] 18 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



by a vote of 261 to 85, and passed through its various stages. As each phase was reached the 

 act was fought determinedly but uselessly and hopelessly. The merchants and traders of London 

 petitioned against it, and the American merchants secured the services of David Barclay to con- 

 duct the examination of those who were called to testify by the friends and opponents of the bill.* 

 'It was said that the cruelty of the bill exceeded the examples of hostile rigor with avowed 

 enemies ; that in all the violence of our most dangerous wars it was an established rule in the 

 marine service to spare the coast-fishing craft of our declared enemies ; always considering that 

 we waged war with nations, and not with private individuals.'! 



" It was claimed that by the provisions of the bill much hardship must fall upon many people 

 who were already at sea, and who, from the very nature of their occupations, must be innocent. 

 ' The case of the inhabitants of Nantucket was particularly hard. This extraordinary people, 

 amounting to between five and six thousand in number, nine-tenths of whom are Quakers, inhabit 

 a barren island, 15 miles long by 3 broad, the products of which were scarcely capable of 

 maintaining twenty families. From the only harbor which this sterile island contains, with- 

 out natural products of any sort, the inhabitants, by an astonishing industry, keep an 140 vessels 

 in constant employment. Of these, eight were employed in the importation of provisions for the 

 island and the rest in the whale fishery.' A petition was also presented from the English Quakers 

 in behalf of their brethren at Nantucket, in which they stated the innocence of the inhabitants 

 of that island, ' their industry, the utility of their labors both to themselves and the community, 

 the great hazards that attended their occupation, and the uncertainty of their gains ; and showed 

 that if the bill passed into a law, they must in a little time be exposed to all the dreadful miseries 

 of famine. The singular state and circumstances of these people, occasioned some attention to be 

 paid to them. A gentleman on the side of the administration said, that on a principle of humanity 

 he would move that a clause should be added to the bill to prevent the operation from extending 

 to any whale ships which sailed before the 1st of March, and were at that time the property of 

 the people of Nantucket.' f 



" ' The bill,' says a reviewer of the time, ' was attacked on every ground of policy and govern- 

 ment ; and with the greatest strength of language and height of coloring. The minority made 

 amends for the smallness of their numbers by their zeal and activity. * * * Evil principles,' 

 they contended, ' were prolific; the Boston port bill begot this New England bill 5 this will beget 

 a Virginia bill; and that again will become the progenitor of others, until, one by one, Parliament 

 has ruined all its colonies, and rooted up all its commerce ; until the statute book becomes nothing 

 but a black and bloody role of proscriptions ; a frightful code of rigor and tyranny; a monstrous 

 digest of acts of penalty and incapacity and general attainder ; and that wherever it is opened it 

 will present a title for destroying some trade or ruining some province.' 



" It was during the debate upon this bill that Burke made that eloquent defense of the colonies 

 which has rung in the ears of every boy born or bred in a sea-port town since the day it was uttered. 



" * Among the evidence given was much tending to show the importance of the colonial trade. It appeared that 

 in 17G4 New England employed in the fisheries 45,880 tons of shipping and 6,002 men, the product amounting to 

 322,220 16. 3<i. sterling in foreign markets; that all the materials used in the building and equipping of vessels, 

 excepting salt and lumber, were drawn from England, and the net proceeds were also remitted to that country ; 

 that neither the whale nor cod fishery could be carried on so successfully from Newfoundland or Great Britain as 

 from North America, for the natural advantages of America could neither be counteracted nor supplied ; that, if the 

 fishery was transferred to Nova Scotia or Quebec, Government would have to furnish the capital, for they had neither 

 vessels nor men, and these must come from New England ; that it must take time to make the change, and the trade 

 would inevitably be lost ; and that American fishermen had such an aversion to the military government of Halifax, 

 and ' so invincible an aversion to the loose habits and manners of the people, that nothing could induce them to 

 remove thither, even supposing them reduced to the necessity of emigration.' (Eng. Annual Reg.)" 



"tEng. Annual Reg., 1775, p. 80." "iTbid., p. 85." "$Ibid., p 85." 



