CHAPTER VII 



WAB AND ITS RESULTS 



With the opening of the Revolutionary War the colonial 

 era of the fisheries came to a close. For the first time 

 since its beginning in the early part of the seventeenth 

 century, this ancient industry of the sea was wholly sus- 

 pended. For a decade the annals of the fisheries give 

 place to records of war, to feats of daring on land and 

 sea. What could be accomplished neither by raiding In- 

 dians, nor by hostile French rivals, nor by restrictions of 

 Parliament, nor by two centuries of battling with the storms 

 of the ocean, was accomplished in a single season by the 

 war. The doughty schooners fled for refuge to their native 

 harbors; lines, tubs and sounding-lead were laid away 

 in storehouses ; cargoes of fish and salt were unloaded upon 

 the wharves ; captain and crew threw off their oiled barvels, 

 and the seas were undisturbed by the white sails of fishing 

 craft that had dotted their surface for more than five 

 generations. 



But a wonderful transformation was at hand! Almost 

 in a night the change took place, for, on another day, 

 the largest vessels in the fleet were speeding out of har- 

 bor once more to scour the seas in search of a new prey. 

 Lines and tubs had given place to cutlasses and swivels; 

 out of sounding-leads bullets had been melted; the hold 

 of the vessel, once filled with salt and fish, furnished 

 commodious quarters for a score or two of fighting sea- 

 men; barvels had been exchanged for American uniforms 

 for men who were as eager now to train their guns upon 



121 



