Farsighted men forecast the coming of good times in advance of the rest of the community, and prosper accordingly.

The majority of the people know that prosperity has come only when it is unmistakably present, and some are not aware of it until it has begun to go.

If that be true in our day, much more was it true in the eighteenth century, when means of communication were so poor that it took days for a message to go from Boston to New York and weeks for news to get from Boston to Charleston.

It was a period of adjustment, and as we look back after the event we can see that the American people were adapting themselves with remarkable skill to the new conditions.

But that was not so evident to the men who were feeling the pinch of hard times, and when all the attendant circumstances, some of which have been described, are taken into account, it is not surprising that commercial depression should be one of the strongest influences in, and the immediate occasion of, bringing men to the point of willingness to attempt some radical changes.
The fact needs to be reiterated that the people of the United States were largely dependent upon agriculture and other forms of extractive industry, and that markets for the disposal of their goods were an absolute necessity.