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MARITIME HISTORY of MASSACHUSETTS
1783
1860
Samuel Eliot Morison
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GENEALOGY COLLECTION
SAMUEL ELIOT MORISON 181 WIDENER LIBRARY CAMBRIDGE. 38. MASS.
February 14, 1921.
Dear Mr. Sawtelle:
I regret that I can furnish you no information about Bernard's grant of Mit. Desert. I had supposed in a general way that the motive of it was to effect some sort of reconciliation between the radical patriots and the crown forces. Your suggestion of another motive is very interest- ing and plausible. You say that Bernard's grant was the first made by Massachusetts since 1691. I suppose you mean the first in the Province of Sagadahoc, for there had been frequent private land grants in the rest of Massachusetts-Bay since 1691. AS I remember, there vere repeated efforts made to have Massachusetts deprived of Sagadahoc, and if I recollect rightly, Lieutenant Governor Hutchinson used his influence to that eno . I think I have a note on the subject from the Hutchinson manuscripts in the Library of Congress .
Have you seen the notes on Bernard in Benton's Early Census Making in Massachusetts?
Hutchinson writes Lord Hillsboro, January 2, 1771, recommending that Parliament separate Lainc and Sagadahoc from Massachusetts, and join them with New Hampshire as a separate province. Of course this was much later than the Bernard grant, but I think I recollect other records of the same sort in the Privy Council Acts, and it may well be that the General Court wished to enlist Bernard's influence toward retaining the eastern parts of the Province.
This is only an off-hand suggestion. I am much interested in your forth-coming article as both my mother and myself own land on ... t. Desert with titles from Bernard, and I have spent many summers there.
Sincerely yours, Florian
THE MARITIME HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS
Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2015
https://archive.org/details/maritimehistoryo1783mori
DONALD MCKAY Master Builder of Clipper Ships
THE MARITIME HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS
1783-1860
BY SAMUEL ELIOT MORISON
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
/TOVI BIEN OV RIEN
BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside press Cambridge 1921
COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY SAMUEL E. MORISON ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Southern $500
1193875
IN MEMORIAM
N. G. H., 1875-1907 T. C D., 1885-1918 Q. S. G., 1891-1918
PREFACE
Here is no catalogue of ships, reader, nor naval chronicle, but a story of maritime enterprise; of the shipping, sea- borne commerce, whaling, and fishing belonging to one American commonwealth. I have chosen to catch the story at half flood, when Massachusetts vessels first sought Far- Eastern waters, and to stay with it only so long as wind and sail would serve. For to one who has sailed a clip- per ship, even in fancy, all later modes of ocean carriage must seem decadent.
Having written these pages for your enjoyment, I have not burdened them with citations; but, having discovered much sunken historical treasure, and taken of it but spar- ingly, I have added some sailing directions and soundings thereto in a bibliography. Therein also, that this preface may be short, I have thanked the many persons who have aided me in the search. But I cannot close without par- ticular acknowledgment to Captain Arthur H. Clark, au- thor of "The Clipper Ship Era," for bearing with my constant demands on his time, patience, and memory; and to Dr. Octavius T. Howe, who placed freely at my dis- posal the results of many years' research on the Argonauts of forty-nine.
S. E. MORISON
Harvard University February 1921
CONTENTS
I. COAST AND SEA I
II. THE COLONIAL BACKGROUND 8
III. REVOLUTION AND RECONSTRUCTION 27
IV. PIONEERS OF THE PACIFIC 41
V. THE NORTHWEST FUR TRADE 52
VI. THE CANTON MARKET 64
VII. THE SALEM EAST INDIES 79
VIII. SHIPS AND SEAMEN 96
IX. MERCHANTS AND MANSIONS 119
X. THE SACRED CODFISH 134
XI. NEWBURYPORT AND NANTUCKET 151
XII. FEDERALISM AND NEUTRAL TRADE 160
XIII. EMBARGO AND WAR 187
XIV. THE PASSING OF SALEM 213
XV. THE HUB OF THE UNIVERSE 225
XVI. SHIPS AND SEAMEN IN SOUTHERN SEAS 253
XVII. CHINA AND THE EAST INDIES 273
XVIII. MEDITERRANEAN AND BALTIC 286
XIX. CAPE COD AND CAPE ANN 300
XX. THE WHALERS 314
XXI. OH! CALIFORNIA 327
XXII. THE CLIPPER SHIP 339
XXIII. CONCLUSION
365
APPENDIX : STATISTICS 375
BIBLIOGRAPHY 379
INDEX 391
٠
ILLUSTRATIONS
DONALD MCKAY Frontispiece
From an engraving owned by Mr. Charles H. Taylor, Jr.
