The Liberty to Take Fish: Atlantic Fisheries and Federal Power in Nineteenth-Century America 9781501770876

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THE LIBERTY TO TAKE FISH

THE LIBERTY TO TAKE FISH

AT L A N T I C F I S H E R I ES A N D F E D E R A L P O W E R I N N I N E T E E N T H - ­C E N T U R Y A M E R­I­C A

Thomas B l ake E arle

CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS Ithaca and London

​Copyright © 2023 by Thomas Blake Earle All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. Visit our website at cornellpress​.­cornell​.­edu. First published 2023 by Cornell University Press Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Earle, Thomas Blake, author. Title: The liberty to take fish: Atlantic fisheries and federal   power in nineteenth-century America / Thomas Blake  Earle. Description: Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2023. |   Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022048194 (print) | LCCN 2022048195   (ebook) | ISBN 9781501768927 (hardcover) |   ISBN 9781501770876 (pdf ) | ISBN 9781501770869 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: Fisheries—Political aspects—North   Atlantic Ocean—History—18th century. | Fisheries—   Political aspects—North Atlantic Ocean—History—   19th century. | Fisheries—North Atlantic Ocean—   History—18th century. | Fisheries—North Atlantic   Ocean—History—19th century. | Fishery policy—   North Atlantic Ocean—History—18th century. |   Fishery policy—North Atlantic Ocean—History—   19th century. | United States—Foreign relations—   Great Britain. | Great Britain—Foreign relations—   United States. Classification: LCC SH221.5.N63 E27 2023 (print) |   LCC SH221.5.N63 (ebook) | DDC 333.95/611091631—  dc23/eng/20230215 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022048194 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov​ /2022048195 Cover illustration: Marc Eliseser Bloch, Ichtyologie, ou, Histoire naturelle, geìneìrale et particulieÌre des poissons (Berlin, 1785), plate LXIV.

​For the fish

C o n te n ts

Acknowl­edgments  ix

Introduction: The World the Fish Made

1

1. Fisheries and the Flotsam of Revolution

13

2. The Limits of Peace

45

3. The Ruby and Reindeer Affair

76

4. “Our Living Is Truly That of Fishermen”

100

5. Fishermen at High Tide

125

6. Sea Changes

159

7. Abandoning the Fishermen and Embracing the British

184

Epilogue: The World the Fishermen Made

217

Notes  229 Index  271

A ck n o w l­e d gm e n ts

It feels right, as a maritime historian, to start with a nautical meta­phor. So I’ll just say that the voyage has been long but I’ve had the good fortune to share it with many good shipmates who have helped me stay the course and steady the vessel through clear skies and squalls. This book began as a doctoral dissertation completed at Rice University ­under the direction of Caleb McDaniel. Caleb was an enthusiastic, if deeply skeptical, proponent of this proj­ect from the beginning. Jim Sidbury is in some ways responsible for this book as I began formulating the topic as a first-­year student in his Atlantic world seminar. Randal Hall deserves mention if only for fostering my early interest in environmental history. I benefited im­mensely from serving with Randal and the other editors, including Bethany Johnson and Suzanne Gibbs, during my time at the Journal of Southern History. I also had the fortune of learning how to be a historian at Rice from Allen Matusow, Ussama Makdisi, Fay Yarborough, John Boles, and Alida Metcalf. But my tutelage began even e­ arlier. Mark Lawrence first put me on the track to becoming a professional historian during my undergraduate years at the University of Texas. During my time at Rice, I was lucky enough to meet Wright Kennedy, Ben Wright, Whitney Stewart, and Bill Black. While knowing them has made me a better historian, more importantly, they made t­ hose years and the years since more enjoyable and more meaningful. This book also benefited from conversations, in seminars and at bars, with my graduate-­student colleagues, including Keith McCall, Edwin Breeden, Suraya Khan, John Marks, Sam Abramson, Sean Smith, Andrew Johnson, Maria Montalvo, David Ponton, Joe Locke, Andy Lang, Eddie Valentin, and Miller Wright. The larger community of scholars has also left its imprint on this book, and I am grateful for the input and advice, comments, and conversations I’ve enjoyed with Brian Rouleau, Jeff Bolster, Helen Rozwadowski, Marcus Rediker, Matthew Mc­ Ken­ zie, Brian Payne, Eric Roorda, Glenn Gordinier, Kurk Dorsey, Chris Morris, and Megan Black. Of course, historians would be lost without archivists. I’d like to extend

ix

x

A c k n ow l­e d g m e n ts

my appreciation to the archivists and staff members of the National Archives at College Park, the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian Archive, the G. W. Blunt White Library at Mystic Seaport, the Mas­sa­chu­setts Historical Society, and The National Archives at Kew. While this proj­ect was born at Rice, it matured at Southern Methodist University (SMU) while I was a postdoc at the Center for Presidential History (CPH). I ­can’t thank Jeff Engel enough for allowing me to join that community and for showing me how to be a publicly engaged historian. This book and my ­career prob­ably would have turned out dif­fer­ent without his mentorship. Brian Franklin likewise deserves recognition for making the CPH such a welcoming and stimulating place. Both Jeff and Brian also made my years at SMU enjoyable by selecting a wonderful group of fellow postdocs, including Lizzie Ingelson, Lindsay Chervinsky, Paul Renfro, and Greg Brew. Also, my appreciation goes out to Ronna Spitz, who kept the CPH ­running. The CPH played a major role in this book coming to fruition by inviting Jay Sexton and Amy Greenberg to Dallas to comment on the manuscript. Their many insightful comments made this book all the stronger. I’d also like to thank the baristas at the since-­closed Mudsmith on Lower Greenville in Dallas. I d­ idn’t do all my writing t­ here, but I think I did my best. A ­ fter leaving SMU I was lucky enough to land at Texas A&M University at Galveston, a fitting place to write maritime history. My colleagues, including JoAnn DiGeorgio, Liz Nyman, and Jenna Lamphere, have made Galveston a fine place to finish this book. I would be remiss not to thank Michael McGandy, who saw the promise in this proj­ ect, and the staff at Cornell University Press, who have made the publication pro­cess as smooth as could be expected. Portions of chapter 5 w ­ ere previously published in two journal articles. First was “For Cod and Country: Cod Fishermen and the Atlantic Dimensions of Sectionalism in Antebellum Amer­i­ca,” Journal of the Early Republic 36, no. 3 (Fall 2016): 493–519; copyright © 2016 Society for Historians of the Early American Republic, all rights reserved. Second was “Transatlantic Diplomacy, North Atlantic Environments, and the Fisheries Disputes of 1852,” Environmental His­ tory 23, no. 4 (October 2018): 774–796; published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Society for Environmental History and the Forest History Society, all rights reserved. I owe a debt of gratitude to Marisa Knight, who, while thoroughly uninterested in fish, did show me what’s most impor­tant in life and what makes it worth living. Fi­nally, I’d like to express my thanks to Chris and Sherri Earle. I ­don’t think they ­will ever know how deep my appreciation runs ­because I’m not sure I possess words adequate enough to express it. This book, and pretty much anything e­ lse I’ve done in life, ­wouldn’t have happened without them.

THE LIBERTY TO TAKE FISH

Introduction The World the Fish Made

In 1852 the United States seemed to inch ­toward crisis. Just two years e­ arlier, many Americans felt they had quelled the rising tide of sectional antagonism with yet another compromise that they hoped would stave off disunion for another generation. But indignation over the continued existence of slavery in the national polity still burned. In March 1852 the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s incendiary novel ­Uncle Tom’s Cabin exposed the inhumanity of ­human bondage to a national audience. In July the formerly enslaved orator and abolitionist Frederick Douglass queried his audience in Rochester, New York, “What to the slave is the Fourth of July?” In ­doing so, he questioned the very efficacy of the United States as a nation purporting to guarantee liberty but inextricably bound to slavery. And symbolic of a coming crisis, that same month, Henry Clay, the ardent nationalist and architect of compromise, was the first American to lie in state in the rotunda of the national capitol. With his passing, an era passed. Meanwhile, Secretary of State Daniel Webster addressed an audience at his home in Marshfield, Mas­sa­chu­setts. The aging statesman did not, however, address the inequities that Stowe’s novel vividly described, the broken promises of US nationhood Douglass decried, or even the death of the nation’s most prominent politician. Instead, Webster talked about fish. Since before in­de­pen­dence, Americans had gone forth from the coasts of New ­England to the fishing w ­ aters of the Northwest Atlantic in search of cod. 1

2 I n t r o d u c t i o n

In the summer of 1852 G ­ reat Britain made known its intention to curtail US access to the fisheries by removing US fishermen from ­those w ­ aters for real or i­magined violations of the series of international agreements that governed the use of this maritime resource. Such action threatened the livelihoods of thousands of New ­England fishermen while striking a blow against an industry that had defined the nation since the colonial era and that drew tight the economic bonds that tied the United States together and drew closer the faraway markets of the Ca­rib­bean and Mediterranean. The British decision also raised fears over the fragility of US in­de­pen­dence, as such heavy-­handed action suggested that London looked to undermine the nation’s sovereignty at sea. A crisis—­one born not of domestic disunion but of foreign friction—­ gripped the nation that summer, as Americans across the ­union and across the po­liti­cal spectrum reacted viscerally to this affront to a right the nation had enjoyed for de­cades. As tension between US fishermen and the Royal Navy mounted in the aftermath of Britain’s announcement, Webster departed Washington. The secretary of state was nearing the end of his illustrious c­ areer in national politics. He left the capital to escape the oppressive heat of a Washington summer and returned to his home on the New ­England coast. On his arrival he was greeted by throngs looking to catch a glimpse of the statesman and perhaps even hear what the federal government was prepared to do in response to the unfolding drama on the North Atlantic. They ­were not to be disappointed. Betraying his sober, even conservative approach to diplomacy, which ordinarily leaned t­ oward Anglophilia, Webster struck a defiant tone that day from his home in Marshfield. He promised the federal government would ­counter British designs on the fisheries: “The fishermen ­shall be protected in all their rights of property, and in all their rights of occupation.” The Millard Fillmore administration would not falter, but would, Webster said, in words that no doubt resonated with an audience in a seaside town, protect the fishermen “hook and line, bob and sinker.”1 Despite such unequivocal language, the question remains: why was Daniel Webster so concerned about fish? The answer, in part, lies in the fact that for nineteenth-­century Americans, fish ­were never merely fish and the fisheries ­were not just another mine of natu­ral wealth that undergirded national prosperity. As Webster observed that day, “The most potent consequences are involved in this ­matter,” including questions about national security. “Our fisheries,” the statesman continued, “have been the very nurseries of our navy. If our flag ships have conquered the ­enemy on the sea, the fisheries are at the bottom of it—­the fisheries w ­ ere the seeds from which ­these glorious triumphs ­were born and sprung.” Per-

Introduction

3

haps of more importance to Webster’s audience, the economic value of the fisheries was among the “potent consequences” that impelled action on the subject. Speaking of the fisheries, Webster remarked that “they employ a vast number. Many of our own ­people are engaged in that vocation. ­There are perhaps among you some who have been on the ­Grand Banks for forty successive years, and t­here hung on to the ropes in storm and wrecks.” Webster steeled his audience: “You may be assured it is a subject upon which no one sleeps at Washington.”2 Over the coming weeks and months, news of Webster’s speech and of the brewing dispute on the fisheries raced across the nation. Showing that this was not merely a regional issue concerning a trifling subject, papers from farming districts like Pittsfield, Mas­sa­chu­setts, Gulf ports like New Orleans, and places even as far away as Honolulu carried Webster’s words and breathlessly reported on any developments emanating from the fisheries.3 By the mid-­nineteenth ­century, the nation eagerly consumed any information about conflict over the North Atlantic fishing grounds. That conflict was as old as the nation itself. The Treaty of Paris (1783) left the new United States with a statutory claim to the fisheries, along with formal in­de­pen­dence. From the beginning, then, fisheries and in­de­pen­dence ­were tied in the minds of American statesmen, if not Americans more generally. Subsequently, ­those statesmen used the power of the state to safeguard this totem of US nationalism from any threat. The North Atlantic fisheries would help define the limits of federal authority for nearly a c­ entury. Cod fishing in places like the Bay of Fundy, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the G ­ rand Banks operated as a central facet of US statecraft for much of the nineteenth ­century. The fisheries stood at the nexus of multiple forces—­ economic, social, and cultural—­making the fisheries the fodder of politics at multiple levels—­local, regional, national, and international. The phrase “fisheries issue” w ­ ill serve as shorthand for the series of questions that surrounded US commercial fishing in the North Atlantic. Internationally, the question was one of who could fish where, while domestically, the central question concerned the degree to which the US state would support the fishing industry both po­liti­cally and eco­nom­ically. How the federal state addressed ­those questions shows us the extent to which the state could and did use its power.4 Commercial fishing occupied such an impor­tant place in the operations of the federal government b­ ecause it represented so much more than just fish. The fisheries became an environment on which the US po­liti­cal community ascribed vari­ous meanings. Fundamental beliefs like in­de­pen­dence and national security ­were tied to the daily operations of fishing to make this maritime environment an impor­tant ele­ment of US state making.5

4 I n t r o d u c t i o n

Ocean fisheries are an extraordinarily well-­situated prism through which to study statecraft. ­These aquatic resources are most often tied to the prob­ lems of regulating elusive, mobile, yet ubiquitous organisms, with l­ittle concern for humanity’s po­liti­cal and regulatory regimes. Often, t­ hese kinds of resources demanded the attention of po­liti­cal establishments not only ­because of their value as commodities but also ­because of their mobile nature, making them fundamentally dif­fer­ent than other resources. Active po­liti­cal regimes have been necessary to facilitate the extraction of this resource b­ ecause of its peculiar nature. Histories of fisheries are often tied to how governments at vari­ ous levels work, and often fail, to claim, manage, and defend the rights of their citizens to exploit a maritime resource. In that way, then, the history of fisheries is the history of statecraft.6 The relationship between fishing, if not the maritime world more generally, and the development of the US state and US nationalism during the nineteenth ­century was not unique. ­Great seaborne powers, from the British Empire and the Dutch Republic to ancient Athens and Carthage, not to mention a host of intermediate powers like Norway, Denmark, Portugal, and Japan, have all defined themselves in terms of their historical relationship with sailors, the sea, and its resources.7 At Marshfield, Webster spoke forcefully but he did not say anything new. He tapped into de­cades of rhe­toric that placed the North Atlantic fisheries at the heart of US statecraft. The economy, commerce, war, sectionalism, nationalism, and domestic politics all met at the fisheries. But it was not the unique position of the fisheries in relation to all ­these forces that gave the fisheries issue its importance. Instead, it is how the federal government sought to solve the fisheries issue that revealed the limits of state power in a world of competing actors.8 Foreign relations was but the most obvious arena in which concern for the fisheries steered state power. But with the fisheries issue, the exercise of that power was never straightforward. While at times the federal government could impose its vision on the actors and environments in the region, just as often, fishermen and the fish themselves ­were the primary agents of US foreign relations. This kind of give-­and-­take relationship typified the fisheries issue and shows that the operative question was not ­whether the federal government possessed power enough to impose on the lives of its citizens, but rather how that power operated. While New ­England fishermen ranged much closer to home than the merchant mari­ners and w ­ halers who traversed the globe, they w ­ ere vitally impor­ tant in defining the nation’s relationship with the wider world and, crucially, with Britain. From the American Revolution through the Civil War, the fisheries

Introduction

5

­ ere a central concern in Anglo-­American relations, tacking with the ups and w downs, the cooperation and confrontation that defined the United States’ most impor­tant foreign relationship. The fisheries w ­ ere not merely another line item on the laundry list of concerns that echoed across the Anglophone Atlantic. While debates tied to ­things like commerce, finance, and culture ­were the meat of Anglo-­American relations, nothing e­ lse, with perhaps the exception of slavery, reached the level of ubiquity in that relationship that the fisheries issue did. At ­every turn, diplomats found fish—at times, fostering closer transatlantic ties, and at other times acting as the harbinger of friction. The fisheries issue, like Anglo-­American relations more generally, defied ­simple characterization apart from its close association with the most impor­tant inflection points in that relationship. Anglo-­American relations during the nineteenth ­century simply cannot be understood without the North Atlantic fisheries occupying a central place. The fisheries issue was enshrined in Anglo-­American relations from the beginning. In the 1783 Treaty of Paris US diplomats secured recognition from ­Great Britain that the United States would enjoy forever the “liberty to take fish” on the G ­ rand Banks and along the coasts of Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and Labrador.9 Yet, sown within the unassuming language of the fisheries article w ­ ere the seeds of Anglo-­American friction that would ripen into the ­bitter fruit of transatlantic discord. The 1783 treaty set three pre­ce­dents that structured the nature of the fisheries issue in Anglo-­American relations for nearly a ­century. First, it established that the fisheries would be a subject of consideration for Anglo-­American diplomats. By allowing US fishermen a perpetual claim to w ­ aters so far from their own shores, British diplomats ensured that the ­waters of the Northwest Atlantic would be a transimperial environment subject to the periodic wrangling of diplomats. Second, by including the fisheries in a comprehensive agreement that recognized US in­de­ pen­dence, Americans made an explicit connection between the fisheries and in­de­pen­dence itself. As the fisheries issue continued to resurface in transatlantic relations, US diplomats and the US public reacted so viscerally to any encroachment on the rights of US fishermen b­ ecause it seemed to represent an encroachment on in­de­pen­dence. And fi­nally, the Treaty of Paris demonstrated how diplomatic agreements w ­ ere doomed to fail when addressing the fisheries. Anglo-­American diplomats treated the fisheries as a passive subject that would naturally comply with their dictates. In real­ity, the fisheries w ­ ere a dynamic environment whose shifting nature ensured that any static treaty would be out of date as soon as the ink dried. The Treaty of Paris, like the string of treaties that would follow over the next ­century, was steeped in irony as it only exacerbated the very tensions it sought to address. For the statesmen who

6 I n t r o d u c t i o n

drafted and debated t­ hese treaties—­men far removed from the everyday operation of the fisheries—­this was a difficult lesson to learn, and it demonstrated the necessity of including fishermen and the fish themselves in this story. ­These trends continued to influence the tenor of fishery diplomacy as US and British representatives addressed and readdressed tension in the North Atlantic. In 1818, in 1854, in 1871, and again in 1877, Anglo-­American statesmen looked to hammer out the differences that continued to dog the situation on the fisheries. At each turn, they failed. In fact, with each new agreement, ­these diplomats created the conditions u ­ nder which tensions would transform but never abate. Yet, crucially, it was never just the fisheries t­ hese statesmen discussed. Borders, tariffs, trade, and slavery w ­ ere just some of the issues this series of treaties also addressed. At times the fisheries became an entrée, a necessary prerequisite to addressing this myriad of concerns, as it was fish that got diplomats to the ­table.10 The story of fisheries is a story of the limits of US power. The fisheries issue was concerned with the very shape of the US state. As Anglo-­American statesmen time and again turned their attention to the North Atlantic fisheries, they ­were in fact shaping the emergent US imperium. By determining where US fishermen could or could not fish and where the lines between US and British imperial sovereignty ­were, the fisheries issue set the limits of the US state. This story is also the story of the limits to the exercise of US power. The British Empire was the most obvious check on Washington, but the marine environment also l­imited the ability of the state to impose its vision. We cannot fully understand the operation of state power absent how that power was brought to bear on the nonhuman world.11 The centrality of the fisheries in US politics during the first ­century of the United States’ existence was not merely a product of transatlantic politics—it was a product of the Atlantic itself. When Webster addressed the crowd at Marshfield, he was just a c­ ouple miles from where the steel-­g ray w ­ aters of the North Atlantic lapped the New ­England shore. Twenty thousand years ago, however, the land and seascape w ­ ere drastically dif­fer­ent. At the peak of the Wisconsin glaciation, two massive ice sheets, thousands of feet thick, descended across North Amer­ic­ a. The larger, the Laurentide Ice Sheet, covered a wide swath of the continent extending from the Arctic to Long Island and ran in a curve that reached as far south as the modern-­day Ohio River and as far west as the Missouri River before receding north and joining the smaller Cordilleran Ice Sheet, which rested on the furthest western parts of the continent. With so much of the world’s fresh ­water locked up in ­these icy behemoths, global ocean levels ­were hundreds of feet below where they are

Introduction

7

Figure 1.  Map of the Northwest Atlantic. By Bill Nelson.

now, exposing land masses that now lie below ­water. A map of this glacial landscape would look strikingly dif­fer­ent from the familiar lines that demarcate land and sea in modern atlases. The spot where Webster promised the resolve of the federal government was then dozens of miles inland.12 Particularly striking was a peninsula of dry land that extended to the northeast from Long Island Sound into what would become the North Atlantic. A series of raised ridges, formed by ­earlier tectonic pro­cesses, ­were ­shaped and gouged by the fringes of the mammoth ice sheet. T ­ hese ridges would become the chain of banks that harbored rich fish communities as the ice sheet regressed for good and inundated the area with w ­ ater some fifteen thousand years ago. Georges Bank, Banquereau, and the G ­ rand Banks, among o ­ thers, stand as underwater cliffs, hundreds of feet above the sea floor around them, with only Sable Island Bank still barely peaking above the waves as a reminder that t­ hese prominent formations ­were once dry land.13 The physical structure of t­ hese underwater formations helps explain why this region became a dynamic home to a number of fish and other marine organisms. ­These banks stand at the confluence of two major ocean currents: the cold Labrador Current from the Arctic and the warm North Atlantic Drift originating further south. In a pro­cess driven by the uneven solar heating of the earth, t­ hese two currents collide at the banks before being forced to continue along a northeasterly path that terminates in the w ­ aters of northern Eu­ rope. This collision stirs the w ­ aters, creating localized gyres that encourage

8 I n t r o d u c t i o n

the mixing of ­these distinct ­water masses. As a result, nutrients that would other­wise remain buried in the depths of ­these ­waters are forced upward on the banks where they interact with sunlight that can penetrate the surface ­water in what is called the photic zone. ­Here, chlorophyll-­bearing, autotrophic phytoplankton thrive, feeding zooplankton and, ultimately, maritime organisms up the food chain. This pro­cess, dubbed “primary production” by ecologists, explains the biological productivity of this portion of the ocean, as the necessary nutrients are brought together with the required oxygen, w ­ ater temperature, and sunlight to feed the microscope organisms that then, in turn, feed every­thing ­else. Chemically and biologically, not all ocean ­water is the same, nor can all ocean ­water support complex ecologies. But this portion of the North Atlantic stands at the confluence of ­factors that allow for such a rich ecol­ogy.14 While the environmental perspective opens up new narratives, it pre­sents a series of methodological conundrums. Reconstructing environmental conditions and how historical actors understood t­hose conditions remains the environmental historian’s primary task, one that, at its best, is necessarily interdisciplinary in nature. To borrow from historian Geoffrey Parker’s work on climate and crisis in the seventeenth ­century, environmental history is built on two archives: the natu­ral archive, consisting of the physical evidence of the earth’s historical climates found in ice cores, pollen deposits, and tree rings, and the h ­ uman archive, consisting of sources more familiar to historians.15 The book that follows is based, primarily, on the h ­ uman archive, to interrogate how nineteenth-­century Americans understood the po­liti­cal value of North Atlantic fisheries. But this work engages the natu­ral archive as well in order to understand what Donald Worster describes as the “autonomous, in­de­pen­dent energies that do not derive from the drives and inventions of any culture.”16 Attuned to the nonhuman world, this work recognizes that many of the forces that shape the ­human experiences operated in­de­pen­dently of humanity. During the nineteenth ­century, changes in the sea w ­ ere, most often, beyond ­human consciousness and control, even when the ramifications of t­ hose changes ­were not. Ocean historians like W. Jeffrey Bolster and Helen M. Rozwadowski have rooted their studies in both the archive of sources generated by scientific disciplines and an appreciation for the culturally constitutive aspects of environmental analy­sis. In d­ oing so, they have created scholarly models worthy of emulation.17 The pages that follow find the natu­ral archive within the h ­ uman archive. While the marine environment is not the only or even the primary force driving change in this story, it is omnipresent. As fishermen compiled logs, as consular agents penned reports, and as politicians delivered speeches,

Introduction

9

they all communicated their understanding of the North Atlantic environment, leaving traces of the changing state of the environment on the sources that inform this study. The source base I work from is, in many re­spects, entirely ordinary. I rely heavi­ly on diplomatic correspondence, politicians’ papers, congressional reports, and newspapers. While this corpus of documentation is a trove of information about the state of Anglo-­American relations and the nature of domestic politics, t­ here is also a wealth of information about the environment. By bringing the perspective of an environmental historian to this source base, I am better able to see that t­here is much more to the story of narrowly defined politics. Consular reports are the most helpful in gleaning environmental information from ostensibly po­liti­cal documents. During the nineteenth c­ entury, consuls w ­ ere at the vanguard of US foreign policy as they worked to ensure economic success in penetrating and exploiting foreign markets. While the hundreds, if not thousands, of microfilm reels h ­ oused at the National Archives contain page a­ fter page blandly documenting the comings and ­goings of commerce, consular agents directly commented on local conditions—­political, commercial, and environmental. From this correspondence comes invaluable information about the state of North Atlantic fisheries and how actors ranging from fishermen to diplomats understood that environment and its changes. Maritime laborers, like the environments they operated in, also emerge as a central ele­ment of this source base and, consequently, this story. In the eigh­ teenth and nineteenth centuries sailors ­were tied to some of the most impor­tant po­liti­cal, economic, and social changes that ­shaped the Atlantic. Revolutionary citizenship, the creation of the African American community, and even the advent of capitalism are but a few of the epochal transformations sailors drove. While unique in their mobility, sailors of the Atlantic world ­were bellwethers of the changes that swept through landed communities.18 Sailors ­were especially impor­tant in the foreign relations of the early United States. For much of the nineteenth ­century, the diplomatic corps of the nation was small and clustered in the courts of Eu­rope and the emerging states of Latin Amer­i­ca. Consular agents ­were more numerous, but still a paltry number abroad. Sailors w ­ ere by far the largest group of Americans to go abroad as commercial ships ranged from the Ca­rib­bean to the Mediterranean, and even penetrated the Asian markets of the South Seas. In the early United States, sailors ­were de facto diplomats. As historian Brian Rouleau notes, “Sailors, simply stated, w ­ ere nineteenth-­century Amer­ic­ a’s largest class of representatives overseas, and thus the principal engine of its foreign relations at the time.” They w ­ ere, Rouleau continues, “ambassadors in the forecastle.”19

10 I n t r o d u c t i o n

North Atlantic fishermen ­were in the same meta­phorical boat, as Americans who had left US shores yet brought distinctly American ideas about their place in the international order and their relationship with the environment as they interacted with foreign ­peoples and foreign places. They ­were the nation’s face abroad along the coasts of British North Amer­i­ca. The decisions fishermen made in pursuit of their catch w ­ ere largely, though not entirely, ­shaped by economics and environments, but they had impor­tant po­liti­cal implications for the conduct of US foreign policy. At times, perhaps at most times, the federal foreign policy establishment reacted to the decisions fishermen made on the w ­ ater, thus implicating ­these maritime laborers in the foreign policy pro­cess. As US fishermen w ­ ere captured by the British navy for plying their craft in forbidden ­waters, they displayed their knowledge of international politics and operated in the vulnerable po­liti­cal space available to them to address current crises while influencing ­future policy. Even if the specific decisions fishermen made about how they practiced their vocation ­were ­shaped by their economic and environmental contexts, fishermen, like other sailors, ­were undoubtedly po­liti­cal actors. This story points to the importance of maritime laborers in the nineteenth-­ century United States, but it also points to the importance of the ocean. An appreciation for the ocean’s role in history is crucial for rendering a more faithful picture of the United States in the nineteenth c­ entury. As scholars are increasingly appreciating, the ocean was fundamental to the development of national identity and the functioning of US statecraft.20 This work joins the oceanic turn of the nineteenth-­century United States by placing the seas at the center of the story. While North Americans had fished the North Atlantic for de­cades, if not centuries, before in­de­pen­dence, this story begins in earnest with the peace negotiation in Paris in 1783. Fishermen played a vital role during the Revolutionary War as they mustered into ser­vice on land and at sea and as they maintained the supply lines that provisioned ­those fighting forces. Chapter 1 considers how that ser­vice influenced the conduct of the US del­e­ga­tion at the Paris peace negotiation. John Adams’s clever diplomacy ensured the fisheries ­were a central point of the negotiation and was pivotal in securing this liberty to Americans in perpetuity. With this diplomatic win, however, the fisheries issue did not recede from its central position in the emergence of US statecraft. The questions that dogged the early republic—­the relationship between the states and the federal government at home and the relationship between the nation and ­others abroad—­were the same questions that ­were part and parcel of the

Introduction

11

fisheries issue. Chapter 2 introduces fishermen as diplomatic actors in the era of the War of 1812. In the aftermath of war, it was apparent that the recent round of hostilities had done ­little to pacify Anglo-­American relations. Nowhere was this more evident than with re­spect to the fisheries. ­Great Britain insisted the war had abrogated the US liberty to fish t­ hose ­waters. US fishermen, realizing that such a diplomatic decision directly threatened their livelihoods, continued to fish, risking capture by the British navy. During the summers of 1816 and 1817 scores of US fishermen w ­ ere detained. With each boatload of US citizens taken by the British navy, diplomats moved with greater and greater urgency to address the situation. This action culminated with the Convention of 1818, yet this landmark treaty would have never been had fishermen not consciously made decisions that brought diplomats to the bargaining ­table. The Convention of 1818 stipulated Americans could fish all British w ­ aters with the exception of t­ hose within three marine miles of the coasts. Despite this clarity, tensions remained. Throughout the antebellum era the fisheries remained a constant irritant to t­ hose on the ground and sporadically interrupted Anglo-­American relations at key points. Chapter 3 examines a paradox in Anglo-­American relations. During the 1820s transatlantic relations seemed to tilt t­oward reconciliation, at least at the level of high diplomacy. The Monroe Doctrine indicated the nations could work in concert to articulate shared diplomatic goals, yet on the fisheries, collisions between US fishermen and the British navy for real or alleged infractions of the three-­mile line continued apace. A particularly dramatic series of captures during the 1824 fishing season illustrated how such friction could provoke an international incident. Even as fishing was implicated in high-­level politics, its everyday operations ­were embedded in a series of environmental, technological, and industrial changes as midcentury approached. Chapter 4 offers a fine-­g rained examination of the fishing industry from the perspective of fishermen and the US consuls who became intimately intertwined with the business of fishing as they w ­ ere forced to deal with the fallout from the repeated collisions between fishermen and British sailors. As the experiences of t­ hose closest to the environment showed, the British w ­ ere only one of the obstacles US fishermen had to contend with. The series of diplomatic and environmental changes that defined the antebellum era culminated with the Fisheries Dispute of 1852, the subject of chapter 5. While this crisis owes its short-­term ­causes to changes within Britain imperial trade policies, the environment directly abetted the confrontation. Changes in the sea, which, in turn, forced changes in US fishing patterns, brought US fishermen and the British navy into direct conflict that even threatened to devolve into war. This confrontation was also fodder for

12 I n t r o d u c t i o n

domestic debate as sectional issues came to the fore of national politics. Strangely enough, this episode offered an instance of national unity, even as the nation lumbered t­ oward disunion. The era of the US Civil War brought irrevocable changes to the fisheries issue—­permanently changing the place of the fisheries in the US po­liti­cal economy. While for nearly the first ­century of US in­de­pen­dence the federal government had uniformly defended the rights of US fishermen and protected the industry from foes domestic and foreign, during the 1860s and 1870s it became obvious that ordinary fishermen in the North Atlantic could no longer count on federal support. In an era of US Civil War and Canadian Confederation, authority was increasingly consolidated in imperial and national capitals. This consolidation ­limited the ability of actors along the periphery—­like fishermen—to influence what happened at the center. In the aftermath of the Civil War, chapter 6 discusses, Anglo-­American diplomats set about addressing the ele­ments of transatlantic relations that prevented a larger rapprochement amidst the ongoing commercial and economic integration of the two nations. The Alabama Claims resulting from the depredations of British-­built Confederate warships topped this list, but the fisheries remained ever pre­sent. Changing environmental and industrial conditions had rendered the Convention of 1818 woefully out of date. Although this pro­cess was hamstrung by US indignity t­oward ­Great Britain on account of the latter’s flirtation with supporting the Confederacy, Anglo-­American diplomats came to an agreement in 1871 that settled the Alabama Claims and subjected the fisheries issue to arbitration. Although this move seemed innocuous, it was evident that the federal government valued a transatlantic rapprochement over continuing its unblemished rec­ord of defending the interests of the fishing industry. Chapter 7 brings this story to a close by examining the fisheries arbitration that occurred in Halifax in 1877 where US diplomats not only failed to preserve the rights of US fishermen but also alienated them from the pro­cess of diplomacy. Where once fishermen ­were viewed as valuable symbols of US in­de­pen­dence and operated on the front lines of US foreign relations, they ­were now relegated to a secondary role. Although cod fishing continued in the North Atlantic for the next ­century, US fishermen had become a symbol of a bygone era, left ­behind by a government that had changed its diplomatic priorities. This world the fish made came to pass. But although the place of North Atlantic cod fishermen in the US po­liti­cal economy underwent a dramatic change, some ­things d­ idn’t. Across the nineteenth ­century, into the twentieth, and still with us ­today are Americans’ insatiable appetite for fish and the willingness of the US state to use its power to feed it.

C h a p te r 1

Fisheries and the Flotsam of Revolution

Looking back on his ­career in the foreign ser­vice of the burgeoning United States, John Adams recalled the fisheries as being the primary f­actor that took him from his home on the shores of the North Atlantic to the courts of Eu­rope. On receiving word of his appointment as minister to France in the winter of 1777, Adams considered the countervailing draws of f­amily and country. Forsaking the comforts of home, Adams sailed to France in order to defend US interests, not least of which w ­ ere the North Atlantic fishing grounds. Priding himself on his familiarity with life and ­labor in Essex, Plymouth, and Barnstable Counties, Adams boasted of having “more knowledge both of the Cod and ­whale fisheries and of their importance both to the commerce and Naval Power of this Country than any other man.” Thus, he feared that refusing this commission would put the fate of this maritime resource in the hands of men unfamiliar with—or worse, hostile to—­this industry. As Adams “resolved to devote my ­family and my Life to the Cause,” he did so with the implicit understanding that the cause of in­de­ pen­dence was the cause of fishermen.1 In the immediate aftermath of in­de­pen­dence, cod fish w ­ ere synonymous with in­de­pen­dence itself. US state making—­and war making, for that ­matter—­fused ­these two so that by a kind of po­liti­cal alchemy, fish became far more than a natu­ral resource. In­de­pen­dence was the watchword for early

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US foreign relations. Statesmen w ­ ere racked by an all-­consuming anxiety that international forces w ­ ere conspiring to render in­de­pen­dence a worthless label. During the first ­couple de­cades of in­de­pen­dence, US statecraft was devoted to the mission of affirming that in­de­pen­dence, and the fisheries issue showed the extent to which the national government would wield its power to achieve that end. Accordingly, the fisheries issue would structure the new nation’s relationship with its former imperial master, ­Great Britain. The fisheries issue created the conditions u ­ nder which Anglo-­American relations w ­ ere debated, contested, and constantly redefined. Any threat to the fisheries was met with a vigorous rebuttal, since any test amounted to a referendum on in­de­pen­dence itself. In an era in which US leaders ­were obsessed with international legitimacy and, to use historian Eliga H. Gould’s turn of phrase, a “quest for treaty-­worthiness,” the fisheries would prove to be a central ele­ment of building an inward and outward state that could exist peacefully alongside the likes of ­Great Britain and France. In fact, the fisheries ­were key to the United States being a treaty-­ worthy nation. As Gould elaborates, Americans did not image this maritime space as part of the nation’s “exclusive dominion,” but as part of “a condominium based on mutually beneficial trade.” Yet it was this mutuality, not to mention the otherworldliness of the maritime environment, that made peace on the seas all the more elusive. The fisheries issue contained contradictory forces that could e­ ither foster or undermine the worthiness of the United States to stand as equal in Eu­rope’s international system.2 The importance of ­these fishing ­waters was not unique to Anglo-­American relations; for centuries, contest over this resource had been a piece of transatlantic politics and diplomacy. But with the introduction of the newly in­de­pen­dent United States, fishery politics ­were no longer the domain of Eu­rope’s dynastic rivalries alone. John Adams would not be the only one among the pantheon of Founding ­Fathers who devoted their attention to the fisheries issue as the United States secured and legitimated its in­de­pen­dence. In the de­cades ­after 1776, the likes of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton, among other prominent revolutionaries, would ­labor to ensure that the fisheries of the North Atlantic became an integral part of the po­liti­cal economy of the new nation. In the pro­cess, the fisheries became an unlikely nursery of ideas about the meaning of in­de­pen­dence and the limits of federal power. Prominent men in centers of power and marginalized men on the decks of fishing schooners did not hesitate to engage this set of questions about the place of this natu­ral resource in the statecraft of the United States.



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American Fisheries before In­de­pen­dence When the fisheries issue was broached by Anglo-­American diplomats in Paris, it was not the first time the maritime resource was the subject of transatlantic politics. In fact, the fisheries had been part of Eu­rope’s imperial rivalries for centuries by that point. The earliest Eu­ro­pe­ans to ply the fisheries of the North Atlantic left scant rec­ords of their impressions of this maritime environment. ­After all, they had ­little reason to divulge the location and nature of such a lucrative resource to potential rivals.3 ­These Eu­ro­pean fishermen did not, of course, find only fish. Native p­ eople along the coast of the Northwest Atlantic thrived on the bounty of the sea, and as historian Matthew R. Bahar has noted, the influx of Eu­ro­pean fishermen and ships in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries gave the Wabanaki technologies—­mainly, sail-­powered vessels—­that consolidated their influence over the region, allowed them access to offshore fishing banks, and helped them resist Eu­ro­pean colonization for more than a ­century. As Bahar notes, “both Britain’s imperial fortunes and Wabanakia’s extractive economy relied on a productive fishery.”4 As the emerging empires of the North Atlantic began to focus their energies on colonizing the lands adjacent to the fisheries, observers did not fail to note the fecundity of fish communities in the region.5 Rhapsodic descriptions of New World environments ­were a regular part of the promotional lit­er­a­ ture of Eu­ro­pean observers who hoped to entice investment in colonization schemes. Eu­ro­pe­ans of all provenances ­were taken aback by the diversity and richness of environments across the North American continent, from huge expanses of well-­manicured forests to species unknown in Eu­rope and rivers choked with fish. In a particularly evocative example, En­glishman John Josselyn’s travels in seventeenth-­century New ­England brought him face to face with flocks of passenger pigeons numbering in the “millions of millions,” which seemed without “beginning nor ending, length nor breadth, and so thick that I could see no Sun.”6 For Eu­ro­pe­ans, New ­England, if not the Amer­i­cas more generally, was a land of plenty ripe for exploitation and a resource ideology that emphasized acquisitiveness over caution.7 The seas would likewise prove prodigiously productive in Eu­ro­pean eyes; a similar tone of astonishment of the Amer­i­cas’ natu­r al bounty was brought to maritime resources as well. The sea fisheries of the Northwest Atlantic presented an environment to Eu­ro­pe­ans that was at once familiar and foreign. While the conditions of the Northeast Atlantic w ­ ere strikingly similar to t­ hose of the Northwest Atlantic in terms of ­water temperature, chemistry, and the relationships between

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vari­ous organisms, by the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the marine communities w ­ ere quite dif­fer­ent as a result of centuries of exploiting the ­waters nearest to the Eu­ro­pean continent. As historian W. Jeffrey Bolster notes, “When Basque, Breton, Portuguese, and West Country fishermen began regularly to cross the Atlantic, the ecosystem they encountered was ‘new’ only in its abundance: it had not been harvested systematically for centuries by legions of fishermen.”8 Early observers in the region described this bounty in detail. One seventeenth-­century witness remarked that “the aboundance of Sea-­Fish are almost beyond beleeving, and sure I should scarce have beleeved it except I had seene it with mine owne eyes.” Another noted that mere hours of fishing “had pestered our ships so with Cod fish, that we threw numbers of them over-­ boored againe.”9 ­These maritime resources ­were what first attracted Eu­ro­pe­ ans to the region in their first experience with the richness of New World environments. Soon this resource and this region w ­ ere integrated into a developing transatlantic economy as fishermen began systematically exploiting ­these ­waters with the same technologies and motivations that had taxed the ecological vitality of Eu­rope’s Atlantic fisheries. Despite the descriptions of abundance that marked the earliest Eu­ro­pean impressions of t­ hese North Atlantic fisheries, New En­glanders soon showed concern over the ability of this ecosystem to respond to the demands of the Atlantic market. As early as the 1660s, the colony of Mas­sa­chu­setts declared “that no man s­ hall henceforth kill any codfish, hake, haddock, or pollock, to be dried for sale in the month of December or January, ­because of their spawning time.”10 While colonial subjects had ­little understanding of the f­ actors at play that determined the size and scale of fish populations in the region, they certainly had an awareness of fluctuations in catches across time and space. Implicitly at least, colonial residents of New E ­ ngland understood that h ­ umans had the ability to influence, for better or worse, this maritime resource.11 From early on, then, the fishing industry of the region was caught between environmentally imposed limits and market forces. Despite Mas­sa­chu­setts’s early attempt to embrace caution, rapacious fishermen seemed more persuaded by the dictates of the market than by a devotion to more enlightened resource stewardship. With the ascension of what William Cronon calls “Eu­ro­pean dominance in New ­England” came a host of changes in the land.12 Such dominance begat changes in the sea, too. As Eu­ro­pe­ans marveled at, exploited, and ultimately came to worry about the productive capacity of North Atlantic ­waters, ­these fisheries became an impor­tant ele­ment in the emerging Atlantic economy and garnered the attention of emerging Atlantic empires. Fishing was, at its base, an economic enterprise—­one that generated a significant amount of wealth in transatlan-



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tic trade. The early history of this fishery is the story of an increasingly integrated Atlantic-­wide economy. Dried salted cod from New E ­ ngland and Newfoundland made its way to the markets of the Mediterranean to feed the Catholic populations of Eu­rope, whose liturgical calendar forbade the eating of meat for hundreds of days ­every year. Low-­g rade fish, unfit for the Eu­ro­ pean market, was sold to the emerging plantation socie­ties in the Ca­rib­bean to provision the enslaved workforce. Salted cod proved to be a cheaper alternative to salted beef to feed the enslaved laborers on sugar plantations that refused to devote valuable acreage to raising food crops instead of cane. In return for selling fish to the metropole and colonies of France, Spain, and Portugal, En­glish fishermen in the Northwest Atlantic not only offset a centuries-­ old trade imbalance with Iberian and French producers of wine, olives, and olive oil, but also themselves became significant consumers of wine and other luxuries.13 This pro­cess made the Northwest Atlantic in general, and the island of Newfoundland in par­tic­u­lar, an impor­tant node in an increasingly integrated Atlantic economy. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the transoceanic cod fish trade made the w ­ aters between Cape Cod and Newfoundland “an Atlantic crossroads.”14 Given the economic value of this territory, the region would not remain isolated from the imperial politics of Eu­rope. While the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries witnessed the establishment and maturation of Eu­ro­pean fishing enterprises in the Northwest Atlantic, the eigh­teenth c­ entury would see fishing become part of Eu­ro­pean diplomacy at the highest level. Increasingly, the British came to dominate the region’s fisheries, but it was a contested pro­cess. The first significant international agreement that took the fisheries of the Northwest Atlantic into consideration was the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht. While the French had been impor­tant players in the early centuries of the fisheries, the 1713 treaty significantly l­imited their role. One of a series of treaties that restored peace to Eu­rope ­after the War of the Spanish Succession, the Treaty of Utrecht redefined the geopolitics of North Amer­i­ca. Perhaps more famous for recognizing British rule over Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and Hudson’s Bay, and in the pro­cess limiting France’s possessions to Cape Breton Island, Prince Edward Island, and St. Pierre and Miquelon, the 1713 treaty also stipulated that French ships w ­ ere ­limited to the fishing grounds along the northern shore of Newfoundland. This agreement allowed for the expansion (and soon, domination) of the codfish trade by New En­glanders, while also ensuring at least a c­ entury more of tension in the region as French ships sought to expand beyond their legally defined limit between Cape Bonavista and Pointe Riche. This treaty was most impor­ tant, however, for setting the pre­ce­dent that the North Atlantic fisheries

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could act as a makeweight in imperial politics. The fisheries would again enter Eu­ro­pean statecraft in 1763 as the Treaty of Paris further restricted French access to the fisheries by banning French ships from fishing within three miles of the shores of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and ceding Cape Breton Island to the British. This agreement altered the dynamics of the fishing industry and inaugurated a de­cade of internecine conflict as New E ­ ngland fishermen vied with Newfoundland and West Country fishermen for supremacy in the ­waters ceded by France. This friction would play no small role in the coming of the next g­ reat imperial crisis of the 1770s.15 By the time some of Britain’s subjects in North Amer­i­ca began to chaff ­under the island’s rule, the North Atlantic fisheries w ­ ere an established part of imperial politics. During the ensuing imperial crisis brought on by questions over the po­liti­cal status of thirteen of Britain’s North American colonies, the fisheries would become an even more impor­tant aspect of how international relations unfolded in the Atlantic world. While the American Revolution did not introduce the cod fisheries to the whims of international diplomacy, the era did set norms that would influence the development of US nationalism and state building for at least a ­century to come. Fishery politics ­were at the birth of US in­de­pen­dence, playing the role of midwife, at least in part. By establishing direct links between this maritime resource and in­de­pen­dence, the revolution imbued the fisheries with a potent kind of po­liti­cal salience in the new nation. The maritime world generally, and the cod fisheries specifically, played a vital role in the strug­gle over US in­de­pen­dence. As Christopher P. Magra plainly asserts, “The origins and pro­g ress of the American Revolution cannot be fully understood without coming to terms with its maritime dimensions.”16 That New ­England was a center for both revolutionary fervor and the cod-­ fishing industry was no coincidence. Britain’s attempts to regulate and control the trade in dried, salted codfish helped convince merchants and laborers alike that their interests lay with po­liti­cal in­de­pen­dence and not with the increasingly restrictive structures of the British Empire. In the de­cades leading to up to the imperial crisis of the 1770s, the fishermen and fish merchants of New ­England began questioning the usefulness of their inclusion in the British Empire. To the oceangoing men of the region it seemed as though the most significant impediments to their commercial success came not from foreign competition and restrictions, but instead from fellow En­glishmen. The g­ rand sugar planters of the West Indies and the wealthy West Country fishing merchants used their po­liti­cal clout in Parliament to the detriment of fishing interests of New ­England. While initially, New ­England cod fed the fish-­eating populations of Eu­rope, by the ­middle



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de­cades of the eigh­teenth ­century this fish found a market feeding the enslaved populations of the West Indies, including ­those laboring on the plantations of French sugar producers. Incensed that Yankee fish aided their commercial competitors, British West Indian sugar planters mobilized their influence in Parliament, leading to the passage of the Sugar Act of 1764, which disrupted this trade.17 Yankee fishing interests w ­ ere further threatened as West Country fish merchants—­who controlled the more lucrative Newfoundland-­Europe fish trade—­used their influence in Parliament to restrict the access of colonial ships to the rich fishing ­waters of Newfoundland.18 Fi­nally, Parliament sought to rein in the unruly colonies in New ­England by closing the cod-­fishing industry through the Restraining Act of 1775, other­wise known as the New ­England Trade and Fisheries Act. In Magra’s words, this act “lit the long fuse of colonial resentment and convinced ­those involved with the colonial cod fishing industry that the British state no longer supported their maritime interests.” This act against the fishing industry of the region, Magra concludes, “motivated a cross-­section of colonial society, entrepreneurs and laborers alike, to fight against the British Empire.”19 From the perspective of New ­England fishing interests, it seemed as though the British state favored the sugar colonies of the West Indies or the fishing interest of the West Country at the expense of Yankee maritime commerce, which ultimately forced New En­glanders to question their place in the British Empire. As revolution came, it was maritime laborers—­fishermen and sailors—­who ­were at the vanguard of change. On the eve of in­de­pen­dence, despite po­liti­cal shifts and changing imperial relations, the business of fishing continued as it had for more than a c­ entury. In an account of the Banks fishery in 1776 (published two de­cades ­later) an anonymous fisherman appraised the fishery and the industry. A ­ fter characterizing the Banks of Newfoundland as “among the many surprising and wonderful works of nature,” the fisherman related to readers the work of fishing, from baiting hooks to quickly drawing in fathoms of line when the cod bit, to the “equally as expeditious” dressing and salting of the catch in the hold of the ship. This practice of handlining and pro­cessing of the fish onboard had remained basically unchanged since the mid-­seventeenth ­century. What had changed, however, was who was ­doing the fishing. By the 1770s, ­England and France remained the only Eu­ro­pean powers with a stake in the region. Such a state of affairs struck our fisherman as unjust, not only—­foreshadowing an argument Americans would make for decades—­because “the right of fishing upon the ­g reat bank, by the law of nature, ­ought to have been common to all mankind,” but also b­ ecause “Spain certainly had the greatest claim to, as the original discoverer of it; and who from the number of her monks and priests, as well as her religion, might have pleaded the necessity of keeping

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it.” The fishery, ­whether carried on by the En­glish, the French, or, ­later, the Americans, relied on the markets of Catholic nations like Spain and plantations in the Ca­rib­bean. The anonymous fisherman grasped the Atlantic-­wide reach of the fishing industry as Eu­ro­pean fishermen “nearly traverse by ­water half the globe . . . ​sail[ing] from their respective ports in Eu­rope to ­these banks; from whence they proceed to the Mediterranean and African islands, where they dispose of their fish for the produce of ­those islands, then go to the West Indies . . . ​and return home laden with sugar and rum.”20 Fishermen like this writer noted that it was “a very singular circumstance, that t­hese banks should abound with cod,” a fact that “the greatest phi­los­o­ phers have never been able to account for.” But they w ­ ere sure, in logic that resonated with scientific thinking well into the nineteenth c­ entury, that “this fishery is certainly a most inexhaustible wealth.” This wealth accounted for why nations like E ­ ngland and France ­were “so tenacious” in defending this resource, just as American colonists ­were as they moved t­ oward in­de­pen­dence.21 But the fisheries ­were impor­tant not just ­because they served as the locus for colonial grievances that motivated insurrection and separation. The course of the war bore the imprint of the fishing industry: fishermen filled muster rolls, fishing schooners became fighting ships, and fish literally fed the war effort. The Revolutionary War was not only fought over fish, but fought with fish. While the commercial connections to the West Indian and Iberian markets that fishing merchants in New E ­ ngland had cultivated for de­cades ­were mobilized for the purposes of war making, ­these same merchants leased their ships to the Continental Congress for enrollment in the first US navy—­making a tidy profit in the pro­cess.22 But perhaps the greatest legacy of the revolutionary era for the po­liti­cal fortunes of the fishing industry came as fishermen provided their manpower in actually waging war. By both land and sea, fishermen fought for US in­de­pen­dence, cementing the link between fishermen, fighting, and po­liti­cal in­de­pen­dence. This association would ­later inspire de­cades of federal support as this maritime resource was, rhetorically at least, tied to in­de­pen­dence and national security.23 The New ­England cod-­fishing industry was deeply implicated in the origins of US in­de­pen­dence. Both the ­causes and the conduct of the Revolutionary War owed much to this maritime resource. When the guns fell s­ ilent and the time came to create the postwar order, fishermen and industry supporters expected their due. Fortunately, for them at least, one of Mas­sa­chu­setts’s most irascible sons was at Paris in 1783 to sort through the morass. Diplomats, Adams first and foremost, had to ensure that military successes ­were translated into geopo­liti­cal realities. When Adams advocated for US fishing rights at the Paris peace conference, however, it was not his first engage-



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ment with the question of fisheries in the context of imperial politics. In the summer of 1769 Adams had defended the crew of the brig Pitt Packer, who ­were charged with murder ­after killing the captain of a British naval vessel that attempted to impress the crewmen into ser­vice as they returned from shipping cod to Bilbao and Cadiz. Though the crewmen of the brig who stood trial for murder ­were all Irishmen, they resided in Marblehead, Mas­sa­chu­setts, thus making the Royal Navy’s attempt to impress t­ hese sailors into ser­vice a delicate question about the place of the mainland colonies within the British Empire. Ultimately, the charges against the sailors w ­ ere dropped as Adams successfully argued that the hom­i­cide was justified in the name of self-­defense. But, as Adams would recall, this episode did much to hasten the shift in public opinion against king and Parliament. Adams remarked that the Pitt Packer incident “contributed largely to render the sovereignty of parliament odious, detestable, and horrible to the ­people.”24 Thus John Adams would find himself, even before the War for In­de­pen­dence broke out, contending with the relationship between North Atlantic fish and US nationhood. By the end of the armed hostilities, the Mas­sa­chu­setts native did not hesitate to make explicit the connection between the fisheries and in­de­pen­dence.

