58 



REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



which this pursuit was carried on, in Nantucket, Wellfleet, Dartmouth, 

 Lynn, Martha's Vineyard, Barnstable, Boston, Falmouth, and Swanzey, 

 in Massachusetts, in Newport, Providence, Warren, and Tiverton, in 

 Rhode Island, in New London, Connecticut, Sag Harbor on Long Island, 

 the merry din or' the " yo heave ho " of the sailors was heard ; the ring 

 of the blacksmith's hammer and anvil made cheery music ; the coopers, 

 with their hammers and drivers, kept time to the tramp of their feet as 

 round and round the casks they marched, tightening more and more 

 the bands that bound together the vessels which should hold the precious 

 oil; and the creaking of the blocks as the vessels unloaded their freight, 

 or the riggers fitted them anew for fresh conquests, and the rattle of the 

 hurrying teams as they carried off the prod net of the last voyage or brought 

 the necessaries for the future one, lent their portion of animation to the 

 scene. Everywhere was hurry and bustle; everywhere all were em- 

 ployed ; none that thirsted for employment went away unsatisfied. If 

 a vessel made a bad voyage, the owners, by no means dispirited, again 

 fitted her out, trusting in the next one to retrieve the loss ; if she made 

 a profitable one, the proceeds were treasured up to offset a possible fail- 

 ure in some future cruise. On all sides were thrift and happiness. 



But a change was near. "A cloud, at first no bigger than a man's 

 hand,'" was beginning to overshadow the whole heaven of their commer- 

 cial prosperity. The colouies, driven to desperation by the heartless 

 cruelty of the mother country, prepared to stay further aggression, and 

 resent at the mouth of the cannon and the point of the bayonet the 

 insults and injuries that for a decade of years had been heaped upon 

 them ; and the English ministry, against the earnest entreaty of British 

 merchants on both sides of the Atlantic, prepared also to enforce its 

 desires by a resort to arms.* 



The first industry to feel the shock of the approaching storm was the 

 fisheries. Massachusetts, the center of this pursuit, was to the English 

 ministers the very focus of the insurrectionary talk and action, and 

 "the first step," says Bancroft, " toward inspiring terror was, to declare 



Accordiug to Pitkin, among the exports of the colonies, including Newfoundland, 

 Bahamas, and Bermudas, were, for the year 1770 : 



Sperm candles pounds 



Whale-oil tons 



Whalebone pounds 



Great 

 Britain. 



Ireland. 



4,865 



5, 202 



112,971 



450 

 22 



South of 

 Europe. 



14, 107 

 175 



West 

 Indies. 



351, 625 



2t>8 



Africa. 



Total. 



379, 012 



5, cr.7 



112,971 



Value sterling: Sperm candles, £23,088 4s. 6d. ; whale-oil, £83,012 15s. 9d. ; bone, 

 £19,121 7s. Gd. 



* The colonial trade had become to many English merchants and manufacturers a 

 matter of great importance, and the loss of it would be a serious misfortune. Oue of 

 the industries which would feel the deprivation most strongly was the manufacture of 

 cordage, of which the Americans were by far the chiefest purchasers in the English 

 market. 



