123 



which they found candied, by the standing of the sea-water and the 

 heat of the sun, upon a rock by the sea-shore; and in divers salt 

 marshes that some have gone through, they have found some salt in 

 some places crushing under their feet and cleaving to their shoes." 



Winthrop* followed with his colony, as has been observed, in 1630, 

 and records in his journal that on the passage, "we put our ship in 

 stays, and took, in less than two hours, with a few hooks, sixty-seven 

 codfish, most of them very great fish, some a yard and a half long and 

 a yard in compass." And again he says, "we heaved out our hooks, 

 and took twenty-six cods: so we all feasted with fish this day." And 

 still further, a few days afterwards, "we took many mackerels, and 

 met a shallop, which stood from Cape i^nn towards the Isles of Shoals, 

 which belonged to some English fishermen." 



These passages are selected from the many relating to our subject, 

 which are to be found in the journals, letters, and other documents of 

 the time, not only for the purpose of showing the impressions of the 

 early settlers, but their accounts of the manner of fishing, and the 

 nature of the intelligence which they transmitted to England to induce 

 additional emiorations. A single illustration of the sufferings of the 

 colonists, and of their dependence upon the seas for support, and even 

 to preserve them from utter starvation, as at Plymouth, may properly 

 follow. 



Johnson, who came over in 1630, (and probably in Winthrop's fleet,) 

 who was a member of the House of Representatives upwards of twenty- 

 five years, and speaker of that body in 10-55, in his curious but very 

 valuable work — "Wonder Working Providence of Sion's Saviour in 

 New England," pubhshed in London in 1654t — speaks of persons 

 Avho, "in the absence of bread, feasted themselves with fish; the 

 women, once a day, as the tide gave way, resorting to muscles and 

 clam-banks, where they daily gathered their families' food with much 

 heavenly discourse of the provisions Christ had formerly made for 

 many thousands of his followers in the wilderness:" of mothers, meek 

 and resigned in their destitution, who smiled over their children, fancy- 

 ing that they were as "fat and lusty with feeding upon muscles, clams, 

 and other fish, as they were in England with their fill of bread, which 

 made them cheerful in the Lord's providing for then] :" of others, who, 

 mid "the great straits this wilderness people were in," were reheved 

 because "Christ caused abundance of very good fish to come to their 

 nets and hooks:" and of still others, who, "unprovided with these 

 means, caught them with their hands; and so with fish, wild onions, 

 and other herbs, were sweetly satisfied till other provisions came in:" 

 and, finally, that "this year of sad distress was ended with a terrible 

 cold winter, with weekly snows, and fierce frosts between, while con- 

 gealing Charles river, as well from the town to seaward as above, in- 



* John Wiuthrop, first resident governor of Massadiiisetts, was born in Groton, England, 

 in 1587, and was bred to the law. He was a man of considerable fortune. He arrived at 

 Salen), June, 1630. His journal of occurrences in the colony, down to the year 1648, as 

 edited by the Hon. James Savage, of Boston, is one of the most valuable works extant to the 

 lovers of American histoiy. He died in 1649, aged 61, "worn out by toils and depressed by 

 afflictions." 



* Kepublished in parts, in several volumes of Coll. Mass. His. Soc, second series. 



