafter referred to as Pa.Caz.), March 21, 1765.

¹⁹ , Harrington, New York. Merchant, pp. 316–17Google Scholar. Johnson, Emory R.et al., History of Foreign and Domestic Commerce of the United States (Washington, D.C: Carnegie Institute of Washington, 1915), I, 120 fGoogle Scholar.

²⁰ The land tax in rural districts of Massachusetts rose to about 20 per cent of income so that the tax was more than triple the normal rate. , Adams, Revolutionary New England, p. 251Google Scholar. Concerning postwar taxation in Rhode Island; Arnold, Samuel G. wrote, “Paper was fast disappearing by means of heavy taxation imposed for the purpose of its redemption. … Since the revolution there has been no taxation in this state, comparable in severity to. that which the colonists thus placed on themselves to preserve their credit.” History of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, 1636-1790 (New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1859-1860), II, 254Google Scholar. In Connecticut, over one half of the, £192,000 provincial debt was extinguished by taxation by 1764. Gipson, Lawrence H., “Connecticut Taxation and Parliamentary Aid Preceding the Revolutionary War,” American Historical Review, XXXVI (07 1931), 721–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar

²¹ , Arnold, History of Rhode Island, II, 251Google Scholar. Rhode Island Colonial Records, VI, 406. Zeichner, Oscar, Connecticut's Years of Controversy, 1750-1776 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1949), pp. 46 ffGoogle Scholar. , Gipson, fared Ingersoll, pp. 252–53Google Scholar. Unlike the agricultural disturbances that took place in New York in 1765-66, the riots that occurred in the agricultural counties in Connecticut were intimately bound up with anticreditor sentiment. Mark, Irving, Agrarian Conflicts in the Colony of New York., 1711-1776 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1940), p. 41. Newport Mercury, June 30, 1766Google Scholar.

²² “O.Z.” in Ibid., August 27, 1764. Fry, William H., New Hampshire as a Royal Province (New York: Columbia University, 1908), pp. 409–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar. , Gipson, “Connecticut Taxation,” pp. 735–38Google Scholar and fared Ingersoll, pp. 261-62. However, cf. , Zeichner, Connecticut's Years of Controversy, pp. 46 ff., 81 ffGoogle Scholar.

²³ The annual amount raised by taxation was £40,700. Chalmers Papers, New York, IV, 65. MS. in N.Y.Pub.Lib. Watts complained that taxes fell “near four shillings in the pound on houses in the city.” To Monckton, April 14, 1764, , Watts, Letter Book., p. 243. Taxes on rural real estate, however, were much lighter.Google Scholar, Harrington, New York Merchant, p. 39Google Scholar. Moreover, one half of all taxes due for 1765-67 was canceled by applying £59,250 of the Parliamentary grant to sink the colony's bills of credit. The Colonial Laws of New York from the Year 1664 to the Revolution (Albany, 1894), IV, 801–4Google Scholar.

²⁴ Votes and Proceedings of the House of Representatives of the Province of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1752-1776), V, 120Google Scholar. Lands of the western counties of Northampton, Berks, Lancaster, and York were rated far below what the assessed value should have been. Lincoln, Charles H., The Revolutionary Movement in Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Publications, 1901), p. 49Google Scholar. The apportionment of taxes made in 1760 was adhered to until the Revolution. Yet throughout the 1760s the value of farm produce in the western counties increased far more rapidly than elsewhere in the colony. See Fletcher, Stevenson W., Pennsylvania Agriculture and Country Life, 1640-1840 (Harrisburg: Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1950), pp. 124-26, 251Google Scholar.

²⁵ For grievances of the western sector, see , Lincoln, Revolutionary Movement in Pennsylvania, pp. 98–113Google Scholar.

²⁶ For grievances of the tenant farmers of New York, see , Mark, Agrarian Conflicts, pp. 131–63Google Scholar.

²⁷ Stockcr, Herman M., “Wholesale Prices at New York City, 1720 to 1800,” Wholesale Prices for 2/3 Years (Ithaca: Cornell University, Agricultural Experiment Station, Memoir 142, 1939), p. 203Google Scholar. , Cole, Wholesale Commodity Prices, pp. 13–16, esp. Chart 6Google Scholar.

²⁸ The movement in the price of corn differed from that of wheat in timing. The price of corn began to rise earlier, reached its peak in 1766, moved downward until 1768, and began to rise again in 1769 while the price of wheat was falling. The price movement of animal products, however, lagged behind that of wheat in timing of its swings.

²⁹ Because rum prices so closely paralleled those of molasses it was felt that to include rum in Chart 2 would have complicated the graph unnecessarily.

³⁰ , Bezansonet al., Prices in Colonial Pennsylvania, pp. 291–92Google Scholar.

