However, it seems very unlikely that the domestic trade was of much consequence before 1815. Whatever impetus it may have received on account of the demand for slaves just prior to the South Carolina trade, must have been checked by the consequent heavy importation from abroad. For, on account of this, slaves fell in price, as it is said adults, at this time, generally sold in the Southwest at one hundred dollars each.[108] If the domestic slave trade had assumed any importance, or even if it had been going on at all before 1815, it seems more than likely that it would have been remarked by travellers, many of whom, both English and American, visited the Southwest and other sections of the country during the period in question. But so far as we can find, none of them make any mention of it whatever.[109] The newspapers of the time, also, are silent in regard to the matter. Doubtless the rise and development of the trade was hindered or delayed by the War of 1812,[110] but almost immediately after the close of the war, it comes into notice and even prominence. In 1816 Paulding in his "Letters from the South" writes of it from personal observation, and also tells of a man who had even thus early made money in the business.[111] At this time, indeed, conditions were very favorable to a growth of the domestic trade. The general prosperity and the high price of agricultural products, especially cotton and sugar,[112] caused a great demand for slave labor for the new and fertile lands of the South and Southwest. In 1817 and 1818 the buying up of negroes for these markets was fast becoming a regular business, and it was a very common thing to see gangs of them chained and marching toward the South.[113] They were collected from various places by dealers and shipped down the Mississippi River in flat-boats. Fourteen of these loaded with slaves for sale were seen at Natchez at once about this time.[114] The statement was made that 8,000 slaves were carried into Georgia in 1817 from the Northern slave holding States.[115] It would seem probable that the greater part of these may have been introduced by immigrants. However, the slave trade must have been great, for on December 20, 1817, the Georgia legislature passed a law to prohibit at once the importation of slaves for sale.[116]