I pardon something
to the spirit of Liberty."
The War of the Revolution, of course, interrupted for a time
the fisheries of the American colonies. But the fishermen
were not idle. They manned the little Navy whose exploits
have never yet received from history its due meed of praise.
They furnished the ships' companies of Manly and Tucker and
Biddle and Abraham Whipple. They helped Paul Jones to strike
terror into St. George's Channel. In 1776, in the first year
of the Revolutionary War, American privateers, most of them
manned by our fishermen, captured three hundred and forty-
two British vessels.
The fisheries came up again after the war. Mr. Jefferson
commended them to the favor of the nation in an elaborate
and admirable report. He said that before the war 8,000 men
and 52,000 tons of shipping were annually employed by Massachusetts
in the cod and whale fisheries. England and France made urgent
efforts and offered large bounties to get our fishermen to
move over there.
For a long time the fisheries were aided by direct bounties.
Later the policy of protection has been substituted.
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