Paris, 1783 Having accepted his commission as the US minister to France and ensconced himself in the courts of Eu­rope, Adams considered the role of fishing in the nascent US nation. Recognizing the connection between New ­England’s fish and markets in the Ca­rib­bean and Mediterranean, he bemoaned that “our fish went to the West India Islands for rum . . . ​which injured our health and our morals,” in addition to “the other part [that] went to Spain and Portugal for gold and silver, almost the ­whole of which went to London . . . ​often for lace and ribbons.” But despite the vices and luxury the fish trade invited to US shores, the fisheries provided a “nursery of seamen” that would prove to be “an object of serious importance, and perhaps indispensable [and] necessary to the accomplishment and preservation of our in­de­pen­dence.”25 While the fishermen’s cause was paramount to Adams as a loyal citizen of the Bay State, Congress did not hesitate to make a similar equation of fisheries and in­de­pen­dence. The Continental Congress made the fisheries a sine qua non of any peace deal brokered by US representatives in Eu­rope. Instructions sent to both Adams and Franklin in the summer and fall of 1779 expressed Congress’s belief that the fisheries w ­ ere necessary to in­de­pen­dence and the ­union of the states. “The common right of fishing,” Congress’s diplomatic

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instructions demanded, “­shall in no case be given up . . . ​it is essential to the welfare of all t­hese United States.” By the fall of 1782, as Adams, Franklin, and John Jay converged on Paris to meet Britain’s peace del­e­ga­tion, the right of US fishermen to continue to exploit ­waters in the North Atlantic was, by congressional order, a prerequisite of peace and in­de­pen­dence.26 It takes l­ittle imagination to understand why Congress made access to the fisheries a nonnegotiable goal for the ensuing treaty talks. The fisheries w ­ ere, quite simply, an incredibly impor­tant commercial resource for the mainland colonies-­turned-­states. Across the seventeenth and eigh­teenth centuries the productive capacity of New E ­ ngland fishermen increased dramatically. In 1641 Mas­sa­chu­setts fishermen produced 6,000 quintals (a standard unit of mea­sure­ ment used in the fishing industry equal to 112 pounds) of dried codfish for sale across the Atlantic. By 1765 that number had ballooned to 350,000. As the revolution approached, dried, salted cod sold overseas accounted for 35 ­percent of the total exports of New E ­ ngland between the years 1768 and 1772. As most of this trade in fish served to feed the enslaved ­peoples of the West Indies—­ New ­England supplied 82 ­percent of British fish sent to the Caribbean—­the fishing industry became intimately tied to other economic sectors including rum distilling and sugar cane production, which itself relied on the lucrative transatlantic trade in h ­ umans. Closer to home, fishing supported vari­ous maritime industries including shipyards, lumber mills, ropewalks, sailmakers, carpenters, and blacksmiths, directly employing 8  ­percent of the adult male working population of New ­England in 1770. In the 1770s fish was the third most valuable export from North Amer­ic­ a, b­ ehind only tobacco and wheat. Fishing was an impor­tant sector of the early US economy, one the fledgling state could not afford to lose on account of inept diplomacy.27 During the closing months of 1782, as Adams and his fellow negotiators settled into Paris, the New En­glander continued to ruminate on the place of the fisheries in the new US polity.28 While of course this maritime resource was necessary for po­liti­cal in­de­pen­dence, it was also necessary to foster and preserve the nascent ­union. ­After conferring with Franklin, and referencing the words of South Carolinian Henry Laurens in Congress, Adams confided to his diary that the fisheries had become a point “so tender and impor­tant that if not secured it would be the cause of a breach of the Union of the States,” and “lay a foundation for a rupture.”29 But this was not the only rupture that US diplomats feared, believing as they did that the fisheries ­were impor­tant and contentious enough to portend renewed hostilities with ­Great Britain if Americans ­were left out of this lucrative business. Writing to John Jay in his role as the nation’s first secretary of foreign affairs ­under the Articles of Confederation, Robert Livingston predicted that barring US fishermen from the



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fisheries would prove disastrous for the ­f uture health of Anglo-­American relations: “Our exclusion would only be a benefit to E ­ ngland, and the ill-­will it would create, the disputes it would give birth to, would, in the course of a few years, obliterate the memory of the ­favors we have received.” Livingston, musing on the centrality of the fisheries to US aims in both war and in peace, would ­later relate to Franklin that “we can not but hate the nation that keeps us from using this common ­favor of Providence.”30 As the US and British peace del­e­ga­tions began in earnest to end the hostilities, the f­ uture of the fisheries implicated both the ­f uture of Anglo-­American relations and the ­f uture of the states themselves.31 Although US statesmen ­were quick to define their po­liti­cal in­de­pen­dence in terms of the fisheries, a notion in part substantiated by the military and naval ser­vice of cod fishermen, it would take persuasion and at times deceit for British diplomats to accede to ­those US wishes. Speaking to his British counterpart in Paris, Adams demanded that Britain’s postwar policies “see that American In­de­pen­dence is in­de­pen­dent, in­de­pen­dent of all the World, in­de­ pen­dent of yourselves as well as of France, and in­de­pen­dent of both as well as of the rest of Eu­rope.”32 Continued access to the fisheries was an impor­ tant part of this in­de­pen­dence, but such was only the case b­ ecause of the arguments deployed by the US ministers in Paris. Adams, Franklin, and Jay appealed to Americans’ customary access and the United States’ geographic proximity to the fisheries, all the while raising the specter of French domination of the region. Geography—­real or ­imagined—­made the fisheries a natu­ ral extension of the US domain.33 The Americans in Paris insisted that the ocean was boundless and indivisible; unlike their continental domain, it could not be controlled by any one nation. Barring US fishermen from this resource would prove impossible, if not unnatural. Americans based their claims to liberal fishing rights on the fact that North Americans had fished t­ hose ­waters for centuries; the mere act of revolution did nothing to relinquish that right. Writing to Franklin, Livingston briefed the minister on the expected fight over access to the fisheries. “The argument,” Livingston instructed, “on which the p­ eople of Amer­i­ca found their claim to fish on the banks of Newfoundland arises, first, from their having once formed a part of the British empire, in which state they always enjoyed, as fully as the ­people of Britain themselves, the right of fishing on t­ hose banks.” The state of war that existed between the two polities did nothing to invalidate this right, however, since “the oppressions of ­Great Britain forced us to a separation . . . ​and it can not certainly be contended that t­ hose oppressions abridge our rights or gave new ones to Britain.” Livingston concluded that any contention that the United States should abandon this maritime claim

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was foolish ­because this resource was, quite simply, a reason for resorting to hostilities. “We have kept up our claim from the commencement of the war,” Livingston remarked, “and assigned the attempt of ­Great Britain to exclude us from the fisheries as one of the ­causes of our recurring to arms.”34 Livingston also proceeded to anchor the United States’ claim in international law. Any attempt by Britain to claim the vast w ­ aters off the coasts of its remaining North American colonies would prove a violation of the law of nations, if not the law of nature. The ground on which Americans placed their “right to fish on the banks of Newfoundland . . . ​is the right which nature gives to all mankind to use its common benefit so far as not to exclude ­others.”35 But even disregarding the technicalities of the law of nations, Livingston observed that the maritime environment of the fisheries made the claims of any one nation impossible to uphold, remarking that “the sea can not in its nature be appropriated; no nation can put its mark upon it.”36 Adams and his colleagues would approach the boundless ocean as an international commons and base the US claim on this kind of resource ideology. US leaders like Adams, however, perhaps recognizing the significant differences between land and sea, ­were less inclined to re­spect the commons of the trans-­Appalachian West, much to the detriment of Native American ­peoples who had called the region home for centuries. Resource ideologies w ­ ere, and remain, highly politicized. Although Livingston may not have realized it at the time, ­these remarks hinted at how the environment became a power­ful ally of the US peace commissioners. Adams boasted that his technical knowledge of the fisheries and the fishing industry was unparalleled by US statesmen, and he did not hesitate to demonstrate his erudition at the bargaining ­table in Paris. A ­ fter an extended description of the migratory patterns of cod and other commercially valuable fish, Adams concluded that the right of US fishermen was not a question of politics, but a question of nature. Remarking on the yearly arrival of fish on the shores of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and the rest of the maritime colonies in March and April, Adams observed that only US fishermen could take advantage of this resource since “neither [the] French nor En­glish could go from Eu­rope and arrive early enough for the first Fare,” but “our Vessells could, being so much nearer, an Advantage which God and Nature had put into our hands.” As Adams articulated to his US colleagues and British counter­parts, it was the United States’ geographic proximity to this maritime environment that gave Americans the right to exploit ­those ­waters.37 The question of geography became a theme as Adams continued to push for the recognition of this right.



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British ministers did not dispute the notion that US fishermen should continue to ply t­hese North Atlantic w ­ aters, but they objected to the language that the US commissioners insisted on using. Adams asserted that the peace treaty should guarantee that the United States had the “right” of the fisheries, not merely the “liberty” of them, which the British preferred. At one point, a British representative went so far as to say that “the Word Right was an obnoxious Expression.” Responding to Britain’s intransigence, Adams resorted to an argument based on geography. “Can ­there be a clearer Right?,” Adams queried his British adversaries. “When God Almighty made the Banks of Newfoundland at 300 League Distance from the P ­ eoples of Amer­i­ca and at 600 League distance from ­those of France and ­England, did he not give as good a Right to the former as to the latter?” Through geography and history, the fisheries w ­ ere a US right, as Adams asserted that “if Occupation, Use, and Possession give a Right, We have it as clearly as you. If War and Blood and Trea­sure give a Right, ours is as good as yours.” If the final treaty failed to recognize this state of affairs, it would, in the words of John Jay, “not be a Peace” but “only . . . ​an insidious Truce.”38 Appealing to a belief in natu­ral order, Adams’s geo­graph­i­cally informed arguments demonstrated the degree to which the case made by the Americans at Paris was undergirded by certain environmental conceptions.39 No postwar order could prove tenable if US fishermen where in anyway barred from ­waters that nature had placed so near to US shores. While certainly, such an understanding of the environment proved to be self-­serving, this episode demonstrated the degree to which po­liti­cal and natu­ral environments could be manipulated, and in this case harmonized, to further US interests. While Adams and his compatriots used custom and nature to advocate on behalf of US fishermen, they made sure to demonstrate that US fishing also served British ends. The fisheries issue, at least as Adams and his colleagues framed it, contained the seeds of both dissention and harmony. If the delegates failed to resolve the ­matter in a way satisfactory to US fishermen, the ­f uture of Anglo-­ American relations would be characterized by discord, if not outright hostility. Americans would seethe with resentment for any nation that cut the United States off from such a lucrative trade, and Adams suggested that authorities would be utterly incapable of restraining intrepid fishermen who dared to flaunt any unfavorable international arrangement. “How could We restrain our Fishermen”—­who Adams called the “boldest Men alive”—­ “from fishing in prohibited Places?”40 This threat of ­future clashes perhaps inspired greater attention from British ministers as Adams pondered aloud,

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“Why should We leave Room for illiterate Fishermen to wrangle and chicane,” when distinguished statesmen could ­settle the issue for good?41 Adams touched on themes that would mark the fisheries issues for de­cades to come, as the New En­glander offered the fisherman as a symbol of both vice and virtue, and as an impor­tant agent of transatlantic relations. For the time being, though, Adams raised the threat of ­f uture clashes to demonstrate how a settlement satisfactory to US fishermen was in fact a settlement satisfactory to all. Placid relations on the fishing grounds would also yield monetary benefits. Adams hoped to persuade his British counter­parts that any wealth extracted from this maritime environment, even if done u ­ nder a US flag, would inevitably fill the coffers of ­Great Britain. “That this Advantage of ours,” as Adams referred to the fisheries, “had ever been an Advantage to ­England, b­ ecause our fish had been sold in Spain and Portugal for Gold and Silver, and that Gold and Silver sent to London for Manufactures.”42 This transfer of specie to the metropole would be interrupted if Britain pursued a hardline on the fisheries, since “N. ­England had no other Remittance but the Fishery.”43 But perhaps the most persuasive argument the Americans offered at Paris was that ­every fish caught by a US sailor was a fish taken from a Frenchman. Even though the Franco-­American alliance proved instrumental in assuring US battlefield success, the US diplomats in Paris did not hesitate to exploit Britain’s fear of a fishery dominated by French vessels in the absence of a US fishing fleet. While Americans would happily trade their maritime wealth for British manufactured goods, France would be far more reluctant to pass up the opportunity to develop native manufacturing to enrich itself. Furthermore, the fisheries would serve as a nursery of French seamen who would prove a much more immediate threat to British interests. Although the Americans presented the French as a specter of what could be, they w ­ ere not entirely without their own suspicions of their nominal allies. Even though military victory had been accomplished only with French men and materiel, US leaders ­were quite wary that that victory would be betrayed by unscrupulous French action during the peace pro­cess. In both Paris and Philadelphia, Americans felt it was almost inevitable that the French court would do what­ever was necessary to prevent a peace too favorable to the United States. In addition to the navigation of the Mississippi and claims to the trans-­ Appalachian West, the fisheries ­were among the major targets of French intrigue, so Adams and his colleagues believed. The idea that France would attempt to shut US fishermen out of the rich w ­ aters of the North Atlantic was not that far-­fetched, however. Both at Utrecht (1713) and Paris (1763), France had sought the expansion of their fishing rights in the region, and this most



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recent negotiation seemed to pre­sent the opportunity to bar the upstart United States. The Americans’ anxiety could have been written off as mere paranoia, but the spring of 1782 witnessed a veritable bombshell that threatened to completely destabilize the United States’ first international alliance. Before the pro­cess of peace was undertaken in earnest, a communiqué from François Barbé-­Marbois, a French representative in the United States, to the Comte de Vergennes, France’s foreign minister, was intercepted by a British naval officer and transmitted to Congress. Barbé-­Marbois’s letter depicted Samuel Adams as a rabble-­rousing malcontent who was “using all his endeavors to raise in the State of Mas­sa­chu­setts Bay a strong opposition to peace if the eastern states are not thereby admitted to the fisheries.”44 Looking on the impassioned cries of New En­glanders of “No peace without the Fisheries” as inimical to French interests, Barbé-­Marbois suggested to his superior “the means for preventing the consequences of success to Mr. Samuel Adams and his party.”45 By suggesting that Americans could be barred from North Atlantic w ­ aters, ­either through the direct intervention of the king of France or the conquest of Cape Breton in Nova Scotia, Barbé-­Marbois’s letter confirmed fears that French double-­dealing would leave the United States with ­little ­after the war. While the authenticity of this letter has been questioned—­perhaps it was a clever ruse on the part of the British—­Americans ­were disinclined to trust their French allies at Paris. In fact, US suspicion may have motivated the US commissioners to abandon their friends and accept an overly generous British peace offering. The very instructions from Congress demanding that any peace refer to the fisheries also demanded that France agree to any deal struck between the United States and ­Great Britain. Fearing that France would never consent to a treaty that left US fishing privileges intact, Adams and his colleagues accepted Britain’s offer to grant US fishermen the “liberty” of access to all North Atlantic w ­ aters. By the close of 1782, l­ittle more than a month a­ fter his initial arrival in Paris, Adams was content to lay the fisheries issues to rest, claiming “the Fisheries are secured, as well as we could.”46 Although the fisheries “Article cost Us all the Industry all the Skill and Address, that We ­were masters of,” Adams proudly declared that “French Finesse”—­which is to say, duplicity—­ “in the End has been defeated, very fairly and honestly defeated.”47 Adams would credit this defeat of “French Finesse,” and the generous terms Americans secured with regard to the navigation of the Mississippi and the extent of western lands, to a willingness to abandon his initial instructions and make peace in­de­pen­dent of French dictates. “All ­these Advantages,” referring to the fisheries, the navigation of the Mississippi, and the vast new territory of the trans-­Appalachian West, “would not have been obtained if We had literally

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pursued our Instructions.”48 The willingness of Adams and his fellow diplomats to forsake the French alliance, a decision motivated almost entirely out of regard for the fisheries, ensured the spectacular success they had at Paris.49 The Americans left Paris with a generous peace.50 While the final text of the treaty granted US fishermen the “liberty to take fish of e­ very kind on such part of the coast of Newfoundland as British fishermen ­shall use . . . ​and also on the coasts, bays and creeks of all other of his Brittanic Majesty’s dominions in Amer­i­ca,” this did not guarantee the “right” Adams sought.51 Yet, such a distinction paled in comparison to the (perhaps unjustified) grant of land in the trans-­Appalachian West to the new United States.52 It may have been due to their suasion and guile that the United States commissioners left Paris with such an advantageous peace, but the citizens of Boston credited a higher power. “We cannot,” their representatives remarked, “express our gratitude to Almighty, who hath smiled on the virtuous strug­gles of the United States, and crowned the conflict with so happy a conclusion.” Nothing short of “the blessing of heaven” had “secured to us in the treaty of peace” the continued, and hopefully perpetual, use of the fisheries.53 The peace pro­cess linked fisheries and in­de­pen­dence in US po­liti­cal rhe­toric for de­cades to come. As the United States set about the task of nation building, the perceived military and commercial benefits of the North Atlantic cod fishery would be indispensable in creating a state that was no longer dependent on G ­ reat Britain, or any other Eu­ro­pean power, for that ­matter. Adams’s strident tones in defense of the fisheries in Paris would continue to echo through the first de­cades of statehood, as what was at stake was not just w ­ ater and flesh but the tools necessary for creating an in­de­pen­dent, commercially minded nation. Fish, quite simply, ­were never merely fish. The piscine inhabitants of the North Atlantic ­were symbols and building blocks of an in­de­pen­ dent United States, thus making access to this resource worthy of a vigorous defense from foes, external and domestic. The following de­cades would see an all-­consuming preoccupation with maintaining in­de­pen­dence and the crafting of fishery policy ­toward that end.

American Fish in a Hostile World Americans had cause for optimism in 1783. With the peace secured, some Americans felt the revolution was merely beginning; this new nation would lead a revolution in how commercial relations mediated the intercourse of nations. Characteristic of this optimism ­were the words of Levi Frisbie. In a speech delivered before an audience at Ipswich, Mas­sa­chu­setts, Frisbie i­ magined



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a f­ uture in which international trade among all nations was unfettered by the mercantilist restrictions of a bygone era.54 Instead, US merchants and sailors “may rejoice in the liberty of the seas,” in which they w ­ ere “no longer harras’d with burdensome impositions, or unnecessary restrictions; no longer watch’d and pillag’d by the mercenary tools of a tyrannical government,” and could “waft their commodities to ­every climate, without molestation or disturbance.”55 This example of enlightened trade would no doubt play a missionary role in the world as “our example and our intercourse with foreign nations [­will] widely diffuse this sacred flame [of liberty], and extend its happy influence thro’ all the kingdoms of Eu­rope, if not to the most distant quarters of the globe.”56 For Frisbie, the po­liti­cal in­de­pen­dence of the United States was worth ­little without a corresponding revolution in international relations that would open the ports of the world to US commerce. The fisheries played no small role in Frisbie’s ­imagined commercial order. Noting the “ample privileges” granted to US fishermen at Paris, Frisbie called the fishery “so impor­tant to our commercial interests,” ­because this maritime resource “afford[s] us a living and inexhaustible fund of wealth and traffic.” Not only would the piscine wealth pulled from the deep provide a commodity to be sent across the far reaches of the Atlantic, but the entire fishing industry would be a boon for US shipbuilders and provide experienced mari­ ners the opportunity to man the fleet of trading vessels that carried both the goods of all nations and the distinct advantages of US liberty. Given the value the fisheries provided US commercial enterprises, Frisbie was content to conclude that t­ hose fisheries w ­ ere “a fund of superior worth to all the glittering mines of Peru.”57 This kind of optimism, however, would soon founder on the harsh realities of the international system. Britain was loath to abandon its mercantile policies. A ­ fter all, it still had an empire in North Amer­i­ca to administer, and keeping US fish out of its traditional market in the Ca­rib­bean would directly serve the interests of the North American provinces. Even before the Revolutionary War, Adams wondered what the cessation of trade with the West Indies would mean for New E ­ ngland. “Can the ­People bear a total Interruption of the West India Trade?” Adams asked his diary. “A Prohibition of all Exports to the West Indies, ­will annihilate the Fishery . . . ​and this would throw a Multitude of Families in our fishing Towns into the Arms of Famine.”58 The revolution of ­free trade Americans thought was imminent never materialized. Silas Deane offered a less sanguine picture of US commerce. Deane was a disgraced former diplomat who spent the remaining years of his life defending his reputation from charges of treason and malfeasances dating to his years as the first US minister in Paris.59 But Deane’s attempt to clear his name contained a

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somewhat prophetic vision of the difficulties US commerce would experience as an in­de­pen­dent state. In a letter written to the Philadelphia merchant Robert Morris during the summer of 1781 and published three years ­later, Deane reflected on the commercial prospects of an in­de­pen­dent United States. Noting that ­Great Britain had reason to encourage and protect colonial commerce before the revolution, in­de­pen­dence would bring “all duties and prohibitions laid on the commerce of other aliens and strangers,” leaving Deane “convinced” that with in­de­pen­dence “we must be losers.” Most alarming was the prospect that US ships would be barred from entering British ports that had long absorbed the produce of the mainland colonies-­turned-­states. The other nations of Eu­rope, including France, Spain, and Portugal, would likewise have l­ittle inclination to offer the United States commercial preference to take up the slack of Britain’s restrictive policies. Furthermore, Deane observed, “our trade . . . ​to the Southern parts of Eu­rope, and into the Mediterranean, must at all times be exposed to the Corsairs of Barbary . . . ​who pay l­ittle or no re­spect to the flags of the first maritime nations in Eu­rope,” and “­will hardly pay any to the flag of a nation, which they have scarcely so much as heard of.”60 The fisheries would obviously fall victim to the inhospitable world that would meet US in­de­pen­dence. ­Great Britain, Deane concluded, would have ­little motivation to ensure the continued access of US fisheries postin­de­pen­ dence. Refuting the geographic logic Adams deployed in Paris, Deane remarked that “it w ­ ill be no purpose to plead that our local situation gives us a natu­ral right to participate [in the fisheries] . . . ​that we enjoyed . . . ​with ­others, as subjects, and part of the British empire,” ­because “we have separated from it, and appealed to the sword.”61 Deane penned t­ hese words before the decisive US victory at Yorktown, and much of what he prophesied came to be. Although US fishermen continued to ply the w ­ aters they had as colonials, US in­de­pen­dence was met with a host of commercial restrictions that barred Americans and their produce from the most lucrative of markets. Paramount among ­these was Britain’s move to exclude US shipping from the British West Indies. This, combined with the Barbary States’ harassment of US commerce, meant that the United States was cut off from the Ca­rib­bean and Mediterranean markets that had absorbed the bulk of North American fish before in­de­pen­dence. Despite securing access to some of the richest fishing ­waters in the world, Americans had few markets in which to sell. Emerging from the Revolutionary War, the US fishing industry was in shambles. The mobilization of men and ships in the nascent US navy came at an incredible price. Throughout the earliest de­cades of in­de­pen­dence, both seasoned fishermen and fishing vessels ­were precious commodities, and despite attempts to reinvigorate the industry, tonnage failed to reach prewar lev-



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els for at least a de­cade. In 1790 fishing tonnage employed in Mas­sa­chu­setts represented merely three-­quarters of ships employed in 1775.62 The postbellum nadir of US fishing was, however, not unique. War in the North Atlantic had discouraged all nations from plying ­those ­waters, thus creating a significant rise in demand with a corresponding rise in price.63 This uptick in demand would help to put the US industry on more solid footing by the end of the ­century, but the 1780s remained a difficult time for fishermen on account of not only a lack of men and ships but also a parsimonious British commercial policy that kept US fish out of its natu­ral markets. From 1783 ­until the first Anglo-­American rapprochement of the late 1790s, US shipping was restricted in the British Ca­rib­bean with the export of fish explic­itly forbidden. While US goods ­were temporarily allowed to land in 1784, 1785, and 1786 to relieve Ca­ rib­bean residents in the aftermath of a series of hurricanes, a British act passed in 1788 formalized an ­earlier order in council that officially severed the commercial relationship between the United States and British possessions in the West Indies.64 Americans ­were quick to identify British policy as a principal cause of the malaise of the 1780s. The commercial restrictions imposed by G ­ reat Britain proved difficult for all US producers, fishermen included. With duties imposed on US goods, or their outright ban in some markets, industries in the United States labored ­under conditions that threatened to short-­circuit the US experiment.65 One editorialist remarked on the bleak situation, noting how an imbalance of trade left Americans with l­ittle “to support the federal and State governments, and must ultimately tend to the ruin of the tradesman, the decrease of our commerce and fishery, and to the breaking of our national faith.” Another observer commented on how the optimism of the revolution was quickly betrayed by commercial woes. Despite the natu­ral abundance of the United States, the new nation faced destitution that threatened to undermine all. “Excluded from ­those marts where we usually disposed of the surplus of the produce of our agriculture,” this writer despaired, “the farmer finds he tills in vain,” while “the manufacturer, in like manner, let him employ his utmost skill and industry in the execution of his good, finds his own market glutted with Eu­ro­pean articles.” And “the merchant . . . ​is harassed in such a manner in foreign ports by alien duties, that he cannot carry on trade but ­under such disadvantages as evidently accelerate his ruin.” Some even cast the recent peace treaty as the germ of international conflict. By allowing US participation in the Newfoundland fishery alongside British and French fishermen, the treaty ensured friction. A Philadelphia newspaper “severely condemned that article which distributed the Newfoundland fishery among the French, the American and the British subjects, and thereby laid a sure foundation of perpetual and endless

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controversies, strife and contention, among all the parties concerned, a never failing bone of contention and enmity, without any mode or pos­si­ble means of settling difference, but by longest sword.” Protecting US industry from the restrictions and predations of foreign powers required the kind of unity and concerted action found impossible u ­ nder the Articles of Confederation.66 The first constitution of the United States proved unable to address the prob­ lems that came with in­de­pen­dence. Paramount was the inability of the central government to regulate commerce and levy taxes. As Federalists like James Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay came together to pen their defense of a new plan for the central government, the Atlantic fisheries and maritime commerce w ­ ere among the prob­lems this new regime directly addressed. John Jay connected the fisheries of the North Atlantic to US state building and the young nation’s foreign policy. In Federalist No. 4 Jay argued that a strong national u ­ nion was necessary given the likelihood of international conflicts with ­Great Britain over the fisheries. For Jay, a united national government would leave Eu­ro­pean powers “much more disposed to cultivate our friendship than provoke our resentment,” as the United States competed with the British in taking fish from the Atlantic.67 ­Later, in Federalist No. 11, Alexander Hamilton would echo ­these ­earlier themes by identifying the fisheries as a right inherent with u ­ nion. ­After detailing how a strong central government could, through the use of prohibitory regulations, control the commerce of North Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean—­becoming the “arbiter of Eu­rope in Amer­ i­ca,” to use Hamilton’s turn of phrase—­Hamilton turned his attention to rights that required a ­union to defend. In addition to the navigation of the ­Great Lakes and the Mississippi, Hamilton counted the fisheries as among the “rights of the Union.” He feared that the “dissolution of the Confederacy would give room for delicate questions concerning the f­ uture existence of ­these rights.” For Hamilton, u ­ nion and fisheries went hand in hand, and the ability of that ­union to marshal the resources of the ­whole became all the more impor­tant as ­Great Britain “would hardly remain long indifferent to [the] de­cided mastery” of US fishermen in the North Atlantic.68 As US statesmen set about fixing the prob­lems of the young republic and creating the kind of centralized government that had the power to defend the international interests of the United States, the fisheries of the North Atlantic factored into the logic of ­union.69 But the passage of the new federal Constitution alone was not enough to remedy the prob­lems that beset the fishing industry.70 Writing to Secretary of the Trea­sury Alexander Hamilton in 1791, Benjamin Lincoln, the collector for the port of Boston, commented on the prob­ lems that continued to strain the fisheries. In discussing the dearth of recent shipbuilding, Lincoln pointed to the international system that barred US fish



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from many foreign ports. Lincoln plainly stated that “we had too many and more fish w ­ ere caught than could find a market.” Not only ­were the British to blame for continuing their West Indian embargo, but “the embarrassment which we have experienced from this unfriendly disposition of the Algerines [sic] and the partiality of the French Nation discovered to their own fisheries have been checks upon the sale of our Cod Fish and induced many to employ ­these vessels in an-­other channel.”71 While the fishing industry continued to operate amidst unfriendly circumstances, the federal government now had the power to aid the industry. As the federal government tested the limits of its power, it did so for the benefit of the fishing industry. With an industry still floundering and memorials pouring in from Marblehead, Gloucester, and Nantucket—­once the proudest cod-­fishing ports in the North Atlantic—­imploring the federal government to relieve the destitution of fishermen, the task fell to Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson to offer an appraisal of the industry and recommendations for how newly found federal power might ease the burden of t­ hese communities.72 Mas­sa­chu­setts’s governor, John Hancock, appealed to a sense of nationalism, beseeching the secretary of state that while the fisheries ­were “particularly beneficial to this State,” they “must at the same Time be of very ­g reat advantage . . . ​to the United States,” hoping that “due attention w ­ ill be had to so in­ter­est­ing a Subject.”73 Jefferson would indeed pay due attention to the subject; he produced a report that left an indelible mark on the fisheries issue, one that would influence the industry for de­cades to come.

Fisheries and Federal Intervention Embracing a centuries-­long look at fishing in the North Atlantic, Jefferson’s “Report on the American Fisheries” was published in the early months of 1791 with the hope of rallying support for federal intervention. Placing the fisheries in the larger context of Britain and France’s imperial rivalry of the seventeenth and eigh­teenth centuries, Jefferson made careful note that it was only with governmental patronage in the form of prohibitory duties and outright subsidization through bounties that British or French fishermen w ­ ere able to 74 thrive or, at times, merely survive. The success of t­ hese fishermen was not isolated to the maritime economy of t­ hese empires. Instead, Jefferson hinted that the power­ful navies of Britain and France w ­ ere undergirded by fishermen who translated the skills acquired aboard fishing schooners to the decks of warships. The connection of fishing and fighting was power­f ul in tying the fisheries to nationalism, but for Jefferson it was of a more immediate concern, as

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he feared Britain as “a rival nation aiming at the sole empire of the seas.”75 But much had to be done before the United States could forestall this possibility. While the intervening de­cade since the British defeat at Yorktown had seen minor developments in the fishing industry, the situation in 1791 was still bleak. Among the “hopeless auspices u ­ nder which this impor­tant business” was conducted ­were many of the prob­lems that faced US production and navigation more generally. Recognizing the deleterious effects of the War for In­ de­pen­dence, Jefferson remarked that “the fisheries of the United States [­were] annihilated during the war, their vessels, utensils, and fishermen destroyed.” But an inhospitable international environment proved even more vexing, as “their markets in the Mediterranean and British Amer­i­ca [­were] lost, and their produce dutied in t­ hose of France,” while “their competitors [­were] enabled by bounties to meet and undersell them at the few markets remaining open.” But the disadvantages that US fishermen w ­ ere forced to ­labor ­under ­were not solely the result of international competition and the mercantilist policy of rival nations. Jefferson singled out the tonnage duties placed on US fishing vessels as well as the import duties on “salt, tea, rum, sugar, molasses, hooks, lines, duck, cordage, cables, iron, hemp and twine,” all necessary articles for provisioning and outfitting fishing expeditions. Despite a number of forces that seemingly conspired against the profitable operation of the cod-­ fishing industry, Jefferson was quick to recognize the advantages that, if encouraged, could allow US fishermen dominance in the region.76 Jefferson echoed some of the arguments Adams had put forth in Paris to justify US claims to ­those ­waters—­namely, the geographic proximity of Newfoundland and its rich fishing banks to the United States. Geographic proximity was advantageous ­because it allowed US fishermen to execute a greater number of fares in a single season compared to their Eu­ro­pean rivals. But the shorter voyage also meant that the US fishing fleet was comprised of smaller, cheaper, less capital-­intensive vessels that reduced risk and insurance rates. Among other assets that ­were not so easily calculated, Jefferson pointed to the superiority of US sailors. He extolled Yankee fishermen as unsurpassed by their Eu­ro­pean counter­parts “in skill, activity, enterprise, sobriety and order.” For Jefferson, the nature of this maritime environment and the nature of the national character aligned with “such force, that while experience has proved that no other nation can make a mercantile profit on the Newfoundland fishery . . . ​ we can make a living profit,” provided the federal government offer necessary support.77 Even with close ­waters, cheap ships, and able fishermen, a US fishing industry left alone seemed doomed to failure. The history of other nations prom-



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ised as much. Cod fishing in Britain and France led Jefferson to the bleak realization that “it is too poor a business to be left to itself, even with the nation the most advantageously situated.” To help a helpless industry, Jefferson recommended a threefold solution. First, the United States should repeal any duties placed on ships or the supplies necessary for fishing voyages. Second, the secretary of state suggested that “national influence be used abroad for obtaining better markets for their produce.” Fi­nally, and perhaps most importantly, a bounty should be granted to fishermen.78 While this strategy was in some re­spects unremarkable—in fact, merely an emulation of policies enacted by Britain and France—it represented a significant innovation for the young republic’s po­liti­cal economy. With a federal government replacing an alliance of con­ve­nience ­under the Articles of Confederation, Jefferson advocated using this authority to intervene in the operation of the fishing industry. A de­ cade of malaise had shown that the US economy would only flounder without concerted action at home and advocacy abroad. Fishermen stood to benefit most from newfound constitutional authority. The risk of letting the fishing industry remain insolvent would, in Jefferson’s estimation, be ruinous for the US economy more generally. Cod fishing was not an industry isolated to a handful of ports along the New ­England coast. Fishermen w ­ ere impor­tant maritime laborers, without whom the entire maritime sector would diminish in importance. In the absence of sailors trained on the fishing banks, the demand for ships, shipbuilding, lumber, iron, hemp, and a host of other resources and skills would likewise diminish. The United States would consequently be left without a merchant marine to carry the nation’s produce, thus forcing farmers, planters, miners, and manufacturers across the u ­ nion to rely on foreign bottoms. In his 1790 message to Congress, George Washington had recognized the fisheries as offering “abundant means for guarding ourselves against [the] evil” of relying on the merchant marines of other nations. Such dependence necessarily created vulnerability and subjected the US economy to the whims of international relations emanating from “the disturbed situation of Eu­rope.”79 US goods carried on foreign ships would s­ addle the United States with higher freight and insurance rates in times of war. US merchants would also miss out on the “incalculable source of profit” that was the neutral trade with belligerent powers. Using federal authority to revive the cod-­fishing industry was not merely a m ­ atter of fish. Instead, fishing undergirded a robust maritime sector that in turn made pos­si­ble commercial, if not po­liti­cal, in­de­pen­dence.80 Jefferson’s appeal on behalf the US fishing industry did not fall on deaf ears. ­Little more than a year l­ater, a bill came before Congress “for the encouragement of the Bank and other Cod-­Fisheries, and for the regulations and

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government of the fishermen employed therein.” The gist of this landmark piece of legislation was that the federal government would make yearly payments to the o ­ wners, captains, and crews of cod-­fishing vessels that plied the ­waters of the North Atlantic at least four months of ­every season. Unlike a previous subsidy paid to merchants who exported fish—­intended to act as a reimbursement for the duty placed on imported salt—­this new act promised to benefit fishermen directly and was determined by each ship’s tonnage, not the amount of fish sent overseas. February 1792 witnessed a debate in Congress about ­whether this unpre­ce­dented imposition of federal authority fulfilled the promise of the nation’s new charter to ensure the general welfare.81 Critics of the mea­sure focused on the notion of general welfare and came to the conclusion that such payments constituted an unfair dispensation of federal largess that benefited the few at the expense of the many. William  B. Giles of ­Virginia, noting that this was “the first attempt as yet made by this Government to exercise such authority,” openly doubted the constitutionality of this mea­sure. ­Going beyond the mere regulation of commerce, this bill promised a reordering of ­every manufacturing and agricultural system in the nation. Such a bounty on a single occupation was the degradation of “common rights,” and this attempt to establish a mono­poly of “exclusive rights” was as unjust as it was oppressive. To allow the government interference in the operation of this single industry, Giles warned, “can be justified on no other princi­ple than that the w ­ hole product of the l­abor of e­ very individual is the real property of Government . . . ​[and] that e­ very individual in the community is merely a slave and bondman to Government.”82 Giles’s colleague and fellow Virginian John Page likewise ruminated on the constitutional implications of this bill. Echoing Giles’s concern with the general welfare, Page took the argument a step further by claiming this bill “endanger[ed] the sovereignty and in­de­pen­dence of the individual States.” Page even went so far as to claim that this mea­sure was “a step ­towards swallowing up the powers of the State Governments, and as consolidating the dif­fer­ent States into one Government.”83 Central to t­hese critiques was an understanding that fairness and balance was the mea­sure of constitutionality. Any mea­sure that threatened to ­favor one occupation or class over another, at least in the eyes of the elite white men of Congress, was as harmful as any attempt to aggrandize the power of the federal government at the expense of the states. Oddly enough, the bill’s supporters employed a similar argument in the hopes of convincing skeptics that this bill merely gave fishermen their fair share. The defense of this bill rested on the assertions that the fisheries promoted national wealth and that supporting this industry was a ­matter of justice and equity. Fisher Ames and Elbridge Gerry, both of Mas­sa­chu­setts, offered the



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most cogent defense of the mea­sure before Congress. Ames was quick to assert that the fisheries ­were “an inexhaustible fund of wealth” and a “mine of trea­sure” that promised to fill federal coffers, as the money paid out to fishermen would no doubt be less than the duty collected on the salt that was necessary for this business. The fisheries, then, ­were a truly national resource whose benefits could be felt well beyond the merchants and captains of the Bay State. Befitting this position, fishermen and their supporters asked for nothing more than “common justice.”84 Gerry approached the chamber with a ­simple request, that “the State of Mas­sa­chu­setts ask nothing more than equal justice,” and that “the same system which is applied to other parts of the Union, may be applied to us.” Singling out hemp growers and brewers, Gerry made the observation that duties placed on raising hemp and brewing beer acted in a manner not dissimilar to the proposed bounty on fish. If, Gerry concluded, the bounty was impermissible in one case, it was likewise impermissible in the other. Furthermore, the residents of Mas­sa­chu­setts w ­ ere subject to an unjust tax for the defense of the western frontier. “I wish to know,” Gerry pondered, “on what princi­ples gentlemen can expect that the citizens of Mas­sa­chu­setts should contribute two hundred thousand dollars . . . ​for the protection of the Western frontier against the Indians, when no contribution is made to support the commerce of Mas­sa­chu­setts.”85 In the end, though, it was Gerry’s interpretation of equity that won the day, as the bill passed and would remain part of the nation’s po­liti­cal economy for de­cades to come. But the most persuasive argument the bill’s supports marshalled was connecting the fisheries to national security. Boosters of the cod-­fishing business ­were quick to describe New ­England fishermen as valuable, national resources who not only enriched the country but would defend it in times of need. ­Because fishermen learned the skills of seafaring on t­ hese waves, the fisheries ­were dubbed “the nursery of the nation’s seamen.” In this way, fishermen became impor­tant symbols of US nationhood. This par­tic­ul­ar image of fishermen, however, did not go uncontested. With “nursery of the nation’s seamen” as their rallying cry, the congressional del­e­ga­tion from Mas­sa­chu­setts set about defending this class of men and securing to them this federal dispensation. Benjamin Goodhue, amidst the debate over the bounty, articulated what would become in f­ uture years the sole justification for the renewal and continuation of the bounty. Quite simply, Goodhue observed, the cod fishery “contributes to the national defence” by “furnish[ing] a copious nursery of hardy seamen, and offers a never-­failing source of protection to the commerce of the United States” that would be necessary in the case of a f­uture war with any Eu­ro­pean maritime power. In the event of any hostilities, fishermen would resort to privateering to protect US interests.86 Fisher Ames expanded on

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Goodhue’s remarks by detailing how the demands of the cod fisheries made excellent seamen. They w ­ ere, Ames remarked, “expert and hardy seamen” whose ­labor in the cold, unforgiving climes of the North Atlantic made them “as hardy as the bears on the islands of ice.” But it was not only their physical attributes and unrivaled seamanship that made t­hese men deserving of the bounty—­the nature of their work seemed to inspire nationalist fervor. Ames declared that the memory of the “exploits” of the fishermen “would find ­every American heart . . . ​glowing with the recollection of them.” Ames implored his audience to fondly recall the fishermen who fought on the high seas and who mustered into armed ser­vice at places like Bunker Hill and Trenton. As Ames would have it, the fishermen w ­ ere the midwives of US in­de­pen­dence and would remain its constant protector.87 Despite an appeal to a nationalist ideal, the fisherman-­as-­fighter image failed to convince every­one in Congress. Critics of the bill offered farmers and frontiersmen as perhaps more worthy of federal support since they, too, could be raised to serve the nation in both war and peace. John Page of V ­ irginia led the opposition with the hopes of undermining the bounty’s appeal to national security. Page observed “that Congress may with as much propriety give bounties to our hunters in the Western country, to raise up a nursery of soldiers as barrier against the Indians, and to promote the fur trade,” as to “raise a nursery of seamen for the defence against enemies who may invade our Eastern frontiers.” Page went so far as to question the efficacy of fishing and w ­ hether the piscine pursuit was of advantage to the nation at all. “It is not clear to me,” Page remarked, “that ­those fishermen would not be more profitable to the United States, if they w ­ ere cultivating the lands which now lie waste, and raising families, which would be of ten times more value than their fisheries.” The draw of the land and of hearth and home was, in Page’s estimation, a superior pursuit: “A nursery of virtuous families, which w ­ ill produce soldiers, sailors, husbandmen, and statesmen, must be preferable to a mere nursery of sailors, who generally live single, and often perish at sea.”88 In the ser­ vice of their agendas, proponents and critics alike employed images of their constituents, w ­ hether farmers or fishermen, always as hardy, patriotic, and virtuous citizens. Ultimately, the fishermen would win the day, securing the fishing bounty for de­cades to come, but this episode would also establish this image—­albeit a contested one—of fishermen in US po­liti­cal rhe­toric. In time, the correspondence of fishing and fighting would become an article of faith for the industry’s supporters, employed whenever opponents sought to decry the fishing business as a purely local concern or the beneficiary of unconstitutional favoritism. A more popu­lar discourse on fishermen would take hold as newspapers editors and readers echoed many of the themes



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expounded by Ames and other politicians who cast fishermen as integral to the nation’s interests. The Balance and Columbian Repository of Hudson, New York, offered an image of fishermen that resonated with the industrious and patriotic fisherman lionized in Congress and elsewhere. “­Every hardy son of Neptune, who h ­ andles the harpoon, or the cod-­line,” demanded federal largess, ­because in times of war they may “be transmuted into privateersmen, and their vessels into privateers,” as had been the case in the nation’s war for in­de­pen­dence. “The fisheries are,” this editorialist concluded, “to the United States in general, a defense, or a bulwark against the invasions of foreign nations. They are, as it ­were, the ­g reat Magazine of American Seamen.”89 The naval nursery argument was a meme in the early republic, not only used to ­counter the pos­si­ble arguments of critics but also mentioned, sometimes offhand, whenever the fisheries issue came to the fore. But the pervasiveness of this line of thinking did not necessarily mean total ac­cep­tance. In c­ ounter to the hardy, patriotic fishermen in the ser­vice of the national community, critics, like John Page in Congress, offered idealized farmers as more deserving and more useful members of the body politic. Editorialists echoed Page’s veneration of agriculture. A writer for the In­de­pen­dent Chronicle and Universal Advertiser of Boston declared that “every­thing springs from the earth, as every­thing returns to it; and the farmer is of course the ­great moving princi­ple, on whose virtue and activity all our fiscal operations depend.” It is the “plough, the harrow and the hoe,” and not the cod line and harpoon, “that are the . . . ​productive instruments of national wealth.” The editorial concluded that the fishery “is an operation of the second order,” reasoning that “without the farmer, the fishermen would perish for want of bread.”90 Oddly enough, this pro-­agriculture argument came from the fishermen’s own backyard, perhaps demonstrating the extent to which local affinity did not necessarily prefigure the tone or orientation of the ongoing debate about fishermen in the national polity. Seemingly lurking ­behind the bounty debate was the question of sectionalism. Mas­sa­chu­setts and ­Virginia seemed to stand as proxies for an emerging rivalry of North and South, both vying for federal attention and both loath to see the other privileged. Hugh Williamson of North Carolina gave voice to this perspective as he ruminated on the ill effects this bill would have in store for his home region—it promised nothing but “destruction” of the South’s “valuable staples” and “visionary wealth.”91 Yet, a closer examination of the final vote, thirty-­eight yeas to twenty-­one nays, upends the facile conclusion that the debate on the fishery bill broke down along sectional lines. Instead, party affinity, such as it was in 1792, and geography provide more persuasive explanations for the final vote tally. Of the thirty-­three congressmen identified

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as loyal to the administration’s goals, twenty-­eight voted for the bill, with only five defectors opposing the mea­sure. More intriguing is the group of twenty-­six congressmen opposed to the Washington administration. Of that group, sixteen predictably voted against the bill, leaving a not-­insignificant group of ten congressmen who supported the mea­sure at hand. Not wishing to completely discount the pull of sectional affinities, this group included Elbridge Gerry of Mas­sa­chu­setts along with Israel Smith and Nathaniel Niles, both of Vermont, who quite reasonably supported the bill b­ ecause it would prove beneficial to their New E ­ ngland constituents. Of the remaining seven congressmen who broke party to support the bill, four—­Samuel Sterett, Thomas Tredwell, Cornelius Schoonmaker, and Frederick Muhlenberg—­ represented districts that had direct ties to the maritime world, with constituencies that would no doubt benefit from an activist federal government with a penchant for supporting maritime enterprise.92 A look at the South further demonstrates the degree of influence that geography, not region, had on this vote. Of the twenty-­two votes coming from ­Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, sixteen ­were cast in opposition of the mea­sure. Yet, eleven of t­ hose came from congressmen who represented inland districts removed from coastal occupations. And of the five nays from coastal districts in the South, two, John Baptista Ashe and Hugh Williamson, represented districts along North Carolina’s Outer Banks, a coastal region largely devoid of significant maritime traffic. Indicative of this trend was South Carolina. The three districts along the coast all favored the bill, while the two inland districts, representing the piedmont and back country citizenry, opposed the mea­sure. This geographic split would soon develop into a larger division between the eastern and western sections of the country that was an impor­tant feature of politics in the early republic. Coastal ­people simply had more reasons to support this bill, and they welcomed a federal government with an inclination to support maritime-­facing communities.93

Fisheries and the Emergence of Partisan Politics With the bounty secured, the prominence of the fisheries in national politics did not, however, diminish. Instead, the fisheries issue continued to structure the most impor­tant po­liti­cal developments of the young republic. Chief among ­these was the polarization of the First Party System.94 In the 1790s the tenor of domestic and foreign policy was very much up for grabs, as the roles and powers of the new federal government had yet to be defined. To a certain extent, the divide between Jeffersonian agrarians and Hamiltonian manufacturers



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typified the coalescing viewpoints on the ­future of the US po­liti­cal economy. But subscribing to too sharp a distinction between the two obscures intriguing, if often overlooked, similarities. The fisheries issue demonstrated the degree to which Hamilton and Jefferson mirrored each other in action, if not echoed each other in philosophy. As Jefferson penned his call for the federal government’s intrusion in the fishing industry, Hamilton likewise turned his mind to the delicate question of government and industry. What resulted was Hamilton’s most enduring legacy: his “Report on Manufactures” that he presented to Congress in December 1791 became the most coherent statement of his brand of economic nationalism that would influence the development of US po­liti­cal economy for de­cades to come. Like Jefferson, Hamilton sought to address the prob­lems that beset the nation during the 1780s and used the advent of the federal government to put the US economy on a more stable footing.95 For Hamilton, the watchword was in­de­pen­dence, and he crafted the report with an eye ­toward the promotion of domestic manufacturing “to render the United States in­de­pen­dent of foreign nations, for military and other essential supplies.”96 Hamilton and Jefferson both focused on markets as a key to remedy national prob­lems. As Jefferson made plain, t­ here was l­ittle opportunity to sell fish abroad, and Hamilton also noted that the nation lacked a vent for its produce from all sections. But it is in this regard that Hamilton’s report diverged significantly from Jefferson’s views as stated in the fisheries report. While Jefferson hoped to use the influence of the national government abroad to open new markets for US fish, Hamilton was not so optimistic that the newcomer United States could remake the system of international commerce. Instead, Hamilton focused on how to create a greater demand at home by “enlarging the sphere of our domestic commerce,” hoping that a “more extensive demand for that surplus may be created at home.”97 But despite a divergence on what markets would absorb US produce, both Hamilton and Jefferson did advocate a similar plan of action. As has been seen, Jefferson successfully advocated for a fishing bounty, and Hamilton would do likewise, suggesting that bounties have “a more immediate tendency to stimulate and uphold new enterprises, increasing the chances of profit, and diminishing the risk of loss.”98 Both statesmen, then, supported using government influence through the granting of bounties to support and revive a flagging economy. Hamilton’s report even directly addressed the fisheries and their role in his newly ­imagined national economy. Hamilton understood the fisheries, like agriculture, to be a complement to manufacturing. Eschewing the “mischievous” notion that dif­fer­ent economic sectors w ­ ere necessarily antagonistic to the other, Hamilton detailed how fishing and manufacturing supported each

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other. Not only would manufacturing create a demand for fish in the nation’s new industrial centers—­fish being a far cheaper source of protein in the diet of industrial laborers—­but “the oils, bones, and skins, of marine animals, are of extensive use in vari­ous manufactures.” Thus, an invigorated manufacturing sector would create “an additional demand for the produce of the fisheries.”99 The domestic market had the potential to guard against the trou­bles of foreign trade and international competition. An editorialist in the Salem Ga­ zette noted that such “rivalship could be most successfully encountered, by providing markets of consumption at home.” Though salted fish was “hitherto very ­little known as an article of diet” outside of New ­England, it was a “­wholesome” and “palatable food” whose market would grow as “the result of experience” and with “the aid of fashion.”100 In time, industrialization, not fashion, would rouse domestic demand for fish, not just to feed urban laborers but to literally grease the wheels of industry. As Jefferson’s and Hamilton’s reports show, the po­liti­cal economy envisioned by ­these two men, and the role of the federal government, demonstrated a remarkable degree of consistency on the fisheries issue. Yet, despite ­these similarities, the parties continued to form around distinct visions for the f­ uture of the United States. Paradoxically, the fisheries issue continued to be implicated in this divide and to show how divergent po­liti­cal ideologies ­were bridged by support for this national resource. A pamphlet published in 1792 by the ardent Hamiltonian William Loughton Smith of South Carolina was emblematic of how even Jefferson’s staunchest opponents supported his advocacy for the fisheries. Smith placed Hamilton “among the g­ reat ministers of the age,” and served as Hamilton’s mouthpiece in Congress. The South Carolinian went so far as to give Hamilton solitary praise for assuaging “the languid state of commerce, navigation and manufactures, the general want of confidence and credit at home and abroad, [and] the inability of the government to support itself,” which had racked the nation since in­de­pen­ dence.101 Saving his bile for Jefferson, whom he referred to only as the “Generalissimo,” Smith railed against the secretary of state as an insidious intriguer bent on the destruction of the ­union while cloaking himself in false republican simplicity to dupe his followers for selfish po­liti­cal gain.102 While this sort of impassioned rhe­toric was a familiar part of party politics in the 1790s, Smith did relent in his diatribe when surveying Jefferson’s c­ areer as the nation’s chief foreign minister. In searching for “what part of the conduct of the Department of State has merited panegyrics” ­under Jefferson’s auspices, Smith could find but one—­Jefferson’s report on US fisheries. Ready to write off the Washington administration’s conduct of foreign affairs as but “a dreary waste,” Smith did recognize at least one admirable action. In fact, the South Carolinian saw



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in the fisheries report hints of Hamiltonianism, recognizing that Jefferson’s call for a cod-­fishing bounty differed ­little from the suggested bounty for manufacturing.103 The fisheries issue, and federal support for fishermen, was an issue that spanned the chasm of parties, demonstrating the national character of this maritime resource. While the fisheries provide an intriguing example of how such a resource could create a degree of cross-­party unity, the nascent Federalist and Democratic-­Republican parties embraced contrasting visions of the nation’s ­future po­liti­cal economy. But it was not just questions of federal debt assumption and a national bank that divided Jefferson, Hamilton, and their respective supporters. How the United States was to engage with foreign powers, particularly ­Great Britain and France, would play a power­f ul role in determining the architecture of the First Party System. Jay’s Treaty, negotiated in 1794, was a flash point in party relations and influenced US foreign policy for the next de­cade. Settling a host of prob­lems left over from the revolution, including Britain vacating forts in the West and what would prove to be an abortive attempt to ­settle the northern boundary line, the treaty was most significant for inaugurating the “first rapprochement” in Anglo-­American relations and a modest expansion of trade, especially that between the United States and the British West Indies.104 This warming of relations with Britain was accompanied by hostilities with revolutionary France. With G ­ reat Britain and France at war since 1793, the treaty effectively ended any attempt on the part of the United States to remain neutral in that conflict. To the dismay of the Jeffersonians, the balance of transatlantic relations was tipped back ­toward Britain as many Americans, remembering French intrigue at the Paris peace negotiation, ­were already inclined to distrust their one-­time allies. As tensions between the United States and its erstwhile ally France simmered in the waning years of the eigh­teenth ­century, soon to erupt in outright, if undeclared, war, Secretary of State Timothy Pickering remarked on the history of the Franco-­American alliance. In his estimation, France, as both a kingdom and a republic, sought nothing less than the dismemberment of the British Empire and the usurpation of the United States’ in­de­pen­dence. Most troubling was France’s perceived goal of depriving the United States of the “fairest fruits” of in­de­pen­dence, including its claim to the trans-­Appalachian West, the navigation of the Mississippi River, and access to the rich fishing ­waters of the Northwest Atlantic. For Pickering and his countrymen, North Atlantic cod was no less impor­tant to the nation-­building proj­ect than its western territories or access to the Mississippi waterway.105 It was not mere hyperbole that caused the nation’s second leading diplomat to compare fish to the extent of land that would comprise ten states. Instead, it was the increasingly

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strong connection in early national po­liti­cal rhe­toric between the North Atlantic fisheries and the very meaning of in­de­pen­dence. When Americans cast their lot with ­Great Britain, France was not content to sit idle as their cross-­channel rival recruited yet another nation into its fold to wage a commercial and maritime war on the revolutionary state. The closing years of the c­ entury witnessed the growth of maritime antagonism on the part of both the United States and France, u ­ ntil open warfare broke out on the high seas. The Quasi War confirmed the fears of Francophobes that their supposed republican ­brothers in arms ­were ­little dif­fer­ent than the other piratical princedoms of Eu­rope.106 Thomas Paine, the firebrand of 1776, took the opportunity to denounce “Gallic perfidy” and to commemorate the United States fi­nally freeing itself from the shackles of its once-­lauded alliance with France. With the dissolution of the Treaty of Alliance that bound the two nations since 1778, Paine enthusiastically declared that such a day “­will forever be illustrious in our annals” as “the completion of our Liberties, the acme of our In­de­pen­dence.”107 For Paine, the end of the French alliance was no less impor­tant than declaring in­de­pen­dence, as “one annihilated our colonial submission . . . ​the other emancipated use from the oppressive friendship of an ambitious, malignant, treacherous ally.”108 From its beginning, the alliance was detrimental to the United States. Paine remembered how “by the fiend-­ like hy­poc­risy, and collusive machinations of the French Minister,” France attempted to sacrifice the US right to the “inexhaustible mine of commerce” that was the North Atlantic fisheries, for fear that one day it would provide an able class of seamen that might allow the United States true in­de­pen­dence.109 While the nascent United States declared in­de­pen­dence in 1776, it was only at the turn of the c­ entury that it was achieved. By 1800 the US fishing industry was on a firmer footing than it had been on for de­cades. As Thomas Jefferson was poised to ascend to the presidential chair, the fisheries seemed safe. But a host of other prob­lems beset the nation. While relations with G ­ reat Britain w ­ ere, at least for the moment, placid, war would come in l­ittle more than a de­cade as British harassment and impressment of US sailors seemed to call into question the nation’s claims of in­de­ pen­dence. Likewise, friction with France remained, and the United States was stuck between the two greatest Eu­ro­pean powers. It seemed as though the prob­lems of the new ­century would taste of salt as the United States focused its attention on the seas and in the pro­cess, became a truly maritime nation. As the previous ­couple de­cades showed, the federal government would not hesitate to employ federal power to serve fishing interests.

