Supplying the Troops

The French and Indian War in America, which becomes part of the much bigger war in Europe, results in massive increases in British military spending. The budget for Britain's Royal Navy, its most effective asset, doubles.

This is great for business in the American colonies, which provide supplies for the British war effort. New England exports more than triple during the war years, and Boston merchants take on new debt to expand their business.

This all comes to a screeching halt when the war ends, and war demand dries up. Colonists are left with debts they can't manage. Worse yet, Britain now wants the colonies to help pay back some of its massive new war debt.
War boom and bust, 1760s

  War Spending
The British need material of all sorts to supply large-scale operations, like the assault on Quebec (lower right). Britain's Royal Navy (top right) is a hungry beast that needs constant feeding, and New Englanders are happy to oblige. But when the war ends, the feeding frenzy suddenly stops. The British are nearly bankrupt, and searching for ways to pay back their huge war debt.

Smuggling and triangular slave trade, 1760

  Cutting out the British
To help repay debt, Britain tries to force all colonial shipments to sail directly to or from Britain, where the British can take a cut (RED arrows). New Englanders can't survive under such restrictions, however, and develop smuggling routes (BLUE arrows). They ship rum to Africa on vessels that then transport slaves to the Sugar Islands. The ships return to New England with the molasses that will be turned into rum. This completes a triangular circuit, which benefits everyone except the British, and the slaves.


Colonial shipping deficit, 1760s

  Sliding into Deficit
For years, shipping activity at America's many small ports has been increasing steadily, with the value of goods being shipped back and forth to Britain remaining fairly equal. Shipbuilding has also grown briskly. By 1770, however, colonial products are barely covering half the cost of imported British goods. Tobacco is still making a slim profit, but northerners continue to suffer from the sharp drop in British demand for wheat and naval supplies that follows the end of hostilities with France.