The Fishery Question. 13 



The vitality of the Massachusetts towns 

 added to these complications, while they has- 

 tened the ultimate triumph of the mother 

 country. Peters, a clergyman of Salem, 

 urged the settlers to develop and extend their 

 fisheries. Winthrop wrote of them, leased 

 those within the patent of his company, and 

 with other prominent colonists obtained in- 

 spectors of the annual catch. 



The action of the Stuarts, when by the 

 treaty of St. Germain-en-Lay, they ignored the 

 wishes of the colonists and abandoned their 

 patentee, Alexander, together with their 

 claims to Canada, Acadia and Cape Breton, 

 exasperated the opposition party in Old and 

 New England.^7 "fh^ Newfoundland trade 

 was furthur irritated by the remission to the 

 French of the tribute, their establishments at 

 Placentia, and the use they were permitted 

 to make of the south coast, where the cod 

 arrived earlier than at St. Johns. Boston lis- 

 tened with approbation to the denunciations 

 of the Court by Bellemont, who traced the 

 sinister influence of the French King on 

 Charles and his Queen. The treaty was con- 

 demned by both nations.^^ Twenty-two years 

 later Cromwell, in time of peace, seized Aca- 