C h a p te r   2

The Limits of Peace

The debate over the cod-­fishing bounty showed that maritime laborers w ­ ere power­f ul symbols in the early republic. It was a natu­ral fit. The revolution in international relations the young United States hoped to being about depended on seamen sailing to the far reaches of the globe bearing the brilliant torches of po­liti­cal liberty and unrestricted trade. The international ambitions of the United States, lofty as they w ­ ere, would have been lost without maritime laborers. It’s no exaggeration to say that early US nationalism was built on this par­tic­u­lar image of sailors as patriotic citizens without whom the American proj­ect would founder. Sailors w ­ ere also po­liti­cal actors who influenced the course of US foreign relations. The story of fishermen in the early republic shows that the fulcrum on which Anglo-­ American relations during the early republic pivoted was not the War of 1812 and the subsequent peace made at Ghent. While the war and its conclusion have understandably garnered the lion’s share of the attention when considering Anglo-­American relations during this period, that attention is largely misplaced. ­After all, the war did nothing to actually address its proximate cause—­British harassment at sea. Even the terms on which the peace negotiations took place—­status quo ante bellum—­hinted at how unhelpful the war and its conclusion are to understanding transatlantic relations. Instead, the Convention of 1818 was of greater importance in redefining transatlantic ties.1

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It was the action of fishermen that would force the hand of federal power at this critical juncture. The close connection between sailors and nationalism was not unique to the United States. British politics was riven by acrimonious debates that put the sailors of the Royal Navy at the center of dif­fer­ent interpretations of both nation and empire. Although British sailors ­were at the same time touted as essential ele­ments of the imperial structure yet reviled for their rough manner, US seamen enjoyed more widespread acclaim.2 The memory of their ser­vice during the revolutionary strug­gle and their continued role as defenders of the nation and its trade made sailors into an idea that nearly all Americans could rally around. In the world of the early republic, even something as mundane as the launching of a trade ship was given new meaning as the ship, its stores, and the men on her decks brought to the world a definition of what this new nation was.3 It is no won­der, then, that sailors w ­ ere common fare in the popu­lar lit­er­a­ture of the day. The novels, song books, stage plays, and poetry of the early republic celebrated Jack Tar as the defender of the nation in times of war and the purveyor of trade in times of peace. Liberty, trade, and sailors w ­ ere tightly wed in popu­lar imagination.4 Indicative of this literary trend was the work of Susanna Haswell Rowson. Inspired by the rousing story of US sailors captured by and liberated from the Barbary States, Rowson’s drama Slaves in Algiers offered the piratical Dey of Algiers as a foil to the patriotic Americans left to fester in captivity. But it was in verse that Rowson made explicit connection between commerce, nationalism, and maritime ­labor. In The American Tar, Rowson explained that it was “For commerce . . . ​the sail we spread/To cross the foaming wave,” so that the ­humble Jack Tar could “Boldly assert each sacred right/Be In­de­pen­dent, Brave, and ­Free.” Rowson echoes this same idea elsewhere, writing from the sailor’s perspective, “Our cargo sold, the chink we share/And gladly we receive it. . . .’T is a task we share with the brave and the fair/In this land of commerce and freedom.”5 To hammer the point home, that poem was titled, simply, “Amer­ i­ca, Commerce, and Freedom.”6 But sailors ­were not just stock characters trotted out on stage and in chapbooks to make the same point about US in­de­ pen­dence and freedom from commercial restrictions. Events in the early republic made sure the cause of sailors was the cause of the nation. The maritime consciousness of the United States significantly influenced both the content of po­liti­cal rhe­toric and the manner in which US foreign relations w ­ ere conducted.7 The experiences of US sailors in the earliest de­cades of nationhood demonstrated the centrality of maritime occupations in the early republic. Restrictions on US seaborne trade had hastened the coming of the revolution. The continuation of British mercantile policy was

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a significant detriment to the early US po­liti­cal economy. An undeclared war with France made the nation—­the Federalists, at least—­see the merits of a competent navy. The heroics of Stephen Decatur during the Tripolitan War was a cause célèbre that stoked nationalist fires. And the ongoing impressment of US seamen by the Royal Navy left many Americans seething with indignation and spoiling for another war with Britain. The most significant po­liti­cal developments the United States had to contend with emanated from the oceans.8 The fisheries would join this list. Like their brethren in the merchant marine and navy, cod fishermen ­were likewise enrolled in rhe­toric that conjoined maritime ­labor and national definition. Fishermen w ­ ere uniquely situated to cement this association, owing to their a­ ctual efforts during the strug­gle for in­de­pen­dence. Just as other sailors ­were remembered for their ser­vice, fishermen w ­ ere celebrated for putting aside their occupational pursuits, risking their ships, and sacrificing their lives on both sea and land in defense of US in­de­pen­dence.9 Yet, fishermen ­were never merely symbols of an emergent US nationalism. Instead, they w ­ ere central actors in the operation of US statecraft. The fishermen who set out from places like Marblehead and Beverly lived a world apart from the refined diplomatic arenas of Eu­rope. But it was in the forecastle that diplomacy was made. As the Convention of 1818 showed, the most power­ful tools Americans had to influence its relationship with ­Great Britain w ­ ere not the force and finesse of diplomats but the handline and harpoon of fishermen. When US statesmen and their British counter­ parts met in the fall of 1818 to grapple with key irritants in transatlantic relations, they did so in response to what fishermen had always done—­fished.

The War of 1812 and Its Aftermath The United States and ­Great Britain renewed hostilities in the summer of 1812 primarily ­because of maritime grievances.10 The war was, in some regard, the culmination of the Jeffersonians’ failed attempt to correct British policy though economic and commercial coercion, with Jefferson’s Embargo of 1807 being the most obvious, and disastrous, example. Impressment of US seamen and the unlawful search of US vessels merely added to the list of oceanic outrages that seemed to call US in­de­pen­dence into question and ultimately pushed the Madison administration to obtain a declaration of war in June 1812. While some Americans no doubt cast covetous eyes on Canadian territory and sought a way to curb Britain’s meddling with Native Americans in the West,

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the proximate cause was Britain’s unwillingness to repeal the commercially restrictive Order in Council.11 South Carolina representative John C. Calhoun made a direct link between this commercial policy and in­de­pen­dence, “If we submit to the pretensions of E ­ ngland . . . ​the in­de­pen­dence of this nation is lost.”12 Yet despite ­these maritime ­causes, the war did nothing to remedy them. Britain voluntarily repealed the offensive Order in Council almost si­mul­ ta­neously with Madison’s declaration of war, but refused to renounce impressment. Even though the agreement reached at Ghent would cease hostilities, it would take a far more comprehensive treaty to truly occasion a shift in Anglo-­American relations.13 The de­cade leading up to the declaration of war in the summer of 1812 began with optimism. The fishing industry had rebounded ­after the rocky years of the 1770s and 1780s. “It give us real plea­sure,” Philadelphia’s Gazette of the United States observed, “that the enterprizing spirit of t­ hose of our fellow-­ citizens who have searched, during the last season, for trea­sures in old Neptune’s coffers, have been well rewarded.”14 But the ensuing years witnessed a series of actions that served to aggrieve New En­glanders and alienate the region from the Jeffersonian consensus that seemed to have taken hold throughout much of the nation. Most prominently, Mas­sa­chu­setts, a state intimately tied to the maritime world, took the lead in denouncing the ruinous Embargo of 1807.15 Motivated by a Republican belief that commercial policy could bring about favorable international relations, the Embargo of 1807 brought misfortune to the maritime sector that was a key part of the New E ­ ngland economy, but proved insufficient to convince G ­ reat Britain to repeal the Order in Council that so restricted US trade.16 In the years preceding the war, some commentators made an explicit connection between the offensive British policy and the fisheries. As an editorialist in the Plattsburg American Monitor noted, “We believe [the British Order in Council] is intended as a net for the American fisheries,” with Britain’s goal being “an assumption of our national sovereignty, for the purpose of regulating our commerce and controlling our resources.”17 Along with the ongoing impressment of Americans into the Royal Navy, the commercial warfare that preceded the ­actual outbreak of hostilities demonstrated that much of the motivation for war in 1812 came from maritime concerns. The course of the war would reflect its maritime origins. The pithy phrase “­Free trade and sailors’ rights” became a con­ve­nient shorthand for the war’s justification as the conflict’s maritime ­causes ­were kept top of mind for many Americans.18 Given the close connection between the outbreak of war and the maritime world, it was no surprise that, with the exception of Andrew Jackson’s victory at New Orleans, the most poignant moments of the conflict,

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t­hose that helped stoke a smoldering nationalism, came from naval engagements. James Lawrence’s famous ­dying command aboard the USS Chesapeake—­ “­Don’t give up the ship!”—­became a rallying cry, soon emblazoned on a banner that flew on Oliver ­Hazard Perry’s flagship during his decisive victory over the British fleet at Lake Erie.19 But despite t­ hese pivotal moments, by the end of the war years, a Federalist resurgence—­a movement that brought New ­England to at least flirt with secession—­demonstrated the degree of disdain felt for the Jefferson and Madison administrations meddling with the region’s po­liti­cal economy. As the nation approached peace and the prospect of a postwar return to more placid international relations, New En­glanders w ­ ere ready to return to their normal economic occupations—­not the least of which was fishing. In the pro­cess of negotiating the peace, however, the fisheries issue would take a backseat as the US del­e­ga­tion settled into the Belgian city of Ghent to meet their British counter­parts. The five-­man del­e­ga­tion—­John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, Albert Gallatin, James A. Bayard, and Jonathan Russell—­ included two New En­glanders, which suggested that the region’s iconic industry would not be sacrificed for other interests during the course of negotiations. Yet, diplomatic instructions emanating from Washington elided the fisheries issue almost entirely. This omission was, in all likelihood, not the result of a vindictive Jeffersonian administration looking to punish a Federalist-­ dominated region. In fact, the omission of any directive regarding the fisheries was perhaps the result of the Madison administration’s confidence that the fisheries issue, b­ ecause of its ties to the peace treaty of 1783, was immune to the vagaries of diplomacy. In the early days of 1814, Secretary of State James Monroe issued instructions to the US del­e­ga­tion in which he outlined the items that should garner their attention on account of “the vast amount of blood and trea­sure, which have been expended in their support.” Unsurprisingly, impressment and blockades topped the list. As Monroe remarked of the former, “This degrading practice must cease, our flag must protect the crew, or the United States, cannot consider themselves an in­de­pen­dent Nation.” The only pos­si­ble reference to the fisheries came as Monroe discussed the ­f uture of G ­ reat Britain’s hold on its North American colonies. The Madison administration advocated for the cession of the Canadian provinces to the United States ­under the assumption that North American peace would prove impossible to obtain so long as the continent hosted the ambitions of both empires. Monroe observed that “the danger of an early renewal of the war . . . ​­will perhaps never be removed while G ­ reat Britain retains in her hands” a claim to the colonies of North Amer­i­ca. If G ­ reat Britain w ­ ere to cede the North American provinces

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to the United States, presumably an unquestioned right to the North Atlantic fisheries would likewise be ceded. With only an implicit reference to the fisheries in this set of instructions, the meeting at Ghent seemed poised to elide the fisheries issue entirely.20 ­Later, the Madison administration would double down on its support for the inclusion of the blockade and impressment issues in any peace treaty, but again fail to explic­itly mention the fisheries. In another missive to the US peace del­e­ga­tion, the secretary of state declared that in “making peace it is better for both nations that the controversy respecting blockade should be arranged by treaty, as well as that respecting impressment. The omission to arrange it may be productive of injury. Without a precise definition of blockade . . . ​[we] might possibly ­hazard the ­f uture good understanding between the two countries.” With an explicit desire to put the blockade and impressment questions on a strong statutory basis, it became all the more curious why the fisheries issue failed to draw the attention of the nation’s top diplomats.21 Perhaps the Madison administration simply did not want to expend the po­liti­cal capital on including the fisheries issue in the negotiations, or perhaps, as US diplomats would argue ­after the war, access to the fisheries was a privilege that could not be revoked or altered solely on account of war. E ­ ither apathy or confidence defined the US stance on the fisheries issue as the treaty negotiations drew near. Anglo-­American diplomats left this issue and many ­others unresolved. Negotiations between the US and British del­e­ga­tions began in Ghent in earnest during the summer of 1814. For four months, the Anglo-­American diplomats wrangled with the many thorny questions that had compelled the nations to resort to hostilities two summers before. ­Great Britain refused to renounce the practice of impressment and status quo ante became the guiding princi­ple in creating the postwar order. In all, the Treaty of Ghent did l­ ittle besides ending formal hostilities. B ­ ecause it punted on key questions, not the least of which was the fisheries, a more comprehensive settlement would be necessary to truly change the trajectory of Anglo-­American relations. The British del­e­ga­tion did broach the fisheries issue briefly by demanding that the United States cede something of like value for the postbellum resumption of US fishing in North Atlantic ­waters. For the British, the recent hostilities served to abrogate any previous agreement that existed between the two states, including the 1783 Treaty of Paris that granted the United States the liberty to take fish in t­ hose w ­ aters. But as the instructions coming from Washington suggested, the US commissioners w ­ ere unprepared and not authorized by the Madison administration to cut any deal on the fisheries question. Although ­Great Britain voiced its desire and intention to drive US schooners from the fisheries, the Americans hoped the final agreement would be ­silent

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on the question. Despite this official stance, dissention grew within the US ranks as John Quincy Adams, the New En­glander, and Henry Clay, the westerner, seemed more intent on serving the interests of their respective regions over the needs of the nation.22 Western interests ­were implicated in the treaty negotiations as Britain suggested confirming its right to navigate the Mississippi as an equitable trade-­ off for reaffirming the US liberty to fish in North Atlantic w ­ aters. As was the case at Paris in 1783, the fisheries and Mississippi questions ­were intertwined. In Ghent, Britain hoped to use navigation of the Mississippi to achieve the more desirable goal of limiting US access to the fisheries. If the US del­e­ga­tion ­were to refuse continuation of the British right to navigate the Mississippi, the Americans would also, for the sake of consistency, at least implicitly be admitting that the war had revoked their claim to the fisheries. Amid Britain’s diplomatic wrangling, Adams and Clay came to loggerheads. Clay, ever the western Anglophobe, strenuously objected to allowing British traffic on the key western waterway. His objection became even more pointed when such an allowance was made in the interest of the eastern cod fisheries. Adams likewise dug in his heels, hoping to assume his ­father’s mantle as champion of the fishermen. This spat between Adams and Clay demonstrated the degree to which the po­liti­cal axis in the early republic did not divide North and South. Instead, the major fissure was between the East and the West.23 Ultimately, however, the fisheries-­Mississippi question proved too difficult to s­ ettle. Adams and Clay refused to reconcile, and G ­ reat Britain was unwilling to push the question to its extreme. The final decision made at Ghent was no decision at all, as the treaty was ­silent on both of ­these issues. As it was on the subject of impressment, the Treaty of Ghent was wholly unsatisfying on the fisheries issue. Washington insisted that the recent war did nothing to alter the liberty won at Paris in 1783; London insisted that the recent hostilities abrogated all previous agreements, voiding the US liberty.24 With the treaty’s silence on the question, the incompatible views of Washington and London assured that the fisheries would become a postwar prob­lem. The Portsmouth Oracle correctly predicted how G ­ reat Britain would respond, observing that “as the pre­sent treaty is ­silent on the subject of the fisheries, the conclusion is that the British w ­ ill withhold all the privileges, they granted us by that [1783] treaty.” The Oracle continued, “­Here is obviously one of the consequences of the war, and which ­will be severely felt by New ­England. The fisheries gave employment to a ­g reat quantity of vessels, was a ­g reat source of wealth to this section of the u ­ nion, and . . . ​constituted one of the ­g reat arteries of the commercial body. If Mr. Madison has succeeded in letting the life-­blood out of this ­g reat artery . . . ​the ­people of New ­England ­will

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not soon forget the author of so serious a wound.”25 But for the time being, the prospects of peace allowed Anglo-­American statesmen to avoid considering ­those potential prob­lems. Instead, it was the fishermen who had to contend with the diplomats’ oversights. With the conclusion of the War of 1812, US fishermen ­were ­eager to once again take up their handlines and proceed to the fisheries of the North Atlantic. Not only had the recent hostilities with ­Great Britain forced US skippers to abandon the most lucrative ­waters in the region, but this interruption was merely the most recent setback of many that fishermen faced dating back to Jefferson’s Embargo of 1807. By war’s end, fishermen w ­ ere desperate to return to the ­water. Appealing to President Madison, the Salem Gazette published an editorial, signed “essex fishermen,” which made obvious the disgust and resignation emanating from the wharves of New ­England. While fishermen had previously “promote[d] the election of you and your party into office ­because you told us you w ­ ere the friends to f­ ree trade and fishermen’s rights,” now, ­after having been kept off the fisheries for years, fishermen had ­little to provide for their families. “If you are determined to keep our boats on shore,” the fishermen pleaded with Madison, “we might as well at once cut them up

Figure 2.  Exports of Dried Fish, 1800–1820. Source: Lorenzo Sabine, Report on the Principal Fisheries of the American Seas (Washington, D.C.: Robert Armstrong, 1853), 176.

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for firewood, and make fast our codlines round our necks and put an end to our miserable existence.”26 But with a mood of pacification descending on Anglo-­American relations, the fishermen of Gloucester, Salem, Marblehead, and the other prominent cod-­fishing ports along the New E ­ ngland coast w ­ ere quite reasonable in assuming the 1815 season would, at last, see New En­glanders descending on ­those estranged ­waters. But the coming seasons would bring more hardships than even the hard-­worn veterans of the fisheries w ­ ere used to. Fishermen sailed headlong into the rough seas and grueling ­labor that was the standard fare of fishing expeditions, but now faced the intrusion of the British navy that touched off a diplomatic crisis. Contesting US claims to fish in t­ hese ­waters, which for many Americans was contesting claims to in­de­pen­dence itself, the British navy began enforcing a strict interpretation of US fishing liberties that would eventually bring diplomats to the bargaining ­table. But for the time being, fishermen would force the issue so that the negation of any US right or liberty would not go unnoticed by the power brokers of Washington and London. The events on which this narrative is built, the War of 1812, the Treaty of Ghent, and the Convention of 1818, are commonplace to any cursory understanding of early US foreign relations. But when ordinary fishermen like Joseph Wildes aboard the schooner Raven or Thomas Decker, master of the Isabella, replace James Monroe and John Quincy Adams as the narrative’s princi­ple actors, a once-­familiar narrative is refracted, revealing the extent to which the formerly anonymous influenced the international pro­cesses to which they may initially appear only tangential. ­These ordinary sailors ­were able to influence the proceedings of a diplomatic pro­cess that is so often confined to the world of Anglo-­American elites. For centuries, sailors and seagoing men, some of the most disenfranchised and powerless individuals, ­were impor­tant actors in some of the most significant changes that resonated across the Atlantic world.27 The ability of seamen to influence the economic, social, and po­liti­cal forces that seemed more often to act on rather than in response to their actions was perhaps cresting during the years of the early republic. In the absence of a professional diplomatic corps, the United States’ most familiar standard b­ earer beyond its shores was the ­humble Jack Tar.28 While the penetration of US ships into the exotic ­waters of the Pacific and Indian Oceans brought about a host of po­liti­cal, cultural, and economic transformations to both the United States and the world beyond, US sailors w ­ ere also brought to bear on the po­liti­cal environment far closer to home.29 But as fishermen embarked on the fishing season of 1815 with the hope that the trou­bles of the past seven years ­were, at long

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last, ­behind them, they did so without understanding how their actions would precipitate a shift in Anglo-­American relations in three years’ time. When word reached US shores that peace between the United States and ­Great Britain had been reached at Ghent, the nation was in a jubilant mood. The country was aglow with pride, hoping to reap the rewards of that successful referendum on in­de­pen­dence. Green hands from the cities and farms of New ­England descended on the fishing ports of Mas­sa­chu­setts as the winter receded and preparations could be made for the fishing season ahead. T ­ hese young men sought employment on one of the many vessels that would, for the first time in nearly seven years, cruise the ­waters of the ­Grand Banks, the Banks of Newfoundland, the Bay of Fundy, and other w ­ aters that had teemed with fish and ships before the most recent war. With a full complement of men, salt, line, and all the apparatus of fishing, US vessels made way for the rich w ­ aters to the north. From Barnstable, Mas­sa­chu­setts, an unnamed ship made ready and launched from the Cape Cod port sometime during the waning days of April. The schooner headed north. Hugging the rocky coast of New ­England, the US schooner was perhaps headed t­oward the Bay of Fundy and the banks of Nova Scotia to fill its hull with the lusty cod that would soon enough bring wealth back to a region ravaged by nearly a de­cade of commercial warfare that nearly hewed New E ­ ngland from the rest of the u ­ nion. Prob­ably around the end of May, the anonymous vessel returned south to unload the salted fish carcasses before embarking on the season’s second fare. Returning to the ­waters of the British provinces, the schooner most likely took a more easterly approach ­toward Nova Scotia and through the Gulf of St.  Lawrence, hoping that the ice-­choked Strait of Belle Isle was cleared and would allow passage to the Labrador fisheries. The final destination, like much of this schooner’s voyage, is pure speculation, but the ship was unable to finish its fare. It was not strong gales or poor catches that forced an abrupt end to the expedition—­instead, the Barnstable schooner was ordered off the fishing grounds by a ship of His Majesty’s Navy and returned to Mas­sa­chu­setts with ­little to show for the crew’s efforts. On June 19, 1815, as the schooner from Barnstable approached the southern coast of Nova Scotia, a British cruiser, the sloop of war HMS Jaseur, ­under the command of Captain N. Lock, ordered the fishing boat not to come within sixty miles of the coast. Captain Lock offered no explanation for the order to vacate the w ­ aters around Nova Scotia, but the US skipper had l­ ittle choice but to comply with the naval officer’s demands. The fishing schooner was most likely a typical fishing vessel of the time, with thirty to thirty-­five tons burthen and a crew of only five or six, including the master. By contrast, the British

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warship was nearly ten times its size and equipped with a full complement of eigh­teen guns. Unwilling to risk seizure, or perhaps worse, the fishing vessel returned to its home port and reported the incident to the collector of the port of Barnstable. Soon, knowledge of this event and the heavy-­handed nature of British actions would occupy the diplomats of both nations.30 A month a­ fter the Jaseur chased the US schooner from the coast of Nova Scotia, Secretary of State James Monroe informed the British chargé d’affaires in Washington of the United States’ indignation at such treatment. Monroe, referring to the incident as an “extraordinary mea­sure,” claimed that it “has excited no small degree of surprise” and was “incompatible with the rights of the United States.” The secretary of state implored the British minister to “interpose to prevent the pro­g ress of an evil which ­will be so extensively and deeply felt by the citizens of the United States.” Although the British chargé assured the Madison administration that such an incident was not condoned by his government and steps had been taken to prevent a similar incident from occurring, this confrontation off the coast of Nova Scotia became a po­liti­cal flash point as the United States and ­Great Britain harbored contrary notions about the rights of US fishermen. The Canadian press, however, rallied b­ ehind the Jaseur’s heavy-­handed actions. Halifax’s Arcadian Recorder declared, “We hope our cruisers on this coast, ­will be vigilant in brining ­those marauders into port, if they should persist in their unjust pretensions, to a right in fishing on our shore.”31 Although Anglo-­American relations seemed to have stabilized with the Treaty of Ghent and the renewal of friendly relations, this instance shows how quickly the relationship could turn sour.32 Diplomats on both sides of the Atlantic set to work defending the broadest pos­si­ble interpretations of existing international conventions in their ­favor. The contrary positions staked out by the Barnstable schooner and the Jaseur mapped onto the respective positions staked out by Anglo-­American diplomats. At the heart of the ­matter was a question of where and when US fishermen had a right to fish. Although Lord Bathurst, the British colonial secretary, assured John Quincy Adams, then the US minister to the Court of St.  James’s, that the British government disavowed the actions of Captain Lock, the British position would crystallize around the contention that the War of 1812 had abrogated all previous agreements between the two countries, including the revolutionary settlement. Since the Treaty of Ghent failed to make mention of the fisheries, the US liberty previously enjoyed was thus nullified.33 Americans in both Washington and London would refute this British claim, fearing the consequences of their fishermen banned from ­those ­waters. ­These statesmen would craft a series of arguments that made an explicit connection between that maritime environment and the in­de­pen­dence

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Americans had so recently thought was affirmed by their second war with ­Great Britain. In a letter to John Quincy Adams, Monroe outlined the implications of the emerging transatlantic conflict over the fisheries. The stakes, at least as Monroe would have them, w ­ ere high. In direct contradiction of the British claim, the “right of the fisheries”—­for Monroe did not relent even slightly and admit it was a liberty—­“required no new stipulation to support it, it was sufficiently secured by the treaty of 1783.” By basing the US claims to the fisheries on the Treaty of Paris, the treaty that ended the American Revolution and granted the nation in­de­pen­dence, Monroe continued that tradition of making a direct correlation between the fisheries and po­liti­cal in­de­pen­dence. He even went so far as to make that connection explicit, proclaiming that “­every right appertaining to the fisheries . . . ​constitute[es] a vital part of our po­liti­cal existence, and rest[s] on the same solid foundation as our in­de­pen­dence itself.” The fisheries, like in­de­pen­dence, ­were an unquestioned and foundational aspect of US statecraft.34 With the stakes as high as in­de­pen­dence itself, US diplomats did not hesitate to mount a strong defense of their interpretation of US fishing rights. This misunderstanding over ­whether or not the fishery stipulations of the Treaty of Paris ­were still in effect created the opportunity for Anglo-­American diplomats to discuss some of the most basic under­pinnings of the transatlantic relationship. John Quincy Adams, befitting his diplomatic posting in London, offered the most substantive US defense of its fishing rights. Adams countered diplomatic convention. While relenting that ordinarily, war would nullify previous treaties of peace, Adams asserted that the treaty of 1783 “was not simply a treaty of peace.” Instead, “it was a treaty of partition between parts of one nation,” who agreed “thenceforth to be separated into distinct sovereignties.” The peace settlement, then, constituted the basis of US in­de­pen­dence, of which fishing rights was among the most impor­tant ele­ments. This made such a right not a concession or grant that could be nullified by war. In Adams’s understanding of the Treaty of Paris, in­de­pen­dence and the fisheries ­were synonymous. Control of this environment, then, served as a way of defining national in­de­pen­dence and explained why Americans—at least, politicians and diplomats—­bristled at British aggression, interpreting it as a negation of liberty.35 As Adams made clear, “the sovereignty and in­de­pen­dence of the United States,” which in his mind corresponded to fishing rights, “­were not considered or understood as grants from His Majesty” and thus conditional in nature.36 Adams also appealed to the British colonial secretary by arguing that barring US fishermen from ­those valuable ­waters would be disastrous to US

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fishermen and British manufacturing alike. For the sake of humanity, Adams implored, “­these fisheries afforded the means of subsistence to multitudes of ­people who ­were destitute of any other.” This economic downturn not only would have serious repercussions for the New En­glanders left in want by a ­dying industry, it also would destroy a market for British goods, leaving G ­ reat Britain’s manufacturers grasping for new markets to absorb excess production.37 But it was not just the humanity of the families that relied on the cod fisheries for their subsistence and income that Adams brought to light. Adams also insisted that Britain’s decision to bar US ships from the fisheries was a transgression of the mores of nations and was an attack on all Americans. “The fisheries,” Adams declared, “­were usually considered by civilized nations as ­under a sort of special sanction. It was a common practice to have them uninterrupted even in times of war. . . . ​To interdict a fishery . . . ​far from being a usual act in the peaceable relations between nations, was an indication of animosity, transcending even the ordinary course of hostility in war.”38 Although Adams made appeals to international law and h ­ uman conscience, Britain’s restrictions on US access to the fisheries was perhaps most untenable ­because it was unnatural. Like his ­father at Paris, John Quincy Adams based the US claim to continued access to the fishery on the notion that any treaty must comport with the dictates of nature. At Paris, the elder Adams had declared Americans should have rights in North Atlantic w ­ aters simply b­ ecause nature had placed their fisheries nearer to US shores than ­those of Britain or France. Again, in defense of US access, Quincy Adams articulated his belief that international law and natu­ral law must be harmonized, observing that “it was necessary, for the enjoyment of this fishery, to exercise it in conformity to the habits of the species of game of which it consisted.” The migratory patterns of fish made any British restriction contrary to the demands of nature. Adams observed that “the places frequented by the fish ­were t­hose to which the fishermen w ­ ere obliged to resort, and t­hese occasionally brought them to the borders of the British territorial jurisdiction.” Although Adams, like his ­father, spoke with a stunning degree of confidence about the ecol­ogy of the North Atlantic, the murky w ­ ater largely remained immune to h ­ uman understanding in the 1810s. Within a half ­century, professional ichthyologists would begin to consolidate their scientific authority over fishery m ­ atters by discrediting and disparaging the claims and experiences of ordinary fishermen. But in the early republic, scientific and vernacular knowledge coexisted as ocean-­facing ­humans attempted to understand the oceanic environment.39 Adams’s assertion that US fishermen had no choice but to trespass into British territorial jurisdiction was as much a po­liti­cal statement as an ecological one. While the specific locations where US fishermen plied their craft in 1815

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remain unknown, it is perfectly reasonable to assume that the younger Adams mobilized ecological rhe­toric for po­liti­cal ends and in the pro­cess, harmonized perceived (or perhaps more appropriately, ­imagined) environmental realities with po­liti­cal necessity. Adams advocated understanding the fishery as a kind of maritime commons, the very nature of which was antithetical to the kinds of restrictions and bound­aries ­Great Britain sought to impose. In fact, Adams went so far as to suggest that owner­ship of land and owner­ship of adjacent w ­ aters ­were unrelated, remarking that “the property of a fishery is not necessarily in the proprietor of the soil,” and thus “the right to the soil may be exclusive, while the fishery may be f­ree, or held in common.” The fisheries ­were common to all, and therefore not something G ­ reat Britain could grant or dispose of as only it saw fit.40 Adams’s arguments fell on deaf ears. The British colonial secretary, Lord Bathurst, made clear to the US plenipotentiary that despite Adams’s insistence that the terms of the Treaty of Paris w ­ ere still in effect, even in light of the recent hostilities, such was “a position of  . . . ​[a] novel nature [that] G ­ reat Britain cannot accede.”41 The aftermath of the Jaseur incident would see no material change in the tenor of transatlantic politics as each side retreated into intractable camps, refusing to bridge the divide and thus unable to give US fishermen any clear indication of w ­ hether venturing to British ­waters would bring stores of fish or capture and ruin.

Fishermen and Atlantic Politics The fishing season of 1815 revealed the extent to which neither fisherman nor diplomat understood the international arrangement that influenced the on-­ the-­water operations of the fishing industry. Fishermen and US diplomats had dif­fer­ent reasons for objecting to Britain’s new interpretation, and negation, of US fishing rights. Fishermen protested and appealed to federal authorities out of a very material concern for the tenability of their livelihood. Soon a­ fter the end of the war, as US fishermen returned to the w ­ aters and faced British harassment, a petition “of sundry inhabitants of Mas­sa­chu­setts Bay . . . ​fishermen by trade,” made its way to Congress. The petitioners claimed that “a number of fishing boats and smacks . . . ​had been seized by some of his majesty ships since the peace and carried into his majesty’s royal province of Nova Scotia and confiscated . . . ​for no other reason than that of being catched fishing peaceably, for codfish, upon his majesty’s Atlantic ocean.” The aggrieved fishermen “beseech[ed] the Government of the United States to interfere in their behalf, and to procure the release of their fishing vessels, and liberty to

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fish for cod and other fish in ­f uture; or to declare War in form against his majesty; in prosecuting of which the petitioners tender their honor, their prayers, and the remnant of their fishing smacks for privateers.”42 The diplomatic elite in Washington seemed more concerned with saving face on the international stage and maintaining a certain po­liti­cal economy at home. But both groups had a vested interest in clarifying the rules. The necessity of ­doing so—of coming to an Anglo-­American understanding of how the nations would interact—­ was created by the actions of fishermen in the pursuit of their vocation. The ­actual work of diplomats addressing ­these kinds of questions would, however, wait ­until the Convention of 1818. In the meantime, the actions of US fishermen would upset the status quo and hasten policymakers to the bargaining ­tables. With the confrontation between the unnamed Barnstable schooner and the HMS Jaseur still fresh in the minds of US fishermen, captains, and ship o ­ wners, the 1816 fishing season was remarkably quiet. The year 1815 had been marked by a certain degree of optimism as Americans returned to their fishing haunts in the hope of recreating ­those golden, prewar years. But such optimism vanished the next year, as fear of capture, imprisonment, and the loss of capital or perhaps even life forced Yankee skippers to keep their ships in port. Even the prospect of two poor seasons occasioned by the confiscation and spoiling of fish, or just by an incomplete fare, could spell financial ruin for the hands on deck, if not the ship o ­ wners back home. Although the recent war had officially concluded, vio­lence continued in the North Atlantic. Though it was directed at ordinary fishermen—­not the United States Navy—­this vio­lence did raise questions about what the hostilities with ­Great Britain had in fact accomplished. The year 1816 passed without much incident as the schooners that did attempt to complete their fares made sure to avoid the harbors, ports, and coasts of Britain’s dominion. Such inaction, however, did not comport with an industry needing to find firmer footing and a workforce needing wages.43 The spring and summer of 1817, however, would witness the seizure of US fishing vessels by the British navy on an unpre­ce­dented scale. With diplomats still at odds over what conventions would determine US access to the fishing grounds, the cod fishermen of the New ­England coast would risk capture to fill their holds with valuable flesh and perhaps even force a break in the stalemate that characterized fisheries diplomacy. By the end of the season, dozens of ships had been captured by British sloops and brought to Halifax for transgressing Britain’s interpretation of maritime law. Many of ­these ships ­were detained for weeks, if not months, without formal charges from the Vice Admiralty Court as ­these hulks ­were left to rot in the harbor—­their provisions consumed, their rigging and tackle destroyed, and their valuable fish left to

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spoil. The crews, meanwhile, searched in vain for redress, but w ­ ere most often sent back to Boston aboard what­ever merchant ship was willing to take on the destitute men. But perhaps most troubling was that, for ­these men, another poor season meant they returned home to their impoverished families with a precarious existence. As ­these fishing schooners ­were detained at Halifax, Digby, and other ports in the British dominion and the crews returned to their home berths, t­hese men ­were deposed, perhaps hoping that their testimony might help, if not to make redress, then to inform the local customs collector, the Trea­sury Department, the secretary of state, and perhaps even the president of their hardships at British hands. The testimonies of the fishermen seized during the summer of 1817 reveal a class of vulnerable men. Notably absent was the kind of bombastic and inflated rhe­toric that characterized the chauvinistic nationalism of seagoing Americans ­toward midcentury.44 Yet, their vulnerability did not equate to powerlessness. Instead, the seemingly straightforward words of ­these seagoing men suggested individuals who sought the mantle of victim. They w ­ ere victims of British aggression and tempestuous weather who, despite good intentions and lawful actions, faced financial ruin and bodily harm. Bringing their plight and the abrogation of US rights and liberties to the attention of federal officials, fishermen offered a constant reminder of how Britain conducted itself contrary to the pride and interests of the United States, which could be rectified through formal diplomatic channels. By returning to the fishing grounds and facing British seizure, the cod fishermen made this irritant an unavoidable prob­lem in Anglo-­American relations. The testimony of Samuel Love was fairly typical. Hailing from Boothbay in the district of Maine, Love was a fisherman aboard the schooner Isabella, whose master and owner ­were also of Boothbay. When brought before Daniel Rose, the justice of the peace for the county of Lincoln, Love recounted the Isabella’s voyage and the circumstances that led to the ship’s detention by the Royal Navy. The Isabella left port on the fourth day of May, heading for the fishing banks off the southern and eastern coast of Nova Scotia. By May 8, the schooner had arrived at Cape Negro Bank, eight leagues (nearly twenty-­eight miles) from the Nova Scotian shore. ­After three days on the banks, the Isabella was forced to take shelter in the adjacent harbor of Ragged Island on account of stormy weather. ­There, the ship’s master, Thomas Decker, paid an anchorage fee to John Lock, an officer of the customs, for the privilege to use the bays and inlets of Nova Scotia when seeking refuge from rough seas. The Isabella would continue to fish the Nova Scotian banks ­until the fifth day of June, when the British sloop of war, HMS Dee, boarded the Boothbay schooner and took possession of the boat for violating Britain’s

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maritime rights. Samuel Chambers, commander of the Dee, ordered the Isa­ bella to Halifax with her crew u ­ ntil July 20, when they ­were released and allowed to return to Boothbay, arriving on July 29. No charges ­were formally made against Love, his crewmates, or the master and owner of the ship, but Love did note that the lengthy detention period had resulted in a loss of sixty quintals of fish and seven hogsheads of salt, along with equipment, gear, stores, and other provisions on board. Love was left with ­little recourse apart from his appeal to Rose and his “protest against the proceedings of the said British armed ship, her master and crew, and against the proceedings of the British court of vice admiralty in Nova Scotia—­and against all losses sustained, or to be sustained by said proceedings.”45 This story would become all too commonplace during the 1817 fishing season as the detention of US fishermen was made official policy of the British navy. Weeks before the Isabella was captured, Rear Admiral David Milne instructed the Dee to cruise between Cape Sambro Light­house, near Halifax, and Cape Sable “using e­ very means in your powers for the protection of  . . . ​the Fisheries on the Coast against the encroachment of Foreigners.” Should the Dee encounter foreign vessels fishing or anchored on the Nova Scotian coasts “within our maritime jurisdiction you ­will,” Rear Admiral Milne continued, “seize and send such Vessels so trespassing, to Halifax for adjudication.”46 Samuel Chambers, captain of the Dee, would execute this policy with enthusiasm. Responding to his superior’s instructions noting the injury Americans caused provincial fishermen, Chambers noted the habit of Yankee schooners to run inshore “to catch their lot” and “clean their Fish.” Taking fish and disposing gurry so near the coasts had the potential to significantly disrupt the undercapitalized provincial fishing operations that relied on the inshore fisheries. Chambers informed his superior that such practices w ­ ere “of course highly detrimental to the interests of the industrious Fishermen on this coast.” Central to curtailing the destructive activities of US fishermen was preventing them from accessing the vari­ous inlets of the craggy Nova Scotian coast. “Without the use of our Harbours,” Chambers continued, “it appeared impossible for any Foreigner to carry on successful Fishing on this coast . . . ​ fishing [that] has much injured our Fishermen.” Yet, this task was made all the more difficult given the commercial relations between US fishermen and some maritimers. Chambers, though failing to give any concrete evidence, had “­every reason to believe that considerable smuggling of Tobacco” occurred as an informal economy developed around trading tobacco for the wood and ­water fishermen relied on to complete their fares.47 Love’s testimony was remarkably consistent with the stories told by other fishermen. One commonality that emerged was the habit of t­ hose testifying

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to specify how far they ­were from British shores when actively catching fish. William McRowan of the schooner Superb, for instance, was careful to note that from the eighth of May to the fourth of June of the 1817 fishing season, he and his crewmates fished the Cape Negro Bank but consistently maintained a distance of “seven to eight leagues from the land” when landing fish. Sylvester Pierce and John M. Reed testified that their boat, the Exchange, never came nearer than eight leagues to the Nova Scotian coast while pursuing fish. Abdon Keen even noted that his command, the General Jackson, “caught about half a fare of fish, at the distance of thirty six leagues from any land in Nova Scotia,” and then proceeded to catch the remainder of his fare “about twelve leagues from land.”48 Even though the specifics of each story varied, sometimes quite significantly with regard to where and how far from the coast t­ hese US schooners fished, the insistence on the part of ­these fishermen that they confined their ­labor to areas many miles from British shores may hint at how they sought to use international conventions to their benefit. While ­Great Britain claimed the Treaty of Paris was nullified, and essentially no international agreement was in place to regulate US access to the fishing grounds, this did not necessarily mean that Britain had the right to set arbitrary limitations on the rights of foreign nationals on the fishing grounds. Two summers previous, the commander of the HMS Jaseur instructed Americans not to proceed within sixty miles of the coast, and now Americans ­were being detained for fishing anywhere from seven to thirty-­six leagues from land. This capacious claim of maritime sovereignty on the part of ­Great Britain was contrary to an emerging international norm in which states had a territorial claim to a mere league, three miles, from their shores. Thus, by offering specific distances they w ­ ere fishing from the British dominion, ­these fishermen documented the fact that they had become the victims of Britain’s arbitrary use of power. But they w ­ ere not the victims of the British navy alone. The inclement weather that was a frequent feature of the North Atlantic fisheries also forced fishermen to run afoul of British authorities. US fishermen w ­ ere most often apprehended for the violation of British maritime rights as they w ­ ere forced off the offshore fishing grounds by stormy weather, seeking shelter in the vari­ ous bays, coves, and inlets of the Canadian coast. The right of fishermen to resort to safe harbors in rough seas was a common aspect of international agreements, even if a given fishermen did not have the right to fish the adjacent ­waters. Even more, most of t­ hese mari­ners reported that they w ­ ere forced to pay an anchorage fee to the local collector of customs for the right to approach the shore when ­under duress. John Rand aboard the schooner Ram­ bler, described this turn of events as the schooner “went into Ragged Island

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harbor, where one John Lock demanded and received light money, at the rate of six pence Novascotia currency per ton, and informed the master that he might enter and use the harbor on the coast during the season.” L ­ ater, “on account of bad weather,” the boat approached the harbor and was “taken possession of by the officers and crew of the boats of the British ship of war Dee.” Samuel Grant of the Pandora had a similar experience with his crewmates, remarking that “it being stormy weather we put into the harbor of Port Mills” but ­were “captured and detained” by the British sloop Dee. Sylvester Pierce and John Reed likewise testified that their master had paid the necessary anchorage fee and was told “they had liberty to put into harbor, set their nets and fish on the coasts during the fishing season,” but faced capture when resorting to safe w ­ aters amidst the “boisterous” weather.49 A final feature found across the many testimonies of captured fishermen was an account of the losses occasioned by British detainment. The loss of fares, fish, equipment, and ships put a very real price tag on the costs of British action for US diplomats. While ­these confrontations rarely resulted in the total loss of ships, fishermen very often had to forfeit the remainder of fares and lost hundreds of pounds of valuable fish through spoilage as they w ­ ere forced to wait in port for weeks before being allowed to return to their homes. Captain William Trefethen of the Nancy reported losing ninety quintals of fish ­because his schooner was forced to “lay in . . . ​port in hot weather so long.” Daniel Grant testified that his ship, the John of Arundel, was captured on June 5, “for our infringement of the Maritime rights of G ­ reat Britain,” but was not brought to trial ­until August 29, and he was subsequently forced to pay $107.55 to compensate for the costs of the prosecution. But perhaps most galling was “that during the time of my detention . . . ​my vessel was considerably damaged, one of her sails being nearly ruined, and some of the r­ unning rigging was entirely lost, and some cut in pieces for which I could obtain no satisfaction.” The testimonies of George Vennard and John Trefethen likewise put a dollar amount on their losses at British hands. Most of the 180 quintals of codfish they had on board at the time of their capture spoiled, save for the fish they ­were allowed to consume to supply “the bare necessities of life” ­after being “reduced to ­g reat distress” during their five-­week detainment. But their schooner, the Strong of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, was, on her arrival at Digby, “immediately dismantled, one of her masts taken out, and her rudder unhung and carried away.” Venneard and Trefthen estimated their losses and damages as no less than $1,000.50 The loss of fish and damage to ships was indeed costly, if not ruinous, for fishermen who did not return with swelling stores of fat codfish, but instead brought back destitution and misfortune for their families and communities. But with each subsequent capture, and the

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prospect of yet another starving ­family and distressed city, the status quo became more and more untenable, to the point where the action of fishermen could no longer be met with the inaction of diplomats. The testimonies of the unlucky fishermen who w ­ ere found in violation of Britain’s interpretation of US maritime right demonstrated how ­these men sought to use what­ever ­limited operating space they had to appeal to, or perhaps even influence, the world of formal politics. But t­ hese interviews ­were not the only means available for fishermen to capture Washington’s attention. A series of letters written by or on behalf of fishermen made its way to representatives in Congress, cabinet members, and even the president, in the hope that fishermen and their patrons could communicate the worthiness of their cause and shape the course of diplomacy. The most potent weapon fishermen and their supporters had at their disposal when appealing to po­liti­cal elites was the connection often made between fishermen and national security. The maritime caucus in the United States parroted this line of argument in the hope of rallying Congress and the president b­ ehind the fishing industry’s interests. A ­ fter the alarm of the summer of 1817 had subsided and US fishermen ­were fi­nally allowed to return to their home ports, a group of ship ­owners, masters, and even ordinary deck hands addressed a memorial to the president of the United States, James Monroe. Hailing from New Hampshire, this group included some men, including George Vennard, who had been detained by the British the previous season. This group sought to offer “a short statement of our losses and suffering occasioned by the misconduct of the Officers of a Foreign Government,” as they pursued their lawful engagement on the banks fisheries and in the Bay of Fundy. The fishermen noted the illegality of British actions and focused on the losses they sustained as the pro­cess dragged on for weeks. T ­ here was “no restitution of the property, which had been lost or pillaged during the detention,” and as they returned to their vessels “we found our fish ruined—­our salt wasted—­our provisions consumed—­our fishing tackle destroyed—­ our crews dispersed through the country, some of them begging their bread—­our vessels wanting repairs—­and the Fishing Season entirely lost.” In all, the New Hampshire men estimated their losses at $10,000, declaring that “we have suffered, and we conceived ourselves entitled to reparation, e­ ither from the justice of G ­ reat Britain, or from the generosity of our country.” To prove their worthiness to the largesse of their nation, t­hese fishermen employed the same language of nationhood that politicians frequently used when discussing the fishing industry.51 To legitimate their entitlement to federal support, and “prove our claims to the ­favors of our country,” the New Hampshire fishermen portrayed

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themselves as a sympathetic class of patriotic men. Noting how fishing is “laborious and perilous,” and how such employment “separates men from their families during the larger portion of the year,” the industry naturally produced “a race of hardy and intrepid seamen.” But ­these men did not ­labor for mere hearth, home, and region. In fact, “during the long strug­gle which this nation has made for the preservation of her neutral rights . . . ​the Fishermen of New ­England w ­ ere among the first to suffer, and the last to complain.” Being the victims of the Jeffersonians’ failed experiment in commercial warfare, having lost their traditional markets and subsistence, and engaging in the “naval combat of their country,” the fishermen hoped only to return to their former occupations with the coming of peace. But instead, “they w ­ ere disappointed,” and “have been interrupted in their lawful employments—­ have been captured—­and plundered.”52 Fishermen attempting to elicit sympathy for their plight as the ebbs and flows of international relations threatened to undermine their financial solvency was a common part of their effort to lobby Washington. When assessing the state of the fishermen who returned to Boston ­after their detainment in the British dominion during the summer of 1817, Henry Dearborn, the collector for the Port of Boston, remarked on their destitution to President Monroe. With their ­labors lost as a result of British action, Dearborn mused that when fishermen return to their homes and their families, “instead of carry­ ing joy and comfort with uncommonly fine fares of Fish,” they ­will “have only a melancholy tale to relate of their suffering losses, while abject poverty sits enthroned in ­every dwelling of ­these hardy sons of the ocean.”53 The dictates of both nation and humanity compelled sympathy for this group of men, and by appealing to both of ­these impulses, fishermen and their supporters ­were able to keep this series of British captures in the po­liti­cal consciousness long enough for diplomats to take action. The shape of that diplomatic action, compelled by fishermen, would likewise be determined, in part, by ­those maritime laborers. Like the diplomats themselves, fishermen w ­ ere unsure about what international agreements regulated their industry as the United States and G ­ reat Britain emerged form hostilities. Amidst the confusion of the fishing season of 1817, a justice of the peace in Mas­sa­chu­setts queried the secretary of state, John Quincy Adams, for a clarification on the rights and liberties of US fishermen, since a violation of any agreement, even from ignorance, portended potential ruin. “It is a ­matter of the utmost importance to us, on this coast,” the Mas­sa­chu­setts magistrate declared, “to know, definitely where we can fish and where we cannot,” in order to avoid the “distressing and vexatious” detentions that marked the previous fishing season.54 Adams was unable to deliver

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a clear answer as to where Americans could and could not fish, since he and his transatlantic counterpart had reached an impasse regarding that question. But within this fluid context, fishermen and the industry’s supporters hoped to establish a new series of regulations that might be even more advantageous to Americans than what had been agreed to in 1783. As ships like the Dee captured scores of US schooners, tensions ­rose between US and British diplomats. In August 1817 the American Richard Rush pointedly informed the British minister in Washington, Charles Bagot, that the crews of some twenty schooners taken by the Dee that summer had “been exposed to peculiar incon­ve­niences . . . ​and that ­those who desire to return to their homes ­were refused safe passage.”55 Bagot, however, was unmoved by such humanitarian appeals to the travails of Yankee seamen. “The repre­sen­ ta­tion which I have received upon the subject,” Bagot informed Rush, “suffer so essentially in pursuit of fact from t­ hose which have been made by the American Government.”56 As US fishermen and British seamen clashed on the open ocean, diplomats accused each other of acting in bad faith. At all levels, dysfunction typified fishery relations. Such a situation remained untenable. US and British diplomats, seeing the potential for ­f uture conflict in the actions of US fishermen, would fi­nally meet in 1818 to address not only the fisheries issue but also a host of other prob­lems that ­were at the core of Anglo-­American relations.

