HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



u On the 21st of January, 17SG, Mr. Adams, iu a letter to Secretary Jay, writes : ' It will take 

 eighteen months more to settle all matters, exclusive of the treaty of commerce.' 1 * And thus it con- 

 tinued. Argument and persuasion had no effect. Convinced in spite of themselves, they still 

 clung fondly, obstinately, perhaps foolishly, to their obnoxious laws. As late as November, 1787, 

 Mr. Adams writes to Mr. Jay : ' They are at present, both at court and in the nation at large, 

 much more respectful to me, and much more tender of the United States, than they ever have 

 been before ; but, depend upon it, this will not last ; they will aim at recovering back the west- 

 ern lands, at taking away our fisheries, and at the total ruin of our navigation, at least.'t Mr. 

 Adams's position at the court of St. James was terminated, by his urgent request, soon after this, 

 and the question of commercial relations between the two countries was still unsettled.;}: 



"This state of affairs was scarcely such as would occasion the utmost harmony. The United 

 States naturally resented this frigid manner of treating our overtures for friendship. In August, 

 1786, Mr. Jefferson, in a letter from Paris to Mr. Carmichael, writes : ' But as to every other nation 

 of Europe, I am persuaded Congress will never offer a treaty. If any of them should desire one 

 hereafter, I suppose they will make the first overtures.'" || 



THE AMERICAN WHALE FISHERY DECLINING. ' But while America was exerting herself so 

 unsuccessfully to be allowed to live on terms of civility with England, the whale fishery carried on 

 from within her borders was languishing. 



" Like the effect of the heat of the sun on the iceberg, so was the effect of foreign bounties 

 upon the American fishery, dissolving it, breaking off a fragment here and a fragment there. 

 Lured by the promise of English bounties, discouraged with the prospect in America, where the 

 price for oil would scarcely repay the cost of procuring it, and where there was no market for their 

 chief staple, several of the people of Nantucket removed to the vicinity of Halifax, in Nova Scotia. 

 There, in 1786 and 1787, they settled, building dwellings, wharves, stores, manufactories for 

 sperm candles, and such other structures as were connected with their fishery, and calling their 

 new settlement Dartmouth.*} There they carried on the pursuit for several years prosperously, 

 and gave promise of considerable commercial importance. But the disintegration which com- 

 menced at Nantucket continued at Dartmouth, and just as the settlement seemed about to become 

 thrifty and important it began to become divided, pieces again split off, and the village, as a 

 whaling port, soon became a thing of the past. Those who were the earliest to remove from Nan- 

 tucket soon grew uneasy of their new location, and having greater inducements offered them if 

 they removed to England, again migrated, and settled in Milford Haven, from whence for many 

 years they carried on the business with very considerable success. The parent died in giving 

 birth to the child ; Milford Haven nourished, but at the expense of Dartmouth's existence. 



" "Adams, viii, 363-4, 389." " t Ibid., 463." 



" t Works of Jefferson, ii, 18. See also article on Jefferson, by Parton, in Atlantic Monthly for February, 1873." 



" $ Referring to Russia, Portugal, Spain, France, Sweden, Tuscany, and tbe Netherlands." 



"II Jefferson, ii, 18." 



" U Works of Jefferson, ii, 518. Mr. Jefferson says, referring to a farther hegira of the islanders : 'A vessel was 

 already arrived from Halifax to Nantncket, to take off some of those who proposed to remove ; two families had gone 

 on board, and others were going, when a letter was received there which had been written by Monsieur le Marquis 

 de Lafayette to a gentleman in Boston, and transmitted by him to Nantucket. The purport of the letter was, to dis- 

 suade their accepting the British proposals, and to assure them that their friends in France would endeavor to do 

 something for them. This instantly suspended their design; not another went on board, and the vessel returned to 

 Halifax with only the [two] families.' In 1796 William Rotch &, Son petitioned Congress to remit the excess of duties 

 and tonnage charged them on two whale ships by the collector of New Bedford, in i-<pnse(|iirnce of their not being pro- 

 vided with United States registers. These were ships which sailed from Nantncket in 1787 and 1789, under registers 

 from the State of Massachusetts, and were used in the Dunkirk fishery, returning to the United States in 1794, some 

 years after the National Government, had been in operation. The committee which was appointed to consider the 

 petition reported favorably upon it, and the prayer was granted. (State Papers, vii, p. 411.)" 



