ALTHOUGH geographical conditions were in most respects against them, it is manifest from any study of the New Englanders that their chief mercantile interests, during the earliest years, were concentrated in the fur trade. The Pilgrims devoted their first surplus crop to that trade, and the first voyage of Winthrop's Blessing of the Bay was to "eastward." According to the contracts, they had come to make fishing stations; yet the large profits made on such furs as they were able to secure kept their minds fixed on the Indian trade. But, happily, at an opportune moment a man came to Salem who was able to see that enduring prosperity could be found by the colonists only in the fisheries; and by example as well as precept he speedily led them to accept his view. Curiously enough, as it must seem in our modern view of the profession, this man was a clergyman, the Rev. Hugh Peter (written also Peters).

Few more stirring stories are to be found in the history of New England than the biography of Hugh Peter. He was born in England, of wealthy parents, in 1599, graduated at Cambridge in 1622, and immediately took holy orders. Very soon, however, he had (or made) such trouble with the church authorities that he had to flee from the country. Then he served an English congregation in Rotterdam until 1634, when he came to New England and was made pastor of the Puritans at Salem.

In 1641 Peter was sent as ambassador to treat with the Dutch of New Amsterdam for a settlement of the disputes over the territory of Connecticut, and the records of his work, especially the proposals which he submitted (N. Y. C. docs. I, 567), show that he was a master of diplomacy. His work with the Dutch led the colonists to send him as their ambassador to England, when the civil war began there. Being a Puritan, he naturally joined the hosts of Cromwell and with such energy and zeal as were characteristic of the man.

In June, 1645, he was made "Chaplain of the Train," and a little later private secretary to Cromwell. He was with his chief at the storming of the castle at Winchester and when the dour hosts swept over the works at Basing. As a special honor, and because of his eloquence, Cromwell sent him on each occasion to tell Parliament how the battles were won; and the reader who would like to learn what a preacher had to say about such fighting as was done in those battles can find one of the addresses in Carlyle's Cromwell. Having been sent on a mission to Holland, he delivered a sermon which stirred the audience until "crowds of women" stripped the wedding rings from their fingers to aid in providing funds for the work of the great Commoner.

For his zeal he was arrested soon after the Restoration. "His trial was a scene of flagrant injustice," and he was condemned, hanged, and quartered. But he faced his accusers and death as he had faced all else in life. He was placed on the gallows while one of his friends was yet hanging there, and was compelled to look on while the corpse was lowered and cut to pieces. When this had been done, one of the executioners turned, and rubbing his bloody hands together, said to Peter:—

"How like you this?"

But Peter, in a voice of unconcern, replied—

"I thank God I am not terrified at it; you may do your worst."

When Hugh Peter came to Salem, he found the people of the colony, with few exceptions, living in log houses that had thatched roofs and dirt floors. They were frontiersmen, a thin line of population stretched along the beach. Although there were masters and servants, there was less division of labor than that fact would now seem to imply. Owners and servants worked together. They cut timber in the forest for lumber and fuel; they built houses of all needed kinds; they cultivated the soil and they cared for their cattle. The New World was almost without form and void, but the divine power of labor was moving upon the wastes. A natural-born leader was needed, however, and Hugh Peter was the man for the hour. He saw that the fur trade was slipping away and that some other resource must be provided. Better yet, he saw that the fisheries would provide a permanent prosperity, and he began to preach the gospel of good fish markets in far countries. No record of his arguments remains, but we may easily learn what he said by reading the contemporary writings of John Smith, who used the facts vigorously, as Peter did beyond a doubt.

In 1619 "there went" to America, said Smith, a ship "of 200 tuns ... which with eight and thirty men and boys had her freight, which she sold for £2100 ... so that every poor sailor that had but a single share had his charges and sixteen pounds ten shillings for his seven months work." In 1620 three different ships "made so good a voyage that every sailor that had a single share had twenty pounds for his seven months work, which is more than in twenty months he should have gotten had he gone for wages anywhere."