London, 1818 As the fishing season of 1817 showed, the state of fishery diplomacy in the North Atlantic had the potential to be a significant irritant in Anglo-­American relations. But this was not the only outstanding prob­lem that bedev­iled transatlantic ties. The territorial boundary between the United States and the British dominion in North Amer­i­ca was notoriously unstable. Americans had shown an inclination to invade their northern neighbors, and as long as the line between the two was so ill defined, it was not unreasonable to think Americans would continue to covet t­ hose lands, if not attempt to claim them. Furthermore, the claims of both nations to the Oregon Territory certainly had the potential to be a flash point, if only ­because of the shortsighted actions of rowdy backwoodsmen or unscrupulous merchants. Also, Americans, particularly slave-­owning Americans, still smarted with indignation as no restitution was given for the h ­ uman property that was taken away or other­wise lost during the most recent outbreak of armed hostilities. The host of prob­lems that ­Great Britain and the United States confronted in 1818 was in some regard the

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legacy of the War of 1812. While the Treaty of Ghent had served to restore peaceful relations, the agreement was simply in­effec­tive in addressing the myriad concerns, mostly maritime in nature, that had produced a declaration of war in the summer of 1812. In fact, that agreement, as the fisheries issue and questions over enslaved property demonstrated, perhaps created more prob­ lems than it solved. It was only with a new round of negotiation that ­these irritants ­were addressed—­a round of negotiations made all the more urgent by the situation in the North Atlantic. Unlike at Ghent, the fisheries would play the central role in the diplomatic wrangling in the immediate postbellum years. The fishing season of 1815 exposed the United States and ­Great Britain’s conflicting understandings of the former’s right to fish the North Atlantic. When British ships removed US fishermen from t­ hose ­waters that summer, it became obvious that at some point, US diplomats would need to turn their attention to putting the fisheries issue on firmer statutory grounds. As Secretary of State James Monroe remarked in November 1815, “The Fisheries form another case of g­ reat importance to the United States,” one that would be brought before the British government. ­Later that winter, Monroe would reiterate to John Quincy Adams the importance of the fisheries and the centrality of this resource in Anglo-­American relations, as a satisfactory settlement of the question was “in the interest of both nations.”57 In the ensuing years, the situation on the ­water served to remind US and British statesmen alike that a diplomatic fix was necessary. While it took the contentious fishing season of 1817 to fi­nally push Anglo-­ American statesmen to take action, it certainly was no secret that the fisheries issue needed to be addressed. As early as September 1815, Lord Bathurst emphasized the need to clarify His Majesty’s Government’s position on the fisheries. Writing to the British minister in Washington, Bathurst singled out the fisheries as “requiring the most immediate explanation with the Government of the United States.” British policy would not acknowledge the right of US fishermen to resort to inshore ­waters for any “purpose connected with the Fishery,” though His Majesty’s Government “does not pretend to interfere with the Fishery” carried on by Yankee sailors on the G ­ rand Banks and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Essentially, Bathurst served notice that the coasts and inshore ­waters of Britain’s North American dominion—­places essential for the success of US fishing operations—­were off-­limits to Americans.58 This reinterpretation of US fishing rights, which represented an abrogation of the 1783 Treaty of Paris, worked to the obvious disadvantage of US fishermen. Foreign Secretary Lord Castlereagh would explain the rationale for this policy change. Instructing Charles Bagot to relay his message to Secretary of State James Monroe, Castlereagh framed the issue in terms of His Majesty’s

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Government defending Britain’s pecuniary interests and right to regulate its North American empire. This decision was made, Castlereagh reasoned, ­because US access to inshore ­waters affected “not only the prosperity of our own fishery but the general interests of the British Dominions in ­matters of Revenue as well as of Government.” Castlereagh referred to the words of Newfoundland’s governor, Sir Richard Keats, who claimed US fishing on the coasts “­will be prejudicial to the interests of the Fishery by British subjects, and also affect materially the revenue of Newfoundland by the fa­cil­i­ty afforded to smuggling into that Island.”59 Castlereagh described the liberties given US fishermen in the 1783 treaty as an “extensive and injurious . . . ​concession . . . ​ founded upon no princi­ple of Reciprocity.” Quite simply, the British Empire could not afford to let US fishermen continue to excise so generous a liberty. and thus “felt it necessary to adopt” this new policy vis-­à-­vis US fishermen “for the internal administration and prosperity of the King’s Dominions.”60 Britain’s concern for Canada’s place in its empire would increasingly color how British policymakers approached the fisheries issue. Yet, Castlereagh assured his audience, “this determination . . . ​was not taken in any unkind feeling t­ owards Americans, or from an illiberal wish to deprive her subjects of adequate means of engaging in the Fishery.” To illustrate his “desire to avoid ­every unpleasant collision with the American States,” Castlereagh directed Bagot to offer the Americans the right to fish on and resort to the “unsettled parts” of the dominion’s coasts. Should the Americans balk at this generous offer and demand the resumption of fishing in accordance with the 1783 treaty, Castlereagh cautioned, the Crown would not relent. ­Doing so would be an admission that “British Sovereignty is of . . . ​a qualified description as to . . . ​regulat[ing] its internal Police in m ­ atters of trade, revenue and government.” British leaders felt their offer to the Americans was a magnanimous concession motivated by a desire to maintain peaceful transatlantic relations so soon ­after a period of open warfare. Giving up any more would compromise British sovereignty over a maritime environment they w ­ ere sure was part of their national domain.61 For the British and Americans alike, the fisheries issue was directly implicated in the practice of statecraft. Washington was not inclined to accept London’s magnanimity. Americans ­were unwilling to accept Britain’s insistence that the War of 1812 abrogated the Treaty of Paris and with it, US fishing rights. For nearly a year, the State Department rebuffed Bagot’s overtures, leaving the issue unsettled as Yankee skippers prepared for the 1817 fishing season. Castlereagh grew impatient with Bagot’s pro­gress—or lack thereof. The foreign secretary offered his “regrets that the very liberal accommodation which you [Bagot] w ­ ere authorized to offer . . . ​has not at once been accepted.” This

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situation was all the more confounding, Castlereagh continued, ­because Britain did not seek to in any way humiliate or subordinate the United States. Instead, it was “the spirit of conciliation,” “a spirit of moderation,” and a wish to avoid “any unpleasant collision” that motived Britain’s desire to reach an agreement with the United States. Still, any agreement the nations reached would prove unacceptable should its “forms seem to imply any doubt on the part of the Government as to the sovereign rights of G ­ reat Britain.” Castlereagh instructed his subordinate to relay to the US government that “the exclusion of American Fishermen from our territorial jurisdiction . . . ​are in full force, and w ­ ill continue to be acted upon” by the British navy.62 Castlereagh doubled down on his insistence that Britain would defend its sovereign rights. As scores of US fishermen ­were detained for the “abuses” they had “been in the constant practice of committing within the British Limits,” the foreign secretary reiterated to Bagot “how impossible it is for ­Great Britain to submit to such an impaction of her sovereign rights.”63 The British position was unambiguous. So was Castlereagh’s irritation with US foot-­dragging. “If therefore any unnecessary incon­ve­nience has resulted or should result to the American Fishery in the ensuing season,” Castlereagh concluded, “this incon­ve­nience at least is not fairly attributed to the British Government.”64 From London’s point of view, the impasse was entirely the United States’ d­ oing. Bagot would accuse the Monroe administration of playing politics with the fisheries issue. As Castlereagh stewed over US diplomatic intransigence and as US schooners sailed for the turbulent ­waters of the North Atlantic, changes ­were afoot in Washington. When James Monroe took the presidential oath in March 1817, he seemed to bring more of the same. ­After all, Monroe was swept into office by a decisive majority, giving him a mandate to continue the policies of the ­Virginia slaveholding oligarchy that dominated presidential politics for the first quarter of the nineteenth c­ entury. His election seemed to portend the end of partisan politics in the United States. When the Virginian ran for reelection in 1820 he did so unopposed, winning all but one of the votes in the Electoral College. Yet, beneath the surface, significant fissures had emerged. It was only two years before Monroe’s election that the Hartford Convention stoked fears that the unity of the states was imperiled. New E ­ ngland Federalists had chafed ­under the policies of the ­Virginia dynasty since at least 1807, when Jefferson’s failed embargo threatened the region’s commercial health. At Hartford the prospective secessionists railed against the three-­fifths compromise, the Louisiana Purchase, and the prosecution of the War of 1812, as they concluded the federal government did not have the region’s best interests in mind and perhaps a split was necessary. The fisheries ­were implicated in the convention’s

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proceedings. The administrations of Jefferson and Madison had “baffle[d] ­every effort of commercial enterprise” and “had fatally succeeded in their attempts at the epoch of the war.” The fisheries and other commerce that constituted “the vital spring of New E ­ ngland’s prosperity” ­were “annihilated” by “embargoes, restriction, and the rapacity of revenue officers.”65 Ultimately, the conclusion of the war and Andrew Jackson’s dramatic victory at New Orleans discredited the conventioneers, yet their grievances w ­ ere not so quickly extinguished. Memories of Hartford ­were still fresh when Monroe took the helm in 1817. Monroe was well aware of New E ­ ngland’s chilly relationship with his party and with the federal government. With national unity in mind, Monroe embarked on a tour of the northern states in the summer of 1817. Ostensibly, Monroe undertook the trek across the Mid-­Atlantic, New E ­ ngland, Michigan, and Ohio to tour military installations along the nation’s northern flank. But the po­liti­cal purpose of his trip was clear. Monroe hoped that the spectacle of a president traversing the nation and coming into contact with ordinary citizens would inspire national unity. This theme was most evident in the speeches he gave in—­unsurprisingly—­New ­England. Monroe told his audience in Kennebunk, Maine, “The further I advance in my pro­g ress through the country, the more I perceive that we are all Americans—­that we compose but one ­family—­that our republican institutions ­will be supported and perpetuated by the united zeal and patriotism of all.”66 Charles Bagot followed the president’s trip closely from Washington and made direct connections between Monroe’s speechifying and the diplomatic impasse. In June 1817, as Monroe was making his way through Connecticut and Rhode Island, Bagot informed his superior of the state of the fisheries issue. ­There was, in fact, ­little news. Writing to Lord Castlereagh, the British envoy in Washington remarked that he had recently learned, “with some surprise,” that Monroe “was desirous of obtaining yet further information” about the fisheries but would “not be able fi­nally to shape a proposition till a­ fter his return from the excursion” that took him away from Washington. Monroe was stalling. And Bagot knew it. Bagot relayed to Castlereagh “the real motives for this delay,” continuing that “the President’s principal objects in this excursion is to ingratiate himself with the Eastern States of the Union, whose support and attachment he prob­ably could not court in any surer way, than by appearing to consult their wishes, and receive their instructions upon a subject so intimately connected with one of their chief interests.”67 Essentially, Bagot concluded, Monroe was using the fisheries issue to score po­liti­cal points at home while leaving Anglo-­American relations to twist in the wind. He was not wrong. At stops along the way, Monroe collected information about the fisheries. While this certainly may have been an earnest attempt to acquaint himself

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with the ins and outs of the fisheries issues, given the larger po­liti­cal purpose of the trip it is not unreasonable to think that Monroe was motivated by the impulses Bagot described. In New ­Castle, New Hampshire, local citizens acquainted the president with “the par­tic­u­lar embarrassments u ­ nder which we ­labour”—­namely, that “many of our vessels . . . ​have been captured . . . ​and are now detained for trial; while the cargoes of Fish, which they had collected, are spoiling for want of necessary attention.”68 One of Monroe’s traveling companions, General Joseph G. Swift, chief of army engineers, collected information from “the Fishermen who reside . . . ​from Marblehead to Maine,” for the president’s perusal. T ­ hose fishermen expressed a preference for the fisheries near Newfoundland and along the coasts of the Bay of Fundy, Nova Scotia, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Swift also related to the president that “many places where Fish ­were abundant have been ‘worn out’ in the Fishermens term.”69 In a pattern that would play out over the coming de­cades, this period of diplomatic tension over the fisheries coincided with concern over the ecological health of ­those fisheries. Not even two de­cades into the nineteenth ­century, the American Eden seemed despoiled. De­cades of reckless exploitation had taken its toll.70 Declining productivity, the fishermen argued, had forced them to expand their fishing into British jurisdiction, leading to a diplomatic confrontation, and would soon inaugurate a revolution in fishing technology that served to mask the damage done. On land, similar concerns about the declining agricultural productivity of the nation’s soils would take hold. Anxiety over lower yields would stoke farmers and planters to harness the power of the federal government to secure “fresh” land in the West, to access guano deposits of the Pacific to amend depleted soil, and to underwrite an agricultural improvement movement that would crest with the establishment of a new federal department.71 Bagot concluded his missive to Castlereagh on a note of resignation: “As the President’s Tour w ­ ill occupy him at least three months, t­here is now no probability of any arrangement being made before the conclusion of the fishing season.”72 The British envoy held out some hope that “intelligence [about the capture of US fishermen] w ­ ill prob­ably reach Boston during the President’s stay in that city,” which “may possibly have a beneficial effect upon the discussions . . . ​ upon the question of the Fisheries.”73 But failing that, the o ­ rders given to the Royal Navy to continue harassing US fishing schooners would remain in place and more US fishermen would be detained and brought to Halifax. But with each sailor aggrieved, each fishing season cut short, and each quintal of fish left to rot, the situation became more and more untenable. In the aftermath of the fishing season of 1817, which saw dozens of US schooners captured and detained by the British navy, US policymakers once

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again identified the need for an Anglo-­American convention to put to rest lingering questions pertaining to the US access to the fishing grounds. In a missive to the US minister in London, Richard Rush, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams informed Rush of the desire by the British government to ­settle the issue by “some conventional arrangement.” Although British leaders disavowed the actions of the British navy during the summer of 1815 when “sundry fishing vessels of the United States w ­ ere arrested and interrupted in the pursuit of their occupation . . . ​and warned against fishing within twenty leagues of the coast,” the British government still intended “to exclude the American fishermen . . . ​from drying and curing fish on the shores, and from fishing within one marine league of the coasts of the British provinces.” But the heart of the disagreement lay in Britain’s continued insistence that, as Adams informed Rush, the US “fishing privilege was forfeited by our Declaration of War” in 1812.74 Within a year, Anglo-­American statesmen would fi­nally take up this issue, among ­others, and in the pro­cess put transatlantic relations on a surer footing—or so they thought. From August to October 1818, Albert Gallatin and Richard Rush negotiated a new treaty that sought to adjudicate the fisheries issue as well as other irritants in transatlantic ties. In the pro­cess, Anglo-­American statesmen created an agreement far more effective than the Treaty of Ghent for ensuring ­future stability of transatlantic relations. The Convention of 1818 provided for establishing the forty-­ninth parallel as the boundary between the United States and the British dominion west of the ­Great Lakes, while allowing for the joint occupation of the Oregon Territory. Furthermore, the convention provided for a pro­cess to indemnify the o ­ wners of ­human property for their losses during the recent war. This agreement proved to be remarkably successful, and was left largely unamended u ­ ntil the Webster-­Ashburton Treaty of 1842. But it was with regard to the fisheries that the convention had its greatest impact. The norms established in the treaty’s first article would determine the official, diplomatic tenor of the fisheries issue for de­cades to come. Before the negotiations even began, John Quincy Adams made clear that the fisheries w ­ ere a priority. For t­ hose fishermen already subjected to British capture, Adams instructed Rush to provide counsel and ­legal aid in the hope of showing ­Great Britain that “not a particle of ­these rights ­will be fi­nally yielded by the United States without a strug­gle, which w ­ ill cost ­Great Britain more than the worth of the prize.”75 Adams instructed the envoys to press the British on the fisheries issue. ­After claiming that “all ­those captures [of the previous fishing seasons] have been illegal,” Adams cut to the very heart of the British position. While G ­ reat Britain insisted the recent war nullified any statutory basis for the United States’ claim to the fisheries, Adams declared that

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“we claim the rights in question not as acquired by the Treaty of 1783, but as having always before enjoyed them, and as only recognized as belonging to us by that Treaty; and therefore never to be divested from us but by our own consent.”76 Furthermore, Adams informed Rush and Gallatin that the administration desired that the right of US fishermen to catch, cure, and dry fish along a significant portion of the Newfoundland shore and the entirety of the Labrador coast be recognized as a permanent right, not a mere liberty that could be abrogated in the event of war. Two summers previous, Monroe, in his position as secretary of state, and John Quincy Adams, in his role as the US minister to ­Great Britain, discussed the possibility of US fishermen acquiring the right to fish t­hese northernmost ­waters. In preparing for what would turn out to be the Rush-­Bagot Treaty of 1817, which stipulated the United States and ­Great Britain would demilitarize the G ­ reat Lakes, Monroe stated that British minister Charles Bagot had been authorized by his government to reach a deal on the fisheries off the Labrador and Newfoundland coasts, which certainly comported with US desires at the time. Ultimately, this arrangement came to nothing, as the ensuing treaty bearing Bagot’s name made no reference to the fisheries. But the exchange between Monroe and Adams demonstrated that Anglo-­ American policymakers ­ were aware of the potential prob­lems bound up in the fisheries issue years before they adequately addressed it.77 By 1818, Adams and the Monroe administration clearly saw the costs of indefinite liberties and wanted the question settled permanently. But why did Adams so insist on portions of the Newfoundland and Labrador coasts? ­After all, the previous fishing seasons had seen most US fishing schooners captured near the shores of Nova Scotia as well as the nearby fishing banks and the Bay of Fundy. Perhaps Adams was using the opportunity of this fluid situation to expand, strengthen, and make permanent US rights that may not have been directly implicated in the confrontations of the previous summers. Adams and his cohort of diplomats ­were not alone in their desire to make what w ­ ere once liberties into rights. Even before the recent war, Britain had recognized the importance of the Labrador fishery, stationing two warship to defend what a Mas­sa­chu­setts newspaper had called an “uncommonly abundant” fishery.78 Two years before Rush and Gallatin set about their diplomatic work, appeals from fishermen made their way to Jeremiah Nelson, the congressional representative for the district centered on Newburyport. ­These men acquainted with the cod-­fishing industry noted the many benefits of the fisheries off the southern and western coasts of Newfoundland, as t­ hese areas ­were teaming with fish and their banks w ­ ere advantageous 79 for drying and curing fish. That same summer, as Secretary Monroe and

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Minister Adams discussed the potential of including the Labrador and Newfoundland fisheries in what would become the Rush-­Bagot Treaty, the secretary of state confirmed that his knowledge of ­those fisheries was not based on mere hearsay and conjecture. Instead, noting the necessity “to seek detailed information of the value” of t­ hose fishing w ­ aters, Monroe sought the information “from ­those possessing it at Marblehead and elsewhere.”80 By the summer of 1818, as Rush and Gallatin set about crafting a new agreement to regulate access to the fisheries, the State Department had directly consulted ­those engaged in the fishing industry for information that would guide diplomacy. The extent to which the desires of cod fishermen fed into Adams’s thinking is arguable, but ­there is no question that direct ties existed between the fishing wharves of Mas­sa­chu­setts and the State Department. Successive secretaries of state consulted with industry insiders so as to be able to craft policy that was sympathetic to the fishing interests of the nation. Certainly by 1818 a kind of consensus emerged in which diplomats and fishermen alike desired the affirmation of the US right to fish in the ­waters adjacent to the Newfoundland and Labrador shores. Fishermen likewise served as a constant remainder of Britain’s heavy-­handed actions, demonstrating the need for a diplomatic solution. Fisherman and statesman saw the opportunity to use the situation to succeed where the Treaty of Paris had failed. In the end, Americans achieved their aims. The first article of the Convention of 1818 granted US fishermen, “in common with the Subjects of His Britannic Majesty,” “for ever . . . ​the Liberty” to take fish on the southern, western, and northern coasts of Newfoundland as well as “Northwardly in­def­initely” along the Labrador coast from the Strait of Belle Isle. Americans would also enjoy the right to cure and dry fish along the uninhabited portions of the abovementioned coasts. While on first glance this language differed ­little from what was found in the Treaty of Paris, “for ever” became the operative phrase, as what was once a mutable liberty now became a permanent right—as permanent, in fact, as US in­de­pen­dence.81 This phrasing became the most contentious aspect of the entire negotiation. In their debrief to Adams a­ fter the treaty was signed, Rush and Gallatin remarked that “the most difficult part of the negotiation related to the permanence of the right.” The ministers remarked that it was “impracticable” to “obtain the insertion in the body of the convention of a provision declaring expressly that that right should not be abrogated by war.” The Americans hoped the phrase “for ever”—­which the British “strenuously resisted”—­would prevent the abrogation of that right in the f­ uture. Yet the British continued to claim the princi­ ple that hostilities served to invalidate previous treaty agreements.82 The

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actions of both fishermen and diplomats had aligned, at last, to create a permanent shift in Anglo-­American relations. An occasion such as the Convention of 1818 to ­settle outstanding irritants and reconsider some foundational aspects of the transatlantic relationship was created by fishermen on the ground and capitalized on by diplomats at the bargaining t­ able. The United States affirmed its fishing rights with the Convention of 1818. But with the give-­and-­take nature of diplomacy, the nation had to relent elsewhere. With a permanent claim to the Newfoundland and Labrador fisheries, the United States did however “renounce for ever any Liberty hereto fore enjoyed or claimed . . . ​to take, dry, or cure Fish on, or within three marine Miles of any of the Coasts, Bays, Creeks, or Harbours of His Britannic Majesty’s Dominions in Amer­i­ca,” apart from Newfoundland and Labrador. While at the time this was seen as a minor concession, since US ships could still resort to ­these shores in rough seas and to replenish provisions, the succeeding de­cades would see this clause become the center of transatlantic fishery diplomacy as Americans would consistently violate this three-­mile zone in the pursuit of their catch, and in the pro­cess bring US and British diplomats to the bargaining t­ able once again.83 While at the time, the Convention of 1818 was necessary to put Anglo-­ American relations on a more constructive footing, it contained within it weaknesses that would, in time, create even more discord. In fact, the Convention of 1818 stands as a perfect example of the difficulties of environmental diplomacy. While US and British diplomats thought they had solved the prob­lem—­a prob­lem that was central to understanding Anglo-­American relations—­their fix was necessarily temporary. The mutable dynamics of the marine environment doomed such a definite, inflexible treaty to irrelevancy, as where, when, and how fish ­were caught changed to meet shifts in the environment and in the industry. But this fatal flaw was far from the minds of John Quincy Adams and his like-­minded contemporaries who sought to f­ree Anglo-­American relations from the periodic ups and downs occasioned by fisheries-­related stand-­ offs. This goal would prove elusive. As the United States and G ­ reat Britain entered the third de­cade of the nineteenth c­ entury, they did so with a perhaps unfounded sense of confidence that the fisheries issue and its attendant questions would no longer rock the ship of state. But the fisheries issue was just too central to the operation of US statecraft to be cleaved from the nation’s most significant international relationship.

C h a p te r   3

The Ruby and Reindeer Affair

In 1824 a British warship detained two US fishing schooners in the Bay of Fundy. This kind of capture was not especially noteworthy. While the pos­si­ble losses of property and of a fishing season w ­ ere potentially disastrous for smaller-­scale fishermen, capture was, at times, the cost of d­ oing business. British and US diplomats thought this irritant had been remedied by the Convention of 1818. Article 1 of the convention, however, seemed to create more prob­lems by declaring ­waters within one league (three miles) of the Canadian shore to be off-­limits to all US fishermen. Although diplomats thought such clarity would bring peace to the ­waters, it merely created the conditions for more clashes as careless fishermen or overzealous naval officers could bring about a confrontation over real or ­imagined violations of the three-­mile line. The capture of US schooners in 1824 was indicative of this new prob­lem. But unlike in other instances of US ships being seized by British cruisers, this crew of fishermen resorted to arms, fighting back against their would-be captors and retaking their ship. This kind of vio­lence is hard to explain in solely po­liti­cal terms. Although just a de­cade ­earlier the United States and ­Great Britain had yet again come to blows, by the 1820s some of the most significant prob­lems in the relationship had been addressed. Despite the pervasive Anglophobia of the day, the English-­speaking nations had ­little to feud about. The vio­lence exhibited on the fisheries was not only born of national insecurities 76

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but also was a manifestation of apprehension felt by fishermen as they sensed the sea’s declining fecundity. By the 1820s fishermen ­were sailing further and further from port to fill their hulls. One observer, remarking on the abundance of fish along the Labrador coast, noted that such abundance was necessary to compensate for declining catches elsewhere: “­There ­were many also who, not finding a full fare on the ­Grand Bank, proceeded to the coast of Labrador, where they ­were always sure of completing their cargo.”1 At de­cade’s end fishermen still worried, as fears of seizure by the British joined growing concerns of declining catches. “The fishing business has proved bad enough,” one New Hampshire paper reported, “without having to lose the vessels.”2 During the nineteenth ­century, knowledge about the fisheries became the purview of authoritative, empirical scientists. But this consolidation of expertise was a contested pro­cess; in the second quarter of the c­ entury, ordinary fishermen vied with naturalists for intellectual authority. The men of science expressed a kind of naïveté in their assertions that ­humans could not possibly influence, or degrade, a natu­ral system as vast as the world’s oceans. Such optimism proved more appealing than calls for restraint, which, as historian John Larson observes, “implied an ethic of self-­denial, an image of equipoise rather than boundlessness” that contradicted the dominate resource ideology of the early United States.3 Americans in the 1820s toasted the fisheries, “an inexhaustible source of food and wealth,” alongside the Army and Navy, George Washington, and the Fourth of July, 1776.4 But the experiences of fishermen themselves suggested other­wise. As historian W. Jeffrey Bolster notes, “creeping concerns about overfishing became palpable” during this period.5 While technological innovation would allow h ­ umans to pull more and more biomass from the ocean, fishermen had a sense that the pro­cess required more men and more ­labor for fewer fish. Uneasiness about the ­f uture of their livelihoods helps explain why fishermen resorted to the kind of vio­lence witnessed in 1824. The tension over this maritime resource ensured that a major issue in Anglo-­American relations would remain unstable. Taking a broader view of Anglo-­American relations in the immediate aftermath of the Convention of 1818 reveals a relationship marked by ambiguity. The US envoy in London, Richard Rush, was ready to inaugurate a new era in transatlantic ties. “Unlike ­those who have gone before me,” Rush declared, “I am ­here at the season when the absence of all angry discussions between the two nations, as well as of all occurrence of a nature to irritate, might well have left soon.” The reason for the epochal shift in Anglo-­American relations was the example the US system of governance presented. “Is not,” Rush queried, “the American Republic, with the more commanding and durable destinies which it is no longer a question are secured to it, likely to become

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an example still more persuasive” to British subjects who shared with US citizens a similar origin, a common tongue, and the same “congenial habits”? Employing a meteorological meta­phor that would have resonated with fishermen on the North Atlantic, Rush observed that his pre­de­ces­sor “took the post when the storm was over, but perhaps before all the billows could have come down,” while “all who preceded him ­were at it whilst the ele­ments of strife ­were in constant motion.”6 But perhaps the squall had not passed entirely. In Rush’s estimation, lurking beneath ­those cultural ­factors that seemed destined to foster transatlantic cooperation lay the jealousies and vindictiveness of a ­people harboring “a settled dislike to the United States.” The US envoy had a rosy vision of the ­f uture of the United States, but not of Anglo-­ American relations. He noted that “we have outstripped her in freedom,” and surpassed the international prestige of France, “destined permanently to take the place of that nation in the En­glish odium.” It was in fact the United States’ and G ­ reat Britain’s similarities that would drive them apart, as Rush remarked that “the odium w ­ ill grow as our . . . ​numbers and power augment the success of our rivalry . . . ​which became inflamed to the highest pitch by the circumstances of our common origin and language.”7 Rush’s ambiguous statements in the early years of the 1820s suggested that diplomats ­were not sure of how to assess the state of Anglo-­American relations. But events in 1824 would show that hostility remained between the two English-­speaking ­peoples as citizens from the United States and subjects from British North Amer­i­ca competed for what seemed to be fewer and fewer fish.

Clashing at Sea The fishing season of 1824 was, in a word, tense. Generating government reports, diplomatic exchanges, and newspaper coverage across the nation, the capture of US fishing vessels by the British navy proved that the Convention of 1818 did ­little, practically, to stem the rising tide of Anglo-­American fisheries disputes. While dozens of US fishing schooners ­were apprehended in or near British provincial ­waters during the spring and summer of that year, it was the captures of the schooners Ruby and Reindeer that touched off a diplomatic incident and exposed the shortcomings of diplomacy. Borders—­with their ambiguity and instability—­were a key prob­lem of the 1820s. The years ­after the War of 1812 witnessed a flurry of treaties and agreements that seemed to bind the nation internationally and define po­liti­cal prob­lems at home. The Treaty of Ghent (1814), the Convention of 1818, the

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Transcontinental Treaty (1819), and the Missouri Compromise (1819) all aimed to put a host of sticky po­liti­cal questions to rest by drawing neat, well-­defined lines on the North American map. ­These efforts, however, largely failed, and in the pro­cesses, merely created a new set of prob­lems. Nowhere was this prob­ lem more acute than in the maritime environment of the North Atlantic. The fisheries clause of the Convention of 1818 exposed the naïveté of diplomats attempting to impose lines on the ocean, further proving just how inconclusive the War of 1812 had been. Instead of a hardened boundary between the United States and Canada, the war and ensuing peace left, at least on the sea, a boundary that was as porous and ill defined as ever. As Americans surged west across the continent, expanding the limits of the US imperium and coming into conflict with Eu­ro­pean and Native American polities in order to extract more commodities from the environment, fishermen did likewise.8 The schooners Ruby and Reindeer had more in common than the ignominious distinction of being the subjects of British maritime aggression. Robert Small, master of the Reindeer, and Elisha Small, master of the Ruby, ­were in fact ­brothers, and the Small ­family name punctuated the crew lists of both ships. ­These kinds of familial connections ­were not uncommon in the New ­England fishing industry of the early nineteenth ­century. Standing in contrast to the polyglot, multinational crews of the merchant and whaling ships of the day, cod-­fishing crews w ­ ere remarkably homogenous; connections made through f­amily and community ­were manifested in the workings of the industry. The close connections between hands, masters, and the ­owners of fishing vessels ­were in part the result of the peculiar relationships evident in the ordering of ­these ships. While the master lived up to the name, a clear distinction between management and l­ abor was not as evident. The federal cod-­ fishing bounty, amended numerous times over its decades-­long life, was justified, in part, on the grounds that it would raise a body of seamen familiar with the way of the ship and ready to serve the nation in times of armed crisis. Accordingly, the bounty law stipulated that at least part of this dispensation be awarded to the laborers, usually based on their portion of the total catch. Thus, even the most ordinary cod fisherman was not merely a wage worker—he was invested in the success of the ship. ­Owners and masters would understandably look to crew their ships with men whom they intimately trusted.9 With fishing ships and crews tied to place in a way that many maritime laborers ­were not, it is unsurprising that the Ruby and Reindeer both made berth at the same port—­Lubec, Maine. Situated along the coast in the extreme eastern region of the state—in fact, the easternmost point in the continental United States—­Lubec had easy access to the fishing grounds in the Gulf of Maine and

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the Bay of Fundy while being an uneasy neighbor with Britain’s North American colonies. Considering the boundary between Maine and the British colonies was left unsettled ­until the Webster-­Ashburton Treaty of 1842, Lubec was indeed a frontier town in the 1820s, occupying a potentially unstable geopo­ liti­cal position. Despite ease of access to fishing grounds across the North Atlantic and a geography that favored maritime enterprise, during the first quarter of the nineteenth ­century Maine was impoverished, at least compared to the g­ reat fishing ports along the Mas­sa­chu­setts coast north of Boston. For much of this period, Maine simply lacked a sizeable enough population or industrial base to support the kind of growth that the cod-­fishing industry would experience as midcentury approached. For the time being, however, ports like Lubec ­were underpopulated and undercapitalized, leaving ­those ­people more vulnerable to economic and po­liti­cal whims. In the sole monographic study of the fishing industry of this region, historian Wayne  M. O’Leary concludes that the Maine fisherman was poor while laboring on the margins of the fisheries economy, but t­ here is no question that he was tied to, if not dependent on, the cod fisheries.10 When the ­brothers Small headed out of Lubec in the summer of 1824, it would have been no surprise that they made a course for the Bay of Fundy. With fishing grounds so near their home port, Robert and Elisha would have had no need of the larger, well-­built ships that w ­ ere used when voyaging to the fishing grounds on the ­Grand Banks, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, or along the coast of Labrador. In all likelihood, the Ruby and Reindeer ­were smaller, possibly previously used ships, bought on the cheap as demanded by the constraints of this capital-­strapped region. O’Leary observes that such a second­hand ship “was one way for the small, marginal operator to enter the field”—­a description that most likely fit Robert and Elisha Small.11 Robert Small left the port of Lubec on July 22, 1824, in the schooner Rein­ deer with the hope of a successful cod-­fishing voyage to the Bay of Fundy. His crew mates included f­ amily and trusted community members who, like their master, prob­ably spent the remainder of the year engaged in other economic activity like farming, however difficult in the thin Maine soil, or lumbering in the state’s vast forests. Early nineteenth-­century Mainers required this kind of economic diversity to support their still-­precarious existence. On July 25, “finding our w ­ ater very bad,” Robert Small directed the schooner to an uninhabited island near ­Grand Manan, no more than fifteen miles from Lubec at the convergence of the Gulf of Maine and the Bay of Fundy. Though close to home for Small, it was indisputably British. While the Convention of 1818 forbade US fishermen from taking fish within three marine miles of the coasts

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of the British provinces, the treaty did allow fishermen to go ashore at uninhabited places in order to take ­water and wood. But as Small made sure to note, “While on our voyage, we had caught no fish from six to eigh­teen miles from the shore . . . ​nor did we go into a harbor for any other purpose than to procure wood and ­water.” Even though it had stayed within the bounds of the law, the Reindeer was apprehended by the HMS Doterel—­which, despite being a sloop, and thus a relatively small warship, dwarfed the tiny schooner in size and firepower—­when the fishing ship was becalmed less than two miles from the shore. Men from the Doterel boarded the Reindeer for being in violation of the treaty, while, in Small’s words, “menacing myself and crew with vio­lence; threatening our lives.” The men from the Reindeer ­were put on board another captured US fishing ship, the schooner Friend, to sail to St. Andrews, New Brunswick, for questioning, while the Reindeer was to be towed elsewhere, most likely to be condemned.12 Robert’s b­ rother, Elisha Small, faced similar hardships. Aboard the schooner Ruby, Elisha left port on July 7, 1824, and on July 24 ­stopped near ­Grand Manan to replenish the ship’s wood and ­water. Weak winds likewise stranded the Ruby in British ­waters, although Elisha Small claimed to have “not caught fish, or attempted to catch one, within five miles from the shore, nor had we been into any other harbor, u ­ ntil the one above named.” Even if Robert and Elisha had in fact ­violated the treaty during any part of their voyages, they exhibited a familiarity with diplomacy that would have garnered sympathy in Washington. The crew of the Doterel, however, exercised no sympathy for the fishermen. Instead, they brought “on board nine men, armed with guns, cutlasses, dirks, and pistols” to take command of the ship, while the crew of the Ruby ­were relegated to yet another captured US schooner, the Diligence.13 Both Robert and Elisha Small made ­these statements before the justice of the peace of Washington County, home of Lubec, in the hope that state or federal officials might seek to redress this grievance. They ­were certainly attuned to their audience as they portrayed themselves as vulnerable fishermen and victims of arbitrary British power. Other affidavits told a similar story. Elias Ficket, master of the schooner Dili­ gence of Harrington, Maine, declared that while visiting G ­ rand Manan for wood and w ­ ater, his ship was apprehended by the Doterel, “interrupting us in our lawful employment and destroying our fishery.” Ficket likewise mentions the shabby treatment at the hands of British sailors as he noted being “badly used by the barge’s officers—­threatening to shoot us.” As Ficket explained, British sailors had been given ­orders “to capture all Americans they met with right or wrong—­that t­ here was no treaty—­and that Americans should not fish

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in British ­waters.”14 Harding Clark, Ephraim Clark, and William H. N. Brown, all of the schooner Hero of Dennsyville, Maine, reported that in the lawful pursuit of the fisheries, their capture by the Doterel was “but an act of piracy committed on the high seas without a pretense of authority.” The crew offered their solemn “protest against the winds, seas, tides, armed boats, pirates, the wanton and flagrant abuse of power and whatsoever e­ lse that caused the seizure and detention of [the Hero].”15 Fi­nally, Charles Tabbut, Thomas Wright, Benjamin Reynolds, and Josiah W. Perry, of the schooner William of Addison, Maine, reported that as their boat was boarded an enraged British officer inveighed that “the American fishermen had been damned saucy to the inhabitants of G ­ rand Manan.”16 The US fishing ships captured by the HMS Doterel during the summer of 1824 had much in common. Apart from the specifics of their ordeals, all of the crews hailed from Maine, and most likely shared the marginality all Mainers experienced during the first quarter of the nineteenth c­ entury. This economic vulnerability made their capture all the more dire—­the loss of their ships, equipment, and fishing season; the costs of returning home a­ fter their detention; and ultimately pursuing l­egal action for the return of their property all proved difficult. They w ­ ere, however, not without recourse. By appealing to officials at dif­fer­ent levels of governance, they hoped that the US state would in some way address their grievances. The statements they gave to local justices of the peace had the potential to make their way to Washington, and the fishermen did all they could to make themselves seem innocent and sympathetic. But t­ hose involved in the fishing industry themselves also appealed directly to policymakers in Washington. Concerned citizens of Washington County, Maine, made sure t­hose in Washington, D.C., ­were aware that the rights of Americans ­were being abridged by British action. As Robert and Elisha Small gave their statements to the Washington County justice of the peace, “merchants and ship o ­ wners residing at Eastport in the county of Washington and state of Maine” drafted a memorial to send to Secretary of State John Quincy Adams. This group of prominent Mainers informed Adams of and sought redress for “the many acts of vio­lence and injustice which have been committed by his Britannic Majesty . . . ​in violation of the subsisting treaty between the two governments.” They had, in their own words, “invested a larger amount of property in vessels than they have heretofore done for the purpose of carry­ing on the business of fishing.” ­Under “the encouraging and beneficial laws of their country”—­which is to say, the cod-­fishing bounty—­the fishermen’s “­labors would have been crowned with success” had the season been ­free of “interrup-

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tion from a foreign power.” But this latest series of British captures prevented the fine fishermen of Maine from “enjoy[ing] the fruits of their toil.” Like the fishermen who endured ­these acts of vio­lence firsthand, the memorialists demonstrated their understanding of diplomacy and international politics while portraying their plight as sympathetic and their cause worthy.17 The memorial to the State Department furthered the narrative of fishermen as hapless victims of British aggression. In the story relayed to Washington, t­hese prominent men of Maine claimed that despite “fishing agreeable to the treaty,” t­ hese fishermen ­were “insulted and abused” by British naval officers who, a­ fter their capture, “turned them on shore in a foreign country, entirely destitute, and without the means of returning to their homes.” Yet, this was perhaps only the beginning of their hardship, since the risk to life and property might dissuade fishermen from pursuing their trade in the ­future—­“they dare not again attempt to avail themselves of the rights and privileges secured to them by treaty and which are well defined and well understood by ­every fisherman.” And perhaps most egregiously, officers of the British navy “said, repeatedly, that they would take American fishermen wherever they ­were found, and without regard to the treaty.”18 In a rhetorical move that went beyond the seemingly more parochial claims of the fishermen themselves, the memorialists from Maine tied t­ hese incidents to US nationalism. While of course the harassment of US fishing schooners entailed “­great injury to private interest,” more importantly, taken as a ­whole, British aggression constituted an “infringement of public rights” that was suggestive of the United States’ inferior position in a British Atlantic world. In an era when many Americans seethed with indignation at real or perceived slights to US honor, portraying t­hese incidents as a larger question of US rights—­not just fishing rights—­and British restrictions made for good politics. The memorial concluded by beseeching the federal government to “protect us in our rights and pursuits and that our fishermen may not be molested, nor our shores invaded with impunity by the subjects of any foreign power.”19 With the federal government perhaps moving too slowly for the concerned citizens of Washington County, the self-­styled “inhabitants of the county of Washington . . . ​interested in the fisheries in the Bay of Fundy” penned another appeal to Adams in August 1824. This memorial mirrored the e­ arlier one in its portrayal of an innocent and helpless group of US fishermen harassed by a tyrannical British navy, g­ oing so far as to single out the commander of the HMS Doterel for his “piratical conduct” in the capture of the US vessels. The latter group of memorialists likewise made the connection between this series of captures and national honor, as ­these incidents ­were “indignities cast

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upon the American flag . . . ​[and] insults offered the citizens of the United States.” But this group of citizens also introduced a new strain of argumentation that took environmental f­ actors into account.20 The August memorial made the predictable nod to the fishermen’s innocence, noting that they have not “as we firmly believe, in any instance, given just cause for complaint.” This compliance with treaty stipulations was not necessarily the result of a careful understanding of the treaty’s specifics on behalf of the fishermen. Instead, the memorialists claimed, fishermen would never have been found to have v­ iolated the treaty, b­ ecause they simply had no reason to do so. “American fishermen,” the memorial stated, “have no occasion nor inducement to violate the provisions of the aforesaid convention.” ­These Maine fishermen would not have fished within the three-­mile zone declared off-­limits by the Convention of 1818 ­because their piscine prey—­cod—­did not inhabit ­those ­waters. While ­these inshore ­waters would have been frequented by migratory mackerel, in 1824 the mackerel industry in the United States was still in its infancy and Mainers w ­ ere largely dedicated to the cod fisheries.21 This group of memorialists, burnishing their familiarity with the fisheries to bolster their authority, perhaps claimed a more intimate knowledge of the on-­ the-­water workings of the fishing industry as they identified themselves as “inhabitants” of the county interested in the fisheries. The ­earlier group of memorialists ­were “merchants and ship ­owners,” and thus further removed from the toil of the industry. Such speculation aside, by the end of the summer of 1824, residents of Washington County, Maine, be they deck hands, ship masters, ­owners, fish merchants, or just concerned citizens, used vari­ous strategies in appealing to federal policymakers to redress this set of grievances. The popu­lar press in Maine struck a more assertive tone. Portland’s East­ ern Argus published a pointed editorial in response to the capture of US fishing schooners. Noting the innocence of US fishermen, the paper remarked that “it seems that treaties are not binding, that law and justice is not regarded, for our fishermen are not only captured on the high seas, but boats [are] pursued even to our shores and t­ here taken.” What the British ­were ­doing was not the enforcement of rules; it amounted to a “system of plunder” comparable to “the piracies committed off Cape Antonio.” Mainers demanded an armed response. “Depredations of this nature,” the Eastern Argus continued, “we trust our Government ­will not submit to, and hope that a part of Commodore Porter’s squadron ­will be sent to this quarter, to hunt the Pirates in our Bay, who are as troublesome as ­those in the West Indies.”22 The response from US and British authorities, however, did ­little to ­settle the issue. Among the papers addressed to the State Department during the fall of 1824 was a note from Henry Addington, the British chargé d’affaires in Wash-

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ington. Addington addressed the disturbances on the fisheries in his missive to Adams. But Addington’s telling differed significantly from what the Mainers contended. The British minister declared that the capture of US vessels was entirely lawful as the fishermen w ­ ere in the “commission of a direct infraction of the treaties . . . ​having, in fact, been found pursuing their occupation without the bound­aries assigned to them by the terms of the convention of 1818.” But ­here is where stories r­ eally diverged. Americans ­were loath to accept the capture of the Ruby and Reindeer. Addington claimed “an attack was made . . . ​[on the Doterel] by two schooners and an open boat ­under American colors full of armed men with muskets and fixed bayonets, amounting to about one hundred.” ­Under the direction of a Mr. Howard of Eastport, Maine, purportedly a captain in the US militia, the armed band of Americans retook the fishing ships as the British officer “thought it most prudent to surrender to such superior force.” Perhaps the Small ­brothers w ­ ere not the helpless, sympathetic victims they made themselves out to be.23 Addington went on to mull over what this episode of vio­lence meant to the larger workings of Anglo-­American relations. Demanding the US government punish the perpetrators of this maritime raid, Addington commented that “if individuals are permitted to expound the stipulations of treaties for themselves with arms in their hands, the preservation of harmony and good understanding between nations can no longer be hoped for.” While the indignant bluster of Mr. Addington was not the edict of the empire, the potential existed for this incident to devolve into an acute crisis. It was, a­ fter all, less than a de­cade since Anglo-­American statesmen had addressed the fisheries issues—­ adequately, they had thought. But the events of the summer of 1824 showed that the conditions for discord w ­ ere still in place, if not written into the terms of the treaty. The ball seemed to be in the US court.24 Henry Addington’s source for information about the affair was British Rear Admiral W. T. Lake, stationed at Halifax. In early September the naval officer informed the diplomat of his correspondence with the captain and master of the Doterel regarding the capture and subsequent liberation of the Ruby and Reindeer.25 John Jones was the master of the Doterel and the man charged with actually boarding the captured vessels and sailing them to British ports. He thus witnessed the US assault firsthand. Before even apprehending the renegade US schooners, Jones, cruising the w ­ aters in the Doterel’s boat “for the protection of our fisheries,” received information that suggested the crews of the Ruby and Reindeer had acted in a less than neighborly manner. On the schooners’ arrival at ­Grand Manan to replenish their wood and ­water, “they fired their muskets and told the inhabitants they w ­ ere armed, and would not allow any man of war’s boats to board them.” Arriving on the scene, Jones

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found the two schooners “lashed alongside each other” with all hands, numbering about thirty, assembled on deck “with their fire-­arms and fish spears,” and was able to board only a­ fter threatening to fire on the US vessels.26 Jones noted that neither ship was in need of wood or w ­ ater and that the weather was “fine.” Making note of t­ hese conditions suggests that, at least in Jones’s mind, the Ruby and Reindeer had no excuse for being so near the British provincial coast and therefore must have been in violation of the treaty’s terms. A ­ fter putting the crews aboard two other captured US vessels, the Dili­ gence and Friend, “with provision for a passage” to their homes in Lubec, Jones made sail for St. Andrews, New Brunswick, with the Ruby and Reindeer in tow. Before reaching the destination, however, Jones noticed “two schooners and an open boat, full of armed men, muskets, and fixed bayonets, hoisting US colors.” ­After the impromptu US flotilla fired on the convoy consisting of the Doterel’s yawl and the two captured US schooners, Jones, “with ­g reat reluctance,” ultimately thought it “prudent to surrender to superior force.” On surrendering the US ships, Jones counted about a hundred men, consisting of the Ruby’s and Reindeer’s crews and “the rest having the appearance of militia men.”27 Quite contrary to Robert and Elisha Small’s claims that they and their crews ­were menaced by violent British sailors, Jones’s account of the incident made the British the victims of an armed band of US marauders. The Ruby and Reindeer affair was not the only example of vio­lence that marked the 1824 fishing season. British sailor William Paine reported that he too was the subject of US vio­lence. When brought before the justice of the peace of Charlotte County, New Brunswick, Paine asserted that in late August the “American fishing Boat Pilgrim was seized for a violation of the treaty between the United States and ­Great Britain.” Paine, along with James Martin, was left in charge of the Pilgrim and tasked with bringing the renegade schooner to Halifax. En route, he and the small group of British sailors left aboard ­were overrun by the US crew working in tandem with Martin. Paine had armed himself and “threatened to cut [the] head off ” any man who opposed him, but the US fishermen and Martin “sprang upon him and forced his Cutlass from him and obliged him to go below.” Benjamin Scott, an American aboard the Pilgrim, corroborated Paine’s statement, saying “Mr.  Paine armed himself and went on deck and soon ­after he returned and said he had been over powered and his arms taken from him. . . . ​Mr. Paine discharged his duty to the utmost of his power and that superior force alone caused him to surrender his arms.”28 ­Later, Rear Admiral Lake informed Addington that the Pilgrim was “rescued by some of her crew in conjunction with one of the men . . . ​put in charge of her.” Lake advised the diplomat “that the subject should be brought officially before the American Government, in order that

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steps may be taken to prevent the continuance of such proceedings.”29 ­These instances of vio­lence on the fisheries ­were not isolated, from each other or from the diplomatic and environmental contexts in which they took place. It would be hard to believe that Addington’s note was the first Adams was hearing of Ruby and Reindeer incident. As early as August 5, newspapers in Boston informed its readers of the incident. The Commercial Gazette noted that ­after the captures of the Ruby and Reindeer, the crews of other schooners “­were immediately furnished with arms and ammunition, went out and recaptured ­those vessels without difficulty.” “It seems,” the short report suggested, “to be their [Britain’s] determination, to destroy our fishing in the Bay of Fundy.” The fisheries dispute was, without question, revived. The Boston paper concluded by asking, “Would it not be well for our Government to look to it?”30 This would in fact be the government’s response, as Adams consented to Addington’s suggestion that t­here be an investigation into the incident and enlisted the district attorney for Maine to depose the Americans involved in the fracas. The testimonies the Small b­ rothers provided Ether Shepley, the Maine district attorney, in November, painted a dif­fer­ent picture than the statements they had given the Washington County justice of the peace in July. For starters, the Smalls admitted t­ here was at least some kind of confrontation a­ fter their schooners ­were apprehended. Robert Small of the Reindeer reported a familiar story of coming in for w ­ ater and being left stranded in British w ­ aters on account of uncooperative winds. He also testified that John Jones menaced his crew, firing on the Reindeer before coming aboard “in a g­ reat rage,” threatening “to carve us up like a turkey, or a piece of beef,” with his crew “brandishing their cutlasses about our heads.” Robert remained on his ship while his crew was ordered to board the recently captured Friend—­just as the crew of the Ruby boarded the Diligence—in order to return to Lubec. This, however, was where Robert Small’s story diverged from his e­ arlier remarks. While the Reindeer made its way ­under British supervision to the port of St. Andrews, Robert Small noticed “two other vessels hove down upon us; one the schooner Madison, came down upon the Reindeer, t­here being about twenty men on her deck, with muskets, but not bayonets upon them.” Jones prepared to fire on the Madison but Robert intervened, telling the British sailor, “If you fire into that vessel ­every man of you ­will be shot,” for “they are my neighbors; they want this vessel, and they ­will have her.” Unwilling to ­counter the US raiders, Jones returned the ship to Robert’s command. Although he conceded that Americans retook the ship through force (departing from his July statement), Robert Small still admitted no wrongdoing. The Reindeer had only come into British w ­ aters to resupply themselves and had fished at a distance

