%281. The Period of Commercial and Agricultural Prosperity.%--Just at this time came another change of great importance. Till 1793 we had scarcely any commerce with the West Indies. England would not allow our vessels to go to her islands. Neither would Spain, nor France, except to a very limited degree. It was the policy of these three countries to confine such trade as far as possible to their own merchants. But in 1793 France, you remember, made war on England and opened her West Indian ports to all neutral nations. The United States was a neutral, and our merchants at once began to trade with the islanders. What these people wanted was lumber, flour, grain, provisions, salt pork, and fish. All this led to a demand, first, for ships, then for sailors, and then for provisions and lumber--to the benefit of every part of the country except the South. New England was the lumber, fishing, shipbuilding, and commercial section. New York and Pennsylvania produced grain, flour, lumber, and carried on a great commerce as well. So profitable was it to raise wheat, that in many parts of Virginia the people stopped raising tobacco and began to make flour, and soon made Virginia the second flour-producing state in the Union. Until after 1795 the people of the Western States were cut off from this trade. But in that year the treaty with Spain was made, and the people of the West were then allowed to float their produce to New Orleans and there sell it or ship it to the West Indies. Kentucky then became a flour-producing state. As a consequence of all this, people stopped putting their money into roads and canals and manufactures, and put it into farming, shipbuilding, and commerce. Between 1793 and 1807, therefore, our country enjoyed a period of commercial and agricultural prosperity. But with 1807 came another change. In that year the embargo was laid, and for more than fifteen months no vessels were allowed to leave the ports of the United States for foreign countries. Up to this time our people had been so much engaged in commerce and agriculture, that they had not begun to manufacture. In 1807 all the blankets, all the woolen cloth, cotton cloth, carpets, hardware, china, glass, crockery, knives, tools, and a thousand other things used every day were made for us in Great Britain. Cotton grown in the United States was actually sent to England to be made into cloth, which was then carried back to the United States to be used. %282. "Infant Manufactures."%--As the embargo prevented our ships going abroad and foreign ships coming to us, these goods could no longer be imported. The people must either go without or make them at home. They decided, of course, to make them at home, and all patriotic citizens were called on to help, which they did in five ways.