139 



by hanging by his hands over the stem. The passenger was examined 

 by a magistrate, who gave credit to his story, and suffered hitti to go at 

 large, but still sent a copy of the examination to the governor. The 

 account seemed untrue to the governor, who, as commissioner for trial 

 of piracies, issued a warrant to apprehend him, and he was tried for 

 murder at a special court of admiralty. He was acquitted ; but the 

 affair was transferred to the politics of the time, and did much to in- 

 crease the popular excitement. He was visited by several of the lead- 

 ing whigs, who affirmed their belief in his declarations, and charged 

 the murder upon a vessel of the royal navy ; while the tories, on the 

 contrary, insisted that he killed ihree of the crew to obtain their money, 

 and then took the hfe of the fourth, who was a boy, to prevent detec- 

 tion. 



These incidents will serve to show the connexion of the fisheries 

 with the questions which caused a dismemberment of the British em- 

 pire. It remains to speak of the act of Parliament passed in 1775, 

 which, by depriving the people of New England of the right of fishing, 

 was designed to "starve them into submission." The trade arising 

 from the cod-fishery alone, at that period, furnished the northern colo- 

 nies with nearly half of their remittances to the mother country, in 

 payment for articles of British manufacture, and was thus the very life- 

 blood of their commerce. The fishing towns had become populous and 

 •rich. Marblehead, for example, next to Boston, was the most import- 

 ant place in Massachusetts, and was Second to the capital only in pop- 

 ulation and taxable property. A fearful change awaited all. The dis- 

 Jjute was now to be determined by an appeal to arms, and every mar- 

 itime enterprise was to be interrupted and ruined.* 



On the 10th of February, Lord North moved "that leave be given 



* The inhabitaBts of the sea-shore of Massachusetts, impelled by their necessities, com- 

 nienced the manuiactare of salt from sea-water early in the Revolution. From the accounts 

 preserved, it would seem that they boiled the water at first, but were compelled to relinquish 

 the experiment because of the expense, and of the impurity of the salt. The next attempt 

 was by solar evaporation, on Boston Neck, by .General Palmer, "a worthy and enterprising 

 gentleman," who failed in consequence of the rain-water which fell into his uncovered works. 

 The third experiment is said to have been made in Dennis, Cape Cod, by Captain John Sears, 

 who, in the end, was successful. He constructed a vat with rafters and shutters, so arranged 

 as to exclude the rain in storms, and to expose the sea-water to the action of the sun in pleas- 

 ant weather. The first year he obtained only eight bushels of salt. His neighbors called his 

 invention "Sears's Folly;" yet he persevered. The second year he made thirty bushels of 

 gait. The fouith year, instead of pouring water into his vat from buckets, he introduced a 

 Aajwi-pump. In 1785, at the suggestion of Major Nathaniel Freeman, of Harwich, he contrived 

 a wind-pump, wliich he continued to use, and which saved a vast deal of labor. In 1793 Mr. 

 Eeuben Sears, of Harwich, invented covers for salt-vats, to move on shives, or small wheels, 

 ae in ships' blocks. Five years later Mr. Hattil Kelley, of Dennis, constructed a new kind of 

 vat, and a new method of moving the covers. Various changes were made by different per- 

 sons subsequently; and the manufacture of salt from sea-water, by solar evaporation, became 

 extensive, and at times profitable. Capt. John Sears was assisted in the improvements in his 

 works by Capt. William, Capt. Christopher Crowell, and by Capt. Edward Sears, of Dennis. 

 They resigned to him whatever claim? they might have had for their aid; and in 1799 he ob- 

 tained a patent from the government. His right was, however, disputed by others, wlio 

 asserted that he made no " new discovery." 



In 1802 the mmiber of salt-works in the county of Barnstable, Massachusetts, was 136, con- 

 taining 121,313 feet. These works were estimated to produce, annually, salt of the value of 

 $41,700. The business increased rapidly; and in 1832 the number of feet of salt-works, in 

 the same county, was 1,425,000 ; the quantity of salt manufactured, 358,250 bushels. The 

 reduction of the duty on the foreign article, and other causes, produced a great change in the 

 value of this description of property. In 1834 the manufacture was ruinously depressed; and 



