THE WHALE FISHERY. 117 



. arious sea-port towns from which this pursuit was carried on, in Nautucket, Wellfleet, Dartmouth, 

 ijynn, Martha's Vineyard, Barnstable, Boston, Faliuouth, and Swanzey, in Massachusetts, in New- 

 port, Providence, Warren, and Tiverton, in Rhode Island, in New London, Connecticut, Sag Harbor, 

 on Long Island, the merry din of the'yo heave ho 'of the sailors was heard; the ring of the 

 blacksmith's hammer and anvil made cheery music ; the coopers, with their hammers and drivers, 

 kept time to the tramp of their feet as round and round the easts they marched, tightening more 

 and more the bands that bound together the vessels which should hold the precious oil; and the 

 creaking of the blocks as the vessels unloaded their freight or the riggers fitted them anew for 

 fresh conquests, and the rattle of the hurrying teams as they carried off the product of the last 

 voyage or brought the necessaries for the future one, lent their portion of animation to the scene. 

 Everywhere was hurry and bustle; every where all were employed; none that thirsted for employ- 

 ment went away unsatisfied. If a vessel made a bad voyage, the owners, by no means dispirited, 

 again fitted her out, trusting in the next one to retrieve the loss; if she made a profitable one the 

 proceeds were treasured up to offset a possible failure in some future cruise. On all sides were 

 thrift and happiness. 



"But a change was near. 'A cloud, at first no bigger than a man's hand,' was beginning to 

 overshadow the whole heaven of their commercial prosperity. The colonies, driven to desperation 

 by the heartless cruelty of their mother country, prepared to stay further aggression, and resent 

 at the mouth of the cannon and the point of the bayonet the insults and injuries that for a decade 

 of years had been heaped upon them ; and the English ministry, against the earnest entreaty of 

 British merchants on both sides of the Atlantic, prepared also to enforce its desires by a resort to 

 arms.* 



"The first industry to feel the shock of the approaching storm was the fisheries. Massachu- 

 setts, the center of this pursuit, was to the English ministers the very focus of the insurrectionary 

 talk and action, and 'the first step,' says Bancroft, 'toward inspiring terror was to declare Massa- 

 chusetts in a state of rebellion, and to pledge the Parliament and the whole force of Great Britain 

 to its reduction; the next, by prohibiting the American fisheries, to starve New England ; the 

 next, to excite a servile insurrection.'t 



" Accordingly on the l()th of February, 1775, the ministry introduced into Parliament a bill 

 restricting the trade and commerce of Massachusetts Bay, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and 

 IMiode Island to Great Britain, Ireland, and the British West Indies, and prohibiting the colonies 

 from carrying on any fishery on the Banks of Newfoundland or any other part of the North 

 American coast. ' The best ship-builders in the world were at Boston, and their yards had been 

 closed ; the New England fishermen were now to be restrained from a toil in which they excelled 

 the world. Thus the joint right to the fisheries was made a part cf the great American struggle.' 

 To this bill there was a small but active and determined opposition, both in the House of Lords 

 and House of Commons. It was urged on the part of the ministry that the fisheries were the 

 property of England, and it was with the English Government to do as they pleased with them. 

 To this opinion the minority strenuously demurred. ' God and nature,' said Johnston, ' have 

 given that fishery to New England and not to Old.' || It was also argued by the friends of Amer- 

 ica that if the American fishery was destroyed the occupation must inevitably fall into the hands 

 of the natural rivals of Great Britain. Despite the efforts of the little band the bill was received 



1 * The colonial trade, had become to many English merchants aud manufacturers a matter of great importance, aiid 



the loss of it would bo a acrious misfortune. One of the industries which would fuel the- deprivation most strongly 

 was the, manufacture of cordage, of which the Americans were liy far the chiefcst pureliasrrs in the English market." 



"t Bancroft's United States, vii, p. >2'>->, February, 177.V { Kug. Annual Keg., 1775, p. 78." 



" $ Bancroft's United States, vii, p. 239." " || Ibid." 