LETTER-OF-MARQUE SHIP BETHEL OF BOSTON, 1748 20 From a contemporary painting in the Massachusetts His- torical Society.
PAUL REVERE'S ENGRAVING OF BOSTON IN 1774 28 From the Royal American Magazine.
SAMUEL SHAW 42
From the portrait by John Johnston, owned by George Shaw, Esq.
CAPTAIN GRAY OF THE COLUMBIA AT WHAMPOA, 1792 46
SHIP COLUMBIA ATTACKED BY INDIANS AT JUAN DE FUCA STRAIT 46
This and the preceding are from the drawings by George Davidson, who accompanied the Columbia on her second voyage; owned by Dr. Edward L. Twombly.
THOMAS HANDASYD PERKINS 50
From a portrait by Sully in the Boston Athenæum.
CAPTURE OF A NOR'WESTMAN BY INDIANS 56
The ship Boston. From the Frontispiece of "Jewitt's Narrative," 1816.
THE HONGS OF OLD CANTON 64
From a painting in the Peabody Museum, Salem.
THE PAGODA ANCHORAGE, WHAMPOA 64
From a painting owned by the Historical Society of Old Newbury.
CAPTAIN WILLIAM STURGIS 70
From a photograph owned by Dr. William Sturgis Bigelow.
CAPTAIN JOHN SUTER 70
From a miniature owned by Rev. John W. Suter.
SLOOP UNION ENTERING BOSTON HARBOR AFTER HER VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD 76
From a watercolor by Captain Boit in his Journal of the Voyage, at the Massachusetts Historical Society.
xi
ILLUSTRATIONS
SALEM MARINE SOCIETY CERTIFICATE OF MEMBERSHIP 82 Representing scenes in Salem Harbor, about 1790.
CAPTAIN JACOB CROWNINSHIELD AND CAPTAIN BEN- JAMIN CARPENTER 92
From portraits in the Peabody Museum.
Two SALEM SHIP PORTRAITS BY ANTOINE ROUX OF MARSEILLES; THE FRANCIS AND THE AMERICA 100
In the Peabody Museum.
NATHANIEL BOWDITCH II4
From an unfinished portrait by Gilbert Stuart, owned by James H. Bowditch, Esq.
CHARLES BULFINCH 124
From a portrait by Mather Brown, 1786, in the Massa- chusetts Historical Society.
MARBLEHEAD FIREBOARD REPRESENTING TWO 'HEEL- TAPPER ' FISHING SCHOONERS COMING TO ANCHOR INSIDE THE NECK I38
Painted about 1800; in the Marblehead Historical Society.
A TOPSAIL SCHOONER OF MARBLEHEAD IN FOREIGN TRADE, 1796 138
From a watercolor of the schooner Raven in the Marble- head Historical Society.
A WATERFRONT
SCENE AT DUXBURY, ABOUT THE
YEAR 1800
144
From a painting now in the Harrison Gray Otis house, 2 Lynde Street, Boston.
NANTUCKET HARBOR IN 1810 158
From an engraving in Dennie's Portfolio, 1814, after _a drawing by J. Samson.
CAPTAIN JOHN BAILEY, OF MARBLEHEAD
172
From a portrait owned by Mrs. E. C. Doane.
CAPTAIN ELIJAH COBB, OF BREWSTER
172
From a portrait owned by Mrs. A. S. Cobb.
A TYPICAL NEUTRAL TRADER 178
Schooner Lidia of Newburyport entering Marseilles, 1807. From a painting by Cammillieri, owned by Mr. Charles H. Taylor, Jr.
