104 NEW ENGLAND FISHERIES 



Britain to man the forts in America that had been vacated 

 by the French, and to maintain regiments to hold the In- 

 dians in check. The ministry proposed to raise one-third 

 this amount 100,000 pounds by laying duties on certain 

 colonial imports and exports, to modify the provisions of 

 the Molasses Act by reducing the duty on sugar and mo- 

 lasses one-third, and to enforce vigorously the new act. 

 Rumors of the intention of the ministry to enforce the pro- 

 visions of the Sugar Act, as it was called, had led the 

 Massachusetts assembly early in 1764 to instruct their agent 

 in London that in the execution of the act "the conse- 

 quences would be ruinous to the trade of the province, hurt- 

 ful to all the colonies, and greatly prejudicial to the mother 

 country. ' ' x 



The instructions of the Civil Court of Massachusetts to 

 their agent, Mr. Manduit, show what the enforcement of 

 the Molasses Act meant to the people of that colony. The 

 instructions stated that the business of the fishery, which 

 it was alleged would be broken up by this act, was estimated 

 in Massachusetts at 164,000 pounds sterling annually; the 

 vessels employed in it, which would be nearly useless, at 

 100,000 pounds; the provisions used in it, the casks for 

 packing fish, and other articles, at 22,700 pounds and up- 

 wards; to all of which there was to be added the loss of 

 the advantage of sending lumber, horses, provisions, and 

 other commodities to the foreign plantations as cargoes, the 

 vessels employed in carrying fish to Spain and Portugal, 

 the dismissing of five thousand seamen from their employ- 

 ment, the effect of the annihilation of the fishery upon the 

 trade of the colony and of the mother country in general, 

 and its accumulative evils by increasing the rival fisheries 

 of France. "This was forcibly urged as it respected the 

 means of remittance to England for goods imported into 

 the province, which had been made in specie to the amount 



iWinsor, VI, p. 26. 



