The Revolution had left Connecticut exhausted in men and in means. Her largest seaboard towns had suffered severely. With her commerce and coasting trade almost destroyed, she found herself, during the period preceding the adoption of the national Constitution and the establishment of the revenue system, a prey to New York's need on the one hand and to Massachusetts' sense of impoverishment on the other; and thus, for every article imported through either state, Connecticut paid an impost tax. It was estimated that she thus provided one third of the cost of government for each of her neighbors. Consequently she attempted to reinstate and to enlarge her early though limited commerce, and was soon sending cargoes, preëminently of the field and pasture, [c] to exchange for West India commodities, while with her larger vessels she developed an East Indian trade. As another means to wealth, the state, in 1791, passed laws for the encouragement of the small factories [d] that the necessity of the war had created; but it was not until after the act of 1833, creating the joint-stock companies, that Connecticut turned from a purely agricultural community to the great manufacturing state we know to-day. She shared in the national prosperity, which, as early as 1792, proved the wisdom of Hamilton's financial policy, and about 1795 her citizens wisely bent themselves to the improvement of internal communication. This was the era of the development of the turnpike and of the multiplicity of stage-lines. Kegular stages plied between the larger cities. Yet up to 1789 there was not a post-office or a mail route in Litchfield county, and the "Monitor" was started as a weekly paper to circulate the news. In 1790 Litchfield had a fortnightly carrier to New York and a weekly one to Hartford, while communication with the second capital [e] of the state was frequent. From 1800, there was a daily stage to Hartford, New Haven, Norwalk, Poughkeepsie, and Albany. [167] Wagons and carriages began to multiply and to replace saddle-bags and pillions, yet as late as 1815 Litchfield town had only "one phaeton, one coachee, and forty-six two-wheeled pleasure-wagons." [168]