[55] _Cal. State Papers, Am. and W. I._ (1675-1676), 408.
In October he wrote that there were about thirty merchants in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine estimated worth from £10,000 to £20,000. Local commodities consisted of naval stores, cattle and provisions, exported to Virginia, Maryland and the West Indies--(to the latter were also sent "houses ready framed"), to Spain, Portugal, the Straits and England. Tobacco, sugar, indigo, cotton, wool, ginger, logwood, fustic, cocoa and rum were imported and again exported. "They trade with most parts of Europe from which they import direct all kinds of merchandise, so that little is left for English merchants to import," wrote Randolph. "Some ships have been sent to Guinea, Madagascar, etc., and some to Scanderoon; there are built in the Colony, 730 ships varying from 6 to 250 tons, by thirty master shipbuilders." Duties were imposed on provisions and wines imported, and on ships, but there was no custom on exports, except on horses.[56]
[56] _Cal. State Papers, Am. and W. I._ (1675-1676), 466.
In April, 1675, William Harris wrote from Boston that "The merchants seem to be rich men, and their houses [are] as handsomely furnished as most in London. In exchange of fish, pipe-staves, wool and tobacco, they have from Spain, Portugal, and the islands, the commodities of those islands; their wool they carry to France and bring thence linen; to England they bring beaver, moose, and deer skins, sugar and logwood, and carry hence cloth and ironwares; to Barbadoes, in exchange for horses, beef, pork, butter, cheese, flour, peas, biscuit, they have sugar and indigo; when they trade with Jamaica; as they do sometimes, they bring home pieces of eight, plate, and pigs of silver.... As to cloth, there are made here Linsey woolseys, and other of cotton and wool, and some all sheep's wool, but the better sort of linen is brought from England; they have many woolcombers, and some make tammeys, but for their private use. Salt they get from Tortudas, not far from Barbadoes. It is sold at 10s. the hogshead, and is clear and white as alum, very sharp and much stronger than ordinary bay salt."[57]
Governor Simon Bradstreet wrote in 1680, in answer to an enquiry from the Lords of the Privy Council: "There may bee near twenty English merchants within our Government bred up to that calling, and neere as many others that do trade and merchandize more or less; but Foreign merchants of other Nations Wee have none ... there are two or three [merchants] in our Corporation that may bee worth sixteen or eighteen thousand pound a piece, some few others worth eight or ten Thousand pounds a piece, a third sort worth four or five thousand pounds a piece.... Hee is accounted a rich man in the Country that is worth one thousand or Fifteen hundred pounds. There are about one hundred or one hundred and twenty Ships, Sloopes, Katches and other Vessells that trade to and from hence yearly of our own or English built, most of them belonging to the Colony, wee have eight or ten ships of one hundred tons or upwards, three or four of two hundred tons or more, and about Forty or Fifty Fishing Katches of betwixt twenty and Forty tons; Six or eight English ships do usually come hither yearly belonging to the Kingdom of England, bringing commodities of all sorts from thence.