62 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OP FISH AND FISHERIES. 



the bill as determinedly as the minor part of the Commons, fifteen 

 lords entered a protest against it. The island of Nantucket was, for the 

 reasons enumerated, relieved somewhat from its extreniest features, a 

 fact which did not escape the surveillance of the provincial authorities, 

 who in their turn restricted the exportation of provisions from any por- 

 tion of the colonies, save the Massachusetts Bay, to that island, and the 

 Provincial Congress of Massachusetts further prohibited any exporta- 

 tion from that colony, save under certain regulations.* But, like the 

 mother country, the colonies yielded to the behests of humanity and 

 relaxed their stringency in regard to this island. 



At an early day after the formal opening of the issue of battle be- 

 tween England and the plantations, the general court of Massachusetts 

 passed a resolve, directing " that from and after the fifteenth Day of Au- 

 gust instant, no Ship or Vessell should sail out of any port in this Col- 

 ony, on any whaling Voyage whatever, without leave first had and ob- 

 tained from the Great and General Court of this Colony, or from some 

 Committee or committees or persons they shall appoint to grant such 

 leave;" and on the 24th of August, the day for adjournment of the 

 court being near at haud, it was further resolved, in view of possible 

 damage liable to accrue to parties for want of these permits, " that the 

 Major part of the Couucil for this Colony be, and they accordingly are, 

 hereby fully impowered to grant leave for any Vessell or Vessells to sail 

 out of any port in this Colony, on any whaling Voyage whatever, as to 

 them shall seem fit & reasonable for the Benefit of Individuals, and the 

 Good of the Public, provided there be good & sufficient security given 

 that the Oil & Bone, &c, obtained on said Voyage shall be brought 

 into some Port in this Colony, except the port of Boston, & such Per- 

 mits do not interfere with any Resolve or Recommendations of the Con- 

 tinental Congress : — The power herein given to continue only in the 

 recess of the general court." t 



The bells that called the hardy yeomanry of New England to the 

 defense of their imperiled liberties on the ever-memorable morning of 

 the 19th of April rung the death knell of the whale-fishery, save that 

 carried on from Nantucket ; the rattle of musketry was the funeral vol- 

 ley over its grave. J Save from this solitary island, it was doomed to 



* Mass. Col. MSS., Provincial Congress, i, p. 300. 



t Mass. Col. MSS. Rev. Council Papers, series i, vol ii, p. 17. 



t The shipping of Nantucket rendered important ante-revolutionary aid to the colo- 

 nists in the importation of powder, a service that was continued at intervals during 

 the war. The Earl of Dartmouth, in a letter to Lieutenant-Governor Colden, dated 

 7th September, 1774, says: " My Information says that the Polly, Capt" Benjamin 

 Broadhelp, bound from Amsterdam to Nantucket, has among other Articles received 

 on board, no less a quantity than three Hundred thousand pounds weight of Gunpow- 

 der, & I have great reason to believe that considerable quantities of that commodity, 

 as wellasother Military Stores, are introduced into the Colonies from Holland, through 

 the Channel of St. Eustatia." (N. Y. Col. Rec, viii, p. 487.) St. Eustatia was cap- 

 tured by the English during the colonial war, the chief grounds of the capture being 

 the alleged supply to the revolting colonies of. contraband goods. 



