148 



ties to vessels employed In the cod and whale fisheries, repenled the 

 duty payable on the importation of seal-skins, and abolished some other 

 restrictions, particularly in Ireland; passed the Commons on the 17th 

 cf May, and the Lords five days aiterwards. That this act was de- 

 vised in consequence of the suspension and ruin of the New England 

 fisheries, and as the means to stimulate English merchants and fisher- 

 men to supply the domestic and foreign markets, cannot be doubted. 



To retahatc u])on the ministry, the colonies, by their congress of dele- 

 gates, strictly prohibited the supplying of British vessels coming to the 

 American coasts to engage in fishing, with any kind of provisions or 

 outfits. 



I have said that the object ot Lord North's bill to restrain Massa- 

 chusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Khode Island, from car- 

 rying on any fishery on the Banks of Newfoundland, and other places, 

 was to "starve them into submission." The sentiments uttered in 

 Parliament, and the facts derived from other sources, show this too 

 plainly to be mistaken. Nor was the opinion that the people of these 

 colonies, deprived of their most important maritime employment, would 

 yield to ihe blow, confined to British statesmen. Reference to the letter 

 of Silas Deane to the "Secret Committee of Congress," dated at 

 Paris, in July, 1776, will show that the French ministry, of whom he 

 solicited aid, in his public capacity, were impressed with the idea that 

 *' submission" was not an improbable result. Mr. Deane, in this letter, 

 details at some length the occurrences of an interview with Count de 

 Vergennes, the Principal Minister of State, and says, in the course of 

 the narrative: "He asked me many questions with respect to the colo- 

 nies; but what he seemed most to loant to be assured of, ivas their abilitij to 

 subsist uithout their fs her its, and under the interruption of their com- 

 jcnerce. To this I replied, that the fisheries were never carried on but 

 by a part of the colonies, and by them not so much as a means of sub- 

 sistence as of commerce; that the fisheries failing, those employed in 

 them turned part to agriculture and a part to the arm}'^ and navy." 



Rejoicing now in our strength and prosperity, we can afibrd to smile 

 at the inhumanity and cool contempt manifested in Parliament b}' Jen- 

 kinson and Dundas, by their lordships Dudley and Sandwich, and his 

 Grace of Grafton. And since, too, the untiring labors of Mr. Sparks 

 have explained the enigma of Lord North's course on American atiairs, 

 we may qualify our reproaches upon his memory.* The oppressors 

 and the oppressed have disappeared, and repose in the grave; but the 

 warning may still go out for some Jiving men to heed, that to drive 

 fishermen from the ocean is an outrage. 



*The " Extracts from the letters of George the Third to Lord North, selected by Lord 

 Holland from the manuscripts of Sir Jajnes Macintosh," which are to be found in the Ap- 

 pendix of the sixth volume of Sparks's Washington, show that the popular ojiiniou, that Loi-d 

 Koith was tho author of the war and its coustaut advocate, is wholly erroneous. 



