CHAPTER VI 



A HARBINGER OF THE REVOLUTION 



At the close of the Seven Years' War the colonists of 

 New England found themselves in a position to pursue 

 their great industry unmolested by the attacks of the 

 French and undisturbed with thoughts of another war. 

 With renewed energy and vigor they resumed the fisheries. 

 The dreams of Auchmuty were about to be realized, and 

 the lapse of time in their fulfillment was to be compensated 

 for amply in the greater returns to be derived from a larger 

 field of action. Apparently there was nothing to hinder 

 the people of New England from becoming in a very short 

 period of time the greatest fishermen in the world. "War 

 clouds no longer hung over their borders ; hostile privateers 

 no longer infested their waters ; a friendly sea invited their 

 ships to quieter and wider scenes of activity; unexampled 

 prosperity lay before them, when, like a bolt from a clear 

 sky, the voice of the ministry in England thundered forth 

 its decree that was heard with dread and consternation on 

 the shore and aboard the ship, the navigation laws must 

 be enforced! 



By the navigation laws were meant the so-called Molasses 

 Act of 1733 and the proposed measure of the ministry, 

 called the Sugar Act of 1764. The northern English colo- 

 nies in America from the very first had found their most 

 important and lucrative trade in the exchange of their fish, 

 lumber and agricultural products for the sugar, rum and 

 molasses of the West Indies, and it was mainly by this 

 avenue of trade that money ,was pbtained for the purchase 