SHIP HERCULES OF SALEM ENTERING NAPLES, 1809 188 From a painting in the Peabody Museum.
xii
ILLUSTRATIONS
SHIPS OF THE LINE! - NO SHAVING MILLS
196
Federalist ballot for the election of 1814, in the Massa- chusetts Historical Society.
PRIVATEER BRIG GRAND TURK SALUTING MAR-
SEILLES, 1815 202
From a painting by Antoine Roux in the Peabody Museum. JOSEPH PEABODY 214
From a portrait by Charles Osgood in the Peabody Museum. DIXCOVE ON THE GOLD COAST; BRIG HERALD OF SALEM APPROACHING 222
From a watercolor in the Peabody Museum.
BRIG MERCURY OF BOSTON ENTERING ELSINORE ROADS, 1825 232
From a painting owned by H. K. Devereux, Esq.
PACKET SHIP EMERALD OF BOSTON, PHILIP FOX MASTER 232
From a painting owned by William O. Taylor, Esq. A GROUP OF BOSTON MERCHANTS IN 1854 240
From a photograph owned by Frederic Cunningham, Esq.
A SCENE AT THE NAHANT REGATTA OF 1845 246
From a painting in the Eastern Yacht Club.
FATHER TAYLOR 250
From a photograph owned by the Bostonian Society. DEEP-SEA TYPES OF THE THIRTIES 256
East-Indiaman Columbiana, built at Medford in 1837, from a painting by Walters owned by Mr. Charles H. Taylor, Jr. The Merrimac-built ship Dromo of Boston, John Devereux master, off the port of Marseilles in 1836, from a painting by Antoine Roux fils, owned by H. K. Devereux, Esq.
BRIG CLEOPATRA'S BARGE AS ROYAL HAWAIIAN YACHT 262
From a drawing by Charles S. Stewart, reproduced in his "Voyage to the Pacific Ocean."
BILL OF HEALTH OF THE CLEOPATRA'S BARGE 266
Owned by Rev. John W. Suter.
EAST-INDIAMEN LOADING ICE AT CHARLESTOWN, MASSACHUSETTS 284
From a photograph taken about 1870, owned by Joseph Grafton Minot, Esq. xiii
ILLUSTRATIONS
BARQUE OSMANLI LYING AT SMYRNA 292
From a painting by Raffæl Corsini, 1851, owned by T. G. Frothingham, Esq.
BRIG WATER WITCH OF BOSTON LEAVING THE MOLE OF MALAGA, 1833 292
From a painting by Francesco Lengi, owned by Captain Arthur H. Clark.
PROVINCETOWN IN 1839 300
From the original woodcut block used in Barber's His- torical Collections, lent by George F. Dow, Esq.
A CAPE COD SHIPMASTER AND HIS HOME 310
Captain Caleb Sprague, master of the clipper ship Gravina, etc., and his cottage at Barnstable, from photographs owned by F. W. Sprague, Esq.
NEW BEDFORD WHALERS STRIKE A POD OF WHALES 318
From colored engraving by J. Hill, "A Shoal of Sperm Whale off the Island of Hawaii, 1833" after a drawing by Cornelius B. Hulsart, who was aboard one of the ships. Owned by Allan Forbes, Esq.
FROM THE LOG OF THE WHALER ISABELLA OF NEW BEDFORD 322
For July 21-23, 1831. Recorded by Joseph Taber, Jr. Owned by George H. Tripp, Esq.
A FULL-BODIED SHIP AND A CLIPPER SHIP 328
Ship Mary Glover and Clipper Ship Wild Ranger. From paintings formerly in the Williams Collection.
PACKET-SHIP DANIEL WEBSTER RESCUING PASSEN- GERS FROM THE SHIP UNICORN 332
From painting formerly in the Williams Collection.
THE BEST CHANCE YET FOR CALIFORNIA!
336
Poster of a Forty-niner emigrant company, owned by the Bostonian Society.
CLIPPER SHIP SURPRISE IN THE ENGLISH CHANNEL From a painting owned by Mrs. Philip K. Dumaresq.
340
CENTRAL AND INDIA WHARVES IN 1857 348
Photograph taken from Josiah Bradlee's Counting Room. Negative owned by F. B. C. Bradlee, Esq.