³¹ Prices of pig and bar iron declined steadily in the 1760's. However, some types of lumber products rose between 1764 and 1770, but the price of pine boards declined. Although indexes of wages are not available for this period, it is doubtful if wages rose during the postwar decade. Cf. , Morris, Government and Labor, pp. 47, 142 n., 190-92, 196Google Scholar.

³² The relative importance of specific articles, of course, cannot be determined, since consumption statistics are not available. However, these are the commodities most frequently discussed in relation to farm expenditures, although there is less agreement on the extent of importance of each particular product or group of products. For example, cf. Fletcher, Stevenson W., “The Subsistence Farming Period in Pennsylvania Agriculture,” Pennsylvania History, XIV (07 1947), 186–87Google Scholar, Martin, Margaret E., Merchants and Trade of the Connecticut River Valley, 1750-1820 (Northampton: Department of History of Smith College, 1939), p. 5Google Scholar. Bidwell, Percy W. and Falconer, John I., History of Agriculture in the Northern United States, 1620-1860 (Washington, D.C.: The Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1925), pp. 127–30Google Scholar

³³ Ibid., p. 133.

³⁴ “Wheat 5/10 … and believe will rise to 6/ in a few days occasioned by a demand abroad,” wrote Van Cortlandt to Stevenson and Company as early as April 24, 1765. For similar comments, see to Adams, to Hilton, December 9, 1765, Letter Book. “Encouraged by your Favours of the 26th Jany St 16th Feby that our produce would be in great demand,” Daniel Roberdeau of Philadelphia wrote t o Fernandez and Company of Madeira, April 27, 1765, Letter Book, 1764-71. MS. in H.S.P. William Allen asked for thirty Mediterranean passes, explaining that Philadelphia merchants had large orders “to ship up the streights, where they are advised corn will be in demand.” To Barclay and Sons, October 14, 1765, Walker, L. B., ed., Extracts from Chief Justice William Allen's Letter Book. (Pottsville: Standard Publishing Co., 1897), pp. 67 fGoogle Scholar. For such advices from European grain importers, see Searle to S. Galloway and Steward, March 14, April 26, July 8, 1765, Galloway, Correspondence. Lamar, Hill and Bisset to T. Wharton, April 20, 1765, Wharton Papers. MS. in H.S.P. For other data in regard to the large European demand by 1765, see to Gurly and Stephens, June 28, 1764, Riche, Letter Book. To Sanders, June 27, 1764, to Welch and Company, April I, 1765, to Meredith, April 6, 1765, to Kells and Sons, April 11, 1765, Lux, Letter Book, and passim. G. Champlin to C. Champlin, November 12, 1765, Commerce of Rhode Island ( 7 Massachusetts Historical Society, Collections, IX-X), I, 132. “Extracts from the Letter Book of Benjamin Marshall,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, XX, 210Google Scholar.

³⁵ 6 Geo. III, c. 4, c. 5.

³⁶ Newport Mercury, December I, 1766. Pa.Gaz., December 25, 1766, May 4, October 1, 1767. William Lux of Baltimore, who acted as a wheat purchasing agent for British merchants, had much to say regarding British purchases of American grain at Baltimore and Philadelphia. Lux, Letter Book, passim, especially to Tucker, December 1, 1766, to Sanders, March 30, 1767, to Loyall, May 21, 1767. To A. Orr, March 18, 1768, Orr, Dunlope and Glenholme, Letter Book, 1767-69. MS. in H.S.P. To Habersham, November 14, 1766, to Turnbull, to Chalwell, November 25, 1766, Roberdeau, Letter Book. Also, see Hanna, Mary A., Trade of the Delaware District Before the Revolution (Northampton: Department of History of Smith College, 1917), pp. 264, 296-97, 318–19Google Scholar.

³⁷ Trade statistics of valuation of exports an d of exports of specific commodities for scattered years indicate a tendency similar to that indicated by tonnage statistics. In 1769 the official value of Philadelphia's exports to southern Europe amounted to £203,752 while that to the West Indies totaled £ 178,331. The same year, almost 4,000 tons of wheat and about fifteen and a half tons of bread and flour were exported to southern Europe. The proportion of the value of exports represented by these commodities is uncertain. According to Lord Sheffield's estimate for 1765, wheat, bread, and flour accounted for about 65 per cent of Philadelphia's aggregate value of exports. By 1771 exports to southern Europe fell to almost one ton of wheat and 8,832 tons of bread and flour, while 12,253 tons of bread and flour were exported t o the West Indies.

