rominence above the
city the part which its natural prototypes played in building up the
commonwealth. In the Revolution and the early wars of the United States,
the fishermen suffered severely. Crowded together on the banks, they were
easy prey for the British cruisers, who, in time of peace or in time of
war, treated them about as they chose, impressing such sailors as seemed
useful, and seizing such of their cargo as the whim of the captain of the
cruiser might suggest. And even before the colonies had attained the
status of a nation, the jealousy and hostility of Great Britain bore
heavily on the fortunes of the New England fishermen. It was then, as it
has been until the present day, the policy of Great Britain to build up in
every possible way its navy, and to encourage by all imaginable devices
the development of a large body of able seamen, by whom the naval vessels
might be manned. Accordingly parliament undertook to discourage the
American fisherman by hostile legislation, so that a body of deep-sea
fishermen might be created claiming English ports for their home. At first
the effort was made to prohibit the colonies from exporting fish. The
great Roman Catholic countries of France, Spain, and Portugal took by far
the greater share of the fish sent out, though the poorer qualities were
shipped to the West Indies and there exchanged for sugar and molasses.
Against this trade Lord North leveled some of his most offensive measures,
proposing bills, indeed, so unjust and tyrannical that outcries were
raised against them even in the British House of Lords. To cut off
intercourse with the foreign peoples who took the fish of the Yankees by
hundreds and thousands of quintals, and gave in return rum, molasses, and
bills of exchange on England, to destroy the calling in which every little
New England seacoast village was interested above all things, Lord North
first proposed to prohibit the colonies trading in fish with any country
save the "mother" country, and secondly, to refuse to the people of New
England the right to fish on the Great Banks of Newfoundland, thus
confining them to the off-shore banks, which already began to show signs
of being fished out. Even a hostile parliament was shocked by these
measures. Every witness who appeared before the House of Commons testified
that they would work irreparable injury to New England, would rob six
thousand of her able-bodied men of their means of livelihood, and would
d