1775 - Commerce

Commerce

American imports from Britain decline by 95 percent as a result of efforts by the Association formed last year. English businessmen feel the loss of trade, support the colonists, and ask Parliament to repeal the so-called Intolerable Acts, but while Edmund Burke makes a speech on conciliation with America, Lord North tells the House of Commons that Britons are paying 50 times more tax per capita than are the American colonists.

British banks organize their first clearing house in London's Lombard Street (see 1708; New York, 1853).

Philadelphia merchants form the United Company of Philadelphia for Promoting American Manufactures. The colonies have more iron furnaces and forges than England and Wales combined.