CAPTAIN PHILIP DUMARESQ 352
From a crayon portrait by Stagg, 1847; owned by Mrs. George Wheatland.
xiv
ILLUSTRATIONS
CAPTAIN JOSIAH PERKINS CRESSY
352
Photograph taken during the Civil War; owned by S. Brown, Esq.
CLIPPER SHIP SOVEREIGN OF THE SEAS 360
From a painting formerly in the Williams Collection.
CLIPPER SHIP WESTWARD HO! 360
From a painting. Negative owned by Captain Arthur H. Clark.
CLIPPER SHIP LIGHTNING 364
From a painting after the original plans by Charles Tor- rey, Esq., and owned by him.
CLIPPER SHIP JAMES BAINES 364
From a lithograph after a drawing by S. Walters; owned by Captain Arthur H. Clark.
BOSTON HARBOR IN CLIPPER-SHIP DAYS
368
From an engraving by C. Mottram; owned by Allan Forbes, Esq.
CLIPPER SHIP FLYING CLOUD 372
Photograph of a model after the original plans, made by the H. E. Boucher Company, New York, under the di- rection of Captain Arthur H. Clark. Owned by Frederick C. Fletcher, Esq.
The chart of Boston Harbor on the front end-paper is from Captain Cyprian Southack's Survey of the Sea Coast from New York to the I. Cape Breton, 1735. The other end-paper charts, front and back, are from A New Edition Much En- larged of the Second Part of the North American Pilot for New England, by Robert Laurie and James Whittle, 1800.
THE MARITIME HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS
ESSEX COUNTY includes Salem, Marblehead, Cape Ann, Newburyport, and all the seacoast north of Boston and its suburbs. Hingham and the South Shore (except Cohasset) are in Plymouth County, which also includes a few towns on Buzzard's Bay. Barnstable County is synonymous with Cape Cod. Bristol County includes New Bedford, Fair- haven, and the Taunton valley. Nantucket is a separate county, and Martha's Vineyard and the Elizabeth Islands constitute the "County of Dukes County." It will be un- derstood that the term "town," in this book, has no urban connotation, being used in its New England sense of a terri- torial and political unit.
When three dimensions are given for a vessel, they are length on deck, greatest breadth of beam, and depth of hold.
THE MARITIME HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS 1783-1860
CHAPTER I
COAST AND SEA
MASSACHUSETTS has a history of many moods, every one of which may be traced in the national character of America. By chance, rather than design, this short strip of uninviting coast-line became the seat of a great experiment in colonization, self-government, and religion. For a generation, Massachusetts shared with her elder sister, Virginia, leadership in the Ameri- can Revolution. For another generation, with her off- spring Connecticut, she opposed a static social system to the ferment of revolutionary France. With the world peace of 1815 she quickened into new life, harnessed her waterfalls to machine industry, bred statesmen, seers, and poets, generated radical and revolutionary thought. The Civil War rubbed smooth her rough corners, sapped her vitality to preserve the Union and build the Great West, and drew into the vacuum new faiths and peoples.
Through every phase and period, save the last, breathes a rugged faith and blows the east wind. For two hundred years the Bible was the spiritual, the sea the material sustenance of Massachusetts. The pulse of her life-story, like the surf on her coast-line, beat once with the nervous crash of storm-driven waves on
I
MARITIME HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS
granite rock; but now with the soothing pour of ground-swell on golden sands. Now and again a greater wave rolls in with crested menace, but ends in harmless curl of foam on shelving beach.
Massachusetts proper (for I do not speak of her first-born, Maine, whose maritime history deserves a special volume) has a coast-line of some seven hundred and fifty miles, following the high-water mark. It begins "three English miles to the northward" of a "great river there commonly called Monomack river, alias Merrimack river," as King Charles I determined. The Merrimac now means whirring spindles, sordid tenements, and class struggles. But for two centuries and more its tidal waters, flowing between towns that bear the old-world names of Salisbury, Amesbury, Haverhill, and Newbury, midwifed hundreds of noble vessels; and Newburyport was the mart for a goodly portion of interior New England.
From the river mouth to Cape Ann, the long sandy finger of Plum Island protects a region sung by Whittier, where
Broad meadows reached out seaward, the tidal creeks between, And hills rolled wave-like inland, with oaks and walnuts green.
