Price : American Port Towns	145

channels oftrade. Thus, in the 1740*5. English exports to New Eng-
land declined while those to all the other colonies increased.

Table II

ENGLISH EXPORTS TO NORTH AMERICA, 1737-1749

To New England	To All Colonies
(in thousands of pounds sterling)

1737-1739	179 P-a.	583 P-a.

1740-1745	149	690

1740-1749	165	729

Though Boston's shipping activity resumed its growth in the gen-
eration 1755-1775, it was almost inevitable that Boston would
lose its place as the leading American port, if only because wheat
and flour passed fish as the leading export of the northern and mid-
dle colonies both generally and to southern Europe. In this, North
American production was reacting to the expansion of population
in Europe and the higher prices for cereals that characterized the
last third of the eighteenth century. Thus, by 1765-1772, Phila-
delphia, which had long since passed Boston in population, also
passed it marginally in shipping volume. The Philadelphia lead was
most pronounced in the trade to the West Indies and southern Eu-
rope, both of which took its flour, but Boston still led in the direct
trade with Britain, suggesting that there was still life left in its old
trade of reexporting goods from Britain to the other colonies.

Boston's problems were not confined to the rise of independent
general entrepots in New York and Fhiladelphia which could d^s-
jjense with its services as intermediary. Within Massachusetts, its
position in the simpler trades was also challenged by lelsTr
whiclTevciItnaily^eenied able to operate on a competitive scale at
lower costs. The old bases of the area's ocean-borne commerce,.
fishing and shipbuilding, had never been Boston's monopoly. From
the earliest days of settlement the lesser ports to the north and south
of Boston had participated in these activities, though Boston mar-
keted much of their fish and commissioned or bought much of the