ne, "Antegun,"
binds herself in 1696 as a servant to Captain William Kidd for four
years for board. When her term is over she is to get two dresses. These
are a few specific instances of the bonding system--a system which
served its purpose in being highly advantageous to the merchants and
traders.

THE FISHERIES OF NEW ENGLAND.

Toward the close of the seventeenth century the merchants of Boston were
the richest in the colonies. Trade there was the briskest. By 1687,
according to the records of the Massachusetts Historical Society, there
were ten to fifteen merchants in Boston whose aggregate property
amounted to L50,000, or about L5,000 each, and five hundred persons who
were worth L3,000 each. Some of these fortunes came from furs, timber
and vending merchandise.

But the great stimuli were the fisheries of the New England coast.
Bellomont in 1700 ascribed the superior trade of Massachusetts to the
fact that Fletcher had corruptly sold the best lands in New York
province and had thus brought on bad conditions. Had it not been for
this, he wrote, New York "would outthrive the Massachusetts Province and
quickly outdoe them in people and trade." While the people of the South
took to agriculture as a main support, and the merchants of New York
were contented with the more comfortable method of taking in coin over
counters, a large proportion of the 12,000 inhabitants of Boston and
those of Salem and Plymouth braved dangers to drag the sea of its spoil.
They developed hardy traits of character, a bold adventurousness and a
singular independence of movement which in time engendered a bustling
race of traders who navigated the world for trade.

It was from shipping that the noted fortunes of the early decades of the
eighteenth century came. The origin of the means by which these fortunes
were got together lay greatly in the fisheries. The emblem of the
codfish in the Massachusetts State House is a survival of the days when
the fisheries were the great and most prolific sources of wealth and the
chief incentive of all kinds of trade. A tremendous energy was shown in
the hazards of the business. So thoroughly were the fisheries recognized
as important to the life of the whole New England community that vessels
were often built by public subscription, as was instanced in Plymouth,
where public subscription on one occasion defrayed the expense.[37]

In response to the general incessant demand for ships, the business of