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[Footnote: McMaster, Webster, 90.]
Were it not that New England was passing through a series of
revolutionary economic changes, not fully appreciated at that time,
doubtless the percentage of her growth would have been even more
unfavorable. As it was, the rise of new manufactures helped to save
her from becoming an entirely stationary section. In the course of
the preceding two decades, New England's shipping industry had
reached an extraordinary height, by reason of her control of the
neutral trade during the European wars. The close of that period saw
an apparent decline in her relative maritime power in the Union, but
the shipping and commercial interests were still strong. New England
possessed half the vessels owned in the United States and over half
the seamen. Massachusetts alone had a quarter of the ships of the
nation and over a third of the sailors. [Footnote: Pitkin,
Statistical View (ed. of 1835), 350.] Of the exports of the United
States in 1820, the statistics gave to New England about twenty per
cent.


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