GROWTH AND EXPANSION 59 



pipestaves and clapboards; the refuse fish to the West 

 Indies for the negroes. ' ' * The fishermen used shallops for 

 their fishing, there being four men in a crew. Often their 

 share on a voyage was eight or nine barrels of fish per 

 man. It was the practice of the merchants to buy of 

 the planters their beef, pork, peas, wheat and Indian 

 corn, which they sold to the fishermen or exchanged for 

 cured fish. 



Measures were taken at an early date to regulate the 

 fisheries, and in several instances, to promote the indus- 

 try by the passage of favorable legislation. In 1635, the 

 General Court of Massachusetts appointed a commission 

 consisting of Mr. Thomas Dudley and five others to have in 

 charge the setting forth and management of the fish trade, 

 all charges of the commission to be allowed out of the fishing 

 stock. Three years later, in 1638, the Court allowed the 

 commission the sum of 100 16s. 3d. to make up for the 

 loss which followed from the governmental management of 

 the fishing industry. 2 



The first measure for the protection of the infant in- 

 dustry in Massachusetts was passed by the General Court 

 on May 22, 1639. "For the further encouragement of men 

 to set upon fishinge, ' it was ordered that all vessels and 

 other property employed in taking, curing, and transport- 

 ing fish, according to the usual course of fishing voyages, 

 should be exempt from all duties and public taxes for 

 seven years; that neither cod nor bass should be used for 

 manuring fish; and that all fishermen, during the season 

 for their business, as well as all ship-carpenters, should be 

 exempted from military training. 3 



Winthrop states that the order was not passed to en- 

 courage foreigners to engage in the fisheries among them, 



1 Folsom, Saco and Biddeford, pp. 36-37. 



2 Massachusetts Colonial Records, I, p. 230. 

 a Mass. Col. Records, I, pp. 158, 230. 



