On the people of New England other motives more directly selfish began to have effect. The chief sources of their wealth were shipping and manufactures. The embargo destroyed the value of the shipping after it had been diminished by the belligerent edicts; the repeal of the embargo restored the value. The Federalist newspapers tried to prove that this was not the case, and that the Non-intercourse Act, which prohibited commerce with England, France, or their dependencies, was as ruinous as embargo itself; but the shipping soon showed that Gottenburg, Riga, Lisbon, and the Spanish ports in America were markets almost as convenient as London or Havre for the sale of American produce. The Yankee ship-owner received freights to Europe by circuitous routes, on the accumulations of two years in grain, cotton, tobacco, and timber, of the whole United States, besides the freights of an extended coast-trade. Massachusetts owned more than a third of the American registered tonnage, and the returns for 1809 and 1810 proved that her profits were great. The registered tonnage of Massachusetts employed in foreign trade was 213,000 tons in 1800, and rose to 310,000 tons in 1807 before the embargo; in 1809 it rose again to 324,000; in 1810 it made another leap to 352,000 tons. The coasting trade employed in 1807 about 90,000 tons of Massachusetts shipping which was much increased by the embargo, and again reduced by its repeal; but in 1809 and 1810 this enrolled shipping still stood far above the prosperous level of 1807, and averaged 110,000 tons for the two years.[11] Such rapid and general improvement in shipping proved that New England had better employment than political factiousness to occupy the thoughts of her citizens; but large as the profits on freights might be, they hardly equalled the profits on manufactures. In truth, the manufactories of New England were created by the embargo, which obliged the whole nation to consume their products or to go without. The first American cotton mills, begun as early as 1787, met with so little success that when the embargo was imposed in 1807, only fifteen mills with about eight thousand spindles were in operation, producing some three hundred thousand pounds of yarn a year. These eight thousand spindles, representing a capital of half a million dollars, were chiefly in or near Rhode Island.