26 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



Design of Whale-fishing or shall carry or cause to be carried any 

 Drink to them, whereby such Indians are made incapable of doing 

 their Labour and Duty in and about their Master's Service," within the 

 date above named, shall be compelled to restore the articles taken, and 

 forfeit to the master the sum of thirty shillings. This act was to be 

 in force seven years after publication, but it did not finally become a 

 law until June 10, 1710. It was renewed in 1716 for four years longer,* 

 and again in 1720 for a further term of six years.t 



In July, 1708, Lord Cornbury writes again to the board of trade re- 

 garding New York affairs. | In his letter he says: " The quantity of 

 Train Oyl made in Long Island is very uncertain, some years they have 

 much more fish than others, for example last year they made four thou- 

 sand Barrils of Oyl, and this last Season tbey have not made above Six 

 hundred : About the middle of October they begin to look out for fish, 

 the Season lasts all November, December, January, February, and part 

 of March ; a Yearling will make about forty Barils of Oyl, a Stunt or 

 Whale two years old will make sometimes fifty, sometimes sixty Barrils 

 of Oyl, and the largest whale that I have heard of in these Parts, yielded 

 one hundred and ten barrels of Oyl, and twelve hundred Weight of 

 Bone." 



In 1709 the fishery had attained such value on Long Island that some 

 parties attempted to reduce it, so far as possible, to a monopoly, and 

 grants of laud previously made by Governor Fletcher and others, in a 

 reckless and somewhat questionable manner were improved for personal 

 benefit. Earl Bellomont, in commenting on these irregular practices, 

 writes to the lords of trade, under date of July 2 of that year,§ citing, 

 among others, one Colonel Smith, who, he states, "has got the beach 

 on the sea shore for fourty miles together, after an odd manner as I have 

 been told by some of the inhabitants ****** having forced 

 the town of Southampton to take a poore £10 for the greatest part of 

 the said beach, which is not a valuable consideration in law, for Colonel 

 Smith himself own'd to me that that beach was very profitable to him for 

 whale fishing, and that one year he cleared £500, by whales taken there." 



In 1716, Samuel Mulford, of Easthampton, in a petition to the King, 

 gave a sketch of the progress of this industry in that vicinity. || In 

 the recital of the grievances of his neighbors and himself, he writes 

 that " the inhabitants of the said Township and parts adjacent did from 

 the first Establishment of the said Colony of New York enjoy the Privi- 

 lege & Benefit of fishing for whale & applying ye same to their own use 

 as their undoubted right and property." fl By his petition it appears 

 further that in 1664 Governor Nicolls and council directed that drift- 



* Laws of New York, Bradford, p. 72. t Ibid., pp. 131-198. 



1 N. Y. Col. Rec, v, p. 60. 

 § N. Y. Col. Rec, iv, 535. 

 || N. Y. Col. Rec, v, p. 474. 



H These are undoubtedly what the authorities were pleased to term " Massachusetts 

 notions." 



