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goblins, and when the venerable and devout Sir Mat hew Hale doomed 

 two women to be hanged for vexing with fits the child of a herring 

 merchant! The prosperity of Salem w-as checked from other causes. 

 In 1G97, John Higglnson wrote his brother Nathaniel, that in 1GS9 he 

 had ol)taiued a comfortable estate, and was as much concerned in the 

 fishing trade as most of liis neighbors ; but that, in the course of the 

 war (then soon to be terminated) he had met with considerable losses ; 

 that trade had much diminished ; that of upwards of sixty fishing ves- 

 sels owned in that town at the commencement of hostilities, onlv six 

 remained; and that he believed noplace in Massachusetts had suffered 

 more by the war than Salem. 



At the close of the centur}'-, as we learn from Neal, the merchants of 

 Massachusetts exported" about one hundred thousand quintals of dried 

 codfish annually to Portugal, Spain, and Italy, of the value of four 

 hundred thousand dollars; while from another source we are informed, 

 that, disregarding die navigation act of England, a large contraband 

 commerce w^as maintained by the merchants of Boston with most of 

 Europe. 



Thus far the mention of Marblehead has been incidental. Originally 

 a part of Salem, and more prosperous in the prosecution of the cod- 

 fishery, it was supposed to contain at one period a greater population 

 than its parent town. Departing from the chronological order hitherto 

 preserved in the narrative, I shall here consider its history as connected 

 with our subject, for about half a century. We have already seen the 

 agency of clergymen in establishing the fisheries of Gloucester and Sa- 

 lem, and are now to quote at large Irom the autobiography of the Rev. 

 .John Barnard, to show his influence at Marblehead. He commenced 

 his ministerial labors in 1714, at which time, he sa^-s, "there was not 

 so much as one proper carpenter, nor mason, nor tailor, nor butcher, 

 in the town." And he continues : " The people contented themselves 

 to be the slaves that digged in the mines, and left the merchants of 

 Boston, Salem, and Europe to carr}^ awa}^ the gains; by which means 

 the town was always in dismally poor circumstances, involved in debt 

 to the merchants more than they were worth; nor could I find twenty 

 families in it that, upon the best examination, could stand upon their 

 own legs; and they w^ere generally as rude, swearing, drunken, and 

 fighting a crew, as they were poor. 



"1 soon saw that the town had a price in its hands, and it was a 

 pity they had not a heart to improve it. I therefore laid myself out to 

 get acquaintance with the English masters of vessels, that I might by 

 them be let into the mystery of the fish trade; and in a little time I 

 gained a pretty thorouirh understanding of it. When I saw the advan- 

 tages fit it, 1 thought it tuy duty to stir up my [)e()[)le, such as I thought 

 would hearken to me, and were capable of j)ractising upon the advice, to 

 send the fish to market themselves, that tiny might reap the benefit of 

 it, to the enriching themselves and serving the town. But alas ! I could 

 insjarc no man with courage and resolution enough to engage in it, till 

 I met with Mr. .Toseph Swett, a young man of strict justice, great in- 

 dustry, eriter|>rising genius, (juiek apprehension, and firm resolution, 

 but of small fortune. To him I opened myself fullv, laid the scheme 

 9 



