COMMERCIAL GROWTH AND PROSPERITY OF RHODE ISLAND.
Rhode Island came well prepared to her new duties. She had worked
out in her own experience the most important problems of civil
organization, rendering "unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and
unto God the things that are God's." Her legislation was the reflection
of her culture, and her statute book the record of her progress in
the science of self-government. Her colonial life had been a constant
struggle with jealous neighbors who coveted her beautiful bay and
detested her "soul liberty." Out of this struggle she came stronger
and more resolute for the discipline it gave her, yet not without some
marks of the strife. She had learned to apprehend danger from afar off
and cultivate jealousy as a safeguard, and hence she sometimes as in
her refusal to grant the impost duty, was guided by a keen sense of
her rights as a sovereign state, rather than a deep conviction of her
obligations as member of a confederation. Hence also, she had hesitated
three years on the borders of union, and seen her sister states enter
it one by one before she could bring herself to make over to a central
government even those portions of authority which a central government
could administer so much more in her interest than she. But she was
wiser for the struggle, and full of resolution and hope entered boldly
upon her new career.
We have seen that Rhode Island began very early to seek her fortune
on the water. Ship building was one of the earliest forms which her
enterprise assumed. Already in March, 1790, the shipping of Providence
alone consisted of nine ships, thirty-six brigs, forty-five sloops and
twenty schooners, forming in all a tonnage of ten thousand five hundred
and ninety. To man this commercial fleet the same town had a population
of six thousand three hundred and eighty to draw from. Newport, though
no longer holding the same position which she held before the war, was
still an active seaport. The population of the whole State had risen to
sixty-eight thousand eight hundred and twenty-five.
The most active commerce had been that of the West Indies. But with
peace a wider field was opened, and ships sent directly to the East
Indies. Raw material of various kinds was sent to Europe, and European
manufactures brought back in return. It was soon evident that the new
State would profit England more by equal commerce than by dependence.
Yet it was not all at once that the financial errors of the Revolution
could be repaired, or the bitterness engendered by civil war assuaged.
A deep rooted hostility to England had taken hold of many minds, to
bear its fruits when republican France claimed sympathy as a sister
republic.
We have already registered the birth of manufactures. Circumstances
favored their growth and prepared the way for a development which has
made the smallest one of the richest states of the Union. A great
river runs through it, widening at its mouth into a spacious bay. Deep
ponds of pure water dot its surface, and limpid streamlets which swell
with every rain send from every upland their tributes to the bay. How
should these waters be subjected to the will of man? Samuel Slater, a
native of Derbyshire, had served an apprenticeship to Jedediah Strutt,
the partner of Arkwright, and learned the secret of the new method of
spinning cotton. Heavy penalties were affixed to the exportation of
the new machinery. But Slater had made himself master of the theory as
well as the practice of the art, and seems to have been casting about
him for a way of turning his knowledge to account, when he learned that
the State of Pennsylvania had offered a bounty for the introduction
of it. Thus American manufactures owe their birth to protection. The
story was a simple one. Slater came to America bringing the secret with
him. In Moses Brown, of Providence, he found a judicious counselor, in
William Almy and Smith Brown enterprising capitalists. On the 21st of
December, 1790, and on the Pawtucket River, the first factory went into
operation. On that day and by the hand of Samuel Slater, the destiny of
Rhode Island was decided.
In these days of mingled hope and fear, on the 19th of July, 1785,
closed the long and useful career of Stephen Hopkins, whose name is
closely interwoven with all that is greatest and best in Rhode Island
history; an astronomer of no mean pretensions, a statesman of broad
views and deep penetration, a supreme executive, prompt, energetic
and fearless, a genial companion when wise men relax from care, and
a trusty counselor when the duties of life bear heaviest on the
scrupulous conscience.
The tranquil growth of manufactures affords few materials for general
history, in which it appears by its results rather than by its
processes. Statistics take the place of narrative, and except in
controlling and inventive minds the story of man himself is the story
of a machine.
Meanwhile another seed was sown in this fruitful ground, and another
name was associated with a great public benefaction, the name of John
Howland, a native of Newport, but from his ninth year a resident of
Providence and a barber by trade, became, in 1799, the father of the
free school system of Rhode Island. Not all at once was this good work
done, but slowly and in spite of much opposition, chiefly from the poor
who were to profit most by it. Years were yet to pass before the pride
as well as the consciences of the people became enlisted in its behalf.
In the commercial history of the State the foundation of the Providence
Bank, in 1791, was an event of great importance, to be followed at
intervals by others with various degrees of success. But among them all
not one bore so directly upon the moral growth of the community as the
Providence Institution for Savings, founded in 1819.
Great hopes were founded on a canal connecting the tide-water of
Providence River with the north line of the State. A company for this
purpose was formed in 1796, and so great was the confidence which
the undertaking inspired, that John Brown, a leading merchant of
Providence, subscribed forty thousand dollars to the stock. The project
failed, and though enthusiastically renewed in 1823, failed again and
forever.
The yellow fever belongs to our record, and Rhode Island came in for
a full share of the destruction occasioned by the September gale of
1815. Most towns hand down from generation to generation the story of
some great fire which swept over it in its young days, leaving ruin and
desolation in its path. The "great fire" of Providence was the fire
of 1801, the memory of which still lives in the traditions of our own
generation.
Pleasant memories also belong to our record. When Washington made
his first visit to the East as President, Rhode Island had not yet
entered the Union. When she did he made a second visit to the East in
recognition of her accession, and was enthusiastically welcomed. He had
already been there under very different circumstances during the war.
We have spoken of John Howland as a public benefactor. Another of
these benefactors of their race was Ebenezer Knight Dexter, founder
of the Dexter Asylum, who having amassed a large fortune in honorable
commerce, gave sixty thousand dollars of it to the support of the poor.
A still more important movement was made in the interest of the poor,
when the first temperance meeting was held in Providence in 1827.
We saw how a charter had been granted to Newport and taken from her. In
1829 an attempt was made to obtain a charter for Providence and failed.
Two years later a serious riot occurred in which some property was
destroyed and some lives were lost. It became evident to the friends
of good order that a more efficient government was required to hold in
check a population of sixteen thousand eight hundred and thirty-two
souls; for to that number had Providence risen in 1830. A charter was
applied for and easily obtained, and on the 22d of November, 1832, the
Town of Providence became a city. Samuel W. Bridgham was the first
Mayor.
Though never the seat of war during the war of 1812, the name of
Rhode Island is closely connected with it, through Oliver H. Perry,
one of the greatest of naval commanders. She bore her part also in the
sufferings occasioned by the embargo, and the other rash measures of
a government which rushed headlong and wholly unprepared into a war
with the most powerful nation on earth. Fully sharing also in the just
discontent of the Eastern States, she sent four delegates to the much
maligned Hartford Convention.