If a statement of the gains of a foremast hand would serve as an effective argument in England, it would be much more effective in New England, where many men low in the social scale were finding opportunities to rise—where, indeed, men who had come over as indentured servants had already become capitalists able to join in a venture afloat. The profits of the merchants were also known and printed, however, even though not considered a matter of first importance by Smith. Thus there was a statement that "the charge of setting forth a ship of 100 tuns with 40 persons to make a fishing voyage" was £420 11s. The average take of fish on the American coast would sell for £2100, of which £700 would be the share of the merchant supplying the outfit costing £420 11s. His profit on the voyage would therefore be near 100 per cent, even though the prevailing rate of interest on borrowed money were 40 per cent. The ship-owner took a third of the income from the voyage, and made a still larger profit, for a hundred-ton ship could be built in New England, as Randolph noted, for £4 per ton.

With these facts in hand Hugh Peter went among his people preaching the gospel of enterprise with as much enthusiasm no doubt as he felt and displayed later in preaching religious doctrines before Cromwell's men. As a result of his work he "procured a good sum of money to be raised to set on foot the fishing business, and wrote into England to raise as much more." Further than that, the General Court, as the governing body of the colony was called, appointed six men to fish "for general account."

The Salem people made money from the first. The business spread to near-by Marblehead, and the people there became so much interested that when a minister in the pulpit told them that they ought to seek the "kingdom of heaven to the exclusion of all earthly blessings," one of the congregation interrupted him by saying, "You think you are preaching to the people at the Bay. Our main end is to catch fish."

By 1640 the Salem people had made such progress and profits in their fishery that they were able to launch a ship of 300 tons, a monster of a vessel for the day and place. Moreover, Boston people were so wrought up by Peter's enterprise in this matter that they also built a ship at the same time, the Trial, of 160 (or 200) tons.

Unhappily for Salem, her people had no leader after Peter sailed for England, and Boston soon gained the ascendancy in commerce as in politics. But for many years Salem was a port of vast importance in the story of our merchant marine.

In the meantime (1636), the Desire, a ship of 120 tons, was built at Marblehead for the fishing business. It is likely that Peter inspired the people there to build her. She was engaged in fishing for two years and then made a voyage in the slave trade, and thus acquired enduring notoriety.

Of much more importance than these large vessels in promoting the shipping interests of the colonists were the small vessels, smacks, and shallops, which men of limited means built and used. A seven-ton shallop could be built for £25, and in the hands of her owners she was well able to go fishing. Friends and neighbors united their labor as well as their accumulations of capital in sending the small boats to sea. Even the dugout canoe which a man could make for himself was used in the bay fisheries, and the whole world was within the reach and grasp of a man who had the courage and enterprise to launch forth in a dugout canoe of his own making. It was in and through such men that the American colonists were gaining the sea habit.

The cod was the fish of chief importance, though other varieties were sent abroad, and used at home in enormous quantities. Mackerel, though some were eaten and some exported, were used chiefly for bait. Sturgeon eggs were made into caviare then, as now, while the flesh of the sturgeon was smoked and sold—perhaps as the flesh of some more delicate fish. Hake, halibut, and haddock were of some importance, but the one fish that ranked next after the cod was the alewife.

It is said that alewives were so called because their well-rounded abdomens reminded the fishermen of such of their wives as were too fond of malt drinks! Millions of alewives came to the coast and swarmed up the streams until the channels seemed to be filled solid with the struggling bodies. Seines, scoop-nets, and even the naked hands were used in taking them, but the weir was in common use from the first. Indeed, the Indians used weirs before the white men came.

The people naturally looked upon these swarming fish as common property, and when weirs were built by private enterprise and the owners were thus able to "control the market" to a certain extent, laws were promptly enacted to regulate these primitive "trusts." One John Clark was allowed to build a weir at Cambridge on condition that he sell to no one not an inhabitant of the town "except for bait." The interests of the commonwealth were placed ahead of those of the small community when there was a need of "bait." The price of alewives was fixed at "IIIs 6d per thousand." Another monopolist was to "fetch home the alewives from the weir; and he is to have XVId a thousand and load them himself for carriage; and to have the power to take any man to help him, he paying of him for his work."

The importance of alewives to the people is thus shown clearly. The notable uses of alewives were as food, as fertilizers, and as bait, but a few were smoked for export.

The early laws governing the fisheries may well have still further consideration here. After Hugh Peter began arousing an interest in the fisheries, the General Court exempted fishing vessels from all charges for a period of seven years, beginning in 1639. Fishermen and ship carpenters were excused from serving the public on training days. When alewives were taken at the weirs, the fishermen were to be served at statute-made prices before any were to be offered to the public. This was provided for, of course, after the farmers had learned their art well enough to prevent the fear of starvation. Land was set aside for fish-curing stages, and pasture was provided for the cattle which fishermen owned but could not attend to while at sea.

Until 1648 the fishermen, on coming ashore to "make" their catch, were allowed to land, cut timber, and erect their stages for the work regardless of the ownership of the ground where they landed. After that date they were still allowed to do the same things, but they were then required to pay the owner of the land for the use of land and timber. In 1652, to preserve the reputation of the colony product of fish, the law provided for "fish viewers" at "every fishing place," whose duty it was to separate cured fish into grades according to quality.

Some details of the early methods of taking fish on the Banks were recorded. Neither the dory nor the trawl had then been developed. Hand-lines thrown from the deck of the fishing ship were used exclusively. The hooks and lines were imported from England, and Smith records the price: "12 dozen of fishing lines, £6; 24 dozen of fishing hooks, £2." The Indians made fairly good hooks of bones and shells. They spun lines from the fibres of Indian hemp, which they saturated with grease and the wax of the bayberry bush, but the white men would not use any such gear.

Cod lines for use on the Grand Banks were from 50 to 75 fathoms long; the lines now used on the Georges Bank are often as much as 150 fathoms long. Sinkers (conical plummets of lead), were from 3 to 8 pounds in weight according to the strength of the tidal current where the fishing vessel anchored. The enthusiastic John Smith said: "Is it not pretty sport to pull up two pence, six pence and twelve pence as fast as you can haul and veer a line?" But the fishermen who stood at the rail, in freezing weather, hauling a wet line that was 75 fathoms or more in length, and weighted with 8 pounds of lead and a 100-pound codfish, did not find it exactly "pretty sport." Moreover, hauling and veering did not end their work, for when the school of fish was lost, the catch had to be cleaned and salted, even though the men had been at the rail day and night for 48 hours. But the work afforded better opportunities for "getting on," and so they found in it the "pleasing content" of which Smith also speaks.

As the reader knows, stoves were not invented until many years later, but the fishermen made shift by carrying a half hogshead nearly filled with sand. In the centre of the sand they scooped a hole in which the fire was built. By means of such a fire, built on deck, they cooked their food, warmed themselves, and dried their wet clothing. The scene where a fleet of fishermen anchored together on the banks by night, and all together cooked their suppers by the flaring fires, was memorable. One sees how easy it was for the imaginative sailor to name such a tub of fire a "galley," the name applied to the modern ship's kitchen.

In food supplies the New Englanders naturally fared better than their old-country competitors. Being nearer home, they had fresh vegetables for a greater proportion of the time afloat. Food was cheaper, too, and the circumstances or conditions under which the food was produced made them more lavish in using it. They raised their own peas and had barrels of them at home; why should they stint themselves on the Banks? To this day American ships are noted for superior food and hard work. Of course they ate plenty of fish, as all fishermen did, and they caught many sea-birds, of which they made savory dishes.

John Smith emphasizes the fact that in the English ships the catch was divided into three parts, of which the crew received only a third, the two-thirds going to the owner and the merchant who fitted out the expedition. Where one man owned and outfitted the ship, he took the two-thirds, of course. But as Weeden, in his Economic History of New England (quoting Bourne's Wells and Kennebunk), shows, in 1682-1685, if not earlier, "the capitalist fitting out the expedition with boat, provisions, seines, &c., took one-half the value of the catch, and the other part went to the crew." In the eighteenth century the share of the capitalist was reduced to one-fifth.

