Price : American Port Towns

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|ish and shipbuilding Boston had by the end of the seventeenth
century an extensive and elaborate general entrepot position touch-
ing all the colonies. In the eighteenth century, it lost the cod fishery
and most of the fish export trade to lesser rivals within Massa-
chusetts, and its relative position in shipbuilding declinedT leaving
independent on its rather artificial entrepot trades. Except for
difficult years 1740-1755 these trades continuedjQ^fe^rdSwn to
though drrlininr mnTtTfrrriTTipnrnnrr as other
ports, particularly New York and Philadelphia, through increased
exports to the West Indies and southern Europe were increasingly
able to finance their own imports from Britain without going
through the Boston entrepot. Boston's greatest weakness through-
out remained the limitation of its immediate hinterland and the
closeness of rival ports, which probably explains why its service
sector and (except for shipbuilding and distilling) its manufactur-
ing sectors were relatively less important than those of Philadelphia.
Newport's economy was a reduced and somewhat bizarre ver-
sion of that of Boston, treated on the original island of Rhode
Island, it too was endoweoNwith an excellent harbor but only the
most rninimal natural hinterland in southern New England. It
could, however, draw on the agricultural surpluses of the Connect-
icut River valley, but had to comcete for them with New York
and eventually with the petty Connecticut river and shore towns
that also ventured into the West India\trade. It did, however, have
certain political advantages. In the seventeenth century, extreme
religious toleration drew to it various Protestant sectarians who did
not find easy toleration in the tight CalvSnist-Congregationalist
world of Massachusetts or Connecticut. Quakers and Jews were
quite conspicuous there in the eighteenth centnry. By then, how-
ever, its most important political advantage wasats virtually self-
governing status. Alone of the colonies, Connecoicut and Rhode
Island chose their own governors and thus were effectively free of
close imperial inspection. In practical terms this meant that it was
easier to disregard imperial tax (customs) and trade regulations in
Newport than in any other major commercial center. This perhaps