£10 each. The goods rate increased after a time.
That the oversea rates were remunerative is manifest from the increase in the number of ships finding employment in the trade. In 1635 the Secretary to the Admiralty learned that forty ships were regularly employed in the trade, of which "six sail of ships, at least" belonged to the Americans.
The profits in the trade on owners' account were also recorded. In 1636 Thomas Mayhew and John Winthrop, Jr., as partners, sent a vessel to the Bermudas, then called the Summer Islands, where she sold corn and pork and bought oranges, lemons, and potatoes. Perhaps that was the first importation of Bermuda potatoes. The profit on the venture was "twenty od pounds."
The Richmond, a 30-ton vessel, built by Winter at Richmond Island, Maine, carried 6000 pipe-staves from the island to England, where they were sold at a profit of a little over £25 per thousand.
An idea of the profits on some of the voyages "eastward" to trade with the Indians can be had from the records of the Pilgrims, who, with their shallops, became experts in that line. Between 1631 and 1636, inclusive, the Pilgrims bought and shipped 12,150 pounds of beaver skins and 1156 of otter. "Ye parcells of beaver came to little less than 10,000 li. [pounds]. And ye otter skins would pay all ye charges," as Governor Bradford wrote. As otter skins sold for from 14 to 15s. a pound, "ye charges" in a business that gave a profit of "little less than £10,000" did not exceed £867. And this profit was made, although the Pilgrims had to buy some of their trade goods on credit and pay 40 per cent interest per annum on the sum thus borrowed.
It was at this period of the history of the American merchant marine that Captain Thomas Wiggin, an observing shipmaster from Bristol, England, wrote a letter about the New Englanders, in which he said:—
"The English, numbering about two thousand, and generally most industrious, have done more in three years than others in seven times that space, and at a tenth of the expense."
CHAPTER II
EARLY GROWTH
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