142 NEW ENGLAND FISHERIES 



and other articles, all of which found a ready sale. Sugar, 

 molasses, coffee, rum, pine apples, oranges, lemons, and 

 other tropical products were brought from the West Indies, 

 and disposed of without delay. There were times in the 

 Spanish and French harbors when fish commanded an ex- 

 tremely high price. I was in conversation not long since 

 with an old fisherman, who informed me that he once went 

 to Bilboa as a mate of a fish laden schooner, and that the 

 cargo was sold at the rate of twenty dollars a quintal. 

 'We got,' he said, * about one dollar for every fish we car- 

 ried out. ' He added that he had known the article to bring 

 a still higher price, but this was soon after the termination 

 of the war of 1812. ' J1 



The mackerel fishery of New England did not occupy a 

 position of economic importance previous to the year 1815. 

 The total number of barrels of pickled mackerel inspected 

 in Maine from 1804 to 1818 inclusive was 6,553, and in 

 Massachusetts for the same period 231,085 barrels, the total 

 amount for New England being 237,638 barrels. Nearly 

 sixty per cent of this quantity was caught during the last 

 four years of the period. In Maine, the business was car- 

 ried on principally from Portland and Eastport. In Mas- 

 sachusetts, it centered in Boston; other principal towns 

 engaged in the industry were Hingham, Cohasset, Scituate 

 and Newburyport. 2 



The average price of fresh mackerel in Boston markets 

 from 1804 to 1822 was six to eight cents apiece, sometimes 

 ten cents ; they were always sold by the count. The pickled 

 mackerel were exported to the West Indies principally, but 

 the quantity exported could not have been great, as the 

 total catch of pickled mackerel was only thirty-seven per 

 cent of the total exports of pickled fish. A beginning of 

 the southern mackerel fishery was made in 1817 by the 



1 Goode, Sec. II, p. 706, quoting Marblehead Ledger of 1860. 



2 Report, U. S. Fish Commission, 1881, pp. 280, 292. 