Here even the agriculture was maritime; not creaking wains, but broad-beamed "gundalows" collected the harvest of salt hay. Yet seagoing vessels could make their way up to Rowley and Essex, and the white spires of old Ipswich.
Once past the gleaming dunes of Castle Neck, and across Squam River (which may lead us, if we will, to Gloucester's back door), we are fairly on Cape Ann. This rocky fist of Massachusetts, like the slender, sandy arm of Cape Cod, has led whole generations of boys afishing. Hotels and villas and granite quarries
2
COAST AND SEA
now crowd its shores, once white with drying codfish, and more funnels than sails now break the horizon. But on its seaward thrust you may still find spots where, but for the wail of whistling buoy, and the twin light towers of Thatcher's, nothing has changed since the "spectral host, defying stroke of steel and aim of gun," assaulted the Cape Ann garrison.
Cape Cod and Cape Ann are the two horns of Massachusetts Bay; two giant limbs thrown seaward, like the wings of a fish-weir, to guide sea-borne com- merce into Boston's fruitful embrace. But Cape Ann and its southern base (together called the North Shore of Massachusetts) contains certain pockets, Glouces- ter and Salem and Marblehead, which for two centu- ries managed to cull from the choicest of the catch. Neither imposing nor spectacular, this North Shore; yet the massed and multi-colored rocks, with bits of beach or shingle nestling between, have a subtle charm that every summer attracts thousands of city-dwellers from all parts of America. Factory chimneys and yachting centers have now replaced the fishing vil- lages; Italian gardens and palaces blot out even the memory of the rugged seashore farms.
In the lap of Massachusetts Bay sprawls Boston; , long since outgrown the small rocky peninsula of her birth, and ever in need of a new suit of clothes. Point Shirley at the north, Hull at the south, and the rocky barrier of the Brewsters, as tough as the Puritan elder whose name they bear, shield a gracious, island-dotted bay, and a deep, landlocked inner harbor. The Blue Hills of Milton, unchanged from the day they caught the first white man's searching gaze, make a serene background to the nervous, bustling activity of the modern seaport.
With Nantasket Beach begins the South Shore,
3
MARITIME HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS
ending at Plymouth in the armpit of Cape Cod. In Cohasset the granite skeleton of Massachusetts pro- trudes for the last time, making a small fishing har- bor behind a cluster of tide-swept rocks, from which Minot's Light, flashing one-four-three, warns shipping. Beyond we cross the southern boundary of the Massa- chusetts-Bay Colony, and enter the "Old Colony," as it is still called, of Plymouth Plantation. This South Shore is a complete contrast to the North, even in climate; a succession of barrier-beaches in flattish curves, backed by salt marshes and wooded country with gentle contours. There is another tiny harbor at Scituate, between which township and Marshfield the North River admits a thin stream of tidewater well inland. Then come Salt-House or Duxbury Beach and the Gurnet, Saquish and Long Beach, protecting Ply- mouth Bay from the Atlantic rollers. But Plymouth Bay, a series of tortuous channels between shoals and grassy flats, could not serve a great trading commu- nity. In compensation, Pilgrim grit and native white oak made of its shores and the North River banks, a great shipbuilding center.
Once past the wooded bluffs of Manomet, we are on the biceps of "th' Cape," Cape Cod. East twenty-five miles into the Atlantic, then north by west another score, pushes this frail spit of sand, ending in a skinny finger forever beckoning seaward the sons of Massa- chusetts. The Cape is unique, this side of Brittany. It has been the greatest nursery of seamen in North America, but its offspring have had to sail from other ports than their own. Save for the great haven within its finger-tip, the Cape has no harbor fit for larger than fishing vessels; and Provincetown, in its ocean-walled isolation, could never become a center of commerce.
The Bay side of Cape Cod is to-day the most un-
4
COAST AND SEA
spoiled maritime section of the Massachusetts main- land. From the car-shops of Sagamore to the artist- fishing colony at Provincetown, not one smoking fac- tory chimney, and only a handful of summer palaces, mar the simplicity of beach, dune, and marsh. Shin- gle-sided cottages of the ancient style, shell-white or weather-rusted, line the sandy roads; slim spires spindling up from a mass of foliage betray a village; low pine-clad hills break the sky-line. As we proceed northward, the Cape grows wilder and bleaker, up to the wind-swept highlands of Truro, the topgallant forecastle of Massachusetts.
