As the western farmers enlarged the volume of their sales to the southern planters they increased their purchases from eastern merchants. A large part of the foreign imports of the United States, which in 1816 reached the unprecedented amount of $155,000,000, was sold in the West. Attracted by the cheapness of the goods offered and full of confidence in their ability to meet all debts with the proceeds of the lucrative southern trade, the people indulged in extravagant overtrading. Purchases far exceeded sales and the specie coming from the South was drained away as fast as it was received, but dozens of banks furnished a supply of currency by means of copious issues of paper money, and the career of extravagance proceeded. The internal trade of the country had never been so prosperous. The era of good times came to a sudden end in 1819 when the nation was visited by a disastrous money panic. Nearly all the specie had been shipped abroad, and large sums of paper money had been issued, much of it on credit of a questionable nature. The general commercial expansion following the war had led to extensive speculation all over the country. When the new United States Bank suddenly began a vicious and relentless campaign against all other banks of issue in an ill-advised effort to force them immediately to a specie basis, loans were called in everywhere, the circulation was greatly contracted, prices fell, manufacturers and merchants were unable to meet their obligations, factories shut down, mercantile firms went into bankruptcy, banks closed their doors, and business everywhere was completely prostrated. To make matters worse, the export price of the great "money crop," cotton, fell from 32 cents in 1818 to 17-1/2 cents in 1820. The provision market of the western farmers was greatly injured and thus planter, farmer, merchant, manufacturer and banker all succumbed before the general catastrophe. The panic gave a sharp check to extravagance and speculation, importations declined, prices were readjusted and business soon began to recover. By 1823, the country seemed to have been restored to its former prosperous state and manufacturing in particular was more active than it had been at any time since the war.