The whale fishery of the first half of the seventeenth century was of small importance in comparison with that of later years, but it is still worth mention. The chief source of oil and bone seems to have been found in the whales that died from natural causes and drifted to the beach. But men did go afloat in chase when the spouting spray and vapor were seen from the shore, and laws were provided at an early day to regulate the catch. The General Court, under these laws, took a share of all drift whales—from two barrels to a third of the whole product. In the chase the first harpoon that held its place claimed the whale. It was provided "5ly, that no whael shall be needlessly or fouellishly lansed behind ye vitall." The most important fact here is that at first the men who killed a whale shared equally. Later, when the men of superior skill claimed shares in proportion to the work they did, the "lay" system was evolved. The captain of a ship received from 1 barrel in 17 to 1 in 25; in recent years still more. Mates had from 1 in 30 to 1 in 50. The men who threw the harpoon had 1 in 75, say, while foremast men had still less, even down to 1 in 200 for a green hand. No better system for encouraging men to do as well as they could has ever been devised.

Of similar importance was the custom then prevailing of allowing the crews of merchant ships to carry a "private venture." When Skipper Cornell's Ewoutsen, in a Dutch cruiser, captured four New England ketches "in the neighborhood of Blocx Island," Captain Richard Hollingworth, commanding of one of the four, declared that he was "freighted on account of Wharton and Company, merchants of Boston, with 47 tubs of tobacco; Item, 6 tubs of tobacco for Mathew Cartwright and 13 tubs for himself and crew ... in all 66 tubs, with eight hides." The crew owned nearly a fifth of the cargo. (N. Y. C. docs. II, 662.) Seamen before the mast as well as officers took from port, in stated quantities, any commodities which they supposed they could sell to advantage in any of the ports to which the ship was bound. Here or there these goods were exchanged for others, which were again traded at other ports, or carried home to be sold. Wages were not so very low for common sailors, even by modern standards. They received on an average £2 10s. per month. Mates had, say, £3 10s., and captains £4 10s., and, rarely, £6 a month. On top of this the private venture was carried free, and the shrewd sailormen often made much more on the private venture than from wages. It is a matter of much importance.

The sailor, having a direct interest in the voyage, made haste to shorten sail when a squall threatened to carry away the masts; he worked with all his might whenever any danger threatened, because she carried his merchandise. More important still is the fact that the custom made merchants of the men, and that is to say, it made them self-respecting and ambitious. There were instances where the crew received no wages whatever; the owner, master, and men were all adventurers together.

There is no more instructive comparison in the history of the nation than that between these early-day merchants of the forecastle and the driven brutes before the mast in the clippers of a later day.

Consider now the influence of the poverty of the builder upon the character of the ship. Capital was so scarce that a man worth £4000 was called wealthy. Ships were built where scarcely a shilling in currency changed hands. The workmen were paid with goods. Where neighbors united to build a vessel, they traded produce of fishery field, or forest to the merchant for such iron, sails, and cordage as they needed, or they gave him a share in the vessel. The merchant traded the produce of the fisheries or forest in Europe for the outfit he gave to the builders. By hard labor and severe economy only were these vessels sent afloat. It was the European fashion of the day to build ships with enormous cabins piled high at the stern end, and to ornament the superstructures with carvings and paints. The New Englanders, having no capital to spare, had to forego the pleasure of ornamenting their ships with decorated superstructures; they were obliged to consider efficiency only. They did not know it at the time, but the fact was that this enforced economy led to an advance in the art of ship-building. On navigating the ships without superstructures, it was seen that the tall cabins had made the ships top-heavy, and had served to strain instead of strengthen the hulls. Moreover, the huge pile of timber had held the ship back in any winds but the fairest. Ships without superstructures were stronger, of greater capacity, swifter and handier.

