136 NEW ENGLAND FISHERIES 



"7. The superiority of our mariners in skill, activity, 

 enterprise, sobriety, and order. 



"8. The cheapness of provisions. 



"9. The cheapness of casks, which of itself, was said to 

 be equal to an extra profit of fifteen per cent. ' 



Of the disadvantages encountered by the American fish- 

 ermen those that depended on the Americans themselves 

 were: 



"Tonnage and naval duties on the vessels employed in 

 the fishery. 



"Import duties on salt. 



' * Import duties on tea, rum, sugar, molasses, hooks, lines, 

 and leads, duck, cordage, and cables, hemp, and twine, used 

 in the fishery ; coarse woollens, worn by the fishermen, and 

 the poll tax levied by the State on their persons. . . . 



"To these disadvantages, add ineffectual duties on the 

 importation of foreign fish. ' ' 1 



The additional relief that was desired came through an 

 act passed February 9th, 1792, "for the more immediate 

 encouragement of the said fisheries. ' The bounty on dried 

 fish exported was abolished; and, in place thereof, a spe- 

 cific allowance was to be paid annually to vessels engaged 

 in the codfishery, graduated according to the tonnage of 

 the vessel. Vessels of a tonnage below twenty tons re- 

 ceived one dollar per ton ; those between twenty and thirty 

 tons, one dollar and fifty cents per ton; if above thirty 

 tons, two dollars and fifty cents per ton. In order to re- 

 ceive the allowance vessels must have been engaged in the 

 codfishery at least four months of the year. Three-eighths 

 of the allowance was to accrue to the owner of the vessel, 

 and the other five-eighths to be divided among the vessel's 

 crew proportionally to the individual catch of fish. But 

 the bounty allowed on any one vessel for a season was not 



i Jefferson's Works, VII, pp. 542-544. 



