700 GEOGRAPHICAL EEVJBW OF THE FISHERIES. 



In 1699 the governor gave a pass for eacli of the following vessels, ' bound ou a fishing voyage : 



FOREIGN MARKETS IN 1700. la 1700 the foreign trade of Salem was thus described by Higginson: "Dry mer- 

 chantable codfish, for the markets of Spain, Portugal, and the Straits. Kei'use fish, lumber, * * . Our own 

 produce, a considerable quantity of whale and fish oil, whalebone, ." 



TROUBLE WITH THE INDIANS AND FKENCU. Four accounts of captures of Salein fishermen, between 1702 and 1706, 

 by the French and Indians, are recorded by Felt as follows : 



"1702, June 2: The Secretary, Isaac Addington, addresses a letter to the Governor of Acadic. 'We have received 

 information that fishing ketches belonging to Salem, forced by bad weather to put into port Sea Tour, near Cape 

 Sable, were attacked by about twenty Indians, May 23, at break of day, who took three of them with their compa- 

 nies, and killed David Hilliard, master of one of them. They detain these vessels and two of the men. They pretend 

 to have done this under a commission from the governor of Port Royal. 



" 1702, July : Capt. John Harraden, taken and carried to Port Royal, returns with two Salem ketches which had 

 been captured. 



"1705, August: The sloop Trial, Capt. John Collins, and sloop Dolphin, Capt. William Woodbury,- on a fishing 

 voyage, are captured by a French privateer and carried to Port Royal. 



"1706, September 1 : A ketch, Capt. Joseph Woodbury, was cast away r.t Cape Sable. While her crew, assisted 

 by others, were saving her materials, some Indians shot one of them dead. The rest escaped." 



The authorities of Salem, feeling the losses to which they had been subjected, stated in 1711, September 3, "that 

 as their fishery has decayed, and they have met with losses at sea, they were unable to repair their fort, as the governor 

 had proposed." 



And this statement is followed, in 1715, by a vote which, if passed, must have proved a source of gain to the town 

 of Salem : 



"1715, November 22: The town vote that each fishing-vessel belonging here may dry its fish for 5s. a year on 

 Winter Island ; and each vessel not of Salem may have the same privilege for 20s." 



The depredatory acts committed upon Salem boats by Indians and other parties called forth, in 1794, this 

 petition: 



"1724. Inhabitants of Salem and vicinity petition that, as Indians had taken several of their fishing vessels and 

 made privateers of them, and it being reported that many of them had gone to the coast of Cape Sablo to continue 

 their attacks, Government would afford suitable protection. Accordingly, August 10, Joseph Majory was commis- 

 sioned to sail in the sloop Lark, accompanied by a whale-boat, to prevent such depredation. "* 



FOREIGN TRADE. "In 172G an act was passed at Salem for the better curing and culling of fish, as by the lack 

 of such care this article, offered in foreign markets, 'has brought disreputation on the fish of this country.'" 3 



The owners of Salem vessels in 1728, and on from that date, were accustomed in some instances to give instruc- 

 tions to the captains of their vessels. This instruction, given in 1728, by Samuel Browne, of Salem, to Capt. John 

 Tronzell, is here appended as recorded in the Essex Institute Hist. Coll. : " Trouzell is ordered to deliver his' cargo of 

 'Scale Fish, middling Cod, and merchantable Cod' at Bilboa, Spain, and thence get freight for Lisbon or Cadiz, and 

 load with salt at St. Ubes for N. E. ; or he may take a freight from L. or C. to Ireland, Holland, or England, and 

 then go to the Isle of May for salt." 



Felt records that in 1732 Salem had about thirty fishing vessels, much less than formerly, and the same number 

 which went on foreign voyages to Barhadoes, Jamaica, and other West India Islands; some to the Wine Islands; 

 others carried fish to Spain, Portugal, and the "Streights." 



" f n 17135 it was voted by all interested in the exporting of fish from Salem to the West Indies that D. Epes and B. 

 Brown should be directed to make a just representation of the great decay of the fishery, and the grievous burthen 



1 Felt, op. cit. vol. ii, 2d ed., p. 215. 



'Ibid., p. 217. 



" Ibid. 



