122 HISTORY AND METHODS OF THE FISHERIES. 



" The English fishery, even under the encouragement given, did not, however, answer the 

 expectations or hopes of its friends. It was not so easily transferred as had been imagined. A 

 few more vessels sailed from Great Britain, employing, of course, a few more men, but the extra 

 supply was a mere trifle in comparison to the deficiency that the restraining bill had caused." 



RETALIATION BY THE AMERICAN COLONIES. " The colonies, in turn, passed a bill cutting 

 off supplies to the English fleet from the plantations,* a course entirely unforseen by the sage 

 adherents of the British bill. As a natural consequence, the fishery, which promised so well on 

 paper, and upon which the majority in Parliament had founded so many hopes, failed to yield 

 them the solace for the evil done to America that they so fondly anticipated. Many ships, instead 

 of bearing to England supplies, only returned there for provisions to relieve the distress they 

 found on the coast, both on the sea and the land. Indeed, it was estimated that the colonial 

 restraining act caused a loss to England in the fishery in these parts alone of fully half a million 

 of pounds sterling.! To add to the calamities caused by man, the very eleiiii-iits seemed combined 

 against them, for a terrible storm arose, a"nd the center of its fury was the shores and banks of 

 Newfoundland. ' This awful wreck of nature,' says a chronicler of the time, ' was as singular in 

 its circumstances as fatal iu its effects. The sea is said to have risen 30 feet almost instanta- 

 neously. Above seven hundred boats, with their people, perished, and several ships, with their 

 crews. Nor was the mischief much less on the land, the waves overpassing all mounds, and sweep- 

 ing everything before them. The shores presented a shocking spectacle for some time after, and 

 the fishing-nets were hauled up loaded with human bodies.'! These misfortunes the opposers of 

 the bill attributed to the vengeance of an indignant Providence." 



AMERICAN SEAMEN " IMPRESSED." " But Parliament went further than this, and added to 

 the atrocity of this measure another none the less barbarous. It was decreed that all those 

 prisoners who should be taken on board of American vessels should be compelled, without distinc- 

 tion of rank, to serve as common sailors on British ships of war. This proposed measure was 

 received with great indignation by those gentlemen iu Parliament whom partisan asperity had not 

 blinded to every feeling of justice to or compassion for the colonies. This clause in the bill which 

 contained this provision was ' marked by every possible .stigma,' and was described by the lords, 

 in their protest, as ' a refinement in tyranny' which, 'in a sentence worse than death, obliges the 

 unhappy men who shall be made captives in this predatory war to bear arms against their families, 

 kindred, friends, and country ; and after being plundered themselves, to become accomplices in 

 plundering their brethren.' And, by the articles of war, these very men were liable to be shot 

 for desertion." 



CONDITION OF ENGLISH WHALE-FISHERY IN 1779. " By the action of this measure large 

 numbers of Nantucket whaling captains with their crews and a few from other ports were cap- 

 tured by the English, and given their choice either to enter the service of the King in a man-of- 

 war or sail from an English port in the same pursuit to which they had become accustomed.|| In 

 September (13th), 1779, John Adams, writing from Braintreefl to the council of Massachusets, 

 says : 



" * The ' Restraining ' bill." " t Eng. Annual Reg. , 1776, p. 49." 



"{English Annual Reg., 1776, p. 43. There was also much distress at the Barbadoes. It was thought at one time 

 to draw supplies for beleaguered Boston from these islands, but cut off as they were from supplies from the colonies, 

 with 80,000 blacks and 20,000 whites to feed, the project was deemed in the highest degree dangerous." 



" $ Annual Reg., 1776, p.118." 



"II To his captors Capt. Nathan Coffin, of Nantucket, nobly said: ' Hang me, if you will, to the yard-arm of your 

 ship, but do not ask me to be a traitor to my country.' (Bancroft, ix, p. 313.)" 



" IT Adams, vii, p. 63. This is almost identical with the letter in Mass. Col. MSS., Resolves, vi, p. 216." 



