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The ships that carried the colonial trade were called Cargo ships. They went back and forth from America to England. They carried fish, lumber, grain, animal feed, and pelts from NH to England. When the ship was sent back to America it carried silk, china, furniture, mirrors and anything that the colonists couldn't make. Trade was to discard what wasn't needed and receive what was needed. The ships came from England with a cargo of manufactured goods, and sailed from Portsmouth in the early spring. Their arrival in Portsmouth Harbor bringing mail, passengers, fine manufactured goods and other supplies from Britain were events noted often in the diaries of the colonists.
By the time of the America Revolution, seven or eight ships a year were leaving Portsmouth with cargoes of dried fish for Spain and Portugal. Most ships operating in and out of the harbor, however, were generally not used for transatlantic trade. Most often they were loaded with lumber, fish, oil,and various types of livestock. Two or three times a year, a ship was also sent to the French or Dutch West Indies .
When a ship arrived at its destination, the cargo was sold and the ship's hold was refilled with sugar and other products of the southern climate. Usually these goods were brought directly back to Portsmouth. Occasionally though a ship would go onto England from the Caribbean, then return to NH from the mother country loaded with glass, china, furniture, books and other manufactured products that were difficult or impossible to make in New Hampshire.
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