USA > Massachusetts > Nantucket County > The history of Nantucket County, island, and town : including genealogies of first settlers > Part 48
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1742
A whaling sloop from Nantucket, Daniel Paddock, master, was lost.
1744
A whaling vessel from Nantucket was captured by a French privateer.
1746
A whaling sloop from Nantucket was captured by a French privateer, released and subsequently captured by a Spanish privateer and put in charge of a prize crew. The Spaniards not being able to navigate the vessel turned her over to the prisoners who took her into Philadelphia.
1747
A Nantucket sloop, commanded by Peter Bunker, was captured by a Spanish privateer off the Capes of Virginia. She was ransomed by $800 and a brother of Capt Bunker was held as security.
1748
The fact that 60 vessels, ranging from 50 to 75 tons burden each, sailed whaling from Nantucket this year is very conclusive
*Referring to the length of the slabs of whalebone. Whalebone is not bone as commonly understood but lines the mouth of the right whale, so-called. The edges are covered with very coarse hairs and the mouth when closed serves as a strainer to hold the minute food caught in large numbers by the whale.
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evidence that the number had increased year by year although no known record now exists of them .* The Nantucket fleet returned with 11,250 barrels of oil, valued at £14 per ton, or £19,684.
1755
Three sloops from Nantucket, commanded respectively by John Starbuck, Jonathan Coffin, and Peter Bunker were lost while whaling.
1756
Eighty vessels, averaging 75 tons burden, were whaling from Nantucket this year. Three, commanded by Christopher Coffin, Peleg Coffin 2d, and Nathan Daggett, were lost. Six, commanded by Henry Coffin, Jonathan Coffin 2d., Seth Hussey, Nathaniel Cole- man 2d, William Barnard and Josiah Gorham were captured by the French, one of them being reported as having taken 600 barrels of oil. The vessels that returned, brought in 12,000 barrels of oil, valued, at £18 per ton, at £27,600.
1757
Captain Nathaniel Woodbury, in a whaling sloop from Nantucket, was captured by the French privateer Revenge, about the middle of August, east of the Grand Bank. He had no oil aboard at the time and his vessel was restored to him. He was warned that another privateer was cruising near by. Woodbury succeeded in evading the second one and arrived in Nantucket early in September.
1760
A French privateer of 12 guns captured a whaling vessel from Nantucket. She was released after the Frenchman had put on board of her the crew of a sloop commanded by a Capt Luce which was captured a few days before, with a full cargo of oil, and burned.
The Fisheries was a most important factor in the diplomacy of the War of the Revolution, not only in the ultimate settlement but in the negotiations carried on 'almost from the outset. As has already been stated one of the most eloquent speeches made by Edmund Burke in his brilliant career was made in the British Parliament in response to a petition of the Society of Friends in aid of members of their Society in Nantucket, who were in sore distress in consequence of the bill in Parliament prohibiting the Colonists from carrying on any fishery on the Banks of Newfound- land or any other part of the North American coast .; England her- self had been so dependent on the Colonial Fisheries that their suppression meant inconvenience and distress to the mother country.
Perhaps the most important phase in the matter was the atti- tude of the French Government in regard to it. The termination of the "Seven Years' War" found France and Spain prostrate before England. Spain lost Gibraltar; France lost Canada and her West
*When the English were compelled to evacuate Boston they re- moved a large part of the Custom House records to Halifax. +English Register 1775.
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Indian possessions and India, and was not allowed to fortify Dunkirk. It became necessary to reorganize the French navy and for France to seek new alliances.
"Humiliating as the loss of the North American territories was to France," says Wharton*, it was productive of much advantage to the United States in their subsequent struggle with the mother country. Had France in 1776 been in possession not only of Canada but of the valley of the Mississippi, it is not likely that she would have accepted the policy of freeing the United States from British dominion; nor, had she retained Canada and the Mississippi valley, would she have nourished that bitter resentment to Britain which swayed her after the peace of 1763."
