126 GEOGRAPHICAL EEVIEW OF THE FISHERIES. 



which for a time enabled them to accomplish their purpose, and still avoid the penalties of the law. 

 This plan was simply to lade their vessels with molasses at the French islands, as usual, but to 

 purchase clearances, 'signed with the name, if not the handwriting, of the governor of Anguilla, 

 who acted also as collector.' This island was so small as not to afford a cargo for a single vessel, 

 as was well known to the collectors of the customs in New England; yet they permitted vessels 

 furnished with the 'Anguilla clearances' to enter with their cargoes without inquiry for a consid- 

 erable time; but, on a sudden, libels were filed, and prosecutions were commenced in the court of 

 admiralty against those who had been concerned in such evasions of the statutes, and ruinous 

 forfeitures of property and renewed clamors were the consequences. 



"We pass to other topics. lu 17G2 the fishing towns of Massachusetts, alarmed at the news 

 that the French had captured Saint John's, Newfoundland, petitioned the governor and council to 

 fit out a ship and a sloop, then in the service of the province, to protect their vessels. Both 

 vessels, in accordance with these petitions, were provided with additional men and means of 

 defense, and sent to sea. The expense thus incurred became the subject of legislative inquiry, and 

 was objected to because the executive branch of the Government had appropriated the public 

 money without the consent or knowledge of the representatives of the people. The debate in the 

 House was angry and protracted. James Otis, the popular leader, used expressions never before 

 uttered in the colonies, and soon after the close of the session published a pamphlet, in which he 

 justified himself for his conduct on the occasion, and defended with great ability the principles for 

 which he had contended as a member of the House. ' This production has been considered the 

 original source from which all subsequent arguments against taxation were derived,' while the 

 whole affair created an intense excitement, and, in the judgment of the biographer of Otis, exerted 

 very great influence in causing the Revolution. 



"It is a singular fact that the fisheries furnished the advocates of the supremacy of Parliament 

 wilh one of their best illustrations. They stated that the authority of the imperial legislature was 

 indispensable in many cases, and that without it the colonies would often be involved in conflicts 

 injurious to each other's interests. Governor Hutchinson, in his remarks upon the question, said, 

 substantially, that it had been generally thought a public benefit to prevent fishing vessels from 

 departing on their voyage until the month of April ; but that if any colony engaged in the business 

 failed to conform to a law imposing such a regulation, others that complied with it would suffer, 

 because their fish, later caught, must of necessity be later in market; and he declares that a 

 motion had actually been made in the legislature of Massachusetts a few years previously for 

 parliamentary interposition in this behalf, which failed, not in consequence of any objection to the 

 principle involved in the motion, but because a majority of the members disapproved of the 

 restraint itself, and were willing that fishing vessels should depart from port before April, and 



whenever their owners and masters thought proper. 



***** * *** 



"These incidents will serve to show the connection of the fisheries with the questions which 

 caused a dismemberment of the British empire. It remains to speak of the act of Parliament 

 passed in 1775, which, by depriving the people of New England of the right of fishing, was 

 designed to 'starve them into submission.' The trade arising from the cod fishery alone at that 

 period furnished the northern colonies with nearly half of their remittances to the mother country, 

 in payment for articles of British manufacture, and was thus the very life blood of their commerce. 

 The fishing towns had become populous and rich. Marblehead, for example, next to Boston, was 

 the most important place in Massachusetts, and was second to the capital only in population and 



