shipbuilding soon sprang up; presently there were nearly thirty ship
yards in Boston alone and sixty ships a year were built. It was a
lucrative industry. The price of a vessel was dear, while the wages of
the carpenters, smiths, caulkers and sparmakers were low. Not a few of
the merchants and traders or their sons who made their money by
debauching and cheating the Indians went into this highly profitable
business and became men of greater wealth. By 1700 Boston was shipping
50,000 quintals of dried codfish every year. The fish was divided into
several kinds. The choice quality went to the Catholic countries, where
there was a great demand for it, principally to Bilboa, Lisbon and
Oporto. The refuse was shipped to the West India Islands for sale to the
negro slaves and laborers. The price varied. In 1699 it was eighteen
shillings a quintal; the next year, we read, it had fallen to twelve
shillings because the French fisheries had glutted the market
abroad.[38]

"FORCE AS GOOD AS FORCE."

Along with the fisheries, considerable wealth was extracted in New
England, as elsewhere in the colonies, from the shipment of timber.
Sharp traders easily got the advantage of Indians and landowners in
buying the privilege of cutting timber. In some cases, particularly in
New Hampshire, which Allen claimed to own, the timber was simply taken
without leave. The word was passed that force was as good as force,
fraud as good as fraud. Allen had got the province by force and fraud;
let him stop the timber cutters if he dare. Ship timber was eagerly
sought in European ports. One Boston merchant is recorded as having
taken a cargo of this timber to Lisbon and clearing a profit of L1,600
on an expenditure of L300. "Everybody is excited," wrote Bellomont on
June 22, 1700, to the Lords Commissioners for Trades and Plantations.
"Some of the merchants of Salem are now loading a ship with 12,000 feet
of the noblest ships timber that was ever seen."[39]

The whale fishery sprang up about this time and brought in great
profits. The original method was to sight the whale from a lookout on
shore, push out in a boat, capture him and return to the shore with the
carcass. The oil was extracted from the blubber and readily sold. As
whales became scarce around the New England islands the whalers pushed
off into the ocean in small vessels. Within fifty years at least sixty
craft were engaged in the venture. By degrees larger and larger vessels
were bu