THE MILITIA AND THE WAR OF 1S12. 343 



The war of the sea kept our fishermen more and more 

 from their work. 



That year, 18 13, our total catch was only four hundred 

 and fifty-one barrels, about one tenth the amount pre- 

 ceding the war. 



The occupations of our men thus driven from the sea 

 may be imagined from the diary of one of them, Thomas 

 Stoddard : — 



I began to farm it ; went boat fishing in leisure time. Cut 

 wood for Capt. Levi Tower in Rice & Leavitt's lots in 3rd 

 Division. Had fifty cents a cord for cutting & piling — provisions 

 found. The wood was sent to Boston and sold for $13.00 a cord. 

 I cleared $3.00 per week — a good business for war times. 



We had an evening Reading Club and a Singing School and 

 occasionally a fashionable Soiree called a Bingo. 



During the winter season we felt perfectly safe from the visits 

 of John Bull ; but knowing our exposed and defenseless situation, 

 we prepared for more serious events, knowing that should the war 

 continue we could not expect to be exempt from its ravages. 



These fears were soon to be realized. By June of 18 14 

 a British frigate was harrying the shores of Massachu- 

 setts Bay, frightening the fishermen and burning their 

 vessels. The selectmen were instructed by vote of the 

 town to petition the governor for "two pieces of cannon 

 for the defense of the Harbor." Lieutenant Governor 

 Cobb (in the absence of Governor Strong) refused the 

 request, and recommended the hoisting of a white flag. 



The Massachusetts government was not in sympathy 

 with " Mr. Madison's War," as it was contemptuously 

 called ; but that seems to us nowadays, as it then seemed 

 to our endangered citizens, no excuse for such cowardly 

 counsels. By the middle of June a British man-of-war, 

 having sent a flotilla of barges to burn the shipping of 

 Scituate, sailed for Cohasset on the same errand of de- 

 struction. 