At Chatham, on the "back side" of the Cape, we reach once more the summer estates' "No Trespass- ing" signs, which hardly end before our circuit of the Massachusetts coast is concluded at Westport. Nar- ragansett Bay belongs to Rhode Island; but one of its tidal tributaries, the Taunton River, has from time immemorial sent herring, shad, and alewives up into the heart of the Old Colony; and in times historic floated down ships.
Detached from the mainland, annexed to Massa- chusetts only in 1691, since held by the slenderest of political ties, is a diadem of island jewels - the Eliza- beth Islands and Martha's Vineyard; Chappaquiddick and Muskeget, Tuckernuck and Nantucket. Hardly a spot on the New England coast lacks passionate devotees; but the worshipers of Nantucket form a cult of positive fanatics. Anchored on the edge of the Gulf Stream, this bit of terminal moraine has a unique climate, flora, landscape, and population. On her south shore endlessly breaking, the southwest swells impart their surge to the long grasses of Nantucket's flower-starred moors. Under their lee nestles the one unspoiled seaport town of New England; a town in
5
MARITIME HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS
which every house built before 1840 - and few were not - was sired out of the sea. For this island, peo- pled by Quaker exiles from Puritan persecution, created that deep-sea whaling, whose peculiar blend of enterprise, dare-deviltry, and ruthlessness forms one of the most precious memories of our maritime past. New Bedford, and the minor ports of Buzzard's Bay, were but mainland colonies of Nantucket; although in course of time, like the colonies of ancient Greece, they surpassed their mother state.
Yet for all this wealth of coast-line and abundance of good harbors, maritime Massachusetts enjoyed no natural advantage over other sections of the Atlantic coast. Cape Breton and Newfoundland are nearer the Grand Banks; hundred-harbored Maine offers better anchorage. Chesapeake Bay is more deeply indented, more richly supplied with agricultural wealth, more centrally placed, and seldom obstructed by snow or fog. No great river comparable to the St. Lawrence, the Hudson, or the Delaware, tapping the wealth of a mighty interior, makes a great trading city on the Massachusetts coast inevitable. Boston has always felt this handicap; her persistent place among the greater American cities, in spite of it, is a miracle of human enterprise. The back country, limited by a political frontier in the north and a mountain barrier in the Berkshires, produced no staple to compare with those of the middle and southern colonies. Boston is two hundred miles nearer northern Europe than New York: but Nova Scotia is nearer still. Boston Harbor freezes but once a generation: but Massachusetts Bay in sailing-ship days was dangerous water in dirty weather. Its irregular bottom gives the lead-line no clue. When a northeast snowstorm ob- scured Boston Light, a mistake of a quarter-point
6
COAST AND SEA
fetched up many a good ship on Cohasset rocks or the Graves. Before the days of cheap chronometers, when a slight mistake in longitude meant Nantucket South Shoals, vessels from the West Indies, South America, and the Orient dared approach Boston or Salem only by the long détour of Vineyard Sound, Nantucket Sound, and the back side of the Cape. Returning East-Indiamen were sometimes detained for weeks in Wood's Hole or Vineyard Haven, awaiting a chance to weather Monomoy and Pollock Rip, whilst fair wind and sheltered waters pled the advantages of New York. The Pilgrims began to agitate for a Cape Cod canal as soon as they discovered the head of Buzzard's Bay; but it was not until 1916 that the canal was built.
Nature seemed to doom Massachusetts to insignifi- cance; to support perhaps a line of poor fishing sta- tions and hardscrabble farms, half-starved between the two hungry mouths of Hudson and St. Lawrence. Man and a rugged faith have made her what she is. With but a tithe of the bounty that Nature grants more favored lands, the Puritan settlers made their land the most fruitful not only in things of the spirit, but in material wealth. Even Nature's apparent liabili- ties were turned into assets. The long-lying snow gave cheap transport inland, the river rapids turned grist and fulling mills, then textile factories; even granite and ice became currency in Southern and Oriental trade.
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