38 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



fishery, being the principal source of our returns to Great Britain, are 

 therefore worthy not only of provincial but national attention." 



A continual succession of foreign wars, in which the hardy fisher- 

 men and farmers of New Eugland were constantly called to the aid of 

 England, coupled with a continual succession of intolerant measures 

 adopted by the mother couutry toward the plantations, which, in com- 

 mon with the colonists at large, they felt impelled to resist, was gradu- 

 ally prepariug America for the eventful struggle which was to end in 

 its independence. By the experience of the wars they learned theiv 

 strength, through the pressure of the tyrannical acts they learned thiir 

 rights. 



Pending the expedition for the reduction of Nova Scotia in 1755 an 

 embargo was laid upon the " bank" fishermen, though the risk of cap- 

 ture was so great that it of itself must have quite effectively embargoed 

 many of them.* 



In 1757 — the embargo being still continued upon the fishery in these 

 waters — a petition was presented to the general court of Massachu- 

 setts from the people of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket, represent- 

 ing that the memorialists " being Informed that your Honours think it 

 not advisable to Permit the fishermen to Sail on their Voyages uutill the 

 time limited by the Embargo is Expired by Keason that their fishing 

 banks where they Usually proceed on said Voyages lyes Eastward not 

 far from Cape breton w 7 hich may be a means of their falling into the 

 hands of the trench which may be of bad Consequence to the Common 

 Cause. Your Memorialists would Humbly observe to Your Honours 

 that that is not the Case with the whalemen their procedure on their 

 Voyages is Westward of the Cape of Virginia and southward of that 

 untill the month of June from which Your Memorialists are of the mind 

 their is nothing like the Danger of their falling into the hands of the 

 Cape breton Privateers as would be If they went Eastward. Your 

 Memorialists would further Observe that the whalemen have almost 

 double the Number of hands that the fishermen Carry which makes 

 Their Charge almost Double to that of fishermen and ye first part of 

 the Whale season is Always Esteemed the Principal time for their 

 making their Voyages which If they lose the greatest part of the Peo- 

 ple will have nothing to Purchase the Necessaries of life withal they 

 haveing no other way which must make them in miserable Situation. 



" Your memorialists would therefore beg that y r Honours would take 

 Our Miserable Situation under Consideration and grant our Whalemen 

 liberty to Proceed on Our Voyages from this time If it be Consistent 

 with your Great wisdom as in duty bound shall ever pray 



" John Norton (for Martha's Vineyard) 

 "Abishai FoLGERt (for Nantucket)" 



* A duty was laid upon the colonists iu 1756 to support a frigate ou the Banks to de- 

 fend the fishery. 



t Mass. Col., MSS., Maritime, vi, p. 371. From this petition it would appear that, 

 having an unfavorable season at the southward, the whalemen would stand for the 



