NEW YORK, one of the Middle Atlantic states of the U.S., bordered on the N by the Canadian provinces of Ontario and QuÉbec; on the E by Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut; on the SE by the Atlantic Ocean; on the S by New Jersey and Pennsylvania; and on the W by Pennsylvania and Ontario.
New York was the preeminent U.S. state in commerce and manufacturing from the early 19th century until the late 1960s, when it began to be surpassed by California; in the 1990s it continued to be a leading component of the U.S. economy and remained first in many branches of economic activity.
Although not noted as a fishing state, New York ranks among the top 15 states in the U.S. in terms of the value of the annual catch, which was estimated at $51 million in the late 1980s.
The great criterion of the state of the common people is the amount of their wages; and as four-fifths of the common people were, in the seventeenth century, employed in agriculture, it is especially important to ascertain what were then the wages of agricultural industry.
On the whole, therefore, it seems reasonable to conclude that, in the reign of Charles the Second, the ordinary wages of the peasant did not exceed four shillings a week; but that, in some parts of the kingdom, five shillings, six shillings, and, during the summer months, even seven shillings were paid.
It ought to be observed that Firmin was an eminent philanthropist.
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