The Colonies are greatly restricted in their export trade, yet they have their own vessels, but they are not allowed to export their products, especially those needed for ship building, such as masts, ship timber, iron, copper, hemp, flax, cotton, indigo, tobacco, tar, potash, skins and furs,--they must all be sent to England and sold there for export in British ships with British sailors, and where there are English Trading Companies, as in the East Indies, the Colonies cannot trade directly. In 1765 the trade with the Spanish and French West Indies was forbidden, but the results were so bad that this restriction was removed. The Colonies ship food stuffs to the Portuguese Sugar islands, meal, butter, meat, grain, wood and timber for house building etc., and bring back Molasses, from which Rum is made. Trade with the Spanish Americas is contraband, but the Colonists run the risk for the sake of the hard money it brings. Great Britain in 1766 established two free ports in the West Indies, one in Jamaica, the other in Dominica, the French have one in St. Domingo, the Dutch one in St. Eustache, the Danes one in St. Thomas,--the English want to prevent the contraband trade with Spain, but have made the restriction that foreigners can receive all goods free of duty, but must sell only for cash, and not in exchange for other goods. Colonial shipping is important through the trade with the Spanish and French West Indies, the English Sugar islands, and the fisheries. It deals with the regions south of Cape Finisterre, with Africa, the Canary and other islands, and in British ships with Portugal, Cadiz, Malaga, Marseilles, Leghorn and Naples, and it might deal with Turkey. It carries the surplus products of the fisheries, grain, flour, timber, sugar and rice. The trade with Portugal is restricted because all its wine must be brought by way of England, so only salt as ballast is brought back. Sugar is the only cargo which the Colonial shipping can carry and sell through Europe. England reserves the right to import and reship American products, yet it sells more than three million pounds and Ireland and Scotland two million pounds sterling of products in America. Hard money is rare in the Colonies, and is higher in price than in England. An English shilling is 18 pence colonial, as against 12 pence in sterling. A Guinea is 34 shillings, on account of its convenience for exchange for goods. Spanish pieces of eight, worth in England 4 shillings 8 pence, are worth in the Colonies 7 shillings 6 pence, and gold pistoles have fallen to 27 shillings, because they are so often filled with base metal. A credit on London costs 175 p. c., that is 1 English pound sterling 1-3/4 in Provincial currency, but the price rises and falls, par is 133-1/3, but it often goes up to 166-2/3 p. c. During the late war par was as low as 125, because England spent so much money and so much was brought over by English soldiers,--and it varies in different Colonies.