114 NEW ENGLAND FISHERIES 



sions of the bill. The prohibitions and restraints imposed 

 by the act upon trade, commerce, and the fisheries of these 

 colonies were to cease when it was made clear that the 

 trade and commerce of his Majesty's subjects could be car- 

 ried on without interruption. 1 



Lord North supported his measure by declaring "that, 

 as the Americans had refused to trade with Great Britain, 

 it was but just that they should be deprived of the right 

 to trade with any other nation. In particular, he said that 

 the fisheries upon the Banks of Newfoundland, and the 

 other Banks in America, were their (Great Britain's) un- 

 doubted right, and that, therefore, such disposition might 

 be made of them as the government pleased. The two 

 houses, he continued, had declared that a rebellion existed 

 in Massachusetts, and that it was just to deprive that 

 province of its fisheries; that though a government still 

 existed in New Hampshire, the royal authority was weak; 

 that a quantity of powder had been taken out of a fort 

 there by an armed mob ; and that, besides, the vicinity of 

 that province of Massachusetts Bay was such, that if it 

 were not included, the purpose of the act would be de- 

 feated. Rhode Island, he stated, was not in much better 

 situation than Massachusetts ; that several pieces of cannon 

 had been taken and carried into the country, and that the 

 people were arming to aid any colony that should be at- 

 tacked. With regard to Connecticut, he observed that a 

 large body of her men had marched into Massachusetts on 

 a report that the soldiers had killed some inhabitants of 

 Boston, and that that colony was in a state of great dis- 

 order and confusion. To this he added, that, the river 

 Connecticut afforded the people of that colony an oppor- 

 tunity of carrying on the fishery, and that the same might 

 be said of Rhode Island. . . . But he was willing, he 

 said, to admit of such alleviations of the measure as would 



i McDonald, pp. 369-374. 



