125 



which now many affect to believe is fit only for the attention of "the 

 ignorant, the superstitious, and the improvident." 



About the year 1636 the celebrated Hugh Peters,* minister of Salem, 

 moved the })eople thereto raise a capital for the purpose of commencing 

 the business of fishing. Witl\ untiring zeal he went from place to place, 

 and labored in public and in private to accomplish this design, and to 

 induce his flock to build ships and to embai'k in commerce. He was 

 eminently successful, and personally engaged in the enterprises which 

 he recommended to others. To him belongs, in a very great degree, 

 the merit of founding the fisheries and trade of that city. During his 

 residence and ministry, Salem was without a rival in maritime affairs, 

 and claimed to become the capital. His departure for England gave a 

 check to business; Boston acquired the ascendency, and was selected 

 as the seat of government. That part of it now called Marblehead soon 

 obtained a superiority in the fisheries, and petitioned for an act of 

 incorporation ; while Gloucester, Manchester, and the whole eastern 

 shore of Massachusetts, engaging in the same pursuits, still further les- 

 sened its importance for a considerable period. Of the merchant min- 

 ister, Peters, we may add, that, taking the side of Cromwell in the 

 civil war in England, he was executed there on the restoration of the 

 Stuarts.t It is supposed in a late English publication that Peters was 

 one of the two masked executioners of Charles the First, and that it was 

 he who held up the monarch's head to the view of the multitude. 



In 1639 we have the origin of the system of protection. By an act 

 of that year, passed for the encouragement of the fisheries, it was pro- 

 vided that all vessels and other property employed in taking, curing, 

 and transporting fish, according to the usual course of fishing voyages, 

 should be exempt from all duties and public taxes for seven years ; and 

 that all fishermen during the season for their business, as well as ship- 

 builders, should be excused from the performance of military duty. 

 Such a law, in the infancy of the colony, when contributions from every 

 estate, and the personal service in arms of every citizen, were impera- 

 tively demanded by the exigencies of the times, shows the deep import- 

 ance which was attached to this branch of business by the fathers of 

 the Commonwealth. 



Of the year 1641, Lechfbrd, in his "Plain Dealing; or. News from 

 New England," (printed in London, 1642,) J says that the people were 

 "setting on the manufacture of linen and cotton cloth, and the fishing 

 trade;" that they were "building of ships, and had a good store of 

 barks, catches, lighters, shallops, and other vessels;" and that "they 

 had builded and planted to admiration for the time." We learn from 

 Johnson, in the work already mentioned, that the Rev. Richard Blind- 



* Or Hugh Peter. 



t Hutchinson preserves, in his Collection of Papers, a letter from Mr. John Knowles to 

 Governor Leverett, dated at London in 1677, by which it appears that Peters's widow was in 

 great poverty. Knowles says: "Sir, there is another trouble which I presume to putt upon 

 you ; which is, to speak to the reverend Mr. Higginson, pastour of Salem, to move that con- 

 gregation to doe something for the maintenance of Mrs. Peters, who, since her husband suf- 

 fered here, hath depended wholly upon Mr. Cockquaiu and that church whereof he is pastour. 

 I fear she will be forced to soke her living in the streets, if some course be not taken for her 

 relief, either by Mr. Higginson or Mr. Oxeubridge, or some other sj-mpathizing minister." 



t Eepublished in Collections of Massachusetts Historical Society, vol. 3d of 3d series. 