"If the Colonies should revolt, and if independence could be achieved by them by war, then, by alliance with them, or even by their standing aloof as neutrals, France would be able to contest England's maritime supremacy. To watch the Colonies; to foment as far as possible their discontent; to aid them in insurrection against England, so far as this could be done, without prematurely engaging in a war with England was the policy of the ministry of Louis XV from the time of the humiliation of 1763." In pursuance of this policy agents were sent in 1774-5 to encourage a colonial revolution. Ways were sought to render assistance and yet avoid what might prove casus belli. On her part England seemed to do everything necessary to accomplish the same result.
It was not, says Wharton in further considering the activity of France, wholly revenge that influenced Louis XV. The English control of North America and India was a menace to the world. Beyond, or at least of equal importance to the American cause, was the enthusiasm among the young nobility of France and the army officers for American liberty, an enthusiasm which communicated itself to the queen and doubtless was an added incentive to the King. But the negotiations carried on between the two governments dealt principally with the give and take, the armed support being conting- ent on the satisfactory and compensatory adjustment of fishery rights. At session after session of the Continental Congress the subject was debated. The French Government was continually in- triguing for the exclusive possession of the North American fisheries, and New England was as insistently striving to retain what her. men and her money had wrested from France under the English King. On the 6th of February, 1778, a treaty of amity and com- merce was arranged between the United States and France. Under its provisions each side was, so far as the fisheries were concerned, to retain the exclusive right to its own. The Americans conceded to France the rights reserved under the treaties of Utrecht and Paris, even to accepting the interpretation put upon them by the French. Those were the rights to fish upon the Banks, and the exclusive use of one-half the shores of Newfoundland upon which to dry their fish .; As to what disposition should be made of New-
*Diplomatic Correspondence of the Revolution Wharton, Vol 1 p 330. ¡Bancroft's U. S. 1 x, 481. It must be remembered that frequently the same vessel on the same voyage fished for cod as well as whale.
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foundland, in case it was captured, nothing was said, but there was no question as to the sentiment of New England. Samuel Adams later in 1778, in a letter from Philadelphia, wrote: I hope we shall secure to the United States, Canada, Nova Scotia, Florida too, and the fishery, by our arms or by treaty. * We shall never be on a solid footing, till Great Britain cedes to us, or we wrest from her, what nature designs we should have."* Succeeding years have abundantly demonstrated the soundness of his judgment.
France sought an alliance with Spain against England, and it was understood that in the final treaty of peace, that Kingdom should have some voice. In October, 1778, Vergennes stipulated as the limit of France's requirements in the final negotiations-first that the treaty of Utrecht must either be wholly continued or entirely annulled; second, that she must be allowed to restore and fortify the harbor of Dunkirk; and, third, that she must be allowed "the coast of Newfoundland, from Cape Bonavista to Cape St. John, with the exclusive fishery from Cape Bonavista to Point Riche." Under a treaty with Spain completed April 12, 1779, France agreed . to attempt the invasion of Great Britain or Ireland, and to share only with Spain the North American fisheries, in case she succeeded in driving the English from Newfoundland.
In the matter of frontiers, France, while yielding all claim to the Provinces of Canada and Nova Scotia, which for years had been subject to her, joined heartily with Spain in opposing the mani- fest desire of the United States to secure them. Two States per- sistently argued the right and policy of acquiring them, but not- withstanding the earnestness with which the manifest policy was urged, the Continental Congress, as a body, deferred to the ex- pressed view of the French government. By the Treaty of Utrecht, France had agreed not to fish within thirty leagues of the coast of Nova Scotia; and by the Treaty of Paris, not to fish within fifteen leagues of Cape Breton. New England at the beginning of hostilities, had, by Act of Parliament, been debarred from fishing on the banks of Newfoundland. Vergennes thus expounded the law of nations: "The fishery on the high seas is as free as the sea itself, and it is superfluous to discuss the right of the Americans to it. But the coast-fisheries belong of right to the proprietary of the coast. Therefore the fisheries on the coasts of Newfoundland, of Nova Scotia, of Canada, belong exclusively to the English; and the Ameri- cans have no pretension whatever to share in them." It availed nothing that the Colonies, practically unassisted, had improved the coast-fisheries, and maintained that immemorial and sole improve- ment of them worked out a practical acquisition. In vain the Colonists insisted that New England men, New England money and New England brains had effected the first conquest of Cape Breton,
*Bancroft, U. S. x 177.
+Bancroft, x, 784.
¿Bancroft's x, 210-11.
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and were powerful aids to the subsequent conquest of Nova Scotia and Canada, and hence they had acquired at least a perpetual joint propriety. To all those arguments Vergennes replied that, the con- quests were made not for the Colonies but for the Crown, and when New England dissolved its allegiance to that Crown. she re- nounced her right to the coast-fisheries. In the end the United States was forced to yield; they had sought the assistance of for- eign powers, and they must yield, so far as was practicable, to the demand those powers made. It was a part of the cost of inde- pendence.
A committee, consisting of Gouverneur Morris, of New York, Thomas Burke, of North Carolina ,Samuel Adams, of Massachusetts, and Meriwether Smith, of Virginia, was appointed by the Con- tinental Congress to determine the ultimate terms of peace with Great Britain, and in February, 1779, that committee reported that, as Spain showed a disposition to form an alliance with the United States, independence was a certainty .*
As to the fishery rights they reported that they should belong to the United States, France and England in common. This latter portion of the report was long under discussion in Congress with numerous roll-calls being on record on the various modifications, in which the combinations at times seemed contradictory. It was finally voted that the common right of the United States to fish "on the coasts, bays, and banks of Newfoundland and Gulf of St. Lawrence, the Straits of Labrador, and Belle-isle should in no case be given up."f Under a vote to reconsider the subject on March 24, Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, proposed that the United States should have the same rights which they enjoyed when subject to Great Britain, which proposition was carried by the votes of Penn- sylvania, Delaware and the four New England States-New York and the Southern States opposing.# New York, under the leader- ship of Jay and Morris, peremptorily declined to insist on this right being made in the treaty, and the latter moved that indepen- dence should be the sole condition of peace. This was ruled out of order by the votes of the New England States, New Jersey and Pennsylvania against the unanimous vote of New York, Maryland and North Carolina; Delaware, Virginia, and South Carolina being equally divided ** France, however, was vitally concerned about this matter, and the French minister exerted his influence and on the 27th of May Congress returned to its original resolve, "that in no case, by any treaty of peace, should the common right of fishing be given- up."
Elbridge Gerry, whose steady and persistent championship of the claims of New England was naturally to be expected, on June
*Bancroft x, 213.
¡Journal of Continental Congress.
#There was no Maine or Vermont at that date, the former being a part of Massachusetts and the latter a part of the New York.
** Journal of Continental Congress.
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19th sprang a disconcerting surprise on the French minister. Avoiding, says Bancroft,* "a breach of the rules of Congress by a change in form, he moved resolutions, that the United States have a common right with the English to the fisheries on the banks of Newfoundland, and the other fishing-banks and seas of North America. The demand was for no more than Vergennes confessed to belong to them by the law of nations; and Gerry insisted that unless the right received the guarantee of France, on the consent of Great Britain, the American minister should not sign any treaty of peace without first consulting Congress." A stormy and bitter debate followed. The delegates who favored the French contention resisted strenuously. Four Statest declared if the resolution was adopted they should secede. A sort of a compromise was, however, agreed to, and the common right of fishing on the Grand Banks was affirmed, Congress asking of France a guarantee of that right by means of a supplementary article explanatory of former treaties.
The French minister, (Gerard), became alarmed, and sought an interview with the President of Congress; and two other dele- gates, known to be in sympathy with the French policy. The vigor and zeal with which New England had contested for this matter had disposed them to concede to the desires of this section. Vergennes assured them "that disunion from the side of New Eng- land was not to be feared, for its people carried their love of independence even to delirium," and continued: "There would seem to be a wish to break the connection of France with Spain; but I think I can say that, if the Americans should have the audacity to force the King of France to choose between the two alliances, his decision would not be in favor of the United States; he will not certainly expose himself to consume the remaining resources of his kingdom for many years, only to secure an increase of fortune to a few ship masters of New England. I shall greatly regret on account of the Americans, should Spain enter into war without a convention with them." Five hours of discussion failed to induce the members to undertake to change the views of Congress, and a new interview was held on the 12th of July, between Gerard and Congress, in a Committee of the Whole. As a final result the question was left to be settled, when a treaty of peace was formally arranged with Great Britain .**
*Journals of Continental Congress X-216 to 219.
+While the Journals of Continental Congress do not give the names of the states, neither does Bancroft in his history, there is little ques- tion but they were New York, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina. Why New York should oppose New England is not clear, unless the dispute with Vermont was the factor.
¿Peyton Randolph of Virginia.
** Bancroft x. 219. Mr. Gerry's resolutions, which were seconded by Mr. William Ellery, of Rhode Island, were:
"1. That it is essential to the welfare of these United States that the inhabitants thereof, at the expiration of the war, should continue to enjoy the free and undisturbed exercise of their common right to fish on the banks of Newfoundland and the other fishing banks and seas of North America, preserving inviolate the treaties between France and the said states.
2. That an explanatory article be prepared and sent to our minis- ter plenipotentiary at the court of Versailles, to be by him presented to the Most Christian Majesty whereby the said common right to the fisheries shall be explicitly guaranteed to the inhabitants of these states than already is by the treaties aforesaid.
(See next page)
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At the close of the Revolution the progress from the provisional to the definite treaty of peace was slow and circuitous, and at times uncertain. Naturally one of the chief points in controversy was the status of the fisheries. England, with an air of magnanimity made a show of conceding as favors what the United States claimed as rights. Against what our country considered its just dues was arrayed not only the diplomacy of the English, against whom they had waged a war, but of the French, who were so recently their allies, and only firmness, skill and capacity on the part of the American Commissioners won out for America. The English natur- ally determined to yield as little as possible and jealously guarded their assumptions while the French sought for a loose joint in the armor into which the sword of diplomacy could be thrust, and they could gain by treaty what they had been unable to accomplish by force. The American Commissioners were constantly on the alert to break down the objections of a power from whom they had con- quered peace and to avoid any act that should increase the super- sensitiveness of a power which had given them so valuable assist- ance, Certain fixed principles, however, must be adhered to. Those articles which must be held inviolate were the ones guaranteeing to the United States full and unconditional independence, and the withdrawal from the thirteen States of all British troops; the Miss- issippi as a western, and the Canadian line, as it was prior to the Quebec Act of 1774, for a northern boundary; and a freedom in the fisheries off Newfoundland and elsewhere as they had enjoyed before hostilities began. Great Britain strove with all her ability to evade the last named condition, but the American Commissioners held to the condition too strenuously to be defeated, and Great Britain finally yielded .*
3. That in the treaty of peace with Great Britain a stipulation be made, on their part, not to disturb the inhabitants of these states in the free exercise of their common right to the fisheries aforesaid; and that a reciprocal engagement be made on the part of the United States.
4. That the faith of Congress be pledged to the several states, that, without their unanimous consent, no treaty of commerce shall be formed with Great Britain previous to such stipulation.
5. That if the explanatory article should not be ratified by his most Christian Majesty, nor the stipulation aforesaid be adopted by Great Britian, the minister conducting this business, shall give notice thereof to Congress, and not sign any treaty of peace until their pleas- ure be Known."
Journal of Continental Congress XIV, 749. *According to Lorenzo Sabine (American Loyalists) the American Armies in the Revolution were thus accredited: New Hampshire, 12,- 497 men; Massachusetts, 67,907; Rhode Island, 5,908; Connecticut, 31,- 939; New York (which then included Vermont), 17,781; New Jersey, 10,725; Pennsylvania, 25,678; Delaware, 2,386; Maryland, 18,912; Virginia, 26,678; North Carolina, 7,263; South Carolina, 6,417; Georgia, 2,679. It will be noted by this record that New England,-exclusive of Ver- mont-contributed within 268 men of the number sent by all the rest of the country. Massachusetts alone sent more than either the Middle States or the South combined. At that time the population of the Middle States was, more than double that of Massachusetts and the population of the South two and a half times that of the Bay Colony. It would naturally seem as though the sacrifices of New England and the fact that, unaided by England, they had effected the capture (See next page)
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The dawn of peace found the people of Nantucket in a sorry plight. To them the War of the Revolution had been an unusually heavy burden. Out of a fleet exceeding 150 vessels owned there in 1775, 134 had been captured by the English and 15 more had been lost through shipwreck; many of the young men had fallen victims to the rigors of war ;* in about 800 families on the Island there were 202 widows and 342 orphan children; the financial loss much exceeded $1,000,000, in times when a laboring man's pay was 67 cents per day; one merchant lost over $60,000.1
But it was no time to sit down and mourn the past. As soon as peace was assured, the Islanders began to equip anew for whal- ing. The Bedford, just returned from a voyage, was immediately loaded with oil and dispatched to London, the market of Colonial days, arriving in the Downs on the 3d of February. Her appear- ance created quite a sensation. The port authorities did not know what to do under the circumstances. An English magazine of the day gave this report of the arrival: "The ship Bedford, Captain Mooers,# belonging to the Massachusetts, arrived in the Downs the 3d of February, passed Gravesend the 4th, & was reported at the Custom House the 6th instant. She was not allowed regular entry until some consultation had taken place between the commissioners of the customs & the lords of council, on account of the many acts of parliament yet in force against the rebels in America. She is loaded with 487 butts of whale oil; is American built; ** manned wholly by American seamen; wears the rebel colors & belongs to the Island of Nantucket in Massachusetts. This is the first vessel which displayed the thirteen rebellious stripes of America in any British Port. The vessel lies at Horselly Down a little below the Tower, and is intended immediately to return to New England."
Immediately after, almost simultaneously with her, arrived an- other ship from Nantucket-the Industry, Capt. John Chadwick, while the sloop Speedwell, James Whippey, master, was sent to Aux Cayes.tt The people of Nantucket, who had any capital left,
of Nova Scotia would have entitled their desires regarding the fisheries to more consideration than they got. The matter as left by the treaty of 1783 has always been a source of trouble.
*It is estimated that no less than 1,200 seamen, mostly whalemen, were captured by the English or perished at their hands from Nan- tucket alone.
+Wm. Rotch.
#Capt. William Mooers, who sailed for many years in the employ of Messrs Rotch & Co. It is related that one of the crew of the Bed- ford was humpbacked. One day a British sailor meeting him clapped his hand on the American's shoulder, saying, "Hulloa, Jack, what have you got here?" "Bunker Hill and be d-d to you," replied the Yankee, "will you mount?"
** The Bedford was built by Ichabod Thomas, at North River in 1765. She was built as a brig.
ttCorrespondence of William Rotch. The following letter was written by William Rotch Jr. to Hezekiah Barnard of Nantucket: New Bedford 8th mo 3d. 1842.
Hezekiah Barnard:
Dear Friend :- In reply to thy letter of the 21st ult, received last evening, I shall state the following facts according to the best of my recollection.
My father had a vessel built by Ichabod Thomas at North River just before the Revolution, for himself and Champion and Dickason of London, for the London trade: after the war commenced she laid (See next page)
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resumed the whale fishery with as many vessels as they could secure. It was all they could do. For so long a period had whaling and its attendant industries been their almost exclusive business, that they found it quite impossible to turn their capital and labor into new and untried channels.
Long comparative immunity from pursuit and capture had enabled the whales to repopulate their feeding grounds, and made the whales themselves less shy and more easily captured. For a while the products of the fisheries brought good prices, but this very prosperity soon proved its own undoing for it brought other ports into competition. New London, Sag Harbor, Hudson, N. Y., Boston. Hingham, Plymouth, Bristol, R. I., and other ports entered the lists and prices speedily dropped. Great Britain was the only market for sperm oil, the particular product of the Nantucket fishery, and by affixing an alien duty of £18 sterling a ton, she quite effect- ually precluded importations from America. "This duty," said Mr Rotch,* had its full force on us. Sperm Oil was sold at Nantucket after the Peace at 17 pound Sterling per Ton, which before we were separated was worth nearly 30 pounds Sterling. Twenty- five pounds Sterling was necessary at that time to cover the ex- penses, and leave a very moderate profit to the Owners. Thus a loss of nearly 8 pounds Sterling per Ton attended the business."
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