Moreover, it had been found to have a special value as currency on the west coast of Africa.

The negro savages manifested a more than civilized taste for it, and were ready to sell their enemies or their friends, their sons, fathers, wives, or daughters into slavery in exchange for the fiery fluid.

So all New England set to turning the good molasses into fiery rum, and while the slave trade throve abroad the rum trade prospered at home.
Of course the rapid advance of the colonies in shipbuilding and in maritime trade was not regarded in England with unqualified pride.

The theory of that day--and one not yet wholly abandoned--was that a colony was a mine, to be worked for the sole benefit of the mother country.

It was to buy its goods in no other market.