Horse RaAIsInG IN CoLoNIAL New ENGLAND 927 
carried as many as thirty-five in a single cargo. The Hnterprise, bound 
for Demerara, carried provisions, brick, lumber, twenty horses, seventeen 
neat cattle, and seventeen mules, besides swine, geese, and turkeys (171). 
The general extent of these shipments is shown in a marine list kept by 
Thomas Alden in the New London Gazette. According to this record 
there was sent out from New London during the year 1785 a total of 8094 
horses and cattle; and in the years following, the numbers were, suc- 
eessively, 6671, 6366, and 6678—the record ceasing with the year 
1788 (172). 
This revival of horse exporting apparently was not especially sue- 
cessful and did not continue long,'’ for the New London vessel owners 
were soon casting about for some better occupation for their ships. On 
the return of two of these ships from an expedition to the Gulf of St. 
Lawrence with profitable cargoes of whale oil, the New London Gazette 
exhorts, in rather mixed metaphor, ‘‘-Now my horse jockeys, beat your 
horses and cattle into spears, lances, harpoons and whaling gear, and 
let us strike out ’’° (173). 
The reopening of the British West Indies ports to New England 
vessels in 1789 (174) apparently failed to halt the decline that had 
begun in the New England horse trade, if one is to judge by the infre- 
queney with which this trade is now mentioned. It is probable that 
in the general interruption of the trade during the Revolution, the 
sugar islands, thrown on their own resources, had learned to furnish 
their own supply (175). As already indicated, the larger islands of 
Jamaica and Haiti were plentifully supplied with pasturage and wild 
horses, by means of which this could be accomplished. Nor was Cuba 
aS promising a market as might have been expected, for it possessed 
similar advantages. In addition, the substitution of water power for 
the mills probably continued to take place in all the islands where it 
was possible. Lastly, there are indications that the pasturage avail- 
able in New England itself was not so ample as formerly and was being 
"47 An indication of the general decline in the exportation of horses which occurred 
after the Revolution is found in the following table reproduced from Pitkin (A Statistical 
View of the Commerce of the United States of America, p. 62-63). These figures include 
shipments from other ports besides those in New Wngland. 
{ 
Year 1791 1792 1793 1794. 1795 1796 1797 1798 
Number of horses exported 
from the United States. .} 6,975 5,656 3,728 | 3,495 2,626 4,483 batty Af / 2,132 
