84 NEW ENGLAND FISHERIES 



fled from their new homes. The garrison at Augusta was 

 neglected, the inhabitants withdrew, and the Indians ad- 

 vanced unmolested to the sea-coast. Towns were attacked, 

 fishermen dispersed, and the fisheries had to be abandoned. 

 Sixteen fishing vessels on the coast of Maine were captured 

 by the enemy. When the news reached the colonists of 

 Massachusetts two sloops were fitted out in less than half 

 a day, manned with crews under the command of Captain 

 Eliot and Captain Robinson. They succeeded in taking ten 

 of the captured vessels and at least twenty-four prisoners. 1 



The English and colonial vessels hardly dared to ven- 

 ture on the coast of Nova Scotia to cure their fish. France 

 had practically a monopoly of the fisheries, their fleet be- 

 ing reported to be larger than ever before. 2 The privileges 

 she had received on the Newfoundland coast were proving 

 very remunerative, she was firmly intrenching herself at 

 Cape Breton Island, and every day breaking the terms of 

 the treaty that she had made in good faith less than a 

 decade before. It was no wonder that numerous com- 

 plaints were heard from New England that the mother 

 country, by the treaty of Utrecht, had granted the best 

 fisheries to their bitterest foes. 



Better days, however, were in store for the colonists. 

 In 1725, several eminent sachems from Maine arrived at 

 Boston to negotiate a treaty with the Massachusetts gov- 

 ernment, after which there was a revival of the fisheries. 

 From a journal written in 1726 it is learned that forty 

 large fishing vessels put into Portland Harbor for refuge 

 from a storm, indicating that there was a quick recovery 

 from the ravages of the Indians as soon as hostilities ceased. 



During the twenty years that succeeded there was activ- 

 ity in all phases of the fishing industry. The town of 

 Marblehead now came to the front as a fishing port, a 



1 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., V, p. 342. 



2 Doc. N. Y., V, p. 593-94. 



