As compared to the other English colonies in North America, however, New England colonies were not keeping pace either in the matter of supplying the mother country with the desired staples or in offering an outlet for population. The so-called Great Puritan Exodus of the years I629-164o has been shown by recent historians to have been directed more to the West Indies than to New England. The strength of New England relative to other sections of the continental colonies fell from 52% in 165o to 25% in 179o. The beginning of this relative decline was already manifest in 1700. During the Restoration period the Puritan emigration, dormant during the Civil War, revived slightly but was never again the chief source of immigration to America. Of the great streams of migration of the next century, the Scotch Irish and the Palatinate Germans, New England got but a small share as compared to the Middle or even the Southern colonies. The New England colonies had been singularly free during their early years from interference by the natives on account of a severe plague which had swept away approximately half of the population just before the arrival of the first settlers. In addition to this the authorities had been fortunate in maintaining friendly relations while extinguishing Indian titles to lands allotted to new townships. The war with the Pequots (1637) was the exception.
The French and the Indian wars ultimately benefitted New England by the entire removal of the menace to expansion toward the Canadian border, hut they were even more important as an effective, though costly training of the colonists in self-government in war time. The colonial legislatureS were obliged to raise and equip troops and supply ships and sailors to convey them on expeditions. Of these the most noteworthy were those against Quebec and Louisburg. The obvious advantage here of joint action brought home again the need of some form of political co-operation such as had been tried in the New England Con federation (1643). New Englanders were, therefore, interested in Franklin's so-called "Albany Plan" of union in New England played her chief part in the Revolution during the years 1765-77 in defining the issues and in precipitating actual hostilities. ThoUgh these centred in Boston, sentiment for and against rebellion and independence was fairly evenly dis tributed throughout New England, the line of cleavage being one of class and occupation rather than of locality. After the British evacuated Boston on March 17, 1776, New England saw little of active hostilities, except for the part played by her militia in checking Burgoyne's advance at Bennington, Vt., and in the struggles over the possession of Newport, R.I. Her irreconcilable temper convinced the British that attempts at conciliation or sub jugation had greater chance of success elsewhere.
The period of disorganization which followed the cessation of hostilities brought great suffering to many communities and cer tain classes in New England. The utter disruption of the old courses of commerce within the British Empire no longer sup plemented by privateering and war-time trade with other coun tries caused a lack of specie. Every State fell a prey to a greater or less degree to the paper money craze. Rhode Island, in par ticular, suffered so heavily that civil war threatened. The refusal
of the Massachusetts legislature to relieve the pi essure of debts and taxes by stay laws and further issues of paper money, led to a rebellion under the leadership of Daniel Shays. Although the mercantile classes were convinced of the necessity of forming a stronger central government capable of securing favorable com mercial treaties with foreign countries, and although New England leaders played prominent parts in the Federal Convention, the actual ratification of the new constitution proved a difficult matter in Massachusetts and in New Hampshire and was rejected in Rhode Island until 179o.
For nearly a decade after the inauguration of the new govern ment under Washington the superior organization of the dominant commercial interests committed New England as a whole to the Federalist party, but Jefferson gradually organized the latent anti Federalist and Democratic elements until in the election of 1800 he was able to carry several representative districts.
The basis of New England's prosperity in the Federalist period seems to lie in the application of Yankee energy and resourceful ness to the exploitation of the peculiar advantages of New England in foreign trade. Her ships, restricted in their enterprises in the older fields under control of the British Crown, turned to the Mediterranean, Pacific and Indian oceans. In 1786 Samuel Shaw established in Canton the first American mercantile house in China. In 1787 the "Grand Turk" brought to Salem the first of the many oriental cargoes which made that port famous. In 1792 Capt. Gray's "Columbia" carried the Stars and Stripes around the world for the first time and laid the foundations not only for the American claim to Oregon but also the very profitable trade with the north-west coast where furs were obtained which could be exchanged in China for silks and tea. Salem became for a time the tea market of America and Europe and the third city in the Union. The heyday of New England's mercantile success, was shared to a considerable extent by all classes. There was speculation in timber-lands and a rapid shift of population into the frontier States—Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, west ern New York and Ohio. The Napoleonic wars shattered this prosperity. Although equipped to compensate the loss inflicted on her commerce by English and French war time restriction through the enormous profits made in privateering and in block ade running, the New England shipper could not survive the devastating effect of the Republican embargo policy. The war of 1812 was regarded in New England as Mr. Madison's war, forced upon him by the Warhawks of the West and was viewed as another and convincing demonstration that the annexation of Louisiana and the development of the Western States was ruinous to the interests of the old commercial States of the north-east and justified that group in seceding from a Union in which they would clearly form a hopeless minority. Convinced of the injustice done to their section, New Englanders disregarded the embargoes, car ried on illicit trade with the English in Canada and West Indian ports, discouraged recruiting and subscriptions to war loans and refused to celebrate victories gained by the French over the common enemy, the British.