The British blockade of our coast during the war of 1812 had a marked effect upon the development of inland routes of transportation, as may be seen from the following: "The interruption of the coasting trade was indeed a very serious affair. For years past that trade had given occupation to thousands of coasters and tens of thousands of sailors. The shoes made at Lynn, the Yankee notions of Connecticut, the cotton cards, the domestic cottons, the playing cards produced in New England, the flour of the Middle States, the East India goods brought in from abroad had found a ready market at Charleston, Savannah and Augusta, whence great quantities of rice and cotton were brought North. On the arrival of the British fleet this trade, no longer to be carried on in safety by water, began of necessity to be carried on by land. At first some merchants at Boston, having chartered a few wagons, despatched them with loads to Philadelphia, and even to Baltimore. This was enough. The hint was taken. A new industry sprang up, and by early summer the roads leading southward exhibited one continuous stream of huge canvas-covered wagons tugged along by double or triple teams of horses or of oxen. No distance was then too great, and hundreds of them would make their way from Salem and Boston to Augusta and Savannah. An estimate made towards the close of the year (1814) places the number of wagons thus employed at four thousand, and the number of cattle, horses and oxen at twenty thousand; nor does this seem excessive, for a traveler who drove from New York to Richmond declares that he passed two hundred and sixty wagons on the way." THE CAPITALIZATION OF TURNPIKES.