140	Perspectives in American History

could be purchased and almost anything disposed of. (4) Some had
only limited and indirect communication with the outside world,
while others functioned as communications centers, with relatively
easy communications to all the areas with which they traded. (It
was no small boon to New York to be made the Americ^terminus"
of the official mail packet boats trom fcneriand.) (5) Finally, sortie
gave little evidence ot capital accumulation or sophisticated credit
"and otherJinanQal^taciiities, while others were more fully devel^~
~oped(financial ceKtersy relatively speaking;) where capital could be
raised for a wide variety and substantial scale of shipbuilding and
trading ventures, where credit ronlrl he oki-ajpfd for venturej
overseas, where bills ot exchange on a wide variety of places could
hphnuht and S6ld. aTld Whfre imiirir"'<' '•"vM V1" "H"""^ —— ——

The degrees of functional development or underdevelopment in
a port are not to be understood merely as givens, but were deriva-
tives or redactions of the diuiaaer of the trade oi the port and-gf
the institutional arrangements produced by the marketing require^.
ments "f f^egoods traded. ~

That(Bosto£S3Eiiihe principal town and port of British North
America unTp"ca. 1755 j^ an historical fact but hardly a self-evident
.proposition. 'piFrapiral of the province of Massachusetts Bay had
some but not many natural advantages. Geography had endowed
it with an excellent, deep, sheltered harbor with moderate tidal
range. This excellent haven was not, however, particularly well
situated to serve any obvious trade routes, lacking as it did any
significant riverine connection with the interior of the continent.
The immediate hinterland of Boston, its natural trading domain —
the country for about forty miles around — was a land of forest and
tidal marshes. There was some natural meadow and open land
/ usable for unimproved pasture; hence grazing was an early profit-
/ able activity: horses and cattle, salted beef, pork, butter, and cheese
j were early exports. However, the soil of the region, as of almost all
of eastern New England, was mediocre. This inadequate soil made
the Boston region, as indeed all of New England except Connecti-
cut, a net importer of cereals, reportedly even in the seventeenth
century, but definitely and consistently in the eighteenth. By 1768-