1170 MISCELLANEOUS. 



vision is retained. But grants to individuals to monopolize our seas 

 disappear ever afterward. 



In the charter to Calvert, of Maryland, the freedom of the fisheries 

 is expressely stipulated. So, top, in the grant to Gorges, the great 

 champion of monopoly, any subject could fish in Maine, and use the 

 shores for purposes of curing and drying. 



The patent to Sir Henry Roswell and others, of Massachusetts, 

 defines with almost tedious particularity the rights to be enjoyed by 

 all the inhabitants of the realm in any of the seas, arms of the sea, and 

 salt-water rivers, as well as those of drying, keeping, and packing fish 

 on the lands appurtenant. 



In like manner the charter of Rhode Island, granted by Charles the 

 Second, expresses the loyal will and pleasure to be that "our loving 

 subjects, and every one of them," shall "exercise the trade of fishing" 

 where "they had been accustomed to fish." Even after the expul- 

 sion of the Stuarts, and in the second charter of Massachusetts, in the 

 reign of William and Mary, when our fishing grounds had been open 

 more than sixty years, the principles asserted by Coke in the House 

 of Commons are as carefully recognised and repeated as he himself 

 could have desired. Iji these, and in similar instruments, then, and 

 not in the statistics of vessels and men at a particular time, we are to 

 seek for the fruits of the victory obtained by the sturdy advocates of 

 "free fishing, with all its incidents," in America. 



We may now pause a moment to discuss a kindred topic, which 

 changes the scene from our seas to those of the mother country. I 

 refer to the "ship-money," levied by Charles the First, and to Hamp- 

 den, who won undying fame by resisting its payment. Both are 

 more intimately connected with our general subject than seems to be 

 commonly supposed. 



First, it cannot but have been remarked that the acts of Parliament 

 to "increase shipping," "by encouragement to the different English 

 fisheries, are numerous throughout the period embraced in our 

 inquiries. The end desired was obtained; and I regard it as his- 

 torically accurate to say that the earliest considerable demand for 

 English ships of proper size and strength to perform long and peril- 

 ous voyages was for explorations and fishing upon our coasts. At all 

 events, it is certain that down to the time of Elizabeth the foreign 

 trade of England was in the control of German merchants, and that 

 there had been no employment for many or for large ships of the 

 realm.* British navigation increased with the growth of the fish- 

 eries. Without the fleets maintained at Iceland and Newfoundland 

 there would have been neither ships nor seamen to execute the plans 

 for the colonization of New England, and of other parts of the con- 

 tinent, during the reigns of James and Charles. 



Yet, while the commercial marine gained strength, the royal navy 

 continued small, and at the accession of James it consisted of but 

 thirteen vessels. 



* In 1485 (reign of Henry VIII) Sir William Cecil, a London merchant, stated that 

 there were not above four merchant vessels, exceeding one hundred and twenty tons 

 burden, belonging to that city; and that "there was not a port in Europe, having the 

 occupying that London had, that was so slenderly provided with snips." Other 

 writers assert that at the death of Queen Elizabeth (1603), more than a century later, 

 there were only four merchant ships in all England of more than four hundred tons. 