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five to six miles from land, and he claimed that t­ here was not “a gun fired at all, till a­ fter Mr. Jones [had relinquished the Reindeer] . . . ​and then only as an expression of joy.”31 Elisha Small, master of the Ruby, corroborated his ­brother’s account, elaborating on some purposeful omissions in his July testimony while admitting to no wrongdoing. Elisha did, however, bring to light a detail that resonated with other US accounts of the incident. When Jones boarded the Ruby, Elisha Small defended the ship’s action as consistent with the Convention of 1818. Jones responded, according to Elisha, that “he did not care a damn for the treaty, ­every vessel he caught within three miles of the land he would make a prize of.”32 Fishermen of the schooner Galleon claimed Jones said, “What is the use of talking about the treaty—­damn the treaty—­I did not come ­here to learn my lesson—­I learnt it before I came.”33 And Charles Tabbut, master of the schooner William, claimed Jones “damned the treaty, and them that made it.”34 ­Whether Jones remarked on the Convention of 1818 at all is not entirely relevant. Instead, the US fishermen’s invocation of the treaty is suggestive of the degree to which fishermen w ­ ere self-­consciously engaging with the course of US diplomacy. The series of depositions gathered in November 1824 elaborated on the circumstances that brought the US raiders into conflict with the British navy. As US (and l­ater, British) deponents would confirm, the crews, with the exception of the masters, of the Ruby and Reindeer ­were returned to their home port of Lubec with the Diligence and Friend serving as cartel ships. On his arrival, Ruby deckhand Benjamin Small, no doubt a relation of Robert and Elisha, immediately set to work on a plan to liberate his kinsmen. “I went to Elisha D. Green of Eastport,” Small stated, “and told him I wanted ten muskets, it having been agreed between the Ruby’s crew and the Diligence crew that we would retake the Ruby, he and another gentleman obtained for us seven muskets, and the two clerks in Green’s store, one named Howard, and the other Fields, said they would go with us.” In all, the band would consist of twelve men, seven muskets, two pistols, and two bayonets—­a far cry from the one hundred armed men of Jones’s ­earlier claim.35 Benjamin W. Coggins, master of the schooner Friend, likewise commented on the response of Maine’s seaside community to the capture of the Ruby and Reindeer. Coggins enrolled his b­ rother, master of the schooner Madison, in the raid. ­After he “called round,” Coggins rallied seven men, along with “two ­rifles, and two muskets, and two pistols, and powder, and ball.” Athough they w ­ ere successful in liberating the two ships, this paltry group bore ­little resemblance to the large, well-­armed, unruly crowd the British supposedly observed. Responding to Jones’s claims that the Americans ­were headed by a militia captain by the name of Mr. Howard, Coggins

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remarked that “Mr. Howard is a lad, seventeen or eigh­teen years old” that had never served as a captain in any militia, but, Coggins caustically added, “I have heard that he was captain of a com­pany of boys in Eastport, who trained with wooden guns and swords.”36 For the Americans involved, the “attack” on the British may well have been a lark. Their small numbers and the significant British overstatement seem to suggest the British took the Americans a l­ittle more seriously than they took themselves. But this kind of community action suggests something even more impor­tant. This episode resonates with two impor­tant themes. First, the mobilization of ­those within this fishing community in response to Britain’s restrictive policy enforcement demonstrates the centrality of maritime ­labor in the community. Second, and more importantly, this incident demonstrated the degree to which ordinary maritime laborers ­were vital parts of the creation and implementation of US foreign policy. Without t­hese men testing the limits of US international rights, the privileges afforded to Americans by the Convention of 1818 remained an abstraction. Furthermore, the decision ­these fishermen made in the pursuance of their ­labor created policy that Washington then had to account for. In the nineteenth ­century, the nation’s foreign policy was not the domain of the elite alone, but part of everyday life for ­these men. British officials disputed the US stories collected during the course of the investigation during the fall of 1824. Writing to Secretary Adams in the early months of 1825, Addington put blame for the incident squarely on the shoulders of the US fishermen. Enclosing testimonies gathered from British sailors of the Doterel, Addington declared that the US “complaints have no just ground of accusation, against the officers of the Doterel nor are [the fishermen] entitled to reparation for the loss they have sustained.” Rather, the US fishermen put themselves in such a position as a result of the “willful irregularity of their own conduct.” While US fishermen may at one time have resorted to the inshore ­waters of Britain’s North American provinces without fear of capture or harassment, that state of being was not a recognition of a right, but instead a “laxity which appears to have prevailed . . . ​in guarding t­ hose coasts from the intrusions of foreign fishermen.” Now, the British diplomat informed Adams, the British would replace that laxity with “vigilance” in pursuing treaty infractions.37 The testimonies offered by British sailors largely corroborated John Jones’s initial account. Even before the confrontation, the crews of the Ruby and Rein­ deer seemed like rabble-­rousers. A Mr.  Touzeau, midshipman aboard the Doterel, reported that “upon their anchoring, one of them fired three muskets, and said they w ­ ere armed and manned, and would oppose our boarding them.” ­After the British took control of the Ruby and Reindeer for reasons Touzeau

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failed to specify, the midshipman “observed two schooners coming down ­toward us full of armed men and wearing American colors.” Among this group, Touzeau counted “forty-­five men,” less than half of the one hundred Jones reported, armed with “pistols, swords, and muskets, and fixed bayonets.” ­After the US raiding party successfully retook the ships, their ringleader, the aforementioned Mr. Howard, ordered his men “not to use vio­lence against any of my men, as he had got possession of the vessel, and which was all they wanted,” before “fir[ing] off all their muskets and pistols” in cele­bration. Sailors Thomas Richardson and James Lloyd supported Touzeau’s story.38 In discussing the complete extent of testimonies taken relative to the Ruby and Reindeer affair, Doterel captain Richard Hoare commented to his superior, Rear Admiral Lake, that ­there was ample “proof of the propriety of detaining ­those vessels.” Without logs or journals from the US vessels, it was simply the word of the fishermen against that of the British sailors, with Hoare observing that “it is not to be supposed that the [fishermen] w ­ ill acknowledge to have v­ iolated the treaty existing between the two Governments.” The testimonies and reports furnished by the British navy, in Hoare’s view, presented “a consistency throughout . . . ​that w ­ ill bear the stamp of truth.” ­After all, “why should they detain ­these vessels if they had not ­violated the laws”?39 Hoare’s final observation may have betrayed his naïveté. The evidence produced by British sailors uniformly point to the repeated, if not always intentional, violations of the Convention of 1818 by US fishermen plying their trade within three miles of British coasts.40 US fishermen uniformly denied such allegations, claiming compliance with the law and attributing British aggression to geopo­liti­cal imperatives in­de­pen­dent of treaty statutes. The force that created the conditions that allowed for ­these kinds of clashes, however, operated more clandestinely, and it had less to do with what happened on the sea than what happened in it. The greater “vigilance” of the British navy in enforcing the terms of the Convention of 1818 and the armed response on the part of US fishermen during the summer of 1824 ­were both, in part, manifestations of perceived environmental constraints. Writing to his superiors, Captain Hoare noted that a kind of unease and apprehension had descended on the residents of G ­ rand Manan Island. The islanders resented the US presence not ­because US schooners showed up to the island guns blazing as the Ruby and Reindeer allegedly did, but b­ ecause they represented greater competition for what was a dwindling resource. Hoare reported that the fishermen of ­Grand Manan complained of US fishermen cutting their nets and taking “treble the quantity of fish this year [1824] to that of any proceeding year . . . ​ascrib[ing] it entirely to the American fishermen having been kept without the distance prescribed by

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treaty form the shore.” The p­ eople of ­Grand Manan also complained that US fishing practices further degraded the fisheries. Hoare commented that US fishermen w ­ ere “bringing in the fish offal with them, and throwing it overboard on the inner banks, by which they drive the fish off t­ hose banks.”41 By fouling the fishing commons, US fishermen exacerbated the tensions connected to both fears over greater degradation and competition. Mr. Touzeau, too, commented on this practice. In his testimony concerning the detention of the schooner Rebecca, the British sailor noted that while “at anchor near Gull Cove,” the crew was spotted “cleaning fish and heaving the gurry overboard.”42 Sensing dwindling returns from an ecosystem strained by centuries of fishing pressure, US fishermen, the residents of ­Grand Manan Island, and the British navy all had to adapt. The friction evident on the fisheries during the summer of 1824 was a symptom of larger shifts both within and without the fisheries. The close of the first quarter of the nineteenth ­century saw a fishing industry struggling against its constraints. Lacking the empirical evidence that validated an emerging scientific discourse, ordinary fishermen of the 1820s nonetheless sensed changes in the sea. Although the fisheries of the 1820s would look remarkably bountiful to t­oday’s observers, the North Atlantic had for de­cades been a degraded landscape that was periodically (though not sustainedly) the subject of calls for restraint. “By 1800,” Bolster observers, “the northwest Atlantic was beginning to resemble Eu­ro­pean seas.”43 While the baseline would eventually shift and observers would take the spoiled environs as the new norm, fishermen, at least ­those in 1824, may have been spurred to such drastic action knowing their toils produced decreasing marginal returns. At the time, an infant mackerel industry was experiencing its own revolution as the mackerel jig and bait mill inaugurated its own fish slaughter.44 In the coming de­cades, the cod fisheries would undergo their own dramatic shift in technology—­a so-­called revolution—­that would obscure evidence of declining catches. The single-­hook handlines that defined gadoid fishing for centuries eventually gave way to longline fishing. Lines studded with hundreds of hooks more ruthlessly exploited the maritime environment. As midcentury approached, this revolution would satisfy a growing domestic demand to feed industry and its urban workers. But the observers and participants of the Ruby and Reindeer affair had no idea that such a revolution was coming. They faced the limitations of their soon-­to-­be-­outdated gear, exacerbated by their marginal position on the edge of New ­England and the edge, at least for the moment, of the industry. The f­actors that motivated the men of Washington County, Maine, to band together during the summer of 1824 and violently oppose British restrictions included nationalism, Anglophobia, and a resource ideology that transformed sea and land alike and favored local exploitation over

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Figure 3.  “The Mackerel Hook Fishery,” The advent of the mackerel jig, a shiny hook that attracted the fish, revolutionized the fishery by eliminating the laborious task of baiting each hook. Skilled fishermen could haul in a catch and cast back out without having to ­handle the fish or the hook. Source: George Brown Goode, The Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the United States, Section V: History and Methods of the Fisheries (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1887), plate 70.

external restrictions.45 But coursing through ­these accounts was a defensiveness spawned by fears of overfishing and the loss of a livelihood. The Ruby and Reindeer affair was not so much settled as faded from consciousness—in part ­because British authorities feared they ­were on shaky ground. Although the British threatened to officially bring the case before the US government and even prosecute t­hose responsible for the alleged vio­ lence against the crew of the Doterel, British sailors and diplomats themselves ­were less sure such a route was advisable. In the fall of 1824 Addington related to Admiral Lake his thoughts on the subject and w ­ hether the US perpetrators should be charged. The diplomat urged restraint. While Addington may have other­wise been keen on bringing renegade US fishermen to justice, in this case he noted that “the evidence against the two individuals detained by the Master of the Doterel seem . . . ​to be of rather a scanty and partial nature.” As a result, Addington advised that such evidence should be “received with caution” ­because it might fail to convince international observers on

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closer scrutiny.46 ­Later, when writing to George Canning, at the time Britain’s minister for foreign affairs, Addington reiterated his doubts. US fishermen and British sailors offered depositions that ­were “diametrically opposed to each other,” Addington informed his superior, but, crucially, “the American’s [deposition] is on oath which our is not, which of itself would contribute a strong position for this [US] government to occupy should it be disposed to object to the prosecution of the offenders.”47 ­These misgivings about the situation dissuaded the British from pressing the issue. Perhaps they feared losing face on the international stage more than losing a ­couple of fishing schooners the Americans ­were able to recapture from the Royal Navy. But despite this unwillingness to press the issue, the 1824 season showed the British the shortcomings of the 1818 treaty. Charles Vaughn, the British minister to Washington, summed up his misgivings in a missive to London. The Convention of 1818, Vaughn observed, “furnished” a “constant pretext for entering the Bay and Harbours of His Majesty’s American possessions” by allowing US fishermen to come ashore to repair damages and obtain wood and w ­ ater. “Repeated testimony,” Vaughn continued, showed “that the want of wood and ­water has been often alleged when it did not exist, or when the want has been occasioned expressly by a scanty supply having been taken on board at the commencement of the voyage in order that an excuse might not be wanting for entering the harbours.” Essentially, Vaughn accused US fishermen of maliciously circumventing the treaty’s stipulation. As a result, British fishermen had “suffered from the encroachment of the Americans . . . ​which had the effect of driving the fish from ­those quarters.”48 As Canning advised his subordinate in Washington, a sense of ambivalence emanated from London. While the foreign secretary directed Vaughn “to procure from the American Government an acknowledgement of the impropriety of the conduct of the persons concerned in the forcible recapture of the ‘Reindeer’ and ‘Ruby,’ ” that was, more or less, the extent of British action. Canning forbade “all further demand” for the punishment of the Eastport fishermen involved in the fracas with the Royal Navy “on the ground of the act being apparently the result of unpremeditated vio­lence.”49 While London may have wanted a quick resolution to the disturbances on the fisheries—­one that still allowed the British to save face—­such would be impossible without a more thoroughgoing evaluation of the fisheries issue. Without a true resolution to the Ruby and Reindeer affair, the Convention of 1818 remained in place u ­ ntil the 1850s as the agreement that officially governed US access to t­ hese fisheries. The presidential contest of 1824 no doubt demanded the attention of the US po­liti­cal community as charges of intrigue and corruption could easily drown out talk of fishing rights and restrictions.

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The coming de­cades would certainly see more US schooners captured by the British navy for real or alleged infractions, but a revolution in practice and the ac­cep­tance of a shifted baseline sapped some, if not all, urgency and fear within the cod-­fishing industry, even as the shortcomings of the Convention of 1818 ­were manifested in more obvious and pressing ways. What made the 1824 fishing season so dramatic was not the capture of US ships—­nearly ­every year saw some kind of confrontation between US fishermen and British warships. The specific environmental context is what gave fishermen and seamen alike such urgency on the fisheries that year, while exposing just how inadequate the Convention of 1818 truly was.

Anglo-­American Relations and a Move ­toward Détente The imbroglio surrounding the fishing season of 1824 came at a pivotal moment in the history of US foreign relations. Less than a year ­earlier, President James Monroe, showing the strategic influence of Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, articulated what would become his eponymous doctrine. “The American continents,” Monroe’s message read, “by the ­free and in­de­pen­dent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for ­f uture colonization by any Eu­ro­pean powers.”50 ­These words seemed to be a stern warning to the nations of Eu­rope that the Western Hemi­sphere would no longer submit to their imperial domination. It was a startlingly assertive declaration of US foreign policy that, at least implicitly, claimed the entirety of the Amer­i­cas as a sphere for US influence alone. This policy statement would come to be known as the Monroe Doctrine in the 1840s, as the impulses of manifest destiny pushed the nation’s western boundary even further west, and it would go on to have many lives and influence, if not justify, a proactive US foreign policy for more than a ­century. The doctrine became a key event in the history of US foreign relations and the standard fare of textbooks and US history surveys as a symbol of the growing power and assertive nature of the developing United States. This declaration was an example, among many, of the United States shaking off the yoke of Eu­ro­pean colonialism. Yet, when stripped of its subsequent history, in the 1820s this policy statement said as much about the United States’ relationship with G ­ reat Britain as it did about the nation’s relationship with its own hemi­sphere. The foreign policy prob­lem that had the potential to cause perhaps the most prob­lems for the United States during the 1820s was the ongoing Spanish-­

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American wars of in­de­pen­dence. Beginning in the first de­cade of the ­century, ­peoples across the Spanish Empire in the Amer­i­cas had grown restless with Eu­ro­pean colonialism, declared their in­de­pen­dence, and commenced a decades-­long strug­gle to validate that declaration. The series of wars would eventually give rise to a number of new nations in the Western Hemi­sphere, but in the meantime the conflicts presented a diplomatic challenge for the United States, and ffor Eu­rope, for that ­matter.51 Statesmen like Henry Clay, the Kentucky representative, off-­and-on Speaker of the House, ­future secretary of state, and perennial presidential candidate advocated for the immediate and full recognition of ­these emerging nations, while current secretary of state John Quincy Adams counseled restraint and nonintervention, lest the United States become entangled in Eu­ro­pean affairs. The US answer would be in the form of the Monroe Doctrine. Part of the 1823 state of the ­union message, Monroe’s comments w ­ ere directed at the Holy Alliance, the loose affiliation of reactionary Eu­ro­pean monarchies consisting of Austria, Rus­sia, and Prus­sia, who had previously reserved the right to quell any revolution that could threaten their own security. While the declaration of the Holy Alliance was aimed at Eu­ro­pean movements alone—in this case, Greek re­sis­tance to Ottoman rule—­the Monroe administration feared reactionary intervention in the affairs of Spanish Amer­i­ca that could upset US strategic and economic security. Rus­sian activity along the northwestern coast of North Amer­i­ca certainly did not assuage US fears. The final policy statement was an odd mix of anticolonialism and imperialism, nonintervention and proactive foreign policy. But one ­thing was clear: the United States unequivocally opposed Eu­ro­pean meddling in what it considered its hemisphere-­wide sphere of influence.52 But how was the United States able to offer such a bold policy statement and expect the dictates of a second-­rate, republican nation to be taken seriously in the courts of Eu­rope? In a word: Britain. British policymakers ­were as apprehensive about the potential of the Holy Alliance intervening in the Western Hemi­sphere as their transatlantic counter­parts ­were. Before Monroe and his cabinet had settled on the historic doctrine, British foreign secretary George Canning had offered to issue a joint statement warning the Eu­ro­pean monarchies against intervention. Britain was, of course, motivated by their own economic interest of accessing the emerging markets of Latin Amer­i­ca; nonetheless, t­ here was a convergence of US and British aims. Ultimately, u ­ nder Adams’s influence, the Monroe administration rebuffed the British offer and issued a unilateral declaration, but this episode came during what historian Jay Sexton calls “a warming of relations” as the two nations steadily retreated from conditions that had previously brought them to arms.53 In more modern

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parlance, the United States was an international security ­free rider. If any Eu­ ro­pean power did attempt to intervene in the Western Hemi­sphere, the British would employ their military and naval might in opposition, leaving the United States ­free to articulate bold policy with ­little intention, or even ability, to enforce it. Scholars would be hard-­pressed to find keener diplomacy. While the Ruby and Reindeer affair, if not the fisheries issue generally, would give the impression that Anglo-­American relations ­were fraught with prob­ lems to the point of being irreconcilable, putting this event alongside the Monroe Doctrine demonstrates just how difficult it is to characterize this relationship for much of the nineteenth ­century. It is easy to define the relationship when it was at its most fractious—­think the War of 1812—or, conversely, at its most cooperative—­think Reagan and Thatcher—­but the times in between, like the 1820s or even the vast majority of the nineteenth c­ entury, defy ­simple definition. Sexton provides the best way through this quandary. The transatlantic relationship was most productive when premised on the convergence of Anglo-­American interest, which did not, as the Monroe Doctrine illustrated, necessarily require cooperation. As Sexton concludes, “British power served as midwife to the rising American empire” through financial and commercial integration.54 Despite Anglophobia and pointed rhe­toric, the United States and G ­ reat Britain could work together, but that required an alignment of interests. That alignment happened in the case of the Monroe Doctrine and the string of treaties that eased tension a­ fter the War of 1812 and would crescendo in the 1840s, even as the nations seemed to near war over the Oregon boundary. The fisheries issue, despite being addressed in the Convention of 1818, was perhaps the arena in which Anglo-­American interests remained furthest estranged, and thus it sheds much-­needed light on the recesses of the relationship. But ­there ­were rare instances on the fisheries in which interests converged and the United States exploited British power for its own ends. Despite being the main actors in the fisheries drama, the United States, ­Great Britain, and its colonial subjects w ­ ere not alone. For centuries, French fishermen had resorted to the w ­ aters of the Northwest Atlantic. By the nineteenth c­ entury, however, French ships, while f­ree to fish the open w ­ aters of the banks as they pleased, ­were ­limited by treaty stipulations to a relatively confined inshore fishery between Cape Ray and Pointe Riche along the western coast of Newfoundland. The presence of French ships was vexatious to the British and Americans alike. During the fishing season of 1820 and 1821, Americans reported that “several fishing vessels of the United States on the coast and within the strictest territorial jurisdiction of the Island of Newfoundland w ­ ere ordered away by the commanders of French armed vessels upon

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the pain of seizure and confiscation.” While French ships never went so far as to seize US schooners, ­doing so would have created even more tension in an already unstable region. US diplomats, including Adams and Rush, disputed the French right to remove US fishermen from ­waters in the region and protested their claim to have an exclusive right to fish along t­ hose coasts.55 Albert Gallatin—­a dyed-­in-­the-­wool republican who played prominent roles in the Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe administrations—­echoed this sentiment from his post in Paris. In writing to the French minister of foreign affairs, the viscount de Chateaubriand, Gallatin communicated the Monroe administration’s contention that “the United States . . . ​only insist that the right thus enjoyed by France that of taking fish on the portion of the coast [between Cape Ray and Quirpon Island along Newfoundland’s west coast] . . . ​is not exclusive.” Gallatin quoted the Convention of 1800—­the agreement that settled the Quasi War and continued to govern Franco-­American relations—to the French minister: “Neither party,” the treaty read, “­will intermeddle in the Fisheries of the other on its coast nor disturb the other in the exercise of the rights, which it now holds or may acquire on the coast of Newfoundland.”56 For Gallatin, this was indisputable proof that French cruisers had v­ iolated international mores. He observed, “Not only the word ‘exclusive’ is not to be found in the part of the Article which relates to Newfoundland but it is evident from the tone . . . ​that it was not intended by e­ ither party to recognize any such exclusive right in that quarter.”57 But apart from disputing French actions on the fisheries, US policymakers did l­ittle to actually c­ ounter t­hose actions. Curiously, both the Monroe and John Quincy Adams administrations ­were content to let ­Great Britain ­handle the prob­lem and uphold US rights on the very fisheries that continued to bedevil Anglo-­American relations. ­Great Britain would no doubt have looked favorably on the opportunity to restrain, or perhaps even remove, French competitors from the region. Furthermore, the alleged confrontation between the French navy and US fishermen occurred in w ­ aters off Newfoundland, well within Britain’s jurisdiction. In this case, both US and British interests aligned, and US diplomats recognized it. Reflecting on the situation years ­later in a message to Adams, Rush noted that France ordering US schooners off Newfoundland fishing grounds put the onus on ­Great Britain to intervene. Rush outlined the three responsibilities that fell to G ­ reat Britain. First, the British had “to make good the title of the United States to take fish on the coast in question, as stipulated by the convention of 1818.” Second, if G ­ reat Britain could not do so, it must “give the United States an equivalent for the loss of so valuable a right.” And fi­nally, ­Great Britain must “vindicate her own sovereignty over the island already impaired and further threatened by the conduct of the French cruizers t­ owards the fishing vessels

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of the United States.”58 Two years l­ater, Secretary of State Henry Clay remarked that “if France should again manifest an intention, and attempt, to molest our Fishermen, we s­ hall expect from ­Great Britain an effectual maintenance of their rights.”59 Essentially at the same time as US fishermen ­were brought to near blows with the British navy, US diplomats expected their British counter­parts to reaffirm the rights of and defend ­those very fishermen. While the simultaneity of t­ hese events suggests a kind of cognitive dissonance, it is illustrative of the complex nature of Anglo-­American relations and how US goals, even in the fisheries question, still depended on British power. Despite the animosity that typified and would continue to typify the fisheries questions, the 1820s seemed to inaugurate a period of détente in Anglo-­ American relations. As Secretary of State Martin Van Buren noted in 1829, “­There certainly never was a time better calculated for the improvement of the relations between the two countries than the pre­sent.”60 ­Earlier that de­ cade, ­Great Britain had allowed the expansion of trade between the United States and the British West Indies, fi­nally allowing direct shipment of fish. The détente even bloomed into a modest rapprochement at midcentury as a result of the Webster-­Ashburton Treaty of 1842, the settlement of the Oregon Question, and, ultimately, the Marcy-­Elgin Treaty of 1854. While the official relationship between the two Atlantic nations tilted ­toward reconciliation, friction continued to attend Anglo-­American relations. At times, though, the goals of the two nations aligned and they w ­ ere able to act in tandem, as the Monroe Doctrine demonstrated. But border disputes, fear of British-­inspired slave insurrection, and, yes, the fisheries issue threatened to draw the nations into conflict. This narrative of amelioration at the official level obscured what was happening on the ground, where such narratives usually falter. The fisheries issue did not adhere to this story of transatlantic reconciliation at midcentury nor did it entirely contradict it. In this way, the fisheries issue was in line with much of antebellum US diplomacy—­reactive, ad hoc, unsystematic. But the fisheries stand out in this history. The federal government consistently promoted the industry at home and protested the capture of fishermen abroad. In the early republic this issue was not subject to shifting po­liti­cal whims; it was an integral part of US statecraft. As such, the fisheries issue would continue to be marked by controversy as US policymakers and US fishermen responded to any real or perceived threat to the fisheries’ place in the US po­liti­cal economy. The controversy that surrounded the fisheries was built into the very architecture of the fisheries question. As the Ruby and Reindeer affair showed, the Convention of 1818 did not ­settle the fisheries question, it only changed its terms. Disputes would continue as long as the treaty was in effect. During the fractious fishing season of

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1824, observers noted how British authorities made “the mere existence of the treaty the occasion of molesting and injuring innocent and unoffending fishermen, engaged in their lawful pursuits.” Such action was “unworthy of a g­ reat and gallant nation.”61 The fluidity of the marine environment ensured the stasis of the convention’s three-­mile line would create the conditions for ­f uture clashes. The fisheries issue perfectly illustrated why the environment was—­ and continues to be, for that ­matter—so difficult to manage through international fiat. The dynamism of any environment, but especially a maritime one, stands in contrast to a more rigid international agreement, the kind that is out of date as soon as it is signed, and the kind that is one of the diplomat’s few tools. Even as Anglo-­American relations seemed to incline more ­toward reconciliation, controversy (or at least the potential for it) was woven into the very foundation of the relationship. Anglo-­American relations, then, operated at two levels—­one official, the other quotidian. The fisheries issue showed just how divergent ­these two perspectives w ­ ere, as the view from Washington looked ­little like the view from the forecastle. As the fisheries issue entered its sixth de­cade, fishermen continued to stand at the helm of US diplomacy while the ship of state sailed over an ocean in flux.

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“Our Living Is Truly That of Fishermen”

When US consul John Morrow arrived at his post in Halifax in 1834, he had l­ittle direction. Morrow queried Secretary of State Louis McLane about his assignment, wondering w ­ hether US consuls abroad ­were to be held to the same standards as foreign consuls to the United States. “Having been the first Counsel appointed in the British North American Colonies, and without a knowledge of the consideration, in which Counsels of other countries in the United States are held,” the American in Halifax requested to be informed of “the privileges, immunities, and advantages . . . ​ which are granted to Counsels residing in the United States.”1 ­Later that de­cade, the US consul to Pictou, Nova Scotia, James Primrose, requested information about his powers in dealing with a rash of fishing-­schooner seizures. Primrose requested “to be fully informed what my powers are over seamen of the U. States in this port,” hoping such information would “enable me to put forth ­every proper effort, to arrest the pro­gress of an evil of so much magnitude.”2 US consuls w ­ ere sent to the field with l­ittle direction apart from supporting US commercial expansion. In time, however, ­these men would become ligaments of state power that connected policymakers in Washington to fishermen on the North Atlantic, bonding the US commercial empire together. While statesmen experienced diplomacy as a vocation, for fishermen it was an everyday real­ity. The state operated directly in the lives of t­ hese maritime 10 0



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laborers as the arbitrary lines diplomats drew meant the difference between success and failure, riches and ruin. Season a­ fter season, as fishermen went about their work, they w ­ ere intimately aware of how much the state intervened in the operation of the fishing industry. Ignorance of the policies that circumscribed their ­labors could prove disastrous. Given how impor­tant fishermen ­were in how the diplomacy unfolded and how the US state operated, telling this story faithfully requires staying on deck. ­Doing so brings to the fore a rare source—­a diary kept aboard on one of the many fishing voyages that left New ­England during the ­middle de­cades of the nineteenth ­century—­that gives the unvarnished words of an individual fisherman as he navigated backbreaking ­labor and international intrigue. As events like the Ruby and Reindeer affair showed, fishermen found voice in the official rec­ord, too. But it was only during times of crisis that maritime laborers ­were featured in the diplomatic correspondence of the State Department. To find the quotidian experiences that ­shaped the ­labor of fishermen and their understanding of that context, this story taps into the consular rec­ord. As US consuls ­were the direct contact point between the federal government and commercial actors abroad, they interacted with fishermen almost daily, and thus their correspondence with Washington reveals the everyday concerns of t­ hese maritime laborers. By integrating their perspective, this story then becomes one of the lived experiences of US foreign policy and of how individual lives ­were ­shaped by federal power. As the situation on the fisheries changed, consuls w ­ ere the first to know—­after the fishermen themselves, of course.

Growing the US Commercial Empire When Andrew Jackson took the White House in 1828, he did so with the promise to succeed where his pre­de­ces­sor had failed. Although John Quincy Adams was unparalleled in his strategic vision for the US empire—­a vision that often depended on co-­opting British power—he remained unable to actualize the US commercial empire. Standing in his way w ­ ere the British. Since the earliest days of in­de­pen­dence, Americans sought international markets, knowing the viability of the US state relied on accessing markets abroad. And since the earliest days of in­de­pen­dence, the British West Indies remained a prize just out of reach. With few exceptions, during the first half c­ entury of in­de­pen­dence US ships had only l­imited access to the West Indian market and the plantations that had previously consumed much of the fish from the North Atlantic. Commercially minded Americans knew this trade had underwritten North American prosperity during the colonial era and longed to participate in this lucrative trade once again.

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Adams’s attempts to entice or cajole ­Great Britain into opening the islands to US commerce ­were, in a word, inept. US expansion and interest in Latin Amer­i­ca boomed in the de­cade and a half a­ fter the War of 1812 amidst Spain’s retreat from the hemi­sphere. The British ­were inclined to view ­these developments with apprehension and ­were likewise disinclined from working too closely with the architect of this turn in US foreign relations: John Quincy Adams. Even though Adams saw the obvious value of opening trade relations between the United States and the British West Indies, while in the White House, his administration accomplished ­little in pursuit of that goal. Refusing to work with its British counter­part, the Adams administration went so far as to endorse the protective tariff of 1828—an affront to the British. The Adams administration’s ham-­fisted diplomacy became a liability as the 1828 election approached. Months ­after Adams left office, the New Hampshire Pa­ triot and State Gazette sarcastically observed that “the loss of the trade of this country to the En­glish West India Colonies, was one of the most remarkable achievements of ­those greatest of all Statesmen, Messrs. Adams and Clay.” The paper continued, “When it was discovered, too late, that the damage occasioned by their over cunning diplomacy could not be retrieved, they set themselves to prove that the mischief done to our mercantile, agricultural, and shipping interests was altogether trifling.”3 With Jackson’s victory, it fell to the Tennessean to do what Adams never could.4 Jackson was a curious candidate to smooth out this wrinkle in Anglo-­ American relations. Old Hickory had fought in two wars against the British, nearly started a third, and seemed to see British designs on US in­de­pen­dence everywhere. Americans and Eu­ro­pe­ans alike feared Jackson would prove to be a destabilizing force in transatlantic relations given his almost pathological Anglophobia and his hot-­headed nature. But this fear never came to pass. While Jackson’s aversion to British power remained, his administration recognized the need to promote US commerce overseas. Coming as the US economy crested between the troughs of the panics of 1819 and 1837, the Jackson administration was a high-­water mark. The US economy grew tremendously as a result of the Jackson administration’s efforts to expand trade in Eu­rope, Latin Amer­i­ca, and, crucially, the Ca­rib­bean. By 1836 US exports ­were up 75 ­percent and imports up 250 ­percent over Jackson’s first year in the White House. In the three de­cades before the Civil War, total US foreign trade expanded a whopping 411 ­percent. Jackson’s pursuit of commercial treaties was supported by the growth of the US Navy and the consular ser­vice.5 The growth of the US commercial empire depended on the fostering influence of the federal state. But before this new era in US commercial relations could flourish, the Jackson administration needed to deliver on its campaign promise to open up the



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West Indies to US trade. While the new administration hoped the turnover in personnel r­ unning the nation’s foreign relations in both Washington and London would signal a repudiation of Adams’s policies, ­there remained significant impediments to opening trade—­namely, the Tariff of 1828 and the British Corn Laws. On both sides of the Atlantic, ­these policies hampered the ability of policymakers to do anything, even as bankers, plantation ­owners, shippers, and merchants—­the moneyed interests in the United States and across the British Empire—­stood to gain from regular trade between the mainland and the islands. Change would require executive intervention and US legislative initiative to show London that the Jackson administration, unlike its pre­de­ces­ sor, was serious about West Indian trade. In his first annual address to Congress, Jackson highlighted the importance of Anglo-­American relations and in the pro­cess, put the weight of the executive ­behind putting that relationship on a more constructive footing. Divulging “my own views” and “the prevailing sentiments of our constituents,” Jackson, flying in the face of his Anglophobic reputation, observed that “every­ thing in the condition and history of the two nations is calculated to inspire sentiments of mutual re­spect and to carry conviction to the minds of both that it is their policy to preserve the most cordial relations.” Key to preserving ­those cordial relations was “a speedy and acceptable adjustment of our affairs.”6 Topping that list was the issue of trade with the West Indies. While London may have looked on such words favorably, if only as a welcomed alternative to the standoffishness and antagonism Adams displayed on the West Indian question, the British ­were unwilling to make the first move. With congressional support, Jackson set off a chain of events that would culminate in his greatest foreign policy achievement. In October  1830, Jackson—­reversing Adams’s 1825 decision to close US ports to British vessels in response to Britain’s closure of West Indian ports to US vessels—­unilaterally reopened US ports. Since the Jackson administration’s advent, minister to G ­ reat Britain Louis McLane and Secretary of State Martin Van Buren had been working with the Duke of Wellington’s government in anticipation of this event. The British w ­ ere, at least initially, l­ ittle swayed by US assertions that the Jackson administration was committed to compromise to open the West Indian market. The 1828 tariff was a clear sign to Britain that the United States was unwilling to play ball. What would show the British that the United States was willing to compromise was the kind of unilateral action Jackson showed in reopening US ports. Jackson’s initiative paid off, as a month ­after his declaration, the British confirmed their ­earlier pledge to open West Indian ports in reciprocity to the United States opening theirs.7 News of the impending opening of trade was cause for cele­bration. The Sun of Pittsfield, Mas­sa­chu­setts,

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remarked, “We have not only saved a commerce which was almost hopelessly lost through manifold and unaccountable blunders, but President Jackson has acquired for himself the proud honor of accomplishing what was unsuccessfully attempted by Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe.”8 By the end of his second year in office, Jackson had achieved his signal foreign policy goal, and the prosperity of the 1830s was symptomatic of the Jackson administration’s success in encouraging the expansion of US trade. While ­Great Britain had for de­cades, if not for more than a ­century, used protectionist trade policies in pursuit of a mercantile empire, this was the beginning of a shift away from t­ hose restrictions. Within a ­couple de­cades, Britain would fully embrace ­free trade with the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. But for the time being, this modest step ­toward a more open commercial environment in the Atlantic was met with approval by the po­liti­cal class in Britain. The Times of London, remarking on Anglo-­American trade reciprocity, declared, “We cannot but congratulate both countries on so cordial a concurrence in a mea­sure which we hope ­will be ultimately beneficial to both, what­ever effect it may have at first on the private interests of our colonies on the American continent.”9 Amidst this optimism about the warming of transatlantic relations t­ here was one party that was conspicuously absent: Britain’s North American colonies. As the Times’s reaction to the opening of West Indian trade to US ships and goods indicated, British leaders ­were ­little concerned about its effect on their North American colonies. The British po­liti­cal community was aware that this decision would run ­counter to Canadian interests, given the ability of producers in the United States to outcompete ­those of Canada for the supply and provisioning trade to the West Indies. Perhaps they simply did not care about how this decision would influence the North American colonies, or perhaps it was not disregard but just a willingness to sacrifice Canada’s interests in the name of other imperial goals. ­Either way, this was a power­f ul statement concerning Canada’s place in the British Empire. Within less than a de­cade, grievances about Canada’s relationship with London would ignite rebellion and hasten the coming of confederation in the 1860s. While Canada seemed poised to lose out as a result of Anglo-­American reciprocity, fishermen in the United States w ­ ere well positioned to be among the many beneficiaries of a growing US commercial empire. The fish trade between the North Atlantic and the Ca­rib­bean was well established by the nineteenth ­century. As a cheap source of protein with a long shelf life, dried, salted fish was frequently purchased by plantation ­owners in the British, Spanish, and French West Indies to provision enslaved laborers. US in­de­pen­dence had severed this connection between New ­England and the British islands, so US fish-



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ermen w ­ ere enthusiastic about the prospect of regaining this trade. From the fishermen’s backyard, the Salem Gazette noted, “The trade to the British ports in the West Indies is very impor­tant to this country. Maine . . . ​­will be immediately benefited by the arrangement.”10 ­These words would prove prophetic as the fishing industry in Maine expanded significantly over the subsequent de­cades, with investment made pos­si­ble in part by the lucrative and now-­legal trade with the British West Indies.11 But the years of excluding US fish from British-­controlled islands had changed the nature of the trade from North Amer­ic­ a to the Ca­rib­bean, which by the 1830s was the destination for 90 ­percent of US cod exports. During the first few de­cades of US in­de­pen­dence, Cuba had emerged as the primary buyer of New E ­ ngland fish and was the leading international consumer of dried fish ­until 1860. At midcentury the Spanish Ca­rib­bean accounted for over half of all US fish shipped abroad. To explain the “Hispanic flavor of the New ­England fish trade” during the nineteenth ­century, historian Wayne M. O’Leary points to the two perennial ­drivers of fish consumption across the Atlantic world: slavery and Catholicism. T ­ hese forces ­shaped the society of the Spanish Ca­rib­ bean, given the social, cultural, and spiritual authority of the Roman church that forbade the consumption of meat (but not fish) for much of the year. Furthermore, dried salted cod also remained a favorite of plantation masters looking to provision their enslaved laborers as cheaply as pos­si­ble without turning over precious sugar-­growing lands to the production of foodstuffs. “Thus,” O’Leary concludes, “the Spanish West Indies—­Catholic, tropical, neo-­feudal, monocultural, and always receptive to trade—­were an ideal market for the products of the New E ­ ngland fisheries.”12 The twin forces of slavery and Catholicism also drove the expansion of the domestic market for North Atlantic fish. With the cotton kingdom expanding across the Old Southwest, the number of enslaved p­ eople laboring in the Lower Mississippi River Valley expanded significantly. Like their counter­parts in the Ca­rib­bean, slave masters in the South resorted to New ­England–­caught cod and mackerel to sustain the workforce. St. Louis’s Daily Commercial Bulletin noted the region’s growing demand for mackerel. “We have found at home,” the paper read, “a ­g reat and annually increasing demand for mackerel. . . . ​ Two-­thirds of the ­whole catch of Mas­sa­chu­setts, New Hampshire and Maine, are wanted in the Valley of the Mississippi.”13 One how-to guide for cotton plantation masters specified that in addition to rice, cornmeal, and peas, weekly rations for 170 enslaved ­people should include “twenty barrels of salt fish.”14 New Orleans emerged as a vital point of disembarkation for North Atlantic fish, becoming a “keystone” of the antebellum fish trade. The southern port was an impor­tant node in the “fish-­cotton-­salt triangle” that saw

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­ ankee skippers trade North Atlantic fish for cotton in New Orleans, which Y was subsequently traded in Liverpool for salt, an indispensable commodity for preserving fish, before starting the cycle anew.15 Closer to the fisheries, the growth of urban centers along the East Coast also expanded the domestic demand for fish. As the ranks of urban industrial workers swelled in cities like Boston, New York, and Philadelphia during the m ­ iddle de­cades of the nineteenth c­ entury, dried and pickled fish from the North Atlantic became a staple for the same reason it fed enslaved workers further south: its relative cheapness. The urban North also drove domestic demand upward b­ ecause of the growing immigrant presence in the cities. Starting in the 1830s, the rising tide of immigration, first from Ireland and ­later in the ­century from southern Eu­rope, was predominately Catholic.16 As midcentury approached, fish consumption in the United States was largely defined by marginal populations subsisting on salted catches. In time, however, tastes, preferences, and technologies would shift in ­favor of fresh fish. Fishing was itself an impor­tant industrial sector that contributed to vitality of the US economy during the antebellum era. Yet, fish did more than just feed workers North and South. What was once discarded as unconsumable by-­products of fishing became the feedstock of industrial production. Oil rendered from aquatic organisms was nothing new in nineteenth-­century Amer­ i­ca. Whale oil had lighted homes for more than a c­ entury, and cod-­liver oil had been used to treat maladies ranging from rheumatism to tuberculosis. But during the m ­ iddle de­cades of the nineteenth c­ entury, oil rendered from cod, mackerel, menhaden, and numerous other species could increasingly be found in products like paint, leather, soap, rope, and the lubricants that greased the wheels of US industry. Even the skin, bones, and offal found new life as “fish guano,” which harkened back to centuries-­old practices of fertilizing fields with fish in the hopes of solving the crisis of declining soil fertility that vexed nineteenth-­century agriculturists.17 Even as markets for US fish shifted, the federal government continued to use its powers to benefit the industry. With the Jackson administration’s success in opening a new market for domestic producers, US diplomacy had once again tilted in f­ avor of the fishing industry. But the US diplomatic corps did not work alone in annexing a new province to this growing commercial empire; the consular ser­vice and the US Navy ­were necessary collaborators. Diplomats, consuls, and seamen ­were direct manifestations of state power that facilitated commercial expansion during the Age of Jackson. While they w ­ ere not the only beneficiaries of this extension of state power, fishermen and the fishing industry yet again stood to gain from federal support.



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In the 1830s the US Navy was undergoing a series of changes that would improve its ability to facilitate the growth of the commercial empire. For de­ cades, the Navy played an impor­tant role in defending US commerce, but it was a role largely ­limited to combating piracy and showing the flag in commercially impor­tant ports. But starting in the 1830s, as growing US trade created greater pressure for an expanded peacetime force, the Navy was proactive in opening new markets to US commerce through identifying markets ripe for US exploitation, concluding diplomatic treaties, and, crucially, gathering commercial and nautical information. The expanded peacetime role of the Navy was largely an ad hoc pro­cess as naval policy, such as it was at the time, fixated on debates over w ­ hether or not the United States should follow the lead of examples like G ­ reat Britain and France in constructing large navies.18 When he came into office, Jackson was in no way a navalist. In his inaugural annual message to Congress, Jackson was clear: “In time of peace we have need of no more ships of war than are requisite to the protection of our commerce.”19 What constituted a force adequate to protect that commerce, however, changed significantly. By the end of his presidency Jackson had deployed naval force in Sumatra in the name of US commerce and had overseen the creation of the new East India Squadron. In his 1837 farewell address, Jackson articulated a far more expansive understanding of the Navy, telling Americans, “Your Navy ­will not only protect your rich and flourishing commerce in distant seas, but w ­ ill enable you to reach and annoy the e­ nemy and w ­ ill give to defense its greatest efficiency by meeting danger at a distance from home.”20 Indicative of how naval activity directly aided commercial skippers in shipping US produce to foreign markets was the creation of the Depot of Charts and Instruments in 1830. The depot was charged with providing up-­to-­date and accurate naval charts to US merchant mari­ners and whaling fleets. Working with hydrographers in and out of the ser­vice, and across the Atlantic, the depot created charts that promised safer, faster, and thus cheaper voyages for civilian mari­ners by mapping dangerous obstacles and advantageous currents. As fish went from the chilly ­waters of the North Atlantic to markets in North Amer­i­ca, the Ca­rib­bean, and the Mediterranean, ­those voyages benefited from charts that increased the efficiency of seaborne travel. In the words of the historian Jason W. Smith, t­hese charts, and the seamen and scientists who made them, “constructed a new vision of American commercial empire on the ocean,” one now embodied in t­ hese graphic repre­sen­ta­tions of shores and shoals across the globe.21 Given that the Depot of Charts and Instruments, and its ­later iteration, the Naval Observatory and Hydrographical Office, was on the forefront of the Navy’s new mission in expanding the commercial

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empire, it was no surprise that the most innovative and farsighted naval scientist and thinker of the time, Matthew Fontaine Maury, made his ­career as its superintendent. T ­ hese efforts by the Navy to collect and curate information about the natu­ral world for commercial benefit w ­ ere not carried out in isolation. The ­middle de­cades of the nineteenth ­century would see increasingly urgent calls for the federal government to support the cause of agricultural reform aimed at improving the knowledge of farmers so that they could coax more produce from their fields. The accumulation of scientific knowledge at sea and on land during this era would soon create divisions between the experts—­respected men of science—­and ordinary laborers who did the work.22 Seamen and sailors ­were not the only agents of the commercial empire. US consuls ­were sent abroad to facilitate the trade in US produce and goods. In the pro­cess, ­these consuls became the most ubiquitous and far-­flung manifestations of state power in the world. Early US foreign relations w ­ ere conducted with ­little professionalism by a large cast of characters. While the president, the secretary of state, and State Department officials in ministerial posts across the globe—­though primarily concentrated in Eu­rope and the emerging national capitals of Latin Amer­ic­ a—­were officially charged with the conduct of the nation’s diplomacy, it was the ­people on the ground (or in most cases, on the w ­ ater) who created and executed a kind of ad hoc foreign policy that could at times directly clash with dictates from Washington. Maritime laborers ­were the largest class of Americans to leave the nation’s shores and ­were the nation’s primary contact with foreign p­ eoples and places.23 But given the commercial imperative of so much of the nation’s foreign relations, the consular ser­vice played an impor­tant (though only recently appreciated) role in facilitating US intercourse with the world beyond. With federal sanction and postings in ports and entrepôts across the globe, US consuls w ­ ere on the frontier of the commercial empire and w ­ ere uniquely situated to observe—­ and when necessary, intervene in—­the relationships between Americans and the citizens and subjects of other nations.24 US consuls during the first few de­cades of the nineteenth c­ entury ­were disor­ga­nized and received ­little from Washington in the way of training or salary. They ­were, from the beginning, charged with facilitating trade and commercial opportunities, and unlike the diplomatic core, w ­ ere not culled from elite, po­liti­cally connected families. Instead, they came from the merchant class and ­were well attuned to the commercial needs of the nation and themselves. Consular ser­vice began to change in the 1830s with the growth of US foreign trade. More ports demanded the attention of the federal state as their importance in the commercial empire grew. Soon enough, t­ hese consuls would take



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up the fishermen’s cause. The first US consuls to the British provinces ­were dispatched in the 1830s. ­These consuls would make their homes in the Maritime provinces. In Halifax in 1833, St. John in 1835, and Pictou and Sydney in 1837, US consular agents took to their posts in t­hese seaside towns to facilitate commercial activity. In d­ oing so, they created a rec­ord of the everyday comings and g­ oings of US fishermen, offering a perspective of just how state power operated at the (sea)grassroots.

