That New York possessed one of the best harbors in the world—deep, directly accessible to the open sea, and rarely blocked by ice, even in the depths of winter—was an old story. But those assets counted for relatively little until the final decade of the eighteenth century, when merchants began to employ big, deep-draft vessels—brigs, barks, and ships—that could make Philadelphia, one hundred miles from the mouth of Delaware Bay, only on a flood tide.
