26 



ports in the West Indies ; besides which it had also become common 

 for them to make trading voyages in the Winter season to Virginia. 



The peace of 1763 secured to our people unmolested use of the 

 lishing grounds, and, from this time to the Revolution, they carried 

 on the business with energy and success ; though one of those terri- 

 ble misfortunes that shocks a whole community, and brings unutter- 

 able sorrow to many private bosoms, occurred in the meantime and 

 cast its sad gloom over the town. In March, 1766, nineteen vessels 

 sailed for the Grand Bank, and, while on the passage thither, were 

 met by a violent storm, which wrecked and scattered the fleet, and 

 sent many to the bottom. Two were cast away at Nova Scotia ; 

 seven foundered at sea, with all on board ; and several of the others 

 were so much disabled that they were obliged to return. The num- 

 ber of men lost by these shipwrecks is not known, but it was not 

 probably less than forty. 



We know but little of the relative importance of the Bank and 

 shore fisheries at this time ; but it seems that the latter were almost 

 wholly confined to Sand}' Bay and the coves on the outside of the 

 Cape, while the chief seat of the former was at the Harbor. From 

 such information as can be obtained, it appears that from 1770 to 

 1775, between seventy and eighty schooners, of an average value of 

 one thousand dollars, resorted yearly to the Grand Bank for cod ; 

 and about seventy boats fished for cod and hake and pollock on the 

 ledges near our own coast. The business yielded a scanty support 

 to the fishermen, and, as a class, they were poor ; though then, as in 

 more recent times, some who began at the hook and line rose to be 

 the most prominent and successful among the merchants who carried 

 it on. No means exist for ascertaining the average annual earnings 

 of the fishermen ; but the accounts of a single schooner for 1773 are 

 preserved, and show the product of her two trips to the Banks to 

 have been 550 1-2 quintals of fish, which sold for 302. 9s., or a lit- 

 tle more than one thousand dollars in silver money. Supposing the 

 number of the crew to have been six, and deducting the expenses 

 and the vessel's part, and the bill for necessary supplies to the fami- 

 ly of the poor fisherman while absent, it will be seen that there could 

 have remained little or no surplus of his season's work, and that 

 want must soon have compelled him to hurry away again once more 

 upon the waters, as a sailor in the foreign or coastwise trade of the 

 town. 



Such is a brief historical sketch of the Gloucester fisheries down 

 to the beginning of the Revolutionary war, at which time the town 