Consuls and Captures The maritime world became the central concern of consular agents, as ships and sailors ­were the conduits of trade. But the latter would become a constant source of friction as consuls groused to their superiors in Washington that rowdy sailors seemed too often to make the kind of trou­ble with locals that bedev­iled smooth commercial relations. In the exotic ports of the Pacific, lone consuls often found themselves attempting to minimize the fallout as the racist impulses of US sailors ensured their contact with islanders was ­limited to fighting and fucking. Such interactions made for poor diplomacy.25 Closer to home, consuls w ­ ere less concerned with restraining the impulses of maritime laborers, since the commercial goals of fishermen and the state seemed to better align in the North Atlantic than in the Far East. In the Maritime provinces, US consuls ­were not entirely consumed by confrontations and rambunctious seamen. One of John Morrow’s first tasks on his appointment to Halifax was to secure remuneration from provincial authorities for Joseph Gorham, master of the schooner Golconda of Harwich, Mas­sa­chu­setts, who aided the St. Joseph of St. Johns, Newfoundland. Captain Gorham “broke a blood vessel . . . ​and has become convalescent,” aftter performing “a sacred duty” by rescuing the crew of the Canadian ship, which was in danger of sinking. Morrow successfully sought recompense for the provisions consumed by the crew of the St. Joseph ­after Captain Gorham was moved by the “princi­ple of humanity to save the lives of so many h ­ uman beings who w ­ ere in danger of perishing.”26 This kind of cooperation was, however, not the norm. Given Halifax’s prominent position in the Maritime provinces, many of the complaints emanating from the fisheries w ­ ere directed through the consul posted ­there. Morrow reported to Washington in the early months of 1837 that the provincial legislature had passed an act that would entail stricter enforcement of Britain’s rights on the fisheries in accordance with the Convention of 1818—he “anticipate[d] much trou­ble from its operation.”27 The late 1830s and early 1840s would witness a spike in the number of captures for real

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or ­imagined violations of the three-­mile proscription of the 1818 treaty. The response of US fishermen would be largely the same as it had been for the previous decade—­appealing to US authorities to defend their rights. The British, however, would develop and articulate a somewhat novel reading of the convention in an effort to bar US fishermen from even more ­waters. But fishermen from both sides would grow aggravated with the convention as it grew increasingly out of touch with the real­ity of the marine environment. The most spectacular of t­ hese captures came during the fishing season of 1841. On October 4 of that year, Francis Bennett, master of the schooner Mars, was deposed in Halifax for alleged infractions. Unlike the Ruby, Reindeer, and other schooners captured a de­cade and a half ­earlier, the Mars made berth at Gloucester, one of the g­ reat cod-­fishing ports of Mas­sa­chu­setts. If Lubec stood on the periphery of the fishing industry, Gloucester was its center. Befitting this position, the Mars was most likely a more capital-­intensive enterprise, with a much larger geographic footprint. Leaving its home port on September 5, the Mars sailed through the Gut of Canso—­the narrow strait separating Cape Breton Island from the mainland of Nova Scotia—­headed ­toward the fishing grounds of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, or possibly even through the Strait of Belle Isle to the Labrador Sea. But the voyage was cut short. On September 22, while “almost seven marine miles from any land,” the Mars was “saluted by a shot” from a vessel “carry­ing American Colours and no other flying.” Yet, the ship festooned in US colors “proved to be the British Government cutter, although she wore the National colours of the United States of Amer­i­ca.” British sailors, “all armed with pistols,” boarded the US schooner, leaving the US crew “at the mercy of the invaders.” The Mars was towed to Guysborough and the crew was “put onshore . . . ​and ­there set adrift.” In his defense, Bennett claimed that the Mars had engaged in fishing only one day of the journey, on September 19 while “four marine miles from the land.” In many ways this was typical of fishermen depositions. Yet, details of this capture raised questions about the place of the United States on the high seas. The capture was unique in that deponents claimed British ships used the US flag as a kind of cover to lull the US schooner into a feeling of security, making capture all the easier. ­Whether this story was true or embellished, the impression remained that the United States could not police the use of its flag in the maritime world. Coming at the same time as illicit slave traders flew the US flag to avoid inspection by the British navy, this episode suggests US sovereignty on the ocean was a fiction that even evoked questions about national legitimacy.28 Alongside this bizarre episode was a series of more mundane captures that when taken together, suggested a shift in British policy. The consuls in both Halifax and Pictou remarked that deposed US skippers indicated that British



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officials had introduced a change in practice. First, officials in Nova Scotia began charging US ships for passage through the Gut of Canso or barred US fishermen outright from using that waterway. The US consul in Pictou, James Primrose, remarked that allowing this restriction set a poor pre­ce­dent, as “the Provincial Government may at any time impose such restrictions on its navigation as would amount to a prohibition of its use as a commodious access to the fishing grounds in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.”29 Second, British officials sought to bar all US fishermen from the Bay of Fundy by claiming the three-­ mile zone off-­limits to Americans extended from an imaginary line drawn from ­either of the bay’s headlands. The so-­called headland doctrine was confirmed by the home government, as instructions to the governor of Nova Scotia indicated that “the proscribed distance of three miles is to be mea­sured from the headland or other points of land next to the sea of the coasts; or of the entrance of the Bay, and not from the indention of such Bays or indents of the coast.” A report of the Commercial Society of Halifax noted that such an interpretation served the “double purpose of protecting the rights of our own fishermen and the provincial revenue.” “If the opinion lately given by the highest ­legal authorities in the ­mother country be followed,” the report continued, “the value of the British Fisheries may at a f­ uture day be greatly enhanced.”30 A US fisherman would ­later mock the logic of the headland doctrine. Following the capture of the schooner Argus during the summer of 1844, master William Doughty appealed directly to Washington. In a missive to Secretary of State John C. Calhoun, the fisherman crafted a familiar story of helplessness. Doughty noted that even though his ship was captured fifteen miles from land, “if the British construction of the Treaty is right, then no American can fish in the Bay of Fundy, even if he is fifty miles from any shore.” The fishermen would go on to sardonically suggest that, in keeping with the spirit of British policy, the United States might “draw a line from Cape Florida to Cape Cod and say that means three ‘Marine miles from our shores’ between ­these capes.”31 For the US fishermen, this shift in policy was unacceptable. The Convention of 1818 had created more prob­lems; US consuls did not fail to notice the shortcomings. While the deceptively clear language of the convention supposedly laid out the rights of US fishermen, it was the harbinger of more and greater friction. From Halifax, the US consul noted that Britain’s insistence on a stricter defense of their fisheries would be costly for both the United States and ­Great Britain. Following the capture of five fishing schooners during the fall of 1841, the consul reported that “­unless something more definite than the Convention [of 1818] . . . ​­shall be carried into effect, ­these seizures must . . . ​ be a source of ­g reat annoyance both to the Government of the United States

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as well as that of G ­ reat Britain.”32 From Pictou, consul James Primrose called the “almost indiscriminate seizure of American fishing craft” a “­g reat evil.”33 US critiques of the convention and its shortcomings ­were not confined to ruminating on the larger po­liti­cal consequences. The treaty of 1818 was obnoxious b­ ecause it did not comport with nature. One Yankee skipper, Isaac Smith, master of the schooner Pioneer of S­ ullivan, Maine, remarked that the three-­mile limit was absurd given the nature of the environment of the open sea. The commander of the British vessel, Smith remarked, “endeavored to ascertain the distance by sailing his vessel t­ owards the shore, calculating the distance by comparing the rate of her sailing as ascertained by her log, with the time spent in ­running the distance between the place of seizure and shore, but,” the testimony went on, “deponent saith that he commenced to run at least half a mile within the spot where deponent’s schooner had been at anchor, nor did he proceed nearer the shore than a quarter of a mile, and the wind at the time was so variable.” This convoluted deposition suggested the prob­lems of mea­sur­ing distance across the homogenous, undifferentiated sea. Smith concluded by observing “that it is impossible . . . ​[to] have mea­ sured the distance with any certainty.”34 The rigidity of the three-­mile rule made l­ittle sense in a fluid world. Changes in the structure of the fishing industry and the ecol­ogy of the region also demonstrated the shortcomings of the Convention of 1818. By the 1840s the treaty was simply out of date. In 1818 cod was almost the only fish of commercial importance, as had been the case for centuries. As midcentury approached, mackerel grew increasingly impor­tant, in part b­ ecause of cod’s relative decline as a result of climatic fluctuations (as discussed in chapter 5). Mackerel’s habits and ecol­ogy demanded transgressing the artificially imposed three-­mile limit. In an 1844 dispatch to Secretary of State Abel Upshur from T. B. Livingston, consul at Halifax, the consul noted that mackerel catches had been “unusually large,” on account of the fact that “the Fish ran in shore and thus become an easy prey to the fishermen.” This habit was a prob­lem, however, given the current geopo­liti­cal situation. Livingston “regretted that some better understanding in regard to the Fisheries could not be entered into between the United States and G ­ reat Britain, as the pre­sent Treaty prevents American Fishermen from taking or curing fish within three marine miles.” The consul continued, noting, “It is a well known fact that in order to take ‘Mackerel’ our fishermen must encroach within ­these limits, and generally escape seizure from out sailing the British cruisers.”35 This sentiment was reflected in James Primrose’s observations from Pictou. Primrose did note that Britain’s greater vigilance on the fisheries “has had its origin in the disappointed feelings of Nova Scotia fishermen, on seeing



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themselves so far outstripped, in the successful pursuit of so valuable a branch of commerce, by the superior perseverance and skill of their enterprising neighbors.” But also owing to that vigilance was the blatant violation of the treaty by US fishermen, as “a tempting shoal of fish is sometime, ­either from ignorance or the excitement of the moment, followed across the prescribed limit.” Despite what their testimonies may have suggested, fishermen did in fact invade British w ­ aters, lured t­here by the prospect of hearty catches. In ­doing so, they demonstrated the convention’s faults.36 The world the Convention of 1818 was made for was simply no longer the world t­hese diplomats and fishermen lived in. In time, mackerel catching in British ­waters would prime the pump of a significant Anglo-­American confrontation, but for now, it gave fishermen grounds on which to dispute both the convention and Britain’s stricter enforcement of its provisions. But US fishermen w ­ ere not alone in their growing uneasiness with the treaty. Understandably, the perspectives of the fishermen and the merchants of the British provinces ­were not often found in the diplomatic and consular correspondence of the United States. But glimpses do exist among t­ hese rec­ords. ­These fragments suggested that provincial subjects likewise chafed ­under the current fisheries regime as they groused about both US and French competition in the region. Like their US counter­parts, provincial fishermen and merchants appealed to authorities while emphasizing their innocence and victimhood. In an odd irony, both US and provincial fishermen, competitors on the w ­ ater, used similar tactics in the hope of achieving similar aims. A memorial of George Handley, a merchant from Halifax with interests in a number of fishing vessels, illustrated the kinds of complaints provincials addressed to British authorities. While Handley and his crews had made all the necessary arrangements for a successful fishing voyage “[­free] from the interference of foreigners fishing on the British coasts,” Handley and his like have “been subjected to heavy loss and to disappointment painful and unexpected as result from circumstances against which a British subject should not be called upon to guard.” The grim real­ity of the situation for Handley was that “it is impossible for British subjects u ­ nder such circumstances to prosecute their business. . . . ​­Unless some protection is afforded . . . ​the British fisheries must be abandoned.” The fisheries issue would emerge as an impor­tant ele­ ment in British intra-­imperial politics, as provincial residents like Handley obviously had a far greater interest in the fisheries than other British subjects. For Handley and t­ hose in his employ, the prob­lem was too g­ reat a competition from French and US fishermen. The French for centuries had claimed the right to fish along the western coast of Newfoundland. Yet, Peter McPhee, part owner with Handley of the brigantine Dove of Halifax, claimed that the French

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had upset their lawful fishing. During June 1836, while seining for herring in St. George’s Bay, the Dove was engaged by “about forty Frenchmen, armed with guns,” and forced to stop fishing. The French captain, a Mr. Baullett, claimed “that British subjects had no right to take Fish in that Bay, or on the coast,” and that he alone possessed a grant from the French government to fish ­those w ­ aters. This story was corroborated by a number of the British crewmen, and the Dove was forced to return home with but a fraction of the fish it hoped to take. Handley and his men admitted no wrongdoing, yet l­ater, a merchant from St. George’s Bay, John Misservey, claimed residents of the coast appealed to the French captain to arrest the crew of the Dove, not ­because they ­were British, but ­because of how they went about their fishing. Misservery noted that seining was “contrary to the custom of the fishing in this harbor, at so early a period, as by so ­doing the Herrings are driven out from the harbor, to the manifest loss and disadvantage of ­every fisherman ­here residing, and the major part of whom are British subjects.” In all, the crew of the Dove brought that misfortune on themselves “by willfully and maliciously preserving, contrary to the custom of this Bay, in injuring the fishery.” It would become a standard part of fishery politics that how fish ­were caught mattered as much as when and where.37 While this incident did not directly implicate US fishermen or the Convention of 1818, it was indicative of how restive provincials w ­ ere becoming about the state of their fisheries. A report emanating from Nova Scotia’s assembly ­house directly attacked the Convention of 1818, regretting ­Great Britain ever gave US fishermen the right to fish t­ hose ­waters. The report appeared in the Novascotian Colonial Herald and was authored by James  B. Uniacke, ­later the first premier of Nova Scotia. Uniacke did not mince words as he described the current state of the fisheries as “a melancholy picture of the evil consequences flowing from . . . ​the flagrant violation of the subsisting treaties” between the United States and ­Great Britain. The Nova Scotian traced this evil to the Treaty of Paris, the source from “which flowed a torrent of misfortune to the inhabitants of this Province.” Insisting that the fisheries ­were the “inherent right” of the provincials and “unquestionably belonged to Britain,” Uniacke continued his attack, inveighing that u ­ nder the 1818 treaty “the inhabitants of this Colony have been a second time stripped of their natu­ral rights.” In all, the “fatal Treaty” deprived provincial subjects of “their most valuable Birthright, The Fisheries.” Uniacke’s argument was not solely based on abstract notions of rights, but was also, in part, an environmental critique. The United States posed a threat to the fishing commons as “the mode of taking fish by the Americans, particularly Mackerel, has a tendency to impair, and ­will ultimately destroy the fishery.” Mackerel jigging was “a



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system destructive to the Fishery, by wounding more fish than are taken,” ultimately driving the fish “an im­mense distance from land, and beyond the reach of the Net or Shore fishermen.”38 The culture of exploitation, which by midcentury had sapped the fertility of countless acres, ignited a guano boom in the Pacific, and steadily deforested once lush swathes of North Amer­i­ca, did not end at the coastline.39 Uniacke concluded with the observation that “the pre­sent situation of the fisheries of Nova Scotia is appalling.” While the fishery was once “close to inexhaustible source of wealth,” now “the ­whole is para­lyzed by the interference of other Nations, and the ­people must abandon the net and shore fishery” or “follow the example of their rivals, and adopt a mischievous and ultimately destructive system.”40 Fishermen and t­hose interested in this maritime resource, from both the United States and the British provinces, ­were dissatisfied with the Convention of 1818. Both sides felt the treaty stipulations worked to their disadvantage. While for Uniacke, the fisheries issue and complaints about the 1818 treaty may have just been a way to address larger prob­lems in the province’s relationship with G ­ reat Britain, the situation on the w ­ ater seemed like it was heading ­toward a dire confrontation. Diplomats in Washington and London, however, ­were soon to inaugurate a minor flowering of Anglo-­American relations that merely allowed tensions on the fisheries to fester. In 1842, as US consuls funneled the complaints of fishermen to Washington, diplomats including Secretary of State Daniel Webster focused attention on larger strategic terms as they reconsidered the nature of Anglo-­American relations. Friction on the fisheries was not the only issue that threatened the peaceful and productive intercourse of the transatlantic nations. Instead, questions of the United States’ northern border, crimes subject to extradition, and ongoing attempts to end the transatlantic slave trade captured the attention of Anglo-­US policymakers as the two nations again resorted to treaty making to remedy international irritants. The resulting agreement, the Webster-­ Ashburton Treaty, has been hailed as an impor­tant part of a kind of midcentury rapprochement between the two English-­speaking nations. Along with the settlement of the Oregon Question and the conclusion of the US-­Mexican War, the Webster-­Ashburton Treaty was part of G ­ reat Britain’s fi­nally recognizing the United States as an emerging world power and a competent peer. Seeing the 1840s as a significant turning point in Anglo-­American relations, however, overlooks the degree to which the fisheries issue remained unresolved and thus liable to prevent truly peaceful transatlantic ties. The Webster-­Ashburton Treaty of 1842 was negotiated in Washington by Secretary of State Daniel Webster and the British diplomat Lord Ashburton, scion of the prominent Baring banking ­family. Although the treaty did include

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provisions that fi­nally required the United States to actively participate in international efforts to end the transatlantic slave trade by committing a certain number of vessels to the African coast, much of the treaty concerned North American issues. Most prominently, the treaty settled the northeastern boundary between Maine and New Brunswick, a question that dated to the revolutionary era. Strangely, even though many of the events and issues that precipitated the treaty negotiations concerned friction along the US-­Canadian frontier—­including the Caroline affair, the resulting trial of Alexander McLeod, and the Aroostook War—­the course of negotiations and the ultimate treaty itself remained s­ ilent on as old a North American question as t­ here was: the fisheries.41 This silence has been maintained by historians of the treaty. In what is still the standard account of the treaty and its negotiation, historian Howard Jones makes no reference to the fisheries question, while concluding that the agreement potentially forestalled a third Anglo-­American war by fixing a relationship that neared total breakdown. As Jones would have it, the Webster-­Ashburton Treaty affirmed for Americans that they had at last earned British approval.42 But the ongoing fisheries question would seem to upset that conclusion, as Britain’s heavy-­handed tactics showed that the United States was still the ju­ nior partner. The treaty’s elision of the fisheries issue may actually have been symptomatic of a desire among diplomats for this kind of détente. The fisheries question was simply too fraught to address. As t­ hose in Washington saw it, exposing the uneasy peace that the fisheries experienced ­under the Convention of 1818 to greater scrutiny would have brought to light its shortcomings and the necessity of a full-­scale revision. In an example of choosing po­liti­cal expediency over this maritime resource, fishermen and fish took a back seat to other geopo­liti­cal goals, as they had in Ghent a generation e­ arlier. The US government opted to kick the fisheries can further down the road in ­favor of a de-­escalation of what policymakers feared was a more immediate threat. The personalities of t­hese diplomats in par­tic­ul­ar, Webster and Ashburton, ­were central to the conclusion of this agreement, as both men, for personal, cultural, and financial reasons, favored conciliation to confrontation, finesse to friction.43 In time, the fisheries issue would return to the top of the Anglo-­American po­liti­cal agenda as Britain’s embrace of ­free trade in 1846 would change the calculus of the relationship, but for now, Americans overlooked protests from the fisheries in f­ avor of an unstable peace on the ­water and settling other concerns. In the face of diplomatic stasis, however, the fishing went on.



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Life aboard the Mary C. Ames ­ fter slow growth during the 1830s—­with the mackerel industry even bottomA ing out following the Panic of 1837—­the 1840s would witness both cod and mackerel fishermen experiencing rising catches. New En­glanders committed more men and ships to the endeavor even as catch efficiencies dropped, indicating an ecosystem straining to accommodate the loss of more and more fish. But in the face of bigger loads of fish coming in, such fretting failed to stop pro­cesses already in motion. The schooners that left their New E ­ ngland berths during this de­cade to extract wealth from the seas w ­ ere all largely motivated by similar desires and used similar tactics in pursuing their goals. No vessel was more extraordinary than any other. Yet, one schooner did leave what is perhaps a unique trace on the historical rec­ord, offering a singular perspective on the US fisheries at midcentury. In the summer of 1847 the schooner Mary C. Ames left Newburyport, Mas­ sa­chu­setts, heading for the cod-­fishing grounds of Newfoundland and Labrador. She carried the usual assortment of men who made fishing voyages. They most likely ranged in age from their teens to their forties; some w ­ ere lifelong mari­ners, while ­others worked shipboard seasonally and spent the rest of the year as agricultural laborers. They all prob­ably had some connection to Newburyport, if not familial connections to each other.44 But among this group was someone unique: a diarist.45 Including the perspectives of laborers is certainly not a novel twist on writing maritime history; including the remarks of a diarist aboard a fishing schooner during the mid-­nineteenth c­ entury, however, might be.46 The nature of the ­labor accounts for this discrepancy. During the nineteenth ­century, a whaling voyage, for instance, took men away from their homes for years, leaving them much idle time to write, carve scrimshaw, and in other ways create physical artifacts of their time at sea. Cod fishing, however, was quite dif­fer­ent. Typical voyages lasted mere months, if not weeks, making this kind of recordkeeping difficult given the short duration of time at sea and the intensity of ­labor. Although this diary, by its very uniqueness, offers an idiosyncratic perspective on the cod-­fishing industry of the nineteenth-­ century United States, it nonetheless offers a wealth of information. No other source offers the unfiltered words of a US fisherman from this era. The schooner that departed Newburyport in June 1847 was dif­fer­ent from the schooners captured in the Bay of Fundy more than two de­cades ­earlier—­she was bigger, newer, and made for much longer voyages. The Mary C. Ames was built in 1845 in Newburyport by James L. Townsend and William Currier. She was much larger (carry­ing 108 tons) and more seaworthy than the Maine

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Figure 4.  “The Bank Hand-­Line Cod Fishery.” The twin-­masted schooner was typical for New ­England cod-­fishing voyages to the G ­ rand Banks and points further north. In all likelihood, the Mary C. Ames resembled a ship like this. Source: George Brown Goode, The Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the United States, Section V: History and Methods of the Fisheries (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1887), plate 23.

schooners that made quick jaunts to the Bay of Fundy. Instead, the Mary C. Ames sailed many times farther—­for the Newfoundland fishing grounds, or even through the Strait of Belle Isle for the Labrador Sea. She took a complement of approximately a dozen sailors, which in 1847 would have included our unnamed diarist.47 ­Little is known of the diary keeper, as the diary was left unsigned. What we do know, however, is that the diarist made the voyage in order to improve his health. While it seems counterintuitive that anyone would believe in the palliative effects of maritime l­abor, notoriously dangerous work that it was (and still is), the diary is littered with references to health and well-­being, and meditations on death. From his arrival in Newburyport, the diarist commented on the salubrity of the maritime environment, noting that “I should think it must be quite healthy ­here in consequence of the purity of the atmosphere. The buildings are not so crowded together ­here, as they are in many places.”48 Although good health was his goal, death and his own mortality w ­ ere never far from his mind. On seeing a cemetery in Newburyport, the diarist remarked that ­there “all lie entombed together, locked in the embrace of death! O! Proud



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man! What are all the boastings in thy vain-­glorious strength! Thou ­will soon be as a ­thing of naught; as the dust which is scattered upon the strange winds.” ­Later, during the voyage, “a ­brother sailor and fishermen” had died from an unspecified malady, leaving the diarist to wax poetic on mortality. “Alas!” he intoned, “For the vanity of h ­ uman existence: Death is upon us in the midst of Life.” Yet the diarist felt “melancholy was begotten in my bosom,” when he considered that the deceased fisherman was left so far from home and the comfort of kin, ­dying “in the hand of strangers.”49 ­These musing on life and death made invocations of the divine a theme r­ unning through his writing; he clearly was moved by a sense of religiosity, yet his most rhapsodic passages ­were reserved for describing the divine creation of the environments that surrounded him. With an eye for the Romantic and the sublimity of the environment, the diarist aboard the Mary C. Ames was awestruck by the aesthetic experience of the maritime world. He needed no more proof of divine creation, remarking how the churning of an ocean squall stirred “up most intense feelings of beauty and sublimity, and awakens a reverence for Him who rules the storm which are never experienced amid the dull monotony of land.” The northern reaches of the voyage brought the diarist into direct contact with environments entirely foreign to him. The aurora borealis, the diarist remarked, “was most brilliantly shining, and threw halo of light over the w ­ hole scene making it g­ rand beyond the conception of him who never witnessed it.” Along the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador, significantly further north than his native Mas­ sa­chu­setts, the diarist was taken aback by the unusual times of sunrise and sunset. In response to a three ­o’clock sunrise, the diarist wrote, “The wildness of the scenery, the ­g reat change in day and night, and the deep almost speaking solitude of the place all conspire to induce such a feeling of romance into my mind, that I can hardly believe it all a real­ity.”50 Of more immediate concern for the diarist, however, was seasickness. Days-­ long gaps pepper the diary as the writer was left “unable to write . . . ​­because of seasickness.” He described restless nights “spent in walking the deck stopping occasionally to vomit over the side of the vessel.” At one point he declared himself “ready to die of sea-­sickness.”51 Taken with his declaration on June 8 that he began “to feel quite easy on ship board” and that he “highly enjoy[ed] the change from the hustle of land, to the quietness of the ocean,” his adjustments to shipboard life suggests that the diarist was neither a seasoned fishermen nor a sailor of any kind—­a true greenhorn, in fact. But the observations of a nonprofessional—­someone less familiar with the operations and politics of the industry—­still have much to offer on both the mundane and the extraordinary aspects of a fishing voyage.

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Much of the unnamed diarist’s attention was devoted to the ­labor of fishing and the routines of shipboard life. Despite his early observation that “unremitting ­labor has a debasing influence on the mind,” the diarist labored shoulder to shoulder with his fellow crewmates in their arduous tasks. Fishing was of course the primary occupation, but it was neither steady nor predictable. At times, the diarist complained of having spent “nearly twenty hours . . . ​since I arose from my couch of boards,” on account of the constant demands of fishing. On June 21 he commented that “all hands [­were] out fishing,” yet only two days l­ater ­there ­were “not many fish this morning.” L ­ ater that same week, on June 25, the diarist reported that “no fish [­were] caught ­today,” and two days l­ater he noted, “We went a­ fter fish but found no Cod.” But that very same day, he reported dressing more than 1,400 fish that had previously been brought in. The a­ ctual act of fishing was not the only kind of ­labor necessary aboard ­these ships: the fish ­were gutted on board, ready to be air-­dried and salted on shore before being packed in barrels for shipment. The diarist commented on learning how to dress the fish, noting on June 19 that “we have caught some fish t­oday, contrary to our expectations and I have a trial at dressing not so as I had anticipated—­guess I can ‘go it’ a­ fter a l­ ittle practice.” A few days l­ater, he reported dressing “3 or 4 hundred” fish, a numbered he considered “not many,” but described the l­ abor as having “g[a]ve me some trou­ble, my hands are sore and feel rather disagreeable.” By July 6, the diarist reported having “dressed about 1,000 fish and ­today am at work quite steadily,” with another 1,300 cod on deck ­after having spent the previous ­couple days recovering from a cut on his fin­ger severe enough to require stitches.52 Yet, despite the dangers and tedium of dressing the fish, it was a welcome job compared to the backbreaking ­labor of rowing. “Heading fish,” the anonymous diarist declared, “is not so bad as rowing boat.” T ­ hese fishing expeditions used smaller, human-­powered boats, variously called dories or tag boats, to go to shore in order to resupply the ship with wood and ­water. But they ­were used for fishing as well. As fishermen sensed the changes in the sea during the ­middle de­cades of the nineteenth ­century, they adapted their technology to the situation in order to pull more life from the oceans. Over the course of the next de­cade, ­these fishermen would employ longlines, but for the time being they continued to use single-­hook hand lines, but from smaller tag boats, away from the main schooner, to expanded the ship’s fishing footprint. The diarist described this mode of fishing. T ­ hese tag boats ­were also used for catching bait. Using a kind of vertical hanging net—­ seine, in fishing parlance—­fishermen ­were sent out in t­ hese rowboats to gather the kind of forage fish that would bait the hooks that brought in the valuable cod. Gathering bait required miles of rowing at a time, leaving the diarist to



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remark, “I think I ­shall ­either be killed or cured this summer. Plenty of work on hand, more coming.”53 Storms and squalls created work, too. On June 9, for instance, as the Mary C. Ames passed Halifax, the diarist noted that while at one time the sea was “a beautiful emblem of peace and calmness of mind,” inclement weather now made the oceans act “as if it ­were a ­thing possessed of life, and filled with passion, the rough waves are angrily chasing each other, fanning as they go, like ten thousand wars steeds pursuing ­after each other in the confusion of ­battle.” The ship “would reel to an a­ ngle of 41 degrees,” allowing w ­ ater “into the forecastle and wet[ting] all our berths.” This kind of weather would have forced all hands on deck to steady the ship ­until the storm passed, then left the crew to literally pick up the pieces. Such storms could necessitate dozens of hours of uninterrupted ­labor. But even in the best of conditions, life aboard a fishing schooner afforded few comforts. On June 17, when the ice-­choked Strait of Belle Isle fi­nally allowed clear passage, the diarist commented that “the weather is very cold this morning . . . ​clothes wet and the wind is blowing upon us, no fire to be got at.” In all, “not the most pleasant circumstances imaginable surely,” he concluded. The food, a tedious menu ­limited to codfish, potatoes, and coffee, likewise offered l­ ittle respite. Backbreaking l­ abor, dangerous weather, and meager creature comforts left the diarist with only one conclusion—­that “our living is truly that of fishermen.” The diarist did, however, seem to take comfort in the com­pany of his fellow fishermen, remarking on the sagacity and good nature of his crewmates. “Social endearment,” he remarked, “are (sic) the brightest and purest of man’s privileges, they are the Oasis in the desert of cane and turmoil of life, they enliven, refresh, and renew man’s wearied powers.” But he did not find such charm in all of the ship’s crew, especially a Mr. Sylvester, whom our diarist remarked was “universally disliked and has not as I have discerned one redeeming quality about him.”54 The life of North Atlantic fishermen was indeed a rough one, but poor food and rough weather w ­ ere not the only agents of the fishermen’s difficulties. Sailing from Newburyport to Newfoundland took the Mary C. Ames near, and in some cases through, British ­waters. The diarist and his crewmates had no choice but to face the po­liti­cal arrangements and diplomatic deals that influenced how fishermen interacted with this maritime resource and environment. Some diary passages did reflect an appreciation for the po­liti­cal context that ­shaped the experience. The body of maritime laborers that composed ordinary fishing crews was to a certain extent multinational. Differing conditions on ­either side of the US-­Canadian divide encouraged the portability of ­labor.55 But fishing crews ­were a far cry from the polyglot, multiethnic, multicultural groups that could be found aboard ostensibly US ships in the Pacific.

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The crew of the Mary C. Ames and the diarist aboard w ­ ere undoubtedly American in provenance, privilege, and outlook. Affirming t­ hose patriotic ties, the diarist commented on the revelry with which the crew met the anniversary of US in­de­pen­dence. “The ‘glorious fourth,’ ” the diarist declared, “has come and gone with its many hallowed recollections. To us it seemed a jovial day although in a foreign land. Pleasant emotions aimed as we think of home and its happy inmates never before w ­ ere we away from our native land on our birthday of freedom.” This last statement may have been a bit of an overstatement, since for seasoned fishermen, the Fourth of July annually came during the ­middle of fishing season. But that point aside, the diarist seemed to closely identify with a sense of US nationalism.56 Like his US brethren, the diarist held prejudiced views of the subjects of British North Amer­ic­ a. The diarist did not view British Canadians as competitors in the fishing industry. As he gazed across the maritime frontier at ­those British subjects, his comment that “the inhabitants are not much above brutes, pitiable objects surely,” was not borne of competition or jealousy. His comments smack of a feeling of superiority, as elsewhere he noted that they relied on wild game, not fishing or agriculture, implicitly suggesting a lesser existence. The only other residents of the area the Mary  C. Ames came across ­were “some Indian squaws . . . ​dressed in true Indian style,” which the diarist called “quite an in­ter­est­ing sight.”57 Fishermen would have no doubt felt themselves superior to ­these First Nation ­peoples. Like Americans heading west across North Amer­i­ca or querulous sailors in the Pacific, North Atlantic fishermen w ­ ere on the frontier of US sovereignty and brought with them US-­bred chauvinisms with regard to ­people of other nations across the globe.58 The diarist could not help but notice the asymmetries of resource access created by the Convention of 1818. Early on in the voyage, he observed that not all w ­ aters ­were created equal. The diary-­keeper-­turned-­fisherman noted that the w ­ aters off Cape Sable, the southernmost point of Nova Scotia, w ­ ere rich in fish. The diarist lamented, “Fish appear to be very plenty, but American vessels are not allowed to fish ­there,” as a result of the restrictions imposed by the Convention of 1818.59 Although this par­tic­u­lar observer was neither a seasoned fisherman nor a lifelong resident on the waves, t­ here is no question that maritime laborers w ­ ere well aware and knowledgeable of the diplomatic and po­liti­cal contexts that ­shaped, and at times circumscribed, their lives and economic opportunities. Though removed from the formal channels of diplomacy, ­these ordinary workers ­were still very much part of it, at times complying with its dictates and at other times resisting.60 The story of the Ruby and Reindeer was not the only account of fishermen actively resisting the enforcement of treaty stipulations that ran c­ ounter to



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their interests. Robert Bayley, captain and owner of the Mary C. Ames, related to the ship’s diary keeper a story indicative of how US fishermen attempted to undercut British efforts to enforce the restrictions of the 1818 treaty. The story, as the diarist recorded it, described how “an American vessel . . . ​found fishing in ­waters forbidden by the treaty . . . ​was seized by an En­glish man-­of-­ war.” The captain of that unnamed vessel—­the story was short on details—­ did not intend to meekly submit to his British captors, and “prior to the seizure [he] sent below seven or eight of his hands and put them in some hogsheads.” As was customary in this sort of capture, the En­glish captain left a small number of his sailors aboard the fishing schooner to sail the renegade ship back to a British port, and a­ fter he did, “the bottled up Americans came on deck in due time and with the assistance of their comrades being now the superior number ordered the En­glish crew to give the ship.” The US fishermen retook their vessel and gave t­ hose British sailors “their choice between being thrown overboard, g­ oing to the states, or ­going on shore in a boat”; they chose the last option. In all, the diarist reflected on this episode as “illustrative of the ingenuity of Yankee sailors.”61 It was no surprise that the diarist, and presumably his fellow fishermen, was captivated by the narrative of their clandestine brethren and countrymen springing forth at a key moment to retake their ship, in what seemed to be a dramatization of so much of early US foreign relations. ­These fishermen lived up to the most idealized versions of themselves—­ bold, patriotic, resourceful. But was this story true? The multitude of stories found in congressional reports, speeches, newspapers, and diplomatic and consular correspondence that described the capture of US fishing vessels shared a similar structure and tone. The story related to the diarist, however, bears l­ ittle resemblance to t­ hose other stories, suggesting it was e­ ither an entirely exceptional case (unlikely) or perhaps a fabrication that circulated as fact. Accounts of fishermen resisting their captors, while odd, ­were certainly not exceptional among t­hese tales. What set this telling apart had more to do with audience. The stories fishermen told that w ­ ere intended for federal officials or a wider public emphasized that they had done nothing wrong, even giving their exact locations from the shore in an attempt to build sympathy and support for their entirely lawful enterprises. This awareness demonstrated savvy po­liti­cal minds among t­ hese maritime laborers. The story recorded in the diary, however, made no such pretension, freely admitting that this par­tic­u­lar ship had indeed ­violated treaty stipulations and was subject to capture. This story, told by and for fishermen, perhaps did more to reinforce their own self-­understanding, one that resonated with the popu­lar rhe­toric surrounding this class of maritime laborers. ­Whether this par­tic­u­lar story was based on ­actual events or not may be irrelevant, as the fact that it

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was told in this context suggests that ­these fishermen bought into, and perhaps even s­ haped, popu­lar perceptions of their ­labor. But in any event, this episode did relate how fishermen understood and engaged with the po­liti­cal and diplomatic contexts that surrounded their vocation, showing they ­were not passive subjects acted on by elite policymakers. At the close of the 1840s the Anglo-­American relationship was remarkably placid. The previous ­couple de­cades witnessed the residual ardor and un­ answered questions of the United States’ second war for in­de­pen­dence largely melt away, as a series of resolutions occasioned a short-­lived but still impor­tant transatlantic détente. Anglophobia, always a power­ful (though sometimes limiting) po­liti­cal tool, had to some degree subsided, as stable borders and a newly taken continental empire suggested the United States had shed at least some of its early national insecurities and become ­Great Britain’s peer. The view from Washington was optimistic; the view from the fisheries, however, was not. For US fishermen, the Convention of 1818, a treaty intended to bring order to the fisheries, was a failure. The agreement was unable to accommodate the ecological or industrial changes that governed how and where fishermen plied their craft. In fact, the treaty only created conditions for more captures and more confrontations that could, yet never did, interrupt the ameliorative trajectory of US diplomacy with ­Great Britain. As the 1820s, 1830s, and 1840s saw fishermen pursuing new species (primarily mackerel) with new technologies (primarily the mackerel jig) and as a result, r­ unning afoul of the restrictive Convention of 1818, ­little changed diplomatically. In 1850, as in 1820, the 1818 treaty governed fishery access, and w ­ aters within three miles of British provincial coasts remained off-­limits to US fishermen. The incongruity between how the fisheries ­were governed and how they operated aroused protest from the fishermen, but the dissonance was not enough to spur policymakers, given po­liti­cal developments elsewhere. Perspective mattered mightily during ­these de­cades. Fishermen did what they could in this climate, appealing to the federal government when necessary and outright resisting the British navy when able. Fishermen ­were unequivocally po­liti­cal actors who used what­ever methods they could to claim a stake in the acts of diplomacy. But they alone seemed unable to force a change; an outside shift was needed. Such a shift came in 1846 as G ­ reat Britain repealed the Corn Laws, embraced ­free trade, and waged an international campaign to bring nations, including the United States, into the free-­trade fold. The British would ultimately use the fisheries to exert pressure on the United States to achieve this po­liti­cal aim. Both looking from Washington and looking from the forecastle, observers would witness im­ mense changes over the next ­couple of de­cades.

C h a p te r   5

Fishermen at High Tide

At midcentury, Anglo-­American relations seemed to be entering a new phase. In 1848 the United States’ convincing victory in the US-­Mexican War seemed to announce to the world—­Britain, first and foremost—­that the former colonials had become full-­fledged imperialists. That de­cade coincided with a period of im­mense change in the tenor of Anglo-­ American relations. Yet, the Fisheries Dispute of 1852 reveals the extent to which, despite its continental empire and stable borders, the United States remained the ju­nior partner within Britain’s Atlantic world. British warships arrived on the fishing grounds in an effort to strong-­arm the United States into accepting a trade agreement that US leaders had shown l­ittle interest in.1 While the 1840s seemed to portend a fundamental shift in transatlantic relations, the fisheries issues demonstrated the degree to which the United States remained the inferior party.2 Domestically, the fisheries issues became embroiled in the sectional politics that often defines histories of the 1850s. ­Because of its close association with territorial expansion and federal bounties, the antebellum fishing industry became a locus for debate about the relationship between the federal government and individual sections of the Union. Surprisingly, for much of the antebellum period the fisheries issue remained immune to the sectional wrangling between f­ ree and slave states. During the 1852 dispute, Americans from all sections voiced their support for the fishermen in the face of British 125

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antagonism. But by the end of the 1850s, the sectional fracture mapped onto debates centered on the fisheries. In the pro­cess, debates over annexing Canada and the federal cod-­fishing bounty became debates about the meaning and nature of the Union itself. Questions about the Union intersected with the fisheries issues ­because the relationship between the fisheries and US statecraft ran so deep.

Changes in the Sea The summer of 1852 witnessed the most pointed nineteenth-­century diplomatic exchange between the United States and G ­ reat Britain over the North Atlantic fisheries. British officials dispatched warships to the contested region with o ­ rders to bar US fishermen from the fishing grounds. Secretary of State Daniel Webster, speaking from his home in Marshfield, Mas­sa­chu­setts, offered an unequivocal vow that the federal government would stand with the nation’s fishermen. “Be assured,” Webster intoned to a crowd that welcomed him home, “the interest w ­ ill not be neglected by this administration, u ­ nder any circumstances.” In words that no doubt resonated with the inhabitants of a seaside town, he declared that “the fishermen s­ hall be protected in all their right of property, and in all their rights of occupation . . . ​hook and line, and bob and sinker.” As Webster noted, the hardy sons of Neptune who exploited the piscine wealth of the North Atlantic w ­ ere “the very nurseries of our navy,” and thus an essential component of US statecraft. Webster’s claim for the United States’ uninterrupted access to ­these ­waters was based in custom, fallaciously stating that “the pursuits of our citizens . . . ​had been carried on more than thirty years without interruption or molestation . . . ​in the same ­waters and on the same coast.”3 Webster appealed to the Convention of 1818, but he overlooked shifts in imperial politics that by 1852 had made the fisheries a coercive ele­ment in Britain’s drive to incorporate the United States in the emerging international system of f­ree trade. By invoking a thirty-­year period “without interruption or molestation,” Webster decontextualized the US fishing industry from the vagaries of Anglo-­American relations, but also hinted at an unnatural gulf between the po­liti­cal situation on the sea and the ecological changes in the sea. The ­middle de­cades of the nineteenth ­century ­were marked by flux. Changes in transatlantic politics, as well as changes in the Atlantic itself, made pos­si­ble the confrontation that erupted in the summer of 1852. Neither politics nor environments ­were static.



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Understanding how the fisheries issue came to a head in the summer of 1852 requires an environmental perspective on nineteenth-­century Anglo-­ American relations. The fisheries issue laid bare fundamental aspects of the Anglo-­American relationship that other­wise remained obscured. While the environment may seem to be an issue far from the minds of diplomats, especially in an era anterior to the age of environmentalism, the Fisheries Dispute of 1852 provides an excellent example of how foreign relations can be rendered incomprehensible if the environmental context is not acknowledged.4 Diplomatic change and environmental change constantly interacted; the intercourse of ­human enterprises was predicated on the nonhuman world. Politics and the environment conspired in the summer of 1852 to pit the United States and ­Great Britain against each other in an intense, albeit brief conflict that was millennia in the making. Two impor­tant (at least from the h ­ uman perspective) ele­ments of the ecol­ ogy of the North Atlantic are the Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua) and Atlantic mackerel (Scomber scombrus). The conditions created by the climate, geology, and chemistry of the North Atlantic made it a welcoming home for ­these fish. Cod and its gadoid relatives are largely nonmigratory, preferring to stay in the region’s relatively cool w ­ aters year-­round to feed on capelin and small crustaceans. Cod that live at the extreme northern and southern reaches of their geographic range regularly follow favorable ocean temperatures as the seasons dictate. All cod, however, make a vertical migration over the course of their lives, as the juvenile fish spawn in open surface ­waters before descending to their preferred benthic habitat on maturity. Cod most often spawn offshore where they spend much of their life cycle.5 Atlantic mackerel, on the other hand, are decidedly migratory. Like their tuna and bonito relatives, mackerel regularly range to warmer ­waters as far south as the Mid-­Atlantic Bight. Mackerel follow a seasonal rhythm, traveling northeastward ­after overwintering in mid-­Atlantic ­waters as the spring’s rising temperatures allow. In certain years with favorably warm temperatures, mackerel have ranged as far south as the Carolinas and as far north as the Strait of Belle Isle and the Labrador Sea. ­These fish are most at home in the open ­water and do not shy away from coming inshore, especially in the spring as they head north. Both cod and mackerel, like most all fish, have much of their life cycles dictated by ocean temperatures. Migrations, food availability, maturation, and reproduction are all pro­cesses that depend on the ever-­fluctuating temperatures of the ocean.6 Over the past fifteen thousand years the earth’s climate has shifted often, sometimes even violently, but only over the past few centuries have t­hese

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changes been brought to bear on the h ­ uman world through the fisheries. The climate history of the past millennia, as best understood, is marked by three distinct and dramatic climate swings. The first, lasting to about the onset of the ­fourteenth c­ entury, was a period of relative warmth known as the Medieval Warm Period. This was followed by a period of cooling, the L ­ ittle Ice Age, that lasted well into the nineteenth ­century. Fi­nally, the last few centuries have been marked by a significant and unpre­ce­dented warming, as h ­ umans have altered the chemistry of the atmosphere and oceans. But it is the L ­ ittle Ice Age that most concerns the fisheries. It was during this period that Eu­ro­pe­ans first began sailing further and further west in search of cod as their home stocks began declining. It was likewise during this period that fishermen of all provenances began the alteration—or perhaps more accurately, the destruction—of the Northwest Atlantic’s fisheries. But this period of cooling had in store its own changes that influenced the nature of h ­ uman action. The effects of such changes w ­ ere felt most acutely during the summer of 1852.7 The Fisheries Dispute of 1852 occurred during the “last gasps” of the L ­ ittle Ice Age. Across North Amer­i­ca, the second quarter of the nineteenth ­century was marked by a rapid decline in temperatures. Bioproductivity declined as plankton responded to cooler temperatures with lower yields, and cod bore the ill effects of this cooling. Cod, despite being a cold-­water fish, was unequipped to contend with such a significant cooling. As temperatures dipped below the optimal threshold for spawning and growth, the population of cod in the Northwest Atlantic declined. By 1850, cod had dis­appeared from the western coast of Greenland, with Newfoundland experiencing a dramatic decline as well. By the m ­ iddle of the nineteenth ­century the environment of the Northwest Atlantic no longer supported such a large community of cod for fishermen of all nations to exploit. While cod numbers declined significantly amid this cooling, mackerel fared better, if only marginally.8 Mackerel w ­ ere not as devastated as cod by the cooling of the mid-­nineteenth ­century. Although their migratory range was severely curtailed, even failing to reach Newfoundland, ­these fish remained in relatively warmer ­waters as the southern contingent overwintered and spawned in mid-­Atlantic w ­ aters. The northern contingent of mackerel may have been severely weakened by the cooling trend, but mackerel continued to reach at least the Bay of Fundy, the shores of Nova Scotia, and some of the more southerly banks during its summer migration. The climatic cooling of the nineteenth ­century created an ecol­ogy that by the 1850s caused a significant decline in the cod population while allowing for a relative rise in mackerel. Fishermen responded accordingly. This period could be characterized as a time of crisis that created tension among fishermen as long-­held practices w ­ ere forced to change to



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accommodate new environmental realities. Yet, the po­liti­cal practices that governed the fisheries failed to change as US fishermen devoted more attention than ever to pursuing and catching the inshore-­dwelling mackerel.9 Amidst the environmental changes that occurred over decade-­and century-­ long timeframes, largely beyond the reach or influence of ­humans, was a veritable revolution in the fishing industry. This “fishing revolution,” a term noted by historian W. Jeffrey Bolster, was part of a larger set of changes, most often summarized by the term modernization, that included “mechanization, technological innovation, product development, market expansion, and the cultural ac­cep­tance of—­and ­legal justification for—­possessive individualism.” ­These changes reinforced, contradicted, and in ­every way interacted with the shifting environments of the region, with profound ecological and po­liti­cal ramifications. While other industries at this time radically changed with the coming and growing sophistication of mechanization, fishing largely remained an industry dependent on the energies of wind and ­human muscle. But this in no way ­limited the destruction wrought by its prac­ti­tion­ers. The most significant changes would prove to be t­ hose in the technology of the gear employed. Seining, or net fishing, made capturing fish a more efficient, if indiscriminate, endeavor, as producing nets became cheaper and easier during the ­middle de­cades of the nineteenth c­ entury. Another impor­tant change, especially as it related to the cod fishery, was the adoption of longline technology. For centuries, cod fishing had been performed by individuals who ­were each able to tend a few hooks, at most. But with the adoption of longline fishing—­also known as tub trawling, setlining, and bultow fishing—­individual fishermen could set lines, each with hundreds of hooks, on weighted groundlines. ­These two adoptions, seine and longline fishing, demanded even more fish and shellfish as bait and resulted in the significant growth of bycatch as catches r­ ose dramatically. This came with a host of ecological consequences; fishermen began to realize their unchecked efforts ­were changing the seas as the seas themselves changed. This fact was hotly debated among fishermen and ichthyologists alike. Although fisheries science was in embryonic form at midcentury, a nascent scientific consensus was emerging that would affirm the belief that mere ­humans could in no way disrupt or degrade a natu­ral system as im­mense as the ocean. Fishermen, on the other hand, saw such changes in their daily ­labor on the seas, as the fish they pulled in ­were smaller and catches declined. As Bolster notes, by 1850 “concerns regarding conservation of sea fish on which coastal communities had long depended ­were heard on fishing stages, aboard schooners, and in town meetings, . . . ​The intensity of the complaints increased dramatically at midcentury.”10 Yet, any appreciation for long-­term shifts was difficult to grasp, as shifting baselines and technological

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innovations obscured the consistent alteration of the North Atlantic ecosystem. In time, the scientific community would stifle the perspective of fishermen by codifying their own expertise in now-­authoritative printed studies, backed by institutions like universities and the federal government, that favored exploitation over caution when it came to natu­ral resources.11 All the while, the situation on the fisheries became more dire as fishermen continued their ruthless assault on the environment with ­little regard for their piscine prey or po­liti­cal neighbors. When US citizens and British subjects confronted each other in the summer of 1852, they did so in a world where environmental and ecological changes fostered such tension.12

The Fisheries Dispute of 1852 on the Sea While the environmental conditions that made the dispute of 1852 pos­si­ble ­were long in the making, the proximate cause was much more recent—it was ­free trade. Reform was everywhere in midcentury Britain as activists among the queen’s subjects pressed the government on issues ranging from the empire’s embrace of slavery to the narrowness of the elected franchise. While ­these ­causes met with success during the 1830s, it was during the 1840s that the reform-­minded aimed at nothing less than a revolution in the intercourse of nations. This was to be done through shedding the mercantilist-­inspired trade restrictions that still yoked the empire, if not all of mankind. In 1846, with the repeal of the Corn Laws, ­Great Britain’s most substantive free-­trade policy decision, the po­liti­cal community in Britain waxed rhapsodically. A writer in the Manchester Times and Gazette went to so far as to claim that “free-­ trade is civilization, and prohibition is barbarism.” A policy of ­free trade would represent a watershed moment in h ­ uman history, since with “liberty of commerce” the world would “defy religious rancour, wars, famine, poverty, all the evils which have hitherto been the heritage of humanity to perpetuate their existence. Believe not this to be a question of purely material interests; it is one intimately connected with morality and intelligence.”13 ­Great Britain had high hopes for what ­free trade would do, not only eco­nom­ically but also po­ liti­cally, and morally. The enforcement of this revolution in ­human sentiment would, however, require the Royal Navy, as Americans w ­ ere still, in 1852, uninclined to eagerly adopt the British ­free trade directive.14 With this sea change in Britain’s imperial policies, the British administration sought the world’s acquiescence. The loss of imperial preference meant Britain’s North American colonies stood to lose much in a new world of ­free trade. Thus, Britain endeavored to entice the United States into offering its



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northern neighbors a favorable trade agreement in order to vent Canada’s surplus production of lumber, wheat, and coal. The United States, itself a producer of t­ hose commodities, was slow to action. Secretary of State Daniel Webster made clear why Congress was disinclined to offer the British provinces any trading agreement, remarking to Henry Layton Bulwer, the British minister to the United States, that “the bill seems much more advantageous to Canada than to us,” since “we give her a large market, and she gives us a small one, for articles which are the common products of both.”15 The British minister sought to entice Webster with a carrot instead of employing the usual stick of British diplomacy. Bulwer intimated that if the United States enacted legislation amicable to the commercial needs of Canada, Americans would be guaranteed f­ ree access to the St. Lawrence and, more importantly, the expansion of fishing rights on the coasts of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.16 Still unmoved, Webster left the cause of North American ­free trade to flounder. Not content with US foot-­dragging on an issue as impor­tant as ­free trade, in 1852 the newly installed Derby ministry discarded the carrot of North Atlantic fishing rights for the stick of coercion. In early July, in the midst of the fishing season, John Crampton, the new British minister to the United States, delivered to Daniel Webster notice that ships from the Royal Navy would be stationed in t­ hose ­waters in order to enforce a strict interpretation of the Convention of 1818.17 While Crampton failed to make an explicit connection between reciprocal trade with the British provinces and the fisheries issues, it was clear to Webster that British leaders sought to use the latter to accomplish the former, and at a time when the coastal ­waters off-­limits to US fishermen ­were particularly valuable given shifts in the industry and changes in the sea. The Derby ministry’s decision to more strictly enforce the Convention of 1818 was not solely a result of Britain’s desire to press the f­ ree trade issue. As the fisheries dispute unfolded that summer, Canada and its position in the British Empire and its proximity to the United States ­were impor­tant ­factors. Although the Canadian rebellion had fizzled more than a de­cade e­ arlier, London remained uneasy about maintaining its imperial foothold in North Amer­i­ca. Britain was suspicious of what it perceived as Washington’s aspiration to create a North American ­union of the United States and Canada. This fear was palpable enough to influence British foreign policy. In time, Britain would relinquish its claims to lands in Central Amer­ic­ a to avoid tension with US filibusters and would oversee Canada’s acquisition of Rupert’s Land to signal to the United States that acquiring a continental nation like Canada was forever off the ­table.18 Britain’s decision to restrict access to the fisheries and inaugurate North American ­free trade in the 1850s was not isolated from this history. By reaffirming the maritime boundary between the United States and

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Canada, reserving inshore ­waters for Maritimers, and giving North American colonials f­ ree access to the market of the United States, London hoped to shore up the place of the North American colonies in the British Empire. Two weeks elapsed before Webster made public his reaction to Britain’s heavy-­handed tactics. At the heart of the m ­ atter was the status of bays and inlets. Britain asserted that the three miles of territorial w ­ aters extended from the headlands of large bays, thereby excluding Americans from the largest inlets such as the Bay of Fundy. In his initial response, an editorial published in the Boston Courier, Webster did not c­ ounter or dispute this British assertion, but only lamented that “to make so large a concession to E ­ ngland” was “undoubtedly an oversight of the Convention of 1818,” even as the United States “considered that t­ hose vast inlets . . . ​­ought to be open to American fishermen, as freely as the sea itself.” Conceding the point almost entirely, Webster observed “that by a strict and rigid construction [of the Convention of 1818] fishing vessels of the United States are precluded from entering into the bays or harbors of the British Provinces.” The secretary of state concluded with ­little reassurance to fishermen or other Americans: “The immediate effect” of British ships in North American ­waters “­will be the loss of the valuable fall fishing to American fishermen; a complete interruption of this extensive fishing business of New ­England,” and “constant collisions . . . ​threatening the peace of the two countries.”19 Webster’s initial reaction betrayed an alarmed statesman and a United States acquiescing to a decision emanating from London.20 Webster’s editorial seemed to abandon the cause of the fishermen, which created much alarm among ­those in Washington, including President Millard Fillmore. Webster promulgated this policy paper without the input of the president or any other cabinet members. Fillmore remarked to Webster that the publication of the editorial “has consequently created unnecessary alarm,” but that its content “is somewhat misunderstood.” To remedy the situation, Fillmore instructed his secretary of state to express that while negotiations with ­Great Britain over the fisheries would soon begin to put the issue to rest, “our citizens had the unquestioned right of fishing on the southern and western shore of the island of Newfoundland,” among other places.21 Webster’s next public pronouncement on the unfolding fisheries dispute, an address made from his home in Marshfield, Mas­sa­chu­setts, was a clear rebuke of his ­earlier timidity, as he offered unequivocal support for US fishermen that verged on bellicosity. In his “hook and line, and bob and sinker” speech, Webster put to rest any fear that the Fillmore administration might meekly surrender any US right or privilege enjoyed by US fishermen. In fact, Webster positioned the fisheries as an integral component of national security and US state building by declaring that “the fisheries ­were the seeds from which . . . ​glorious triumphs



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Figure 5.  “Dan the Fisherman Overhauled by British Cruisers.” The anonymous cartoonist showed support for Daniel Webster’s strong stance during the Fisheries Dispute of 1852, depicting the secretary of state in common cause with the fishermen. Source: “Dan the Fisherman Overhauled by British Cruisers,” Library of Congress, Prints and Photo­graphs Division, LC-­USZ62-8879.