Trade statistics also indicate that as Philadelphia's exports to southern Europe became permanent, flour assumed greater importance in relation to wheat. From April 1765 to April 1766 Philadelphia's aggregate exports amounted to 367,522 bushels of wheat and 168,426 barrels of bread and flour. The West Indies usually imported a relatively small amount of wheat. By 1772 aggregate exports of Philadelphia showed only 92,012 bushels of wheat but 284,872 barrels of flour. Statistics are based on the following sources: Johnson, el al., History of Commerce, p. 92Google Scholar;Channing, Edward, A History of the United States (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1905-1927), III, 116–170Google Scholar;Lord (Halroyd, John Baker) Sheffield, Observations on the Commerce of the American States (London, 1784), Apps. IX, X, XIGoogle Scholar; Chalmers Papers, Philadelphia, II, 83.

³⁸ Samuel E. Morison has explained the decline of Boston's trade with southern Europe as the result of the British discriminatory duty on direct importation of wine. “The Commerce of Boston on the Eve of die Revolution,” American Antiquarian Society, Proceedings, N.S. XXXII, 36-38. However, Harold A. Innis presented convincing evidence that after 1763 New England was unable to compete successfully with the more advantageously located Newfoundland fishery in supplying the markets of Europe with codfish. The Cod Fisheries; the History of an International Economy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1940), pp. 187–201Google Scholar.

³⁹ See Pa.Gaz., March 21, 1765. Dickinson to Pitt, December, 1765, quoted in , Hanna, Trade of the Delaware District, pp. 307–9Google Scholar.Stokes, Isaac N. P., Iconography of Manhattan Island, 1498-1909 (New York: R. H. Dodd, 1915-1928), IV, 759Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ Pa.Gaz., January 9, 1766.

⁴¹ Ibid., December 25, 1766. New York. Gazette or Weekly Post-Boy (hereafter referred to as N.Y.Gaz.), December 18, 1766.

⁴² Pa.Gaz., November 13, 1766. Also quoted in South Carolina Gazette and Country Journal, 12 16, 1766Google Scholar.

⁴³ Article from New York, dated November 24, 1766, in Newport Mercury, December 1, 1766.

⁴⁴ Article from New York, dated November 17, 1766, in Ibid., November 24, 1766. “Tho Provisions rise here,” complained another writer, “yet it is said there is little Doubt but they [English ships] will get their Loads.” (Weyman's) N.Y.Gaz., February 16, 1767.

⁴⁵ “Never was a Country so embarrassed as this … the difficulty to live here is inconceivable, the markets as high as ever.” Maunsell to Gates, May 15, 1767, quoted in Stokes, Iconography, IV, 775. A Philadelphia!! depicted the difficulties of the poor as follows: “… the miseries of the poor are disregarded and yet some of the lower rank of the people undergo more real hardship in on e day, than those of a more exalted station suffer in their whole lives.” Pa.Gaz,, February 12, 1767. A “Tradesman” in New York asked, “Are our circumstances altered? Is money grown more plenty? Have our tradesmen full employment? Is grain cheaper?” New York. Journal, 12 17, 1767Google Scholar.

⁴⁶ To Scott, Jr., September 5, 1770, Benjamin Fuller, Letter Book. MS. in H.S.P.

⁴⁷ Stocker and Wharton to C Champlin, August 6, 1773, Commerce of Rhode Island, I, 448. “The Country growing rich from the exorbitant prices that the produce of all kinds have been for some years past,” wrote Fuller to Scott on December 26, 1772, Letter Book. For similar comments, see Commerce of Rhode Island, I, 171. To Tucker, to Loyal!, January 19, 1767, Lux, Letter Book.

⁴⁸ Gummere, Amelia M., ed., The Journal and Essays of John Woolman (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1922), p. 466Google Scholar.

⁴⁹ Massachusetts, Acts and Resolves,. IV, 527. All these attempts ended in failure. The primary purpose of the bounties seems to have been the desir e to develop native staples for exportation.

⁵⁰ During a period of rising prices, the incentive for “engrossing and forestalling” were rendered attractive. The measures aimed at preventing traders from buying up farmers' produce before it reached the public markets. Thus, by bringing farmers and consumers together under governmental supervision, and by eliminating the profits of middlemen, it was hoped that retail prices woul d tend to fall. N.Y.C., M.C.C., VI, 338 ff. The assize of butter, however, was kept below market price from 1763 to 1769. Farmers refused to bring butter into the market until the assize was repealed. Ibid., VII, 181.

⁵¹ Boston, Registry Department, “Boston Town Records,” Records Relating 10 the Early History of Boston (Boston, 1881-1909), XVI, 19 ffGoogle Scholar.

⁵² Ibid., XVI, 302.

⁵³ Pennsylvania, Votes and Proceedings, VI, 426-27.

⁵⁴ , Morris, Government and Labor, pp. 77-78, 148, 150–51Google Scholar. Johnson, E. A. J., “Some Evi dence of Mercantilism in Massachusetts-Bay,” New England Quarterly, I (07 1928), 395Google Scholar.