20 
Indiana TJ niv ersity 
and the American habit of buying* them. It seems that a cer- 
tain contributor was trying in vain to stir up sentiment 
against buying English goods. For instance in the Boston 
Gazette appeared a notice like this : 
Sons of Liberty, to your country’s commerce. John Adams sells 
garden seeds imported from London.®^ 
Other notices called the Sons of Liberty to visit ships tak- 
ing money to England in return for goods. But it seems that 
these kinds of attempts had little effect. The advertisements 
continued to be almost entirely of “English goods” and “from 
London”. Of course this might indicate that English mer- 
chants were dumping goods into this country and that their 
agents were trying to win back their old trade by advertise- 
ments. But other evidences lead one to believe that the New 
Englanders were buying British goods. Advertisements made 
much of Irish linen and duck. Advertisements of French 
goods were about as numerous in Massachusetts as advertise- 
ments of Dutch goods. The French goods included such things 
as : “anchovies, olives, window-glasses, silk thread, silk hand- 
kerchiefs, silk cloth and modes”. By the end of 1785, the 
New England papers were making far less of “English goods”. 
The total export of Great Britain to the United States had 
fallen off in that year and there seems to have been a lag in 
the selling of British goods in America and these advertise- 
ments may reflect this.®® 
In the Philadelphia papers, Dutch goods were advertised in 
1783 and continued thruout to hold a considerable place. 
Perhaps one-half or one-third of all advertisements were of 
Dutch goods. In the Maryland Journal and Baltimore Adver- 
tiser, Dutch goods practically monopolized the advertising 
space by the end of this period. Many issues of this paper 
contained as many as three advertisements of goods specified 
as coming in certain ships direct from Holland, with not a 
single advertisement of English goods. 
Boston Gazette, March 8, 1784. 
Ihid., April 19, 1784. 
The value of the exports in pounds sterling- from England to the United States, 
1784-1789, was as follows: 
3,648,007 
1787 
2,014,111 
2,308,021 
1788 
1,603,465 
1789 
Macpherson, Annals of Commerce, IV, 40, 68, 99, 120, 137, 182, 198 ; Carey, Ameri- 
can Museum or Repository, IX, 125, 