­ ere born and sprung.” Any success ever enjoyed by the United States Navy w has owed to the fisheries and the skills its pursuit instilled in t­ hose who plied its ­waters.22 Again, Fillmore counseled against Webster’s extreme rhe­toric in a dispute that was developing into a delicate international situation. The president, recognizing the United States as the ju­nior partner, instructed his secretary of state that the United States may have to, “at the sacrifice of self-­interest,” submit to Britain’s wishes so as to not “unnecessarily stir up anger, cause popu­lar agitation . . . ​[and] place us in the wrong by appearing before the world to have claimed that to which we ­were not entitled.”23 Furthermore, Fillmore confided to Webster that timidity and prudence—­perhaps just euphemisms for submission—­were preferred to a hardline stance, out of a “fear [that] G[reat] B[ritain] is right in her construction of the treaty.”24 Webster responded by declaring that despite his intentions to express the delicacy Fillmore desired, his words had been twisted by the press and imbued with a belligerent tone. His remarks that the federal government would stand with US fishermen, right or wrong, ­were “jumbled and imperfect,” as a result of “the neglect of their [i.e., editors’] appropriate duties.”25 As the Fillmore administration groped for

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a response to British actions, it seemed to s­ettle on vacillation and poor communication. ­Behind the scenes, the Fillmore administration struck a far more meek tone, essentially asking British authorities to take it easy on US fishermen found in violation of the treaty. British minister to the United States John Crampton informed his superiors in London that Webster “could not but feel anxious however that the mea­sures ­adopted by Her Majesty’s government should . . . ​ be carried into execution in a manner so lenient as to prevent the occurrence of any collision or difficulty with re­spect to the Fisheries.” Indicative of the influence fishermen had on US foreign relations, Crampton communicated Webster’s fear that given “the season for the mackerel fishing was about to commence . . . ​it would be found difficult to restrain the American fishermen who had already fitted out their vessels for that purpose from attempting to engage in it.”26 While Fillmore, Webster, and their associates ­were abuzz, ­actual action was less hurried. In addition to forming a nebulous plan for Webster to begin a series of talks with the British minister to the United States with the aim of agreeing to a comprehensive treaty to ­settle the fisheries and ­free trade issues, Fillmore settled on sending Matthew C. Perry to the contested region in the hope that a US military presence would forestall bloodshed. Perry proceeded to the fishing grounds aboard the frigate USS Mississippi in the early days of August. Perry’s cruise along the coast of Nova Scotia and into the Gulf of St. Lawrence produced a series of detailed reports on fishing in the region. This was more or less the extent of the Fillmore administration’s actions. Despite perhaps unfounded fears, US fishermen and the British navy never came to blows, and this interrupted fishing season came to a quiet conclusion. But the same could not be said of how Congress and the press responded to that summer’s perceived indignity at the hands of the British. Beyond the tight circle of the executive department, the US po­liti­cal community made clear that the fisheries dispute was indicative of Britain’s deep-­seated disdain for the United States, confirming its inferior status in the Anglo-­American relationship. The US po­liti­cal community did not hesitate to take up the issue during the summer of 1852 and put this British slight in the larger context of Anglo-­ American relations. In Congress, among the usual panegyrics to the patriotic fervor and ser­vice of the nation’s fishermen, statesmen dwelled on the themes of British resentment and US inferiority. John Mason, the chair of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, charged that the sudden dispatch of British warships to US w ­ aters was “a far higher offense than a breach of national courtesy”—it was “one of insult and indignity to the American ­people,”



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as ­Great Britain lacked even the slightest bit of regard for the United States and its citizens.27 The more bellicose in Congress ­were quick to find evidence that ­there was ­little over the past seven de­cades of US in­de­pen­dence that suggested ­Great Britain respected the United States, even as the events of the 1840s adjudicated numerous outstanding irritants. Senators claimed that Britain wished to negotiate “at the cannon’s mouth,” showing that the two states ­were, in fact, not equals. For Solon Borland of Arkansas, this example of British aggression was unpre­ce­ dented, as he questioned, “Has it ever happened before, in the ­whole history of our country, from the day when our in­de­pen­dence was acknowledged by G ­ reat Britain ­until this administration, that negotiations have been opened with us through the medium of cannon pointed against our citizens and our ships?”28 Thomas Rusk of Texas mirrored his colleague’s sentiment—­“Can we negotiate at the cannon’s mouth?” An emphatic “no” was the senator’s answer.29 Moreover, US politicians claimed ­Great Britain ran roughshod over the norms of international relations. The British, at least in the eyes of Congress, sought a novel, if not illegal, interpretation of international agreements. Much of the debate between Anglo-­American statesmen during this crisis was over interpretations of the Convention of 1818. While this treaty forbade US fishermen from taking fish within three miles of the coast of Britain’s North American provinces, Americans claimed the right to enter large bays whose mouths w ­ ere greater than six miles. Britain, however, claimed that the three-­ mile limit extended from an imaginary line that connected each headland of ­these larger bays. This so-­called headland doctrine was disputed by US senators as an unpre­ce­dented interpretation of the 1818 convention and thus carried no l­ egal weight. Such a contention was often dismissed as a mere pretension, but other senators, namely the noted Anglophobe Lewis Cass of Michigan, disputed the notion that fisheries could even be regulated or demarcated and asserted such power certainly did not come from ­Great Britain. Cass plainly stated that “no nation can appropriate [the ocean] to itself,” for the seas are a “common highway” and “a liquid field” “whose abundant supply of food for man is among the most wonderful and beneficent dispensations of nature.” Thus, US access to ­these fisheries was not something granted by the British, but instead was a right “from the Almighty God.”30 Any attempt by Britain to curtail or reinterpret that right was an example of arrogance and disdain. Despite the claim that the United States would stoutly resist any British designs on the fisheries, Congress still recognized US inferiority in maritime and military arenas. John Bell of Tennessee noted “that we are not in a condition ­either in regard to the fisheries or our interest in the States south of us,

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or in regard to the islands on the Pacific coast, to negotiate on precisely equal terms with such a Power as ­Great Britain. . . . ​She has g­ reat advantages over us.” Bell understood US shortcomings as cause for alarm in the short term, but still had confidence that “the American spirit is ready to maintain the honor of this country against all odds.” Yet, Bell relented that “we would be in a condition to be overawed” by the superiority of British force if the nations came to blows.31 While a few voices in Congress urged restraint, cautioning that ­Great Britain would not be so foolish as to alienate, if not spark war with, a major commercial and financial ally, the popu­lar press was not so nuanced. Across the Union, newspapers speculated as to why the British had insisted on this new construction of the Convention of 1818. Many, of course, pointed to reciprocal trade with Canada. But ­others felt that ­behind this lay a decades-­old disdain for the United States on the part of the British ruling class. Less than a month ­after Crampton informed Webster of the Derby government’s decision to suspend US fishing rights in some Canadian ­waters, the Boston Eve­ ning Transcript offered harsh words for British leaders. With an incredulous tone, the paper commented, “It is, we believe, an entirely new princi­ple in international law that an administration, cabinet or government of a country, is at liberty to disregard the stipulations or concession of an administration or government which has preceded it.” Without mincing words, the article described the actions of Derby and his minsters as “manifestly unwarranted.” ­Behind t­ hese outrageous British actions lay the machinations of a class unable to live in peace with the US republic. While the author of this editorial had trou­ble believing that “Lord Derby has been guilty of the folly of putting forward ­these absurd pretensions as a cover to a scheme for fomenting a hostile feeling between the two countries,” the writings and speeches of “many individuals of the high Tory class in ­England” would confirm such a suspicion. Motivating Britain’s actions was a conservative desire to maintain its imperial foothold in North Amer­i­ca. The ruling elites of Britain exhibit a “soreness at witnessing the growth of the republican spirit among the inhabitants of British Amer­i­ca, and have declared it as their opinion that nothing but a timely war with the United States would save the colonies to ­Great Britain.”32 The Baltimore Sun similarly suspected Lord Derby of harboring resentment of the United States. Even though Derby’s ministry acknowledged the importance of reciprocity between the United States and the provinces, the Sun doubted that Derby, “exclusively British and altogether as he is . . . ​cares a button about the Canadian proj­ect of reciprocity.” Instead, Derby’s decision to curtail US fishing rights was but an example of “his contempt for the power and national character of the American Union.”33 ­Later, the Sun would de-



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scribe the disdain for Americans felt across all of Eu­rope, declaring, “We know that the rapid advance of the United States in prosperity and importance, is regarded with jealous eyes by the legitimacy of Eu­rope. Beneath the courtesies of national intercourse, we discern the cordial hate of despotisms.”34 The Picayune of New Orleans succinctly summed up the issue. This crisis did not arise from the substance of the fisheries dispute, but from the “hot, haste, arrogance, and discourtesy of the British Ministry.”35 Americans remained suspicious of British actions and ­were still unprepared to live peacefully alongside the British Empire. Po­liti­cal cartoonists likewise turned their attention to this diplomatic standoff. The most prominent printmaker of the day, Edward Williams Clay, lampooned the fisheries crisis in a way that resonated with the odd mix of insecurity and confidence that typified the US response. The dispute was ripe for po­liti­cal cartooning. During the second quarter of the nineteenth ­century, advances in printmaking and transportation technologies allowed cartoonists to more easily reach a wider audience that demanded printed materials of all kinds. Sold as single sheets, po­liti­cal cartoons of this period w ­ ere unique among printed materials in that they ­were affordable to even general laborers in cities such as Boston, Philadelphia, and the center of the cartooning world, New York. Additionally, the po­liti­cal changes of the Age of Jackson encouraged the rise of a po­liti­cally aware audience receptive to this kind of artistic expression.36 Among the prints Clay produced that summer was one titled “John Bull’s Fish Mono­poly.” At the center of the image, B ­ rother Jonathan, a stock character used to personify the United States during the nineteenth c­ entury, exhorts his British counterpart, John Bull, to recognize the US right to access ­these fisheries.37 John Bull, literally possessing the fish mono­poly, is unswayed. Reflecting a degree of sectional unity, to the right of this confrontation, a foppish easterner and a rustic frontiersman of the West have come to the consensus that the United States needs to teach John Bull another “New Orleans lesson” if US rights are to be respected. But perhaps the most in­ter­est­ing character in the scene occupies a secondary position at the extreme left of the frame. A fisherman sits slump-­shouldered and dejected. B ­ ecause of British restrictions, the fisherman is out of work and unable to pursue his livelihood to support his f­amily. His wife and d­ aughter look on, the only ones left to console him. While his posture suggests resignation, the fisherman promises “to go on board a man [of] war” to pay “that d—­d Britisher . . . ​back in bullets.” Wittingly or not, Clay made the connection between fishing and fighting that was the standard fare of the rhe­toric surrounding the fisheries during the antebellum era. But this ele­ment of the print also hints at why the fisheries issue

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Figure 6.  “John Bull’s Fish Mono­poly.” The Fisheries Dispute of 1852 prompted an outpouring of support for American fishermen. This cartoon by Edward Williams Clay illustrated the stakes of the dispute as B ­ rother Jonathan and John Bull confronted each other over fishing rights. Source: Edward Williams Clay, “John Bull’s Fish Mono­poly,” Library of Congress, Prints and Photo­graphs Division, LC-­USZ62-14090.

was so impor­tant to many Americans, not just at this critical juncture but throughout this period. During the summer of 1852 the British ­were not just encroaching on US fishing rights, but also, in fact, attacking US manhood. The dejected fisherman represents the two strains of masculinity in the nineteenth-­century United States. As Amy S. Greenberg notes in her study of gender in the age of manifest destiny, ­there ­were two kinds of masculinity at midcentury. First, ­there is what she terms “martial manhood.” This kind of manhood was a definition of self that was characterized by vio­lence, strength, and aggression, and most often associated with the expansionistic impulses of the Demo­cratic Party. The fisherman’s vow to resort to arms in order to assert US rights exemplifies the kind of military valor that defined the martial man.38 While the fisherman’s words indicate a martial man, his image, and the fact that he is surrounded by his wife and d­ aughter, suggest that the out-­of-­work fisherman is the embodiment of what Greenberg calls “restrained manhood.” Instead of vio­lence and aggression, the restrained man defined himself through domestic life and his ­family, financial success rather than military triumphs, and the progressive, business-­minded outlook of the Whig Party. The fisherman’s body language in this image suggests defeat, ­because without the ability



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to pursue his trade, he is no longer able to provide for hearth and home as the good restrained man should. Flanking the unemployed fisherman, his wife and ­daughter illustrate the real costs of Britain’s aggressive international politics as they would be the ones most likely to suffer. This po­liti­cal cartoon succinctly explains what was at stake in the ongoing fisheries dispute. So many Americans reacted so viscerally to encroachments on this US right ­because, at least in part, they understood it as an encroachment on the position of men in a well-­ordered society. British restrictions robbed Americans of their ability to provide for their families and communities, and thus also robbed them of their identity as men. Although much of the rhe­toric surrounding this dispute centered on the Anglo-­American relationship, many Americans ­were equally or even more suspicious of their northern neighbors. With a propensity for invading ­those British colonies, early Americans w ­ ere never able to embrace their Anglophone neighbors in any way that approximated fraternal bonds. The US-­Canadian relationship gave the fisheries dispute a more obvious economic rationale, given the direct competition between US and Canadian fishermen. Representative Zeno Scudder of Mas­sa­chu­setts was no doubt aware of the competition of Canadian fishermen, in light of the importance of the fisheries to his constituents. The selling of Canadian fish threatened the economic well-­being of US fishing interests on the international market, and Canada was poised to become the paramount supplier of fish in the United States. An “obstacle to the prosperity of our fisheries,” Scudder remarked, “is the unequal competition when we meet with t­ hose of the British colonies.” Not only w ­ ere “the inhabitants of ­those Provinces . . . ​formidable competitors in the foreign market . . . ​ [but] they are made rivals in our own.” Scudder, a Whig, introduced a partisan inflection to the debate by blaming the Walker Tariff, a remarkably low tariff passed in 1846 ­under the direction of Demo­crat James K. Polk’s secretary of the trea­sury, Robert Walker, for allowing Canadian fishermen to play such a predatory role in the US market. Additionally, Canadians, Scudder contended, could undercut US fishermen ­because of their lower standard of living. Demonstrating a certain disdain for his northern neighbors, Scudder remarked that “their habits of life, and social relations, permit them to pursue the business with a smaller profit than we can or do.” Canadian fishermen could be hired for far less than their US counter­parts b­ ecause the Canadian’s “manner of living and educating their c­ hildren . . . ​is far below that of the fisher­ men of the States.”39 Disdain for the residents of British North Amer­i­ca influenced how some viewed the po­liti­cal arrangements that determined access to the fisheries. Evidence of Maritimers’ lack of civilization was seen in the underdeveloped

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nature of their fishing industry. US observers thought the right to fish inshore ­waters—or any w ­ aters, ­really—­was wasted on a p­ eople who lacked the means or abilities to properly utilize such a rich natu­ral resource. Thus, it was natu­ ral for US fishermen to invade Canadian ­waters, since they ­were left underexploited by British subjects themselves. William Speiden Jr., a sailor u ­ nder Perry’s command, noted in his diary that “the En­glish ­there have fishing grounds which they do not make use of themselves and are unwilling that ­others should use them. Our fishermen who are industrious and enterprising, thinking that that was not the right way to act, intruded on their grounds.”40 Such sentiment found purchase in wider US society. An article from Harper’s New Monthly Magazine observed that the success of US fishermen in the region has “raised the envy of the colonists, who . . . ​have petitioned their government to forbid the further encroachments of enterprising B ­ rother Jonathan on ­these vast preserves, which, however, they themselves have not sufficient enterprise to use.”41 As historian Michael B. Pass notes, “This was, in many ways, the same con­temporary rationale being used by the US government in such disparate instances as the US cheating Native Americans of their land as well as why Americans believed that Japan needed to be ‘opened’ by American naval power.”42 Like their counter­parts in the Pacific and colonizers on the continent, sailors and fishermen in the North Atlantic viewed themselves as on the frontier of US sovereignty, bringing civilization to backward p­ eoples. While men like Scudder, Speiden, and the readers of Harper’s looked down on Canadians b­ ecause of their competition, their apparently unrefined manners, and their lack of civilization, o ­ thers ­were suspicious of the British subjects, believing that the provincials w ­ ere the ones driving British policy. In William Henry Seward’s view, the fundamental difference in the interpretation of the Convention of 1818 was not between the United States and G ­ reat Britain, but between the United States and Canada. The “provincial authorities” have always insisted on the “technical and rigorous construction of the treaty,” he said, while US officials prefer the “more liberal and just” interpretation. Seward reduced the debate over fisheries to its essential ele­ments: “The British Colonists insist upon the rigorous construction of the convention of 1818, so as to exclude us from entering the large British bays, and distract and annoy our fishermen; and the p­ eople of the United States resist that construction, and they never w ­ ill yield it.”43 John Davis of Mas­sa­chu­setts concurred with Seward’s estimation of the role the Canadians played in driving British policy. For Davis, the de­cades since the adoption of the Convention of 1818 had witnessed a “pretty earnest and determined effort” on the part of Canadian authorities to establish an agreement between the British North American provinces and the United States that “they call reciprocity in trade.”44



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The fisheries dispute offered the opportunity to reconsider some of the fundamental aspects of Anglo-­American, and Canadian, relations. But this crisis also created the rhetorical space for a wider-­ranging discussion about US foreign relations, locating the ongoing fisheries issue in the broader context of US diplomacy. A partisan tone, no doubt encouraged in part by election-­year politicking, pervaded the discussion. While Britain could exert a galvanizing force in US politics, this unity exposed other divisions that rent the republic.45 Isaac Toucey, a Demo­crat from Connecticut, took the opportunity presented by the fisheries dispute to offer a withering indictment of the Fillmore administration’s foreign policy more generally. The fisheries dispute was but the latest example of the administration’s failure to steadfastly defend US rights and honor. Toucey admitted that he had “not that confidence in the Executive which, perhaps, I ­ought to have,” b­ ecause the administration had a lackluster rec­ord on foreign affairs. Toucey claimed he could only lack confidence in the administration “­after what I have witnessed on the coast of Cuba.”46 ­Here, Toucey made reference to the Fillmore administration’s timidity in responding to the execution of US filibusters who had joined in Narciso López’s ill-­fated attempt to invade Cuba in 1851. The failure of the López expedition was resurrected during the summer of 1852 in an attempt to show that Fillmore’s Whig administration lacked resolve in the realm of foreign affairs. The Daily Ohio Statesman hammered away at this point, drawing a direct connection between executed filibusters and North Atlantic cod. “In the Cuban affair from beginning to end,” the editorialist remarked, “American citizens ­were involved, American rights came into conflict with Spanish rights. Spain dictated and the American government instantly submitted.” In the writer’s view, the Cuban affair was emblematic of Whig foreign policy generally and the propensity of Fillmore and Webster to idly stand by while insults ­were heaped on the United States. “The ­whole diplomatic policy of the whig administration,” the Statesman opined, “is one series of tame and quiet submission to British, French, and Spanish aggression, and not even so much as one firm protest is to be found in all the archives of the times.” Given the past conduct of the Fillmore administration, the paper predicted that more disgrace would beset the United States, b­ ecause if “a whig administration allows an errant insult to the American Flag to pass over unexplained, they cannot be presumed to care more about an American Cod Fish.” The editorial ended by pointing out the absurdity of allowing a party with such a poor rec­ord in foreign policy to continue in office for four more years.47 Other nations, so the Demo­crats claimed, took their cues from the Spanish and British examples to disregard US rights and expose US inferiority. Recent instances of French, Greek, and Mexican disrespect added greater detail

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to what the New Hampshire Patriot described as a “graphic but humiliating picture of the disgraceful position in which our country has been reduced, in its foreign relations, by the truckling imbecility of the pre­sent federal administration.” The fisheries dispute came at a time when the flag seemed to sag. Through the eyes of the paranoid and jealous, US honor was being attacked from all sides and the nation was exposed as unable to defend itself. Anglo-­ American relations, as a microcosm of US foreign relations more generally, demonstrated how the United States was still the ju­nior party in a British world. Despite the United States’ bilateral treaties and continental empire, Americans ­were quick to take offense at slights, real or perceived, from ­Great Britain, or from any other nation, for that ­matter. As the New Hampshire Patriot remarked, the conduct of US foreign policy could only be described as “weak, timid, truckling and pusillanimous”—­indeed, it was the “source of extreme mortification to e­ very true-­hearted American.”48 While the Fisheries Dispute of 1852 exposed partisan divisions, sectional tensions simmered ­under a veneer of cross-­region cooperation. Newspapers across the nation paid lip ser­vice to the idea of the Union, and while that opinion may have been sincere, this episode does demonstrate how galvanizing a force anti-­British feeling could be. Recognizing this influence, the Mississippi ­Free Trader remarked amidst the conflict that during times of crisis “we are one ­people. . . . ​In the time of peace we quarrel among ourselves . . . ​but when danger threatens from abroad, we seek protection ­under the same constitution.”49 In response to that kind of sentiment emanating from southern editors, New York’s Plattsburgh Republican remarked, “It is a ­matter of honest pride and satisfaction to us to observe the course taken by southern men on the fishery question.” Admitting that “northern men and northern capital are almost entirely and exclusively engaged in this enterprise,” the writer was heartened that “the first voice raised in our legislative halls against British assumption, and in patriotic defense of our rights was that of a Senator from ‘Old ­Virginia’—­a state south of Mason and Dixon’s line.” Optimistically, the Platts­ burgh Republican predicated the fisheries dispute to be but the beginning of a domestic rapprochement between ­peoples North and South. “The spirit manifested in this ­matter must prove like oil poured upon troubled ­waters. This watchful jealousy over a ­g reat northern interest, coming from such a quarter, ­will go a ­great way to bring back ­those feelings of brotherly love and unity which has thus far developed our resources and given us strength and greatness beyond pre­ce­dent in the history of nations.”50 In the face of British encroachment, ­there was “but one voice as to the final result of the controversy.” From quarters North and South, the only sensible response was that “the American fishermen must be protected in their just rights.”51



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Not all observers that summer w ­ ere inclined to buy into this rosy picture of Union-­wide cooperation. Theodore Parker, an unrelenting foe of slavery, understood the fisheries dispute in terms of the unwarranted power and influence of the South in national politics. ­Because of the intimate commercial relationship between ­Great Britain and the South, war between the two nations would be impossible, even if the United States was forced to sacrifice its honor and prestige. Parker, in a sermon reprinted in William Lloyd Garrison’s Liberator, observed that “the material interests of ­England requires peace,” thus “the nation of shop­keep­ers ­will not quarrel with their best customer.” Even though ­Great Britain had forbidden Americans from fishing in the ­great bays of eastern Canada, Parker “solemnly believe[d] that the United States would,” in a clever inversion of Webster’s declaration at Marshfield, “abandon their fishery, ‘bob and sinker, hook and line,’ sooner than fire a shot at Old ­England.” ­Behind the US inaction was the Slave Power of the South. Although the South had “made the last war with ­England . . . ​[it] would be exceedingly slow to try it again,” knowing that “in such a contingency, ­every slave would be set ­free; not as in the West Indies, with peaceful sentiments but his hand filled with firebrands.” In concluding, Parker remarked that “the fisheries are Northern property, which if ­really in peril, would get no protection from the slaveholders of the South.”52 Parker’s observation proved prescient, as the fisheries dispute would soon succumb to North-­South po­liti­cal wrangling. But for the time being, the US po­liti­cal community seemed to speak with one voice.

The Fisheries Dispute of 1852 ­under the Sea The US po­liti­cal community made clear that the fisheries dispute that unfolded that summer was the result of Britain’s long-­held desire to cow the United States into accepting the British world order. But the view from the fisheries was far dif­fer­ent. As reports from US diplomatic and military agents indicated, the clash that spiraled into a wide-­r anging conversation about the United States’ place in the world was, more or less, an accident of nature. Changes in the sea demanded changes in US fishing practices—­changes that ran up against the po­liti­cally and ecologically outdated agreements G ­ reat Britain and the United States had reached de­cades beforehand. The pretext for this diplomatic confrontation was created by the mere fact that during the mid-­nineteenth ­century, US fishermen began catching more mackerel than they previously had. In what amounted to the Millard Fillmore administration’s most substantive response to the announcement of British restrictions, the president sent

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famed naval commander Matthew C. Perry to the region with the ostensible goal of protecting the lives and property of US fishermen. Coming from a prominent Newport, Rhode Island, f­ amily, Perry was perhaps the most impor­ tant active-­duty US seamen of the antebellum era. He did much to introduce steam power to the fleet and ­shaped the early years of the Naval Acad­emy ­after its founding in 1845. Perry’s ser­vice rec­ord was likewise impressive—he served during the War of 1812 (his ­brother, Oliver ­Hazard, was remembered as the hero of the B ­ attle of Lake Erie) and the US-­Mexican War, and was the first commander of the anti–­slave trade Africa Squadron a­ fter its creation as part of the Webster-­Ashburton Treaty of 1842. But Perry would be best remembered for the so-­called opening of Japan to foreign trade in 1854. The fact that the Fillmore administration chose as distinguished a seaman as Perry to patrol the fisheries during the summer of 1852 may hint at the symbolic importance accorded this mission, and by extension, the fisheries.53 In his instructions emanating from the Department of the Navy, Perry was charged with, above all ­else, gathering information about the series of seizures of US fishing vessels that crested with the announcement of British restrictions that summer. As Secretary of the Navy John P. Kennedy conveyed to Perry, “It has . . . ​become necessary that the Executive of the United States should speedily inquire into and become acquainted with all that has tran­spired in reference to the said seizures, the cause which has led to the same, and the manner in which they have been made.” Thus, Perry was instructed to consult “au­then­tic and reliable sources relating to the facts and circumstances of any seizure,” in the hope of compiling “all the facts which may be necessary to be known.” Although Kennedy insisted that such information would support the “prompt and efficient protection” of US fishermen, Perry’s instructions seemed far more concerned with gathering information than curtailing ­these seizures. But the department’s instructions focused solely on the information pertaining to the situation on the sea—­the circumstances of seizures—­ and not on the situation ­under the sea.54 When the Fillmore administration sent Perry to the fishing grounds, Washington had l­ittle inkling that Perry’s reports would be concerned as much with the fish as with the fishermen. During his cruise along the coast of Cape Breton, the Magdalen Islands, and across the Bay of Chaleur—­what Perry concluded to be the “most frequented resorts of the American Fishermen in the Gulf of St. Lawrence”—­the naval commander came to the conclusion that of the “­g reat number of American vessels,” most ­were “engaged in the mackerel fishery.” Noting how the US mackerel fleet “absolutely whiten[ed] the ­water of ­these coasts,” Perry was also struck by the paucity of cod fishermen in the region.55 For centuries, cod had dominated the Atlantic trade in fish as



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the most valuable commodity drawn from the seas, with perhaps the exception of the meat and oil of w ­ hales. But changes in the ocean and in the fishing industry at midcentury made the small, oily, swift-­finned mackerel an increasingly valuable catch. The second quarter of the nineteenth ­century witnessed an unpre­ce­dented uptick in the number of mackerel fishing ventures launched from US shores. Beginning in the second de­cade of the nineteenth ­century, Yankee fishermen devised, and subsequently improved, a method of catching mackerel that relied on a new kind of fishing jig that did not require the laborious pro­cess of baiting each and ­every hook.56 With increasingly ruthless efficiency, US fishermen soon overran the mackerel stocks nearest to US shores, forcing skippers to sail further and further afield in search of their prey. Reaching a peak in the early 1830s, mackerel fishing was, on the eve of the 1852 fisheries dispute, once again in its ascendency as US fishermen invaded North Atlantic ­waters with seemingly l­ ittle regard for decades-­old treaty stipulations.57 ­These changes, however, ­were not solely the result of increased technological efficiency; they had an environmental component as well.

Figure 7.  Cod and Mackerel Tonnage, 1830–1867. Source: Wayne M. O’Leary, Maine Sea Fisheries: The Rise and Fall of a Native Industry, 1830–1890 (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1996), 346, 348.

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Despite its booming popularity in the 1820s to 1840s, mackeral fishing was a precarious endeavor. One con­temporary observer of this fishery, Lorenzo Sabine, noted that “serious depressions and ruinous losses . . . ​are not uncommon” in the pursuit of such a “capricious and sportive fish.” This fickle fish followed a seasonal pattern of migration, as summers brought warmer temperatures and rich phytoplankton blooms. Yet, despite this seasonal pattern year-­to-­year variations w ­ ere significant, leaving New E ­ ngland fishermen with ­little concept of what was normal. Such an ill-­defined baseline was even more susceptible to radically shifting expectations and demands. As more and more Americans outfitted boats specifically designed for the needs of the mackerel fishery during the quarter c­ entury before 1850, environmental conditions favored the proliferation of t­ hese fish. Changes in ocean temperature and chemistry during this period—­changes driven by the North Atlantic Oscillation—­ created huge loads that led in subsequent years to huge busts. For a period, at least, the environment accommodated ­human pressures. The year 1831 was a particularly productive year, as fishermen brought in hauls of mackerel unparalleled ­until the 1880s. But five years ­later ­those numbers fell by half, leaving an industry hobbled as it entered the financial panic of 1837. Mackerel, unlike the longer-­lived cod, was prone to more radical fluctuations in reaction to the changes in the sea. The industry responded in the 1840s with a desperate search for this erratic fish in unexploited w ­ aters. When the United States and ­Great Britain faced off in the summer of 1852, the mackerel fishery was on the precipice of yet another downturn.58 While US fishermen constantly altered their fishing habits across the nineteenth ­century in an effort to more ruthlessly exploit North Atlantic w ­ aters, the relative rise in the number of mackerel fishers had po­liti­cal consequences. Unlike the benthic-­dwelling codfish that had for so long occupied the attention of New E ­ ngland’s fishing fleets, the mackerel was a migratory species that moved into coastal w ­ aters during the course of the summer fishing season. This ecol­ogy was poised to create trou­ble in a diplomatic regime that barred US fishermen from the w ­ aters nearest the shores of Britain’s North American provinces. Perry observed this tension firsthand. “The mackerel,” Perry explained, “usually resort in shoal to the Bays, and indents of the coasts,” leaving fishermen l­ittle choice but to pursue their catch to the imaginary line that demarked Britain’s exclusive ­waters. But as to be expected, in the “engrossing and exciting occupation of taking them in thousands with the hook, they frequently follow the fish into forbidden ­waters, doubtless in many instances . . . ​when the weather is thick or hazy, and when distances, computed by the eye . . . ​are deceptive.”59 It was, then, not the vindictiveness of the British, the machinations of the provincials, or the ignorance of the Americans that



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created controversy in the summer of 1852. Instead, it was the fish. The natu­ral fickleness of t­hose scaly operatives did much to create t­hese tense diplomatic circumstances. The remedy to this situation was, of course, po­liti­cal, and the prob­lem was not one of information. Perry’s instructions stressed “the necessity of full and timely explanations . . . ​to the fishermen of the United States of the obligation which they owe equally to the laws of their own country and to the rights of the British Crown to avoid any infraction or violation of the stipulations of the treaty of 1818.”60 Nevertheless, during his cruise Perry gave credit to the acuity of US fishermen. Adding to the paeans to the hardiness and patriotism of US fishermen so common in nineteenth-­century po­liti­cal rhe­toric, Perry praised the fishermen as “exceedingly intelligent” men who “understand very well the usually recognized boundary, across which they . . . ​pass . . . ​at their own risk and if in the pursuit of fish, they trespass beyond the proscribed limits, they knowingly take the chance of seizure.”61 A po­liti­cal fix required taking ecol­ogy into consideration. Perry “presumed that the mackerel ­will continue their periodical visit to their usual haunts” and thus render the status quo of the Convention of 1818 untenable. US fishermen complained of the difficulties imposed by the arbitrary maritime boundary. Provincials in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, Perry surmised from his cruise, likewise wanted to alter the status of US fishing rights, as they w ­ ere “anx62 ious to draw tight the bonds of neighborly friendship.” Perry, in his perspective from the fisheries, advocated for a reappraisal of the Anglo-­American convention and urged ­those in Washington to make any concession necessary to secure expanding fishing rights. “Any concession of interest,” like ­free trade, Perry remarked, “would be cheap for the inappreciable privileges of taking fish . . . ​within the entire ­waters of the Provinces.” The shores of Newfoundland and Labrador ­were an example of where the “right to fish is better defined by the Treaty,” and consequently a place devoid of the confrontations that marked the littoral of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Perry even suggested that a treaty that aligned po­liti­cal needs and ecological realties would ensure the continued health of this ecosystem. While “­these sources of wealth seem to be exhaustless,” they “­will be seriously injured in consequence of the wanton destruction of the fish, and the disturbance of their fishing grounds, and hence the necessity of stringent laws for their preservation.”63 Perry’s cruise on the contested ­waters of the North Atlantic demonstrated that the environment was a crucial component of transatlantic relations. Any po­liti­cal arrangement that failed to comport with this ecol­ogy would do l­ittle more than sow Anglo-­American discord. Perry was not alone in observing the ecological origins of this dispute. The US consul at St. John, Israel Andrews, likewise made the connection between

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mackerel fishing and the outbreak of hostilities in Britain’s provincial ­waters. Situated on the shores of the Bay of Fundy, Andrews was well positioned at St. John to comment on the US fishing industry. In a communiqué to Secretary of State Daniel Webster, Andrews bemoaned how the ongoing fisheries dispute seemed poised to disrupt the cordial relations between the United States, G ­ reat Britain, and Britain’s North American colonies. While the US consul remarked to the secretary of state on the esoteric and legalistic interpretation of the Convention of 1818 as it related to the US right to enter the Bay of Fundy—­ merely more rhetorical wrangling on the disputed “headland doctrine”—­something far more material undergirded his interpretation of this most recent dispute. “From the commencement of this fishing season . . . ​the American fishing vessels pursue their business at some distance from the land,” Andrews declared, but “­after the first of September the fish draw in to the shore and are followed by the fishermen.” The fish that enticed US fishermen to transgress the statutory limit of US w ­ aters was doubtless the mackerel, given its proclivity to retreat shoreward during the course of the fishing season. Andrews even cited the commissioners of the fisheries of Nova Scotia, who, in a report to the provincial governor, claimed that “the nature of the Fall fishing renders it absolutely necessary for pursuit of fish within three miles of the shore.” As fishermen pursued their piscine prey into forbidden ­waters, forced by the nature of the fish themselves, they faced capture and potential ruin at the hands of a British ministry who sought to use the situation to further the f­ ree trade agenda.64 Without alteration to the status quo, US fishermen would remain vulnerable to the British and provincial navies. As long as fish like mackerel traversed the arbitrary three-­mile boundary, Anglo-­American relations would be subject to periodic diplomatic confrontations. Andrews remarked that “­there is no doubt what­ever of the fish remaining in the shore a­ fter the first of September, particularly mackerel,” which meant a “positive certainty of more seizures being made.”65 The “failure” of mackerel to comply with the dictates of transatlantic relations exposed the fatal flaw of fisheries diplomacy—­namely, that disputes ­were a product of the gulf that existed between ecol­ogy and politics. While the connection between changes in the fisheries and diplomatic disputes was obvious to men like Matthew Perry and Israel Andrews, who had firsthand experience with the fishing industry, who had sailed t­hose ­waters, and who interviewed ­those fishermen, the point was not lost in its transmission to Washington. Writing to the US minister to London, Secretary of State Edward Everett, having ascended to the position in the wake of Webster’s death, penned the Fillmore administration’s most complete response to the



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fisheries dispute. Dated early December 1852, when the passions aroused that summer had time to ­settle, Everett’s missive explored the myriad misunderstandings and contingencies that led to G ­ reat Britain’s decision to bar US fishermen from provincial ­waters. Of course, the secretary of state singled out the reciprocity issue as a central irritant in this dispute. But Everett also attacked Britain’s support for the spurious “headland doctrine,” suggested that the dispute was mere “electioneering” on the British ministry’s part, and reiterated the genuine alarm Americans felt in response to Britain’s aggressive tactics. He went so far as to claim that colonial leaders w ­ ere the ones responsible for British action, as provincial authorities had, for de­cades, wanted to rein in US fishermen. But amidst commercial politics, l­egal arguments, and subtle paranoia, Everett gave credit to the fish for the role they played in the dispute. Even removed from the ordinary operations of the fisheries in the North Atlantic, Everett grasped that the pursuit of mackerel by US fishermen seemed to be the inevitable cause of the numerous violations of the convention line. Everett remarked that by “inadvertence or even design,” US fishermen “pass[ed] the line of the Convention in the ­eager pursuit of a shoal of mackerel.” Casting a suspicious eye on the motives of the United States’ colonial neighbors, Everett accused Canadians of “too keenly” enforcing “their mono­poly of the best fishing grounds,” with the implication that provincial leaders, not ­those in London, ­were responsible for this newly vigorous policy. But Everett’s appreciation for the environmental ele­ments of the fishery dispute did not necessarily mean the secretary of state grasped the ecological complexities of the region. In an interpretation that resonated with the day’s scientific understanding that posited the inexhaustibility of the ocean, not to mention the United States’ po­liti­cal goals, Everett claimed that admitting US fishermen to t­hese ­waters would do l­ittle to hurt the provincial fishing industry or the sea’s ecological health. Citing the “resort of two centuries and half,” the secretary of state claimed the “inexhaustible abundance” of ­those “prolific ­waters” remained “undiminished,” and that “the gain of one implies no loss to another.”66 US statesmen w ­ ere consistent in articulating the need to align international agreements with ecol­ogy realities—or at least the ecol­ogy realities as ­these politicians understood them. Mackerel fishing was central to how US policymakers understood the narrative of the fishery dispute of the summer of 1852. As late as 1854, when US statesmen fi­nally sought a treaty to replace the out-­of-­date Convention of 1818, Secretary of State William Marcy conveyed this understanding to the US minister in London, James Buchanan. When articulating the shortcomings of the Convention of 1818, Marcy noted that its ecologically out-­of-­date provisions “­will prove a constant source of irritation and controversy may disturb . . . ​

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peaceful relations” between the United States and ­Great Britain. Marcy observed that “when the Convention of 1818 was entered into the taking of cod was the all-­important branch of the fisheries,” but “now it is superseded in point of importance by the mackerel” fishery. Given the profit-­seeking motive of US fishermen, “when they fall in with shoals of them [mackerel],” fishermen could not be expected to “resist the temptation of following them within the shore limit fixed by the Convention of 1818.”67 Although US fisher­ men had been and would continue to be impor­tant actors in the transatlantic politics of fishing, the fish themselves ­were accomplices. As summer turned to fall, ­little pro­g ress had been made by diplomats to assuage the situation. Although parties on both sides ­were well aware that negotiations needed to take place to address both the fisheries question and the reciprocity question, the inflamed opinion of the US public would make such negotiations difficult. As Crampton noted, the “noisy appeals to Popu­ lar Feeling . . . ​have a prejudicial effect upon the satisfactory settlement of the Question affecting . . . ​commercial interest of the United States and the British North American colonies.”68 Although Webster expressed a desire to enter into negotiations to conclude a treaty on fisheries and trade, Crampton concluded that such a desire “arose from other motives connected with his own po­liti­cal position in regard to the Presidential Election. . . . ​It is easy to understand that he would not like to disappoint his Mas­sa­chu­setts friends by an appearance of lukewarmness about their fishing interests.”69 But stronger forces worked to slow the Fillmore’s administration’s move to the bargaining ­table. Principally, was “the objection felt to the mea­sure by the part of the Whig Party which object to it as one of F ­ ree Trade, which might lead to a further expansion of that princi­ple.” Given that November’s election could bring to the White House a Demo­cratic administration sympathetic to the princi­ple of ­free trade, London seemed content to merely wait out the recalcitrant Whigs. As Crampton informed the Foreign Office in London, “The Demo­cratic Party are, as m ­ atters now stand, very sanguine as to the success of their Candidate at the next Presidential Election, and it has been intimated to me very Clearly that they would be anxious to take the credit for settling this ­whole question so soon as they may get possession of office.”70 More or less, that is what did happen. The dispute fizzled in the fall, as the mackerel retreated to their overwinter grounds and US politicians turned their attention to a presidential contest that would bring Franklin Pierce, a Demo­crat, to office. Soon, but not simply, the ­free trade issue would be settled with the Marcy-­Elgin Treaty in 1854, as the nations came to an agreement whereby the US market and Canadian ­waters opened to the penetration of the other. But despite this seemingly ami-



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cable end to the fisheries dispute, the summer of 1852 showed that the United States remained sensitive to Britain’s international policies. Mutual re­spect and British recognition of US parity ­were necessary if the Anglo-­American relationship was to truly be transformed. The New Orleans Picayune, in early November  1852, speculated about ­whether the United States and G ­ reat Britain w ­ ere on the precipice of a monumental change in their relationship. The transatlantic relationship could only be put on a constructive footing if ­Great Britain came to the realization that the “American continent is no longer a sphere for the planting of British colonies, the attempt to exercise a controlling po­liti­cal influence, or even for the permanent maintenance of dominion which is still retained in parts of North Amer­i­ca.” The Canadian colonies w ­ ere in a period of transition; soon enough, Britain would be forced to leave North Amer­i­ca, and only then could the Anglo-­American relationship be reformed: “The withdrawal, gradually and gracefully, of all British dominion from the continent, as part of the g­ rand recognition which must come of the princi­ple that Amer­i­ca is to belong to the Americans and be governed by American ideas, w ­ ill be the guarantee of a perpetual peace between ­England and the United States.” Both nations had to work together to build a new relationship built on trust, the key component of an effective rapprochement, and only “by mutual non-­interference and mutual good w ­ ill” could both nations “advance prosperously and gloriously.”71 If the kind of goodwill and mutual re­spect that was necessary for the nations to ensure each other’s prosperity and glory was in short supply, t­here was, at least by 1854, a mutual recognition that some kind of change was necessary. The resulting Marcy-­Elgin Treaty inaugurated more than a de­cade of ­free trade and ­free fishing across the US-­Canadian boundary, yet the US-­ British suspicion that had marked the fisheries question was replaced by the mutual suspicion of the North and South. Owing to its central position in US statecraft and nation building, the North Atlantic fisheries w ­ ere directly implicated in the growing sectional crisis that ultimately led to disunion.

Sectionalism and the Sea In what no doubts registers as historical irony, the heyday of expansionist fervor in the United States came at time when few acres ­were actually added to the Union. When filibustering was all the rage and Americans—­southerners, at least—­dreamed of a Ca­rib­bean empire, only a paltry strip of land south of the Gila River was wrestled into the US dominion. While it certainly was of consequence, the Gadsden Purchase seemed inconsequential when compared

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to the much larger Mexican Cession of the previous de­cade. Although the impulses of manifest destiny brought expeditions to the shores of Cuba and Nicaragua, US expansionists of midcentury w ­ ere not singularly obsessed with creating an American Mediterranean. Canadian lands beckoned as well. The United States was certainly no stranger to the rhe­toric of Canadian annexation. Having invaded the British colonies a number of times, nineteenth-­ century Americans seemed confident that that broad swath of territory would eventually become part of the US imperium. During the 1850s this question was tied to both the sectional question and the fisheries question in a kind of triangulation that brought sectional rancor and fishery politics into direct contact. The connecting tissue proved to be trade reciprocity. Despite the tension that erupted during the summer of 1852, US politicians ­were not inveterate anti–­free traders. Almost immediately ­after the presidential contest of 1852, US congressmen set to work on a reciprocity bill that they hoped would make the kind of tensions seen that summer a t­ hing of the past. That year’s election proved to be enormously impor­tant, as it would be the Whig Party’s last stand before foun­dering on the rock of slavery, signaling the demise of the Second Party System and the rise of sectionalism as the primary identification in US politics.72 In the early months of 1853 John Davis of Mas­sa­chu­setts introduced a Senate bill designed to protect US fishing rights in Canadian ­waters while extending reciprocal trading and fishing privileges to the United States’ northern neighbor. The mea­sure was opposed by many southern senators. In an effort led by Stephen Mallory of Florida, an amendment to the bill forbade foreign nationals from fishing in southern ­waters. Using a states’ rights argument, Mallory claimed the federal government had no power to force any state to open its territorial ­waters to foreign fishermen, becuase of the fear that ­free black fishermen from the British Ca­rib­bean might invade southern ports to foment slave insurrections. This amendment was added to Davis’s reciprocity bill, which was ultimately defeated in the Senate. But this episode demonstrates how quickly the cooperation of 1852 faded and slaveholders began using the fisheries issue to protect their own sectional interests. A wider-­ranging debate about reciprocity and sectional interest would wait for the Elgin-­Marcy Treaty of 1854 and the subsequent debate over the legislation that would put the treaty’s stipulations into effect.73 Fulfilling its constitutional duty, the Senate considered the Elgin-­Marcy Treaty in the summer of 1854. The treaty, negotiated by US secretary of state William Marcy and Canadian governor general Lord Elgin, admitted Canadian goods—­most importantly, timber, grain, and coal—to the United States without duty, while Americans ­were granted expanded fishing rights and the



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f­ree navigation of the St. Lawrence. The Thirty-­Third Congress may be better remembered for considering the Kansas-­Nebraska Bill, but this seemingly innocuous trade bill became part of the same conversation and served as a proxy for discussing the growing estrangement of North and South. Although the fisheries issues and trade reciprocity w ­ ere far removed from the blood-­ soaked plains of Kansas, they w ­ ere all part of a similar sectional rhe­toric. The final tally on the reciprocity bill (32 yeas to 11 nays) may seem like a rare moment of agreement in the summer of 1854, but senators from both the North and South sought to use the issue for their own ends.74 While the Senate deliberated ­behind closed doors in an executive session, newspaper editors did not hesitate to comment on what the treaty might mean for domestic relations. Writing on behalf of the Daily National Era of Washington, D.C., an optimistic observer hoped that neither sectional rivalries would tinge the proceedings nor that “blear-­eyed sectionalism, or a bigoted devotion to merely local interest, should prevent the consummation” of this wise mea­sure. But most commenters felt it was a foregone conclusion that sectional affinity would determine the outcome of the vote. As the Register of Salem, Mas­sa­chu­setts, lamented, a vote along strictly sectional lines would create a feeling “very unfavorable to the f­ uture harmony of the country.”75 Northerners expressed the greatest trepidation at the prospect of the fisheries and reciprocity issues being subjected to the politics of section. The disproportionate repre­sen­ta­tion of the South in Washington made it pos­si­ble that a legislature and executive sympathetic to southern interests would willingly sacrifice the interests of the Northeast. The Boston Eve­ning Transcript remarked that even though “our gallant New ­England fishermen suffered from outrages and abuses at the hand of the En­glish and Colonial officials,” such indignities “have failed thus far to receive proper attention from the American government,” b­ ecause the administration “seems entirely devoted to southern interests.” The same paper would ­later criticize both the Fillmore and Pierce administrations for subjecting “a large class of hardy, patriotic, and enterprising men” to “broken promises” and “cold neglect.”76 For many in the po­liti­cal community, the reciprocity bill, the legislative manifestation of the Elgin-­Marcy Treaty, was frequently tied to the territorial aspirations of the South. The issue of expanding slavery’s territorial grip was paramount in the early 1850s as the Mexican Cession and the Kansas-­Nebraska Bill brought the question to the forefront of the nation’s consciousness. Given the bill’s close association with the interests of northerners, the bill was situated in the context of the South’s territorial aspirations in Mexico and Cuba. As the Daily National Era of Washington, D.C., observed, the summer of 1854 witnessed the Senate consider both the Reciprocity Treaty and the Gadsden

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Treaty. The paper remarked that the Gadsden Treaty was “of special importance to the slave interest of the South,” while “the f­ ree interest of the North” had a greater stake in the Reciprocity Treaty. Consequently, the editorialist speculated that both treaties “may be linked together, so that one cannot be ratified without the other,” thus satisfying both the ­free and slave sections of the nation. While the slave South may have used the reciprocity and fisheries issues to ensure the passage of the Gadsden Treaty, an editorialist in New Jersey cautioned against such a linkage. The Gadsden Treaty benefited merely one section of the nation, while the Reciprocity Treaty was a national mea­ sure tied to the navigation and security of the entire nation. For that reason alone, protecting the fisheries “would be better for the country than all the everlasting clamor for Mexico and Cuba.”77 Even though the South’s dream of an empire encircling the Gulf of Mexico dominated headlines and congressional debates during the 1850s, the reciprocity bill was most often associated with US designs on its northern neighbor. Antebellum Americans often speculated when—­not if—­the Canadian colonies would join the United States, giving life to British fears that Americans actively sought all of North Amer­ic­ a. Even in the fisheries dispute during the summer of 1852, as the (albeit unlikely) prospect of war reared its grim head, Americans in both the North and South assumed that any hostility with ­Great Britain would naturally entail the annexation of Canada by the United States. Amidst a debate concerning the place of fishermen in the Union, commenters also considered the potential place of Canada in the Union. Reflecting a sense of national unity during that summer, both northerners and southerners concluded that annexing Canada would prove disastrous for their section and the Union. Southerners feared Canadian annexation was merely a ploy to increase the number of f­ ree states in the Union, while ­those in the North felt annexation was a guise for re-­enslaving ­those few who had reached freedom. While this conversation hinted at how the fisheries issue would be mobilized in the competition of North and South, it was merely speculative, and both sides seemed wary of annexing such a large expanse of land. During the debate over the reciprocity bill in 1854, however, annexation seemed imminent, and the debate was divided along the North-­South line.78 Reciprocity, supporters believed, was but a precursor to annexation. ­Free trade between the United States and Canada would naturally erase the po­liti­ cal line that existed between the two polities, and as ­these economies became intertwined, a po­liti­cal ­union was inevitable. However, the ramifications of such a u ­ nion became fodder for a debate over the interests of both the North and South. While southerners feared that annexation had the potential to add ­free states to the Union and thus disrupt the nation’s delicate balance, a belief



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existed among some that f­ree trade would serve to promote Canadian in­de­ pen­dence and stifle any agitation for annexation. Furthermore, southerners may have even considered reciprocity as a way to further their agenda by using annexation as an opportunity to enact an even stronger fugitive slave law that would allow them to pursue the formerly enslaved into the new northern dominion. While southerners viewed the fisheries issue and the reciprocity bill in terms of their unique interests, northerners did likewise. Long had fishery supporters used fishermen to bolster their own interests ­under the mantle of the national good. But the summer of 1854 saw northerners situate Canadian annexation as part of a larger program of territorial expansion with only sectional good in mind. The Boston Courier detailed “the gigantic plans of Northern annexation,” by which northern senators ­were “openly demanding . . . ​the acquisition of all British Amer­i­ca,” Vancouver Island, Sitka, and even the Sandwich Islands, all “with a view to the increase of Northern power.” Ultimately, the reciprocity bill would pass. For more than a de­ cade, Canada enjoyed exporting its goods duty ­free to the United States, while US fishermen exploited their expanded fishing rights in Canadian ­waters. But sectional alienation was just as impor­tant a legacy of this trade mea­sure, if not of the fisheries question itself.79 Sectional animosity also flared over the federal cod-­fishing bounty. Passed by Congress in the 1790s, this mea­sure was subject to sectional politics throughout the antebellum era. However, it was only during the 1850s that the debate over the bounty was waged along North-­South lines. Previously, western interests depicted the bounty as evidence of the federal government privileging coastal endeavors at the frontier’s expense. The year 1840 witnessed the first major challenge to the cod-­fishing bounty. Unsurprisingly, this fight against sectional privilege was waged by the scion of western interests, Missouri senator Thomas Hart Benton. A Jacksonian leery of undue privilege in any guise, Benton attacked the bounty as injurious to his home region and the entire Union alike. To his mind, the bounty and its supporters’ nationalist posturing ­were merely a ruse to funnel wealth from federal coffers to the Northeast at the expense of the farmers and husbandmen of the West. Refusing to see the West disadvantaged, Benton attacked the foundation on which the bounty stood: the often repeated claim that the fisheries w ­ ere a vital part of national security. In a report compiled by Benton to ascertain the origin of the fishing bounty, the senator concluded that ­there was simply no relationship between the cod-­ fishing bounty and the need to train seamen for the nation’s navy. From the very beginning, Benton claimed, “the bounty to dried and cured fish was nothing but a drawback of the salt duty” and thus bore “no relation to the training

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of seamen.” Since salt was a necessity for cod fishermen, the federal government instituted the bounty in order to compensate fishermen for the duty paid on imported salt. Benton confidently concluded that the bounties “can refer their existence to no other source but the duty on salt; and they are a drawback of the duty paid on the foreign salt used on that part of the fish intended to be exported.”80 ­Because this mea­sure was tied directly to the salt duty, Benton reasoned, it would indeed prove to be a poor way to train the nation’s sailors. If the bounty’s primary objective was to create competent seamen, then why ­were ­whalers, who “engage in real war with the mighty monsters of the deep,” excluded from the bill’s provisions? Benton claimed this exclusion was not “­because they ­were less meritorious mari­ners but ­because they did not use salt.” Furthermore, how could fishermen be expected to become patriotic and able seamen if the bounty made no discrimination based on nationality? While Benton aimed to undermine the fallacy on which the bounty stood, he took care not to denigrate the fisheries or fishermen. “Far be it from this committee,” Benton cautioned, “to depreciate the value or to underrate the importance of the northeastern fisheries.” While the fisheries created generations of hardy seamen, the nation now laid claim to other ­waters to train its sailors. In 1789 “the northeastern fisheries ­were almost the only school in which to learn the art of seamanship,” but by 1840, “the northern lakes, the Gulf of Mexico, the bays and the w ­ hole maritime coast of the Atlantic border, share that prerogative with them.” In Benton’s view, both the bounty and the salt duty to which it was tied had to be abolished, as ­these mea­sures served only to advantage the few at the cost of the many. And for Benton, the many ­were his constituents in the West.81 This kind of advantage galled the Jacksonian Benton, and his visceral opposition to the bounty stemmed from his loyalty to the western United States and his belief that “the genius of our institutions . . . ​forbid the existence of exclusive privileges among us.” Offering a specific example, Benton cited an act of May 2, 1792, whereby the selling of salt “by the weighed instead of the mea­sured bushel” led to “the greatest imposition” on salt sellers of the West. “By altering the standard of the bushel,” Benton observed, “the ­whole western country has since been cheated out of one third of its salt,” which was tangible proof that the salt duty and fishing bounty inflicted a “permanent injury . . . ​upon the western states.” Benton was not alone in understanding the fight over the bounty as one that pitted East against West. The Eastern Ar­ gus of Portland, Maine, inveighed that “the scheme of abolishing the Salt Tax and Fishing Bounties is a Western Scheme—­originated by western men and likely to receive its strongest support among the western ­people.”82



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While Benton was a vigorous defender of the rights of his home section, his opposition to the continuation of the federal cod-­fishing bounty was also tied to his partisan affinities. As a die-­hard Jacksonian, Benton and his Demo­ cratic ilk w ­ ere vigilant in opposing the kind of privilege that the bounty fostered. Thus, in addition to being a symbol of sectional privilege, fishermen ­were, for Benton and his acolytes, a symbol of pork barrel politics. As Benton railed against this New ­England interest, he did so not only as a westerner, but as a Demo­crat, too. His failure in securing the repeal of the bounty in 1840 was not solely the result of the nationwide rhetorical power of the fishermen, but also part of the Whigs’ defeat of the Demo­crats in a year that saw the first Whig ascend to the presidency.83 Ultimately, 1840 would not see the repeal of the fishing bounty. Writing in defense of the bounty, Mas­sa­chu­setts senator John Davis resorted to familiar tactics. Praising US fishermen as “the most hardy, patriotic, and efficient seamen on the face of the earth,” Davis made the expected equation of fishing and fighting. The federal government must encourage the fisheries through a bounty b­ ecause, Davis concluded, “it makes a ­great body of efficient, able, patriotic native seamen, who, in the emergency of war, have all the qualifications requisite to maintain the honor of the flag, and give protection to the country.” The logic of national security was a persuasive argument within the US po­liti­cal community.84 While the bounty weathered the storm of the 1840s, during the 1850s the debate over this federal dispensation became part of the larger debate between freedom and slavery. In 1858 the Senate had what historian Wayne M. O’Leary would call a “mammoth” debate over the proposed repeal of the bounty. The pro-­bounty partisans mobilized the very arguments they had used for de­cades. Hannibal Hamlin of Maine came to the defense of the fishermen. Recognizing that fishing was a local interest, at least in a commercial sense, just as sugar cultivation was local to Louisiana, Hamlin situated fishing and the fishermen as a national resource tied to the defense of the nation. Hamlin supported the cod-­fishing bounty “for a national purpose,” which is to say, the “training of seamen for the naval ser­vice” in the “best school that ever existed.” He went so far as to compare the fisheries to an ­actual school, claiming that “this nursery of seamen o ­ ught to be regarded by the Senate and by the American ­people precisely as we regard the military school at West Point, and the naval school at Annapolis.” To ­counter this familiar line of reasoning, Clement C. Clay Jr. of Alabama opted for a novel argument. Instead of attacking the bounty as an unfair grant to an ultimately worthy cause, Clay directly questioned the value of fishermen to the Union. He remarked, “I understand from naval officers that all the advantage a cod fisherman has over a mere ‘land-­lubber’ is

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in having learned to ‘rough it,’ to walk the deck, and escape sea-­sickness; but they say that they would rather take a raw recruit who had learned nothing than to take a cod fisherman whom they would have to unlearn before they could teach.” The vitriol continued as Clay described how the cod-­fishing bounty had not created a class of hardy, patriotic sailors but instead had only bred “dependence on the Government for support,” which served to depress “national prosperity.” In Clay’s telling, the bounty “paralyzes the industry, enervates the mind, and enfeebles the ­will of man.” Fishermen ­were not men at all, since such dependence “discourages enterprise, enslaves the spirit, [and] suppresses noble aspirations,” to the point where ­these “sailors” “can never feel or exercise the freedom, in­de­pen­dence, and self-­reliance of mature manhood.” Never before had critics assailed what was, by and large, a popularly recognized national symbol, by attacking the very reason for the fishermen’s uniform federal support.85 While the federal cod-­fishing bounty survived intact, serious and substantive changes to the po­liti­cal economy of the fishing industry w ­ ere on the horizon. The 1850s ­were the high point of the fisheries in the nation’s po­liti­cal imagination. In 1852 politicians from all sections rallied around this resource to protest the most pointed foreign assault on US access to the fisheries. In 1858 politicians from at least some of the sections rallied to defeat the most vigorous domestic assault on the place of the fisheries in the nation’s po­liti­cal economy. Both of t­ hese instances represented the culmination of more than a half c­ entury of rhe­toric that extolled the North Atlantic fisheries as a vital part of US statecraft and a symbol of US in­de­pen­dence and nationalism. Looking forward, however, squalls w ­ ere approaching. Although the fisheries question became part of the larger sectional question that wracked the nation, the Civil War itself did l­ittle to disturb the industry, apart from the normal interruptions and dislocations that came with war. It was the postwar period that saw a fundamental change in how the US po­liti­cal community understood the fisheries. And yet again, this shift was tied to the larger dynamics of Anglo-­American relations. The Civil War era saw huge swings in the nature of the transatlantic relationship as the indignation the United States felt for Britain’s tacit support of the Confederacy eventually gave way to a new era of Anglo-­American cooperation. Combined with a host of other changes that ­were in part spawned by the war—­namely, changes in the composition and purpose of the United States Navy—­this shift in Anglo-­American relations was intimately connected to a shift in fishery politics that displaced the North Atlantic fisheries from its privileged place in US politics.

