MASSACHUSETTS AND ITS FISUEIUES. 125 



fisheries without ruinous losses. The penalty for violating the act was the forfeiture of vessel and 

 cargo. Yet New England never submitted, though a fleet was sent to enforce obedience; and the 

 interdicted trade with the French, Dutch, and Spanish islands did not cease until a late period of 

 the controversy which terminated iu the Revolution. In fact, therefore, a measure which threat- 

 ened to ruin the cod fishery of New England produced, as I incline to believe, no serious injury to 

 it for quite thirty years. 



"But in 17(>4 the act was renewed, and the collection of the duties it imposed on ruin, molasses, 

 and sugar was attempted by the officers of the crown in a manner to create the most anxious con- 

 cern; for the jurisdiction of the admiralty courts was enlarged, and the people were deprived of 

 the trial by jury in all cases arising between them and the Government under this law and the 

 trade and navigation laws generally. 



"The most alarming discontents followed the collisions and quarrels which constantly occurred 

 between ship-master and merchants on the one hand and the officers of the customs on the other 

 in various parts of New England, and especially in Boston, Salem, Gloucester, Falmouth (now 

 Portland, Maine), and elsewhere iu Massachusetts; and the impression became general among 

 commercial men that their business and property were both to be sacrificed to appease the clamors 

 of the planters of the British islands, and to test the ability of the mother country to 'raise a 

 revenue in America' under the 'sugar and molasses acts,' as this odious law was called in the 

 politics of the day. 



"Meantime the southern colonies ridiculed the madness or folly of their northern brethren in 

 resisting taxation upon so homely a commodity as molasses, and made themselves merry over the 

 accounts of the quarrels of the Yankees for cheap ' sweetening.'' 



"In truth, the South, from first to last, never seemed to understand or appreciate the North 

 upon this question, and forbore to come to the rescue for years after the leading men of Massachu- 

 setts had wasted their energies in endeavors to induce the ministry to abandon a policy so ruinous 

 to Northern industry. The ' petty dealers in codfish and molasses' struggled long and manfully, but 

 without success. 



"The State papers of Massachusetts contain the most earnest remonstrances against the 'sugar 

 and molasses acts.' In the answer of the council and house of representatives to the speech of 

 the governor, in November, 1764, it is said that 'our pickled fish wholly, and a great part of our 

 codfish, are only fit for the West India market. The British islands cannot take off one-third of 

 the quantity caught; the other two-tliir<ln must be lost or sent to foreign plantations, where molasses 

 is given iu exchange. The duty on this article will greatly diminish (he importation hither; and 

 being the only article allowed to be given in exchange for our fish, a less quantity of the latter will 

 of course be exported, the obvious effect of which must be a diminution of the fish trade, not only 

 to the West Indies but to Europe, fish suitable for both these markets being the produce of the 

 same voyage. If, therefore, one of these markets be shut the other cannot be supplied. The loss 

 of one is the loss of both, as the fishery must fail with the loss of either.'' These representations cover 



the whole ground. 



********* 



"A detailed account of the seizures of French and Spanish molasses, which, contrary to the 

 acts of Parliament, was continually imported or, to speak the exact truth, smuggled would 

 occupy too much space; yet, as the 'molasses excitement' was one of the earliest in the revolu- 

 tionary controversy, some further notice of the course of events cannot well be omitted. The 

 merchants, determined to maintain intercourse with the interdicted islands, devised a plan, finally, 