Then there were the geographical influences which affected the model and rigs of ships. Whether in fishing or coasting voyages, the American ship must be prepared to meet winds from any point of the compass on every day she was out of port. The prevailing winds were westerly, but there was neither trade wind nor monsoon. The ship must therefore be rigged to force her way ahead against adverse winds. For such winds the spritsails, lugs, and others, where the cloth was stretched fore and aft, rather than to yards hung square across the masts, were more convenient. The schooner was a natural evolution of the coasting conditions.

The waters of the harbors were shallow. In England deep-water ports had favored deep hulls, but the American designer who wished to increase the capacity of a hull had to make it wider instead of deeper. Wide beam gave greater stability; a wide ship could carry wide sails and yet "stand up like a church" in a heavy wind. Of course stout masts were needed for wide sails, but the forests were full of enormous pines that could be had, at first, for the cutting. Wide hulls of shoal draft, with wide sails spread upon stout spars, made speedy ships, a fact that even now is not as well understood as it should be. The speedy ships invited their masters to "carry on"—to keep their sails spread full breadth while the gale increased to a weight that would "take the sticks out of" vessels of inferior design. The swift ship, well driven, soon brought fame as well as additional profit to crew and owners, and the pride in the ship which was thus developed led all who were in any way connected with her to look for still further improvements.

The short distances between harbors also had some influence upon the forms of ships. For one thing, short passages favored small vessels with small crews. The greater the number of vessels, the greater the number of captains accustomed to responsibility, a matter of no small importance in its effect upon the formation of the sea habit among a people. Then the short passage naturally led the crew into taking chances; they would risk a growing gale in a short run. Once out of port in "dirty weather," the manifest dangers set all hands thinking of improved ways of shortening sail in an emergency, and of improved shapes of hull and cut of canvas to help a vessel to "claw off" a lee shore. The men who worked in the shipyard building for themselves, and then went afloat, were particularly observant at such times. One of the most common statements to be found in the stories of perils at sea, as related by American shipmasters of other days, is this: "Every dollar I owned in the world was in that ship, and" for that reason every hardship was endured and every effort made to bring her to port.

In 1624 the Pilgrims exported their first cargo of fish. Boston sent its first cargo away in 1633. The owners of these fish had to pay three or four pounds a ton freight; and an agent in England, who charged a good commission for doing so, found a customer to buy them. The New Englanders saw that the vessel carrying the cargo made a profit for her owner. They saw, too, that an agent in a foreign country across the water would never have quite the interest in selling to advantage that they themselves would have if they were there to sell. In short, if the fish business were to be handled in the most profitable way possible, they must carry the cargo in their own ship direct to the consumer. Hugh Peter preached this doctrine with emphasis, beyond doubt, for it was he who led in building the 300-ton ship at Salem. From catching fish to carrying them to the oversea market was a short passage quickly made. With this in mind, consider the brief story of the voyage of the good ship Trial, Captain Thomas Coytemore, made after the fishing business was well in hand.

The Trial, as noted, was the ship built in Boston when the people there were stirred to emulation by the work of Hugh Peter in Salem. Loaded with fish and pipe-staves, she sailed away to Fayal (1642). Fayal was chosen because the people there had religious views leading them to eat fish instead of flesh on many days of the year, and they were wine-makers who used many casks every year. The Trial found the market at Fayal "extraordinary good," and Captain Coytemore exchanged the fish and staves for wine, sugar, etc., which he carried to St. Christopher's, in the West Indies. There he traded wine for cotton, tobacco, and some iron which the people had taken from a ship that had been wrecked on the coast, and was then visible, though so far under water that the wreckers had abandoned all work upon it. As the New Englanders were exceedingly anxious to get all kinds of iron things used about a ship, Captain Coytemore must needs have a look at the wreck, and after due examination, he determined to try to recover more of the wreckage. Slinging a "diving tub" (doubtless a good stout cask, well weighted, and with the open end down), above the hulk, he got into it, and having been lowered to the sunken deck, made shift to hook good stout grapnels to the valuable things lying within reach.

An Early View of Charleston Harbor

From a print in the possession of the Lenox Library