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Sea Changes

The Elgin-­Marcy Treaty seemed to be a boon for the fishing industry. Although the treaty’s stipulations opened the US market to most Canadian goods, including lumber, coal, and, principally, fish, the treaty also opened all North Atlantic ­waters to US fishermen. Fi­nally, it seemed, the US fishing industry could fish the inshore ­waters that had for de­cades remained beyond US fishermen’s statutory grasp, without fear of capture or reprisals from British or colonial cruisers. With this diplomatic guarantee in hand and a lionized national icon in the patriotic and enterprising fisherman, the US fishing industry was poised to strengthen its claim to national importance. The next two de­cades, however, would fundamentally change the place of the fisheries in US statecraft. The Civil War was not the cataclysm for the fishing industry that it was for the nation at large. While men and resources ­were directed away from fishing, and some fishing schooners w ­ ere even scuttled at the hands of Confederate ships, it was the postwar period that saw an assault on the fishing industry. Since the nation’s inception, the federal government had uniformly protected the fishing industry from domestic opposition, inhospitable international markets, and foreign aggressors u ­ nder the assumption that the North Atlantic fisheries w ­ ere a vital part of US statecraft. But ­after the war, this logic began to falter. The economic and cultural changes of the postbellum United States frayed the once taut rope that bound the federal 159

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government to the fisheries. This shift had po­liti­cal ramifications. The fisheries issue was sidelined in Anglo-­American relations as an emerging rapprochement and a placid transatlantic relationship took pre­ce­dence over an increasingly isolated industry. Britain’s tacit support of the Confederacy during the Civil War, as manifested in the number of ships built, outfitted, or manned by British subjects, cast a pall on Anglo-­American relations. The sense of betrayal harbored by Americans ­after the war threatened the stability of Atlantic diplomacy. But the Treaty of Washington (1871) addressed the series of grievances that occasioned fiery US rhe­toric at real or perceived British insults. Most famously this agreement settled the Alabama claims stemming from the assault on US shipping by British-­built Confederate ships. But also included in the negotiation was an attempt to remedy the ongoing fisheries issue. Once again, an impor­tant shift in Anglo-­American relations was directly tied to the fisheries. However, unlike the revolutionary settlement of 1783, the Convention of 1818, or the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854, the Treaty of Washington was not a full-­throated defense of the fisheries. US policymakers would no longer allow the fisheries issue to dictate foreign policy or compromise other, more impor­tant diplomatic goals. The timing of this transformation was not random. This story climaxed just as the United States emerged from the Civil War and Canada from Confederation. With power and authority now more than ever consolidated in the capitals of Washington and Ottawa, the ability of actors on the fringes of US, British, and Canadian sovereignty to steer imperial politics was diminished. The shape of imperial power in the North Atlantic was again tied to the ebbs and flows of the fisheries issue.

The Fishermen’s Fall in US Politics By midcentury, the North Atlantic was in flux. The adoption of North American ­free trade altered the calculus of Anglo-­American–­Canadian relations. US fishermen shifted where, how, and for what they fished in response to the accidental collusion of industry and nature. And US politics would forever change how the nation would understand ­those maritime laborers. During the 1860s and 1870s the formerly unassailable bond between US fishermen and the federal government would shift as the relationship between individuals, industry, and government was exposed to fundamental rethinking. Like the nation as a w ­ hole, the fisherman of 1860 was far dif­fer­ent from that of 1880. The first sacrifice was the cod-­fishing bounty. As the late antebellum period witnessed the deepening of the sectional crisis, antibounty forces had

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started speaking with a more distinctly southern drawl.1 As chapter 5 showed, Clement C. Clay challenged the efficacy of the federal bounty in 1858, yet the antibounty cause failed. But Clay would continue the crusade, railing against not just the bounty, but the fishermen, too. In an 1860 report to the Committee on Commerce, the Alabamian turned his ire on cod fishermen, claiming that “if the codfishermen rendered the country g­ reat and gallant ser­vices in her wars,” which he disputed, “they may justly claim her praise” but never a bounty, which he likened to “tribute money” that would be “exacted from other patriotic fishermen, mari­ners, and soldiers.” Not only w ­ ere cod fishermen undeserving, but the bounty simply no longer made sense. In an astute reading of ecological and industrial change, Clay went on to assail the bounty as unreflective of current realities, as mackerel fishing had surpassed the cod fishery in importance. Thus, the bounty served to remove valuable tonnage and l­ abor from the more remunerative mackerel fishery. Clay would again fail in his efforts, but soon the fishing bounty would be of l­ittle consequence to the newly minted Confederate senator. Strangely enough, the effort to repeal the bounty, and thus to bring about a fundamental re­orientation of the relationship between the fishing industry and US politics, would come to fruition only when Clay and his southern colleagues remained out of Congress, unrepentant and unreconstructed.2 This assault on the bounty and the po­liti­cal power of cod fishermen came from their own backyards. In a session devoid of southern members, Congress repealed the cod-­fishing bounty with ­little comment during the summer of 1866. Part of a larger revenue bill, the section on the cod-­fishing bounty seemed to catch some congressmen by surprise, as if cod fishing no longer merited the attention of the nation’s lawmakers. With an air of exasperation, Senator Zachariah Chandler of Michigan dismissed the issue as of ­little consequence, hoping that the bounty question “is ended, and ended forever, and that we s­ hall never have another vote in this body for codfish.” While the senator admitted that he had “voted for nine years to retain the bounty . . . ​now, for the first time, I am ­going to vote to get rid of it, and get rid of it forever.” Even the del­e­ga­tions from Mas­sa­chu­setts and Maine, the heart of the cod kingdom, remained almost entirely s­ilent on the question. Only the ju­nior senator from Maine, Lott M. Morrill, offered an uninspired comment on fishermen as a national resource for their ser­vice in the navy and merchant marine. What the fishermen’s opponents had hoped to do for de­cades was done with ­little fanfare, as inaction won the day. At one point in the not-­too-­distant past the hearty, patriotic cod fisherman of the North Atlantic had seemed to command the loyalty of Congress. In 1866, he was met with only an indifferent shrug.3

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This indifference was part of the politics of fishing emanating from wharves along the Mas­sa­chu­setts coast. The fishing revolution of midcentury centralized the industry among a smaller number of large, highly capitalized firms extending north along the littoral from Boston and in the pro­cess, squeezed out a number of smaller operations. Fishing cap­i­tal­ists had taken over the industry. ­These capitalized firms did not rely on the federal handout to turn a profit or make ends meet during lean years. Thus, their representatives in Congress ­were left with ­little incentive to agitate for the bounty’s survival. Furthermore, the repeal of the mea­sure served to liberate fishermen from the bounty’s onerous requirements. De­cades ­later, a longtime veteran of the cod fisheries, Sylvanus Smith, observed of the bounty that “in the l­ater years . . . ​ the mea­sure had become ­really a nuisance, inasmuch as ­under the new ‘rulings’ of the Trea­sury Department, ‘if ­under a codfishing license a vessel could not pursue another branch of the industry and apply for bounty money, without liable to seizure.’ T ­ here was difficulty in obtaining the bounty—­many forms, etc.—­and in 1867, the Gloucester fishing firms, through their Congressman, asked that the mea­sure be repealed.” No longer did fishermen have to prove they pursued cod exclusively for so many months of the year in order to claim the bounty; instead, they could fill their fares with more profitable fish like mackerel and, increasingly, halibut. The repeal of the cod-­fishing bounty did ­little to hurt the industry. In fact, tt may have been proof of strength and resiliency.4 The image of the bold, enterprising, patriotic cod fishermen did suffer, however. During this period the symbolic importance of the cod fisherman underwent a significant change. Once an aspirational symbol of what the nation could be, the cod fisherman would, over the last quarter of the nineteenth c­ entury, become a conservative symbol of a bygone era. As the fishing industry, and the nation more generally, was transformed by pro­ cesses like immigration and industrialization, the cod fishermen became a symbol of white, Protestant, in­de­pen­dent, native-­born laborers, even as fishing industrialized and attracted a more diverse, multinational workforce. The fishing cap­i­tal­ists who came to dominate the industry deployed this image in efforts to shape federal policies that would line their own pockets at the expense of a­ ctual fishermen.5 Losing the support of the federal government and becoming a relic within the industry, the cod fisherman-­as-­national-­ symbol lost the potency it once had. Amidst ­these changes in the po­liti­cal economy of the fishing industry came changes in how Americans ate fish. The forces of slavery and Catholicism had long driven the demand for cod and mackerel in the United States and in the Atlantic world more generally. Heavi­ly salted fish provided a welcome alternative for plantation masters looking to provision their enslaved workforce as

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cheaply as pos­si­ble and for the faithful looking to comply with the church’s prohibition against eating meat for more than one hundred days each year. But during the first half of the nineteenth c­ entury ­there had also developed a demand for fish among a wider swath of Americans, especially inland populations, on account of salted fish’s relative cheapness and long shelf life. In the 1830s the British traveler Frances Trollope observed that Americans of all classes ate salted fish. A Mary­land farmer and his ­family, living in a “hovel” Trollope described as “wretched,” ate “upon their fat pork, salt fish, and corn bread, summer and winter, without variation. This, I found, was frequently the case among the farmers.” Elsewhere, the wife of a “senator and a ­lawyer in the highest repute and practice” in Philadelphia ate a breakfast of “her fried ham and her salt fish.” Trollope also counted salt fish among the offerings at a public eatery in Buffalo, New York, while noting that “I never saw turbot, salmon, or fresh cod,” suggesting a preference for the preserved catches of the North Atlantic.6 Cookbooks from the era likewise suggested the ubiquity of cod in any form. Miss Beecher’s Domestic Receipt Book was illustrative of the genre, listing numerous ­recipes for the preparation of fish, including one instructing the reader in how “to cook salt codfish,” which entailed soaking the fish overnight with sodium bicarbonate. “The last,” Miss Beecher told readers, “softens it as nothing ­else ­will do,” a necessary step given the rock-­hard texture of salted cod.7 This demand, however, began to shift. During the second half of the nineteenth ­century changes in tastes and technologies would encourage the consumption of fresh fish and other sources of protein. Diet reform movements, the growth of cities, and the emergence of a class of more affluent Americans all coincided with advances in transportation and preservation technologies that made fresh fish—­fresh food across the board, ­really—­more appealing and more available than ever before.8 Salted fish, the mainstay of the US fishing industry for centuries, was losing ground. By the 1870s fish merchants ­were complaining about the change in tastes, which required changes in how fish was pro­cessed and shipped. One such merchant from Gloucester, discussing the demand for salted fish, reported that “we cannot sell one-­half what we could twenty-­five years ago; we cannot find a ready market. I cannot tell the reason for this fact, except that the p­ eople, by the improved mode of transportation, are supplied with fresh fish, which they prefer to salt fish, and I ­don’t blame them for it.”9 At the same time, the culture of fish eating underwent a transformation. While ­earlier in the ­century the consumption of fish cut across lines of region, race, and class—­salted cod was eaten by enslaved southerners and toney Philadelphians alike—­during the second half of the ­century the fish

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market became more segmented around the poor. Fish, especially cod in its salted form, had always been popu­lar among marginal populations b­ ecause of its cheapness. But ­after the ­middle of the ­century, historian Wayne  M. O’Leary relates, it “developed negative connotations” and “was stigmatized as being the poor man’s food.”10 Middle-­class Americans increasingly turned to other sources of protein, especially fresh beef, which became cheaper and more widely available as the end of the ­century neared.11 The growing number of urban poor—­many of whom w ­ ere Catholic, had recently arrived from Eu­rope, and had a taste for salted cod and mackerel from the North Atlantic—­helped make up for the loss of consumers who opted for fresh fish and, increasingly, beef, but still the fish market in the United States shifted dramatically over the second half of the nineteenth ­century. The changing circumstances of postbellum US fishery politics reflected changes in the sea itself. The m ­ iddle de­cades of the nineteenth c­ entury witnessed a series of ecological and industrial changes that dethroned King Cod from his formerly vaunted place within the wider US fishing industry. Overfishing, changes in climate and ocean chemistry, and shifting modes of production and consumption rendered cod, by the 1850s and 1860s, a comparatively less valuable fish during the era of Prince Mackerel’s ascendency.12 As the economic clout of codfish waned, so too did the po­liti­cal clout of cod fishermen. The repeal of the bounty in 1866 represented an effort on behalf of Congress to align po­liti­cal, economic, and ecological realities as the bounty had become an outdated mea­sure, more fit to the circumstances of the 1840s or even the 1790s. But the repeal was also part of a larger, national re­orientation away from the maritime world. Fishermen of any stripe seemed to embody the ideology of the newly founded Republican Party. With its origins in the fractious debates of the 1850s over the place of slavery in the Union, the Republican Party coalesced around the idea of ­free ­labor. The fishing industry obviously fit this bill. During the course of the 1860s, as the party’s ideological orientation and legislative agenda shifted to face war­time exigencies, Republican economic policy largely overlooked maritime m ­ atters. Agriculture, land policy, and railroad construction ­were all terrestrial endeavors that came to dominate the Republican Party’s economic program.13 The party did, however, enact l­ imited tariff reform that directly affected the fisheries by revoking the Reciprocity Treaty in 1865, thus reinstating the tariff barrier with Britain’s North American colonies.14 Even within the fishing industry, this proved to be a controversial decision, since it ­limited the inflow of Canadian fish to the US market but further restricted US access to foreign ­waters. As ­will be seen, this action did not necessarily reflect a genuine interest in the fisheries as much as it served to illustrate the conten-

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tious state of postbellum Anglo-­American relations. Although Secretary of State William Henry Seward attempted to garner support for his scheme to purchase Greenland and Iceland in 1867 by describing the won­ders of the islands’ maritime resources, the Republican-­controlled government of the 1860s, while not openly antagonistic to the fishing industry, was largely indifferent.15 The failure to purchase Greenland, the construction of the transcontinental railroad, and mea­sures like the Morrill Land-­Grant Act all hinted at a government and nation no longer obsessed with the sea.16 This turn away from the sea was not confined to specific Republican policies, but became so widespread one naval historian describes the period as a maritime “dark age.” While the Civil War witnessed the explosive growth of the United States Navy to meet the needs of an extraordinary blockade, the fleet was left to rot soon ­after the conflict ended. At the same time, sailing skills ­were increasingly downplayed in the navy as the US fleet transformed from sail to steam. The f­ uture of the nation’s naval forces would rely on engineers and technicians. As O’Leary observes, “The kind of training provided by the fisheries ‘school’ might have been helpful in preparing men for the old wooden sailing navy, where the premium was on seamanship. In the new age of steam, however, it was irrelevant.” Furthermore, the m ­ iddle de­cades of the nineteenth ­century witnessed the professionalizing of the navy. ­These transformations ­were perhaps the most critical in relegating US fishermen to the sidelines of politics. For de­cades, the connection between fishing and fighting was pivotal in guaranteeing widespread support for fishermen, since the logic of national security was quite persuasive. But given the structural changes in the navy, the nation simply no longer needed the fisheries to serve as a training ground for sailors.17 The navy proved to be yet another realm of federal policy in which the changes of the 1860s and 1870s forced a renegotiation of the relationship between fishermen and national, if not international, politics. And yet again, the po­liti­cal clout of the fisherman and his image was curtailed. But the fall of the fishermen in US politics did not mean that the fishing industry generally was forsaken by the po­liti­cal establishment. In fact, the postbellum years would see the fisheries issue once again emerge in Anglo-­American relations and continue to cut to the heart of transatlantic ties, albeit amid dif­fer­ent circumstances.

Anglo-­American Relations in the Postwar World As the United States descended into fratricidal war in 1861, Anglo-­American relations w ­ ere, in most regards, more stable than ever. Financial and commercial

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bonds grew stronger as the United States acquiesced to Britain’s international ­free trade order. Agreements like the Clayton-­Bulwer Treaty of 1850 suggested a higher degree of international cooperation. The settlement of the US-­Canadian border, along with the agreement on the North Atlantic fisheries, removed the most likely ele­ment of discord in Anglo-­American relations. Of course, calm relations at midcentury w ­ ere relative, as the degree of Anglophobia in popu­lar US politics remained high, but t­hese trends all suggested, at the very least, a transatlantic détente. But this transatlantic spirit of amity would be short-­lived. Recent historiographical trends have explored the international ramifications of the Civil War, and the conflict’s impact on Anglo-­American relations has been a productive field of inquiry.18 The discord engendered in the United States by British policy was not confined to the war years—it soured transatlantic relations for years to come. The fisheries issues would become embroiled in a series of disputes stemming from the war, bringing Anglo-­American relations to a near breaking point and calling into question any facile interpretation of a linear trajectory for transatlantic relations across the nineteenth ­century. The tension that defined Anglo-­American relations during the early postbellum years stemmed from the diplomatic goals of the Confederacy. This newfound state had a relatively ­simple foreign policy agenda: secure international recognition. The carrot-­and-­stick approach of the South’s cotton diplomacy has received much historiographic attention and has generally been dismissed for its failure to achieve the recognition of the Eu­ro­pean powers.19 Yet, the diplomacy of the Confederate States may have achieved at least l­imited success during the war with Britain’s surreptitious aid. Officially, the British government never recognized the Confederacy, but it did recognize the South’s belligerency, opening the door for British firms to outfit Confederate ships. While the ground war continued apace without the direct intervention or assistance of Eu­ro­pean arms and armies, the war on the waves depended on British ships and men to sustain the Confederate navy. Ships such as the CSS Florida, Shenandoah, and most importantly, Alabama, harassed the Union navy, circumvented the blockade, and preyed on northern shipping—­and in the pro­ cess, drove up insurance rates, leading to an unpre­ce­dented decline in the US merchant marine. Combined with the Trent affair, the depredations of British-­ built sloops assured that the maritime memories of the Civil War would mar postbellum relations.20 In summer 1862 the Confederate steamer Alabama embarked on a two-­year cruise of terrorizing northern merchant ships and evading federal authority. Constructed by the Laird ­Brothers of Birkenhead, the Alabama would become one of the most successful raiders in the southern fleet, taking dozens of Union

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prizes. Ultimately sunk off the coast of Cherbourg by the USS Kearsarge in 1864, the British-­built Alabama became a sticking point in Anglo-­American relations as it seemed to represent an obvious transgression of Britain’s proclaimed neutrality.21 While the Alabama was the most successful and thus (in)famous of the British-­built warships in the Confederate’s employ, it was not alone. The CSS Tallahassee cruised the ­waters of the North Atlantic, preying on Yankee ships, including fishing schooners. Despite a growing US naval force in the region, the presence of the Confederate raider dissuaded New ­England fishermen from pursuing their fares, resulting in a drop by half in the US tonnage employed on the fishing grounds during the war years.22 As the civil conflict ended, the United States turned its attention to G ­ reat Britain with the aim of extracting a monetary penalty for the losses to Union shipping and an admission of culpability on the part of the British government. Americans sought indemnification for the direct losses to northern shipping at the hands of British-­built vessels, and some went so far as to blame ­Great Britain for prolonging the war and its insatiable appetite for blood and trea­ sure. Hoping to smooth transatlantic discord, the Andrew Johnson administration appointed Reverdy Johnson (no relation) to serve as the US minister to G ­ reat Britain a­ fter Charles Francis Adams’s retirement and to negotiate a satisfactory solution to the Alabama claims. The treaty that emerged from Johnson’s negotiations with British foreign secretary Lord Clarendon assured that the US diplomat’s ­career would be short-­lived. Vague, evasive, lacking any clear enforcement mechanism, and completely devoid of any British admission of guilt, the Johnson-­Clarendon Treaty failed in its purpose to assuage transatlantic discord. When the treaty came before the Senate, Charles Sumner passionately denounced it while articulating the disgust Americans felt given Britain’s actions during the recent war.23 Discharging his duty as the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sumner addressed Congress in April 1869 with the committee’s unan­i­ mous decision to reject the hastily negotiated Johnson-­Clarendon Treaty. For Sumner, the convention was wholly inadequate b­ ecause it failed to address British culpability and accounted for a pittance of the losses sustained at the hands of British-­built ships of war. Irksome for the Mas­sa­chu­setts senator was the fact that G ­ reat Britain bestowed the status of “ocean belligerent” early on the Confederacy when the rebellion remained “without ships on the ocean, without prize court or other tribunals for the administration of justice on the ocean, [and] without any of t­ hose conditions which are essential prerequisites to such a concession.” This illegitimate recognition of belligerency, a “shameful and impossible pretension” with no root in real­ity, allowed the South “equal rights with the National Government in [British] ship-­yards, foundries, and

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manufactories, and equal rights on the ocean.” B ­ ecause Britain bestowed the status of belligerency on the Confederacy; allowed ships to be built, armed, and equipped in Britain; and admitted t­hose ships to British ports across the world, the depredations of Confederate ships set “the ocean ablaze.” Such destruction “proceeded from ­England, which . . . ​lighted the torch.”24 Americans, Sumner declared, seethed with indignation. Coming at a time of “profound peace” between the transatlantic nations, the British decision to recognize the unproven belligerency of a sham state was “in no just sense a commercial transaction” but in fact, “an act of war.” Most galling for the Radical Republican was that the nation that had for so long stood on the vanguard of worldwide abolition “gave her name, her influence, her material resources to the wicked cause, and flung a sword into the scale with Slavery.” US aggravation arose from Britain’s “flagrant, unnatural departure from the anti-­slavery rule, which by manifold declarations, legislative, po­liti­cal, and diplomatic, was the avowed creed of ­England.” Just as the United States was joining ­Great Britain as Atlantic nations allied against bondage, the British seemed to cast their lot with a nation of slaveholders gripped “in the very madness of barbarism.” Sumner was not alone in this feeling of betrayal.25 Sumner’s speech before the Senate conveyed the discord that existed between the United States and G ­ reat Britain during this postbellum period. But the speech was also a stratagem on the senator’s part to reassert his control of US foreign policy. Hoping to assert his dominance over the new secretary of state, Hamilton Fish, Sumner instructed the soon-­to-be US minister to G ­ reat Britain, John Lothrop Motley, to pen a “Memoir” that Sumner hoped would become the official stance of the State Department.26 The “Memoir” would mirror Sumner’s speech in both substance and style. Motley reinforced the feeling of betrayal that pervaded Sumner’s speech. “A deep sense of national wrong at the hands of ­Great Britain,” Motley declared, “over and above large pecuniary losses sustained by individuals pervades the American ­people.” Like Sumner, Motley focused on Britain’s grant of belligerent rights to the Confederacy as the genesis of the discord. Giving the Confederate States any claim to legitimacy endangered Britain’s relationship with the United States, and it was not based in the material conditions of the southern war effort. The in­ de­pen­dence and sovereignty of the southern government w ­ ere mere “figments,” and any claim to naval belligerence a “shadow of a shade.” Like the senator, Motley highlighted the hy­poc­risy of British policy. Although its abolition of the African slave trade, the war against the Christian slavery of the Barbary States, and the ultimate emancipation of the enslaved p­ eoples of the West Indies did much to efface “the sins of Elizabeth’s reign,” Britain ceded any claim to the moral high ground by aiding the southern cause.27

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Motley described the “amazement” and the “revulsion of feeling” when “anti-­slavery ­England had suddenly and swiftly proclaimed a virtual recognition of the new slavery engendered confederacy.” As this revulsion festered for years, a mere repayment for the individual losses caused by British built ships would prove entirely inadequate. Americans demanded that Britain make amends for affronting the national honor.28 While the Johnson-­Clarendon Treaty would make arrangements for settling the claims of individuals directly affected by the marauding of the Confederate navy, Sumner took a more expansive view of the costs to the entire nation. He calculated a bill that took into account not just losses of individuals but also the costs borne by the United States merchant marine as US ships ­either refused to subject themselves to the risk of Confederate raiders or w ­ ere simply unable to contend with skyrocketing insurance rates. But most costly was Sumner’s contention that British support extended the duration of the war by more than two years. The cost in men and materiel was staggering, as Sumner suggested ­Great Britain owed the United States billions of dollars in damages. Historians and contemporaries have suggested that this inflated number was Sumner’s gambit to force Britain to cede Canada as equal payment.29 But even such a princely sum was worthless without ­Great Britain acknowledging its wrongdoing. Sumner concluded by observing that “a generous expression” of guilt was the necessary “beginning of a just settlement, and the best assurance of that harmony between two g­ reat and kindred nations which all must desire.”30 Sumner’s speech roused Americans at home and ruffled Britons abroad. In Congress and in the press, Americans praised Sumner for taking such a hard line on the outstanding grievances that bedev­iled Anglo-­American relations. Clearly he was able to convince his peers, as the Senate rejected the Johnson-­ Clarendon Treaty with near una­nim­i­ty, fifty-­four to one. Sumner seemed to give voice to the sense of disgust and betrayal that defined the US po­liti­cal community’s outlook on its transatlantic peer. Meanwhile, Sumner’s speech was received in Britain as the ravings of a dangerous man set on destroying the possibility of ­f uture transatlantic cooperation.31 In 1869, as spring turned to summer, Anglo-­American relations ­were at an impasse. The Alabama claims remained unsettled and thus a major roadblock to any transatlantic détente. While John Lothrop Motley was dispatched to London with explicit instructions to bring the British to the bargaining ­table, Anglo-­American relations headed ­toward divergence in response to the postbellum pall that descended on transatlantic ties. Fully four years before Sumner addressed the Senate and gave voice to ideas that had been festering for years, the United States ended its reciprocal trading relationship with Canada that

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had been in effect since 1854. While much less dramatic than Sumner’s and Motley’s fiery rhe­toric, the end of North American reciprocity was symbolic of the stress Anglo-­American relations endured. Only a de­cade before, G ­ reat Britain had used the stick of fisheries access to coerce the United States into an emerging international regime of ­free trade. Now, a spiteful United States sought even further separation from such a free-­trade regime At midcentury, British boosters spoke of f­ ree trade in rhapsodic terms, believing an open, international economic order was an enlightened path that could ultimately end all wars. But ­after a de­cade of North American ­free trade, the United States was all too ready to extricate itself from that arrangement, and pursuant to the terms of the treaty, it repealed the agreement in 1866. The justification for d­ oing so was explained, at least in part, by the ­simple economic rationale that the United States, unlike the Canadian provinces, was disadvantaged by the relationship. But observers at the time noted that repeal was a response to the acerbic tenor of Anglo-­American relations, and also tied up with the larger geopo­liti­cal questions of annexation and confederation that had for de­cades challenged the North American relationship. Some US editors saved their ire for the nation’s northern neighbors as the repeal of reciprocity loomed. The San Francisco Bulletin assailed the provinces for “publicly rejoic[ing] at our calamities” over the previous four years of war. The California paper continued, “She gave asylum to ­those who would injure us . . . ​[and] throughout the British provinces ­there was scarcely a public journal which did not openly deride the citizens of the United States in their efforts to suppress the rebellion.” All the while, Canada stood “foremost among ­those countries whose citizens have prospered from . . . ​ [the United States’] liberal system of trade, open to all.”32 In the aftermath of repeal, a report addressed to Secretary of State Seward made clear that it was not the content of the Reciprocity Treaty that occasioned its repeal. Instead, it was US indignation at Britain’s tacit support of the Confederacy that severed the first North American trade ­union.33 The report’s author, E. H. Derby, recognized that “the treaty itself had serious defects,” chief among them the fact that the treaty’s terms ­were more beneficial to the underindustrialized economy of the Canadian provinces. But repeal was accelerated by US bitterness. “The notice for repeal,” Derby remarked, “was given at a time when our country was deeply offended with G ­ reat Britain,” since during “our ­g reat strug­gle for existence she had given her sympathy to our foes” and thus exposed Britain’s hypocritical claims to opposing servitude. Given the geo­g raph­i­cal unity of North Amer­i­ca, Derby suggested the only logical solution to the prob­lem of trade was through “the u ­ nion of all parts of our continent in one harmonious ­whole.” Of course, any such arrangement was best administered from the federal capital in Washington. But the Ameri-

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can doubted the British would ever accede to relinquishing the Canadian provinces. Derby sardonically queried ­whether “Asia, Africa, and Australia” ­were alone “sufficient for G ­ reat Britain.”34 A ­later report, compiled at the behest of the Trea­sury Department on the eve of the Treaty of Washington negotiations, described the condition surrounding the repeal of reciprocity in far more straightforward, economic terms. While acknowledging f­ ree trade as the kind of arrangement that should define commercial relations between “­these quasi-­foreign neighbors and ourselves,” the terms of the Reciprocity Treaty had exposed itself as “a badly one-­ sided bargain.” In the view of the Trea­sury Department, the North American provinces had not honored the reciprocal nature of the agreement—­while the US market was opened for Canadian produce, the inverse remained unfulfilled. This situation was, however, not unexpected. The report’s author, J. N. Larned, characterized the 1854 Reciprocity Treaty as a “sharply-­forced bargain on the fisheries question.” The events of the early 1850s showed that the fisheries issue, and the attendant question of trade reciprocity, had the potential to devolve into vio­lence. While the treaty obviated this threat, ten years of not-­so-­ reciprocal trade had obviously disadvantaged the United States, leading to the treaty’s repeal—­but repeal also included the repeal of the United States’ statutory claim to the inshore fisheries. With US fishermen once again barred from the inshore fishing grounds, ­those fishermen w ­ ere once again subject to the “unfriendly laws and harassing officials” that threatened the rise of “dangerous national controversies.”35 By the early 1870s, the situation on the fisheries, and Anglo-­American relations more generally, demanded a longer-­lasting agreement, one that addressed the Alabama claims and fisheries issue alike. Once again, the fisheries issue would be implicated in what would become a fundamental pivot in Anglo-­American relations. Long-­standing questions about the fisheries w ­ ere made all the more urgent on account of the threat of vio­lence posed by intemperate fishermen pursuing their catch who had ­little regard for the arbitrary bound­aries drawn by diplomats. The negotiations and treaty that would follow, however, did not serve to reify the po­liti­cal position of the real or i­magined US fisherman. Instead, the resulting transatlantic agreement would confirm that the fisherman was increasingly irrelevant and overlooked in the politics and diplomacy of a changing world.

Washington, 1871 By 1871, the fisheries issue needed a diplomatic fix. The situation was, in fact, not all that dif­fer­ent from the early 1850s, when fishing rights and reciprocity

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­ ere traded in an effort to forestall a breakdown in Anglo-­American relations. w When Congress repealed the Reciprocity Treaty in 1866, the United States also renounced the expanded fishing privileges in inshore ­waters that US mackerel fishermen had enjoyed for the previous de­cade. Without that statutory guarantee, US fishermen would once again be subject to seizure by British and provincial cruisers for fishing within one league of the shore. The possibility of maritime clashes and the loss of US property filled diplomats and fishermen alike with dread. As was true two de­cades ­earlier, only a shift in transatlantic diplomacy could head off such a confrontation. The situation was all the more dire b­ ecause postbellum Anglo-­American relations had soured significantly and ­were strained nearly to the breaking point. State Department officials ­were immediately aware of the maritime implications of the repeal of the Reciprocity Treaty. Richard D. Cutts of the Office of Coast Survey informed Secretary Seward that without the protections afforded the US inshore fishing fleet by the recently repealed treaty, “certain laws of Nova Scotia and other Provinces enacted rather to harass American fishermen than to protect their own rights . . . ​­will seriously affect the welfare, if not the very existence of our fisheries.” US fishermen ­were to be on notice that they “must fall back upon their rights, as they existed previous to 1854 . . . ​ [and] that they have, now, no more right to fish within three marine miles of the Provincial coasts.” Fearing that provincial authorities might use even the slightest infraction of the three-­mile limit and the consequent seizure of US ships and crews to push for a renewal of the Reciprocity Treaty, Cutts did not mince words, instructing fishermen that they “should always have in mind that they are hovering on the coasts as it ­were of an ­enemy who ­will avail himself to the slightest suspicion to do him an injury.” In some ways, the situation on the fisheries resembled that of the early 1850s, but this time around US officials ­were far more cognizant of the role played by their North American neighbors.36 It seemed as though US policymakers ­were keen to see nefarious designs in Britain’s schemes, w ­ hether they emanated from London or power centers much closer to home.37 Even though Canadian authorities ­were keen on removing US fishermen from their ­waters, such clashes ­were increasingly unlikely to ignite a larger conflict. While official instructions directed fishery officers to “accost” ­every US vessel within three miles of the coast and to pay “par­tic­ul­ar attention . . . ​to the injury which results from cleaning fish on board [US] vessels, while afloat, and throwing overboard the offals, thus fouling the fishing, feeding, and breeding grounds,” changes in naval procedure moderated the worst impulses of Canadian and British captains.38 The proliferation of telegraphy during the second half of the nineteenth ­century brought ships and stations across the

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world into near-­instantaneous contact with naval authorities who could impel restraint and caution.39 Actors at the edge of imperial sovereignties could no longer influence events like they had when authority was more diffuse. ­These trends tilted t­ oward transatlantic stability. Rather than run the risk of ­f uture seizures and collisions, or submit to British or Canadian demands, Cutts suggested a plan to ­settle the outstanding differences between the Anglophone powers. The plan, Cutts assured Seward, “if assured and judiciously executed . . . ​cannot fail to place the rights, claimed by the United States, on a footing of greater security and less liable to Provincial interference or aggression, and, therefore, acceptable to our fishermen and freed from the necessity of aid by extraneous legislation.” Taking cues from an Anglo-­French convention signed in 1839 to regulate oyster fisheries, Cutts suggested the creation of a commission to clearly define the rights of each party, as well as an international tribunal that would adjudicate any ­future disputes. The central job of the proposed commission would be twofold. First, the commission should “agree upon and define . . . ​the limits which ­shall separate the exclusive from the common right of fishery, on the coasts, and in the seas adjacent, of the British North American Colonies . . . ​to be regularly numbered, duly described, and . . . ​clearly marked on charts.” Second, once the United States and ­Great Britain had agreed on how to divvy up the fishing grounds, they should, in Cutts’s estimation, conclude an enforcement mechanism “to agree and recommend the penalties to be adjudged and such proceedings and jurisdiction as may be necessary to secure a speedy trail and judgment . . . ​for the transgression of the limits and restrictions which may be hereby a­ dopted.”40 This vision of an international commission to address and adjust fishery relations would come to fruition—in time. The acerbic tone of transatlantic relations, however, stymied pro­gress, even as the situation on the fisheries demanded attention. While often disregarded by the emerging formal scientific consensus, the question of the fisheries’ plenitude contributed to the urgency of diplomatic proceedings. The likelihood of impudent fishermen creating trou­ble—­a situation diplomats on all sides wished to avoid—­was exacerbated by the fact, or even perception, of dwindling catches. Although Cutts gave voice to the commonly held, if overly optimistic notion that “like farming lands,” fishing grounds required “judicious treatment to increase the annual harvest,” he did recognize that it was “a ­mistake to suppose that the supply of food afforded by the sea is inexhaustible.” Cutts expressed to Seward that reports from the fisheries indicated that the prodigious ­Grand Banks fishery was “beginning to fail.” Demonstrating the fundamental disagreements that surrounded any attempt to understand the nature of the fisheries, a de­cade ­later,

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The American Cyclopaedia confidently observed, “As yet no serious impression appears to have been made on the bank fishery, a­ fter 3½ centuries of ceaseless fishing.”41 The increasingly precarious nature of the fisheries could degenerate to the point of creating po­liti­cal tension. But po­liti­cal cooperation, supported by the promises of scientific encouragement, was, at least in the eyes of Cutts and his superiors at the State Department, necessary to fix this ecological prob­ lem.42 When US diplomats set themselves the task of easing Anglo-­American tension in 1871, they had a sense of the environmental ele­ments of that diplomacy. But such considerations, often based on dubious scientific assumptions, took a back seat to the dictates of po­liti­cal horse-­trading. As postbellum US diplomats once again approached the ongoing prob­lem of the North Atlantic fisheries, other maritime resources ­were likewise included in the calculus of US foreign relations. While it is fundamentally incorrect to think of the postbellum United States as more outward looking than its antebellum iteration, the field of US fishery diplomacy had expanded greatly by the 1860s and 1870s. The growing reach of US fishery diplomacy—­not to mention the growing reach of the US imperium—­suggests that the United States was fi­nally emerging from the vassalage of postin­de­pen­dence insecurity to become a global power. From the Canary Islands to the North Pacific, US fishery diplomacy was no long confined to cod and mackerel in the Northwest Atlantic. As dif­fer­ent as ­these places seem, their diplomatic workings created the context for the treaty negotiations that shifted the trajectories of Anglo-­American relations and the ubiquitous North Atlantic fisheries question. From his station in Madrid as the US minister to Spain, Daniel Sickles, the crippled Union general and self-­styled hero of Gettysburg, connected US strategic interest and fishery concerns. In an ultimately unsuccessful bid to purchase the island of Tenerife from the Spanish to establish a naval depot and dockyard to support an expanded US presence, Sickles commented on how the island’s fisheries “­really [are] worth attention . . . ​on their own merits.” As the US and British del­e­ga­tions ­were meeting in Washington to fi­nally hammer out their differences, Sickles, perhaps undeservedly, boasted “that my fishery negotiation goes on swimmingly,” as he continued to push the question of the Canary Island fisheries ­under the assumption that “they are of ­g reat value and utility to us . . . ​[and] ­will afford occupation to our fishermen during the considerable part of the year when the inclement season makes fishing impossible on our Eastern Coast.”43 Former secretary of state William Henry Seward would make an even more direct comparison between the North Atlantic fisheries question and expanding US interests. Seward counseled Hamilton Fish that the United States could

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foil “Eu­ro­pean and Monarchial jealousy and rivalry in the North West” through a fisheries reciprocity treaty with Rus­sia along the coasts of the North Pacific Ocean. But more importantly, such an agreement could work as a lever on transatlantic relations. “Negotiating such a treaty with Rus­sia,” Seward remarked, “would I think have no inconsiderable influence in aiding our negotiations with ­Great Britain, for the revision of the question of the fisheries.” The specter of a Russo-­American alliance would galvanize the British, as “­every new advance of mutual friendship between the United States and Rus­ sia adds im­mensely to the prestige of the United States, and to the desire of the British nation to accommodate the difficulties existing between that country and the United States.”44 While Seward’s suggestion to use fishery issues to achieve larger geopo­liti­ cal aims was motivated by the kind of clear-­eyed realism that marked much of US foreign relations during the nineteenth ­century, other officials suggested the United States could use worldwide fisheries issues as a softer kind of suasion. Amid the fantastic growth and growing legitimacy of ichthyological science during the ­middle de­cades of the ­century—­g rowth that, as explained in chapter 7, depended on sidelining fishermen in this intellectual proj­ect—­a number of international fisheries exhibitions, modeled on London’s ­Great Exhibition of 1851, ­were held in France, Norway, and the Netherlands. Department of State operative Richard D. Cutts advocated for a similar exhibition to be hosted in the United States—an event befitting the nation’s claim to world power status. On account of “the prominent position occupied by the United States in prosecution of the fisheries,” the United States was a logical choice for an exhibition “to embrace . . . ​the sea-­fisheries, salmon culture, oyster farming, and pisciculture.” While justified on the grounds of bringing together experts from across the Atlantic and fostering the growth of the practical ele­ ments of ichthyology, the proposed exhibition would demonstrate US fishery leadership and place the nation alongside traditional powers like ­Great Britain and France in the international pecking order. The exhibition would, in Cutts’s words, “issue greatly to the benefit . . . ​of the country at large.”45 The prospect of Eu­ro­pean fishery del­e­ga­tions converging on Boston in supplication to US leadership would no doubt confirm US pretentions to the status of global power, and once again confirm the link between the fisheries question and the fundamental workings of US foreign relations during the nineteenth ­century. Postbellum US foreign relations are most often understood as continuous with the forces and events that led to intervention in Spanish affairs in Cuba and left the United States with its first formal colonial possessions. Walter LaFeber, historian of US foreign policy, describes William Henry Seward’s and

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Hamilton Fish’s time at the helm of the State Department as “years of preparation.”46 But this period was also marked by continuity with the past. Foreign policy ­under Seward and Fish, just as u ­ nder its antebellum administrators, cast covetous eyes on ­those parts of North Amer­ic­ a and the Ca­rib­bean still beyond the ea­gle’s talons. While Alaska was successfully added to the national manse ­under Seward’s watch, schemes for acquiring new territory w ­ ere more often frustrated. The Ulysses S. Grant administration’s attempt to purchase the Dominican Republic ultimately came to naught, ­running up against an obstinate Congress wary of adding the island’s African-­descended population to the national domain.47 US territorial ambition was implicated in the fisheries question in the run-up to the Treaty of Washington negotiations, as questions of reciprocity in m ­ atters of trade and fishing made some Americans north and south of the international divide question why North Amer­i­ca foolishly remained bifurcated. For citizens of the United States during the nineteenth ­century, the eventual acquisition of Canada seemed like an assured eventuality. During both the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, Yankees resorted to arms in the hope of joining the continent ­under one national system. At midcentury, trade reciprocity suggested that such a ­union could be achieved peacefully, as economic integration would naturally lead to a po­liti­cal ­union. Although the forces of economy and manifest destiny seemed poised to align in the 1850s to bring about a North American u ­ nion, in the 1860s the question still lingered, even as Canada opted for dominion and, eventually, self-­rule. In 1867 E. H. Derby filed a report with Secretary Seward about his travels to the provinces. Even though that year would witness Canadian Dominion, Derby was leery that G ­ reat Britain could expend its military presence so close to US borders. “The ­g reat majority of Americans,” Derby concluded, “would rather see this continent occupied by one republic,” to fi­nally rid North Amer­i­ca of the British presence.48 Derby also predicted that the end of reciprocity would bring about the North American ­union, as “the provinces ­will range themselves ­under our banner and seek admission into the Union” in order to continue enjoying the commercial benefits engendered in the now-­repealed treaty. But the ­union would likewise benefit the United States as US fishermen would fi­ nally have an unassailable claim to the inshore mackerel fisheries.49 As the 1860s neared their close and Anglo-­American relations remained toxic, annexation seemed destined. In a message Horace Greeley forwarded to Secretary of State Hamilton Fish in the spring of 1869, a correspondent with the newspaper editor claimed that “­there perhaps never was as much genuine annexation feeling in Canada as ­there exists at pre­sent,” making annexation “certain.”50 Even an authority the likes of the former US minister to G ­ reat

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Britain, George Bancroft, remarked to Fish that “­there is no resisting destiny,” as the United States was poised to subsume lands north and south through the annexation of Cuba, Mexico, and, of course, Canada.51 Perhaps US po­liti­ cal observers w ­ ere completely ignorant of the forces working north of the border that ­were laying the foundation for an in­de­pen­dent Canadian nation, making speculation of a North American ­union mere bluster. Or perhaps this rhe­toric was indicative of a propensity among Americans to read foreign relations through the Anglo-­American relationship. North American u ­ nion was wishful thinking for a nation ­eager, perhaps now more than ever, to twist the lion’s tail. As the United States and ­Great Britain staggered to what would become the Treaty of Washington, Canadian annexation was among the many questions that would color the proceedings. The ubiquitous fisheries issue and the Alabama claims dominated the discord that marked Anglo-­American relations. In an established pattern, the fisheries question was intimately tied to what would be a significant shift in transatlantic relations. But in Washington a power strug­gle over control of the nation’s foreign policy resulted in Hamilton Fish’s ascendency to became President Ulysses S. Grant’s most trusted adviser and the primary US player in US-­British treaty making.52 In the spring of 1869 Charles Sumner was in a position of strength. He was one of the most se­nior members of his party, the power­f ul chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and fresh off his resoundingly successful jeremiad against the hastily negotiated Johnson-­Clarendon Treaty. Having the president’s ear, Sumner engineered John Lothrop Motley’s assignment to London as the US minister and point person on f­ uture Anglo-­American negotiations. Grant elected to follow Sumner’s advice over Fish’s. Motley, however, disobeyed the administration’s ­orders shortly ­after his arrival and was promptly removed. Sumner’s support of Motley, and his opposition to Grant’s Dominican Republic scheme, ensured the senator would be sidelined for the remainder of his public ser­vice, not to mention stripped of his prestigious position as the chair of the Senate committee. Sumner’s downfall assured Fish’s ascendency.53 Fish had few positive words for the man who had attempted to undercut his authority. The secretary of state called Sumner “malicious” and a “monomaniac” whose “vanity and conceit have overturned his judgment, which never was the best.”54 Fully capturing his disdain for Sumner and his machinations, Fish confided to the US minister to France that Sumner was “bitterly vindictive and hostile . . . ​[to] ­every ­thing that the President proposes or wishes or does.” Fish was “convinced” that Sumner was “crazy” and his “vanity, conceit, [and] ambition have disturbed the equilibrium of his mind,” ­going so far as to claim that Sumner’s be­hav­ior resulted

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from Preston Brooks’s assault on him in the 1850s. Referring to Sumner, Fish remarked that “he was suffering from the same malaise that he experienced ­after Brooks’ assault upon him,” while recommending that “his friends should subject him to ‘treatment’ that, I think, is the term they use in connection with the insane.”55 With Sumner sidelined and Fish in control, Anglo-­American diplomats who had long recognized the tension in transatlantic relations fi­ nally recognized the need for amelioration. The ­future of transatlantic relations, it seems, rode on the impending Anglo-­ American negotiation; the consequences of another failed treaty w ­ ere dire. Even as Motley’s “Memoir” aped Sumner’s fiery, Anglophobic rhe­toric, it recognized the need for placid transatlantic relations, if not the obvious kinship of the two nations. Referring to transatlantic ties, Motley proclaimed that “relations of peace and sincere friendship should exist between two ­g reat and kindred nations,” even though “never before was Amer­ic­ a so ­little understood by ­Great Britain.”56 Elsewhere, Hamilton Fish recognized the delicacy in the current state of Anglo-­US relations as he wished “that discreet men on ­either side remain discreet and calm men retain their thoughtfulness.”57 Fish likewise shared the sentiment that the two nations should be on friendly terms, as the forces of culture and history, not to mention of commerce and finance, impelled comity. “The two En­glish speaking, progressive, liberal governments of the world,” Fish proclaimed, “should not, must not, be divided.”58 While this kind of rhe­toric was a far cry from the effusive pronouncements of Anglo-­ Saxonism that would emanate from e­ ither side of the Atlantic in coming de­ cades, Washington, at least, recognized what was on the line if the tenor of Anglo-­American relations remained fraught.59 For the British and US ministers who would meet in Washington in the spring of 1871, expectations ­were high—­not only to s­ ettle ­these issues, but to s­ ettle them forever. In a preliminary meeting between Fish and British representatives in the summer of 1869, the US secretary of state noted that he was “anxious that ­these ­matters should be adjusted, to the mutual advantage of both countries,” and that “the ele­ ment of permanence should attach to any arrangement.” His British interlocutors agreed, noting that the “character of permanency should attach to the arrangements in re­spect of commercial intercourse between the two countries, for without such ele­ment of permanency it would be impossible for the ­people of ­either country to make such arrangements as would ensure to them the full benefit of the provisions that might be made.”60 The ­future ­these diplomats dreamed of depended on a strong and lasting transatlantic relationship. While Anglo-­American friendship was a goal for the US contingent, it was undergirded by the demands of national interest. Americans would not be

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brought to the bargaining ­table without the assurance their grievances would be addressed. Topping that list was of course the Alabama claims that had generated so much vitriol. But the fisheries proved to be a more immediate concern, as intemperate US fishermen, or overzealous Canadian cruisers, had the potential to turn a minor incident into a major confrontation. The US del­e­ga­ tion would make the fisheries issue a substantial talking point. As had long been the case, the inshore mackerel fisheries seemed to be the keystone of international tension. However, by the 1870s it was not access to ­these fisheries per se that US fishermen so deeply desired. The fishing rights afforded ­under reciprocity ­were welcomed by US fishermen ­because of the “relief from unfriendly laws and harassing officials which the American fishermen enjoyed ­under it [reciprocity], and the welcome quietus that it gave to quarrels and questions which ­were constantly giving rise to dangerous national controversies.” It was only in hindsight that US fishermen saw the nonpecuniary benefits of reciprocal trade. But as US and British officials met in the spring of 1871 to hammer out their many disagreements, US diplomats understood the fishermen as wanting to avoid the “recurrence of ­those same annoyances, and their consequence of ill blood,” even if that meant the “loss of the ‘inshore fisheries.’ ”61 Perhaps ironically, Americans w ­ ere willing to part with access to the inshore fisheries—­the fisheries that had been at the center of US fishing and diplomacy for decades—if transatlantic relations could be put on more stable grounds. The trade of security for access confirmed the changing place of the fishery question in US statecraft. This sentiment was reflected in the case the US del­e­ga­tion presented to their British counