The condition of Massachusetts and Maine was a picture of New England. Democratic Rhode Island suffered equally with Federalist Connecticut. Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont showed growth, but the chief possibility of replacing lost strength lay in immigration. During the European wars, no considerable number of immigrants were able to reach the United States; but immediately after the return of peace, emigration from Europe to America began on a scale as alarming to European governments as the movement to western New York and Ohio was alarming to the seaboard States of the Union. During the year 1817 twenty-two thousand immigrants were reported as entering the United States.[156] Twelve or fourteen thousand were probably Irish; four thousand were German. More than two thousand arrived in Boston, while about seven thousand landed in New York and the same number in Philadelphia. The greater part probably remained near where they landed, and in some degree supplied the loss of natives who went west. The rapid growth of the northern cities of the sea-coast began again only with the flood of immigration. Although the three southern States of New England were the severest sufferers, the Virginia group--comprising Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina--escaped little better. In twenty years their white population increased nineteen and five tenths per cent, while that of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island increased eighteen per cent. The wealth of Southern States consisted largely in slaves; and the negro population of the Virginia group increased about twenty-five per cent in numbers during the sixteen years from 1800 to 1816. The exports of domestic produce increased about forty per cent in value, comparing the average of 1801–1805 with that of 1815–1816. The net revenue collected in Virginia increased nearly seventy per cent, comparing the year 1815 with the average of the five years 1800–1804; while that collected in North Carolina more than doubled.