capital--whatever the cause may have been--within a comparatively
few years a large part of American trade was in British hands as
it had been before the Revolution. American trade with Europe was
carried on through English merchants very much as the Navigation
Acts had prescribed.

* C. R. Fish, "American Diplomacy," pp. 56-57.


From the very first settlement of the American continent the
colonists had exhibited one of the earliest and most lasting
characteristics of the American people adaptability. The
Americans now proceeded to manifest that trait anew, not only by
adjusting themselves to renewed commercial dependence upon Great
Britain, but by seeking new avenues of trade. A striking
illustration of this is to be found in the development of trade
with the Far East. Captain Cook's voyage around the world (1768-
1771), an account of which was first published in London in 1773,
attracted a great deal of attention in America; an edition of the
New Voyage was issued in New York in 1774. No sooner was the
Revolution over than there began that romantic trade with China
and the northwest coast of America, which made the fortunes of
some families of Salem and Boston and Philadelphia. This commerce
added to the prosperity of the country, but above all it
stimulated the imagination of Americans. In the same way another
outlet was found in trade with Russia by way of the Baltic.

The foreign trade of the United States after the Revolution thus
passed through certain well-marked phases. First there was a
short period of prosperity, owing to an unusual demand for