60 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



in all the violence of our most dangerous wars it was an established 

 rule in the marine service, to spare the coast-fishing craft of our declared 

 enemies; always considering that we waged war with nations, and not 

 with private individuals."* 



It was claimed that by the provisions of the bill much hardship must 

 fall upon many people who were already at sea, and who from the very 

 nature of their occupations must be innocent. " The case of the inhab- 

 itants of Nantucket was particularly hard. This extraordinary people, 

 amounting to between five and six thousand in number, nine-tenths of 

 whom are Quakers, inhabit a barren island, fifteen miles long by three 

 broad, the products of which were scarcely capable of maintaining 

 twenty families. From the only harbour which this sterile island contains, 

 without natural products of any sort, the inhabitants, by an astonishing 

 industry, keep an 140 vessels in constant employment. Of these, eight 

 were employed in the importation of provisions for the island, and the 

 rest in the whale-fishery.'' A petition was also presented from the 

 English Quakers in behalf of their brethren at Nantucket, in which they 

 stated the innocence of the inhabitants of that island, " their industry, the 

 utility of their labours both to themselves and the community, the great 

 hazards that attended their occupation, and the nncertainty of their 

 gains; and shewed that if the bill passed into a law, they must in a 

 little time be exposed to all the dreadful miseries of famine. The sin- 

 gular state and circumstances of these people, occasioned some attention 

 to be paid to them. . A gentleman on the side of the administration 

 said, that on a principle of humanity he would move, that a clause should 

 be added to the bill, to prevent the operation from extending to any 

 whale-ships, which sailed before the 1st of March, and were at that 

 time the property of the people of Nantucket."t 



'" The bill,'- says a reviewer of the time, " was attacked on every 

 ground of policy and government; and with the greatest strength of 

 language and height of colouring. The minority made amends for the 

 smallness of their numbers by their zeal and activity. * * * # 

 Evil principles," they contended, " were prolific ; the Boston Port Bill 

 begot this New England Bill ; this will beget a Virginia Bill ; and that 

 again will become the progenitor of others, until, one by one, parliament 

 has ruined all its colonies, and rooted up all its commerce; until the 

 statute-book becomes nothing but a black and bloody roll of proscrip- 

 tions ; a frightful code of rigour and tyranny ; a monstrous digest of 

 acts of penalty and incapacity and general attainder; and that wher- 

 ever it is opened it will present a title for destroying some trade or ruin- 

 ing some province."! 



It was during the debate upon this bill that Burke made that eloquent 

 defense of the colonies which has rung in the ears of every boy born 



* Eug. Aunual Reg., 1775, p. 80. 

 + Eug. Annual Reg., 1775, p. 85. 

 t Ibid., p. 85. 



