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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Tour Through Eastern Counties of England by Daniel Defoe: from whence they bring back deals and fir timber, oaken plank,
balks, spars, oars, pitch, tar, hemp, flax, spruce canvas, and
sail-cloth, with all manner of naval stores, which they generally
have a consumption for in their own port, where they build a very
great number of ships every year, besides refitting and repairing
the old.
Add to this the coal trade between Newcastle and the river of
Thames, in which they are so improved of late years that they have
now a greater share of it than any other town in England, and have
quite worked the Ipswich men out of it who had formerly the chief
share of the colliery in their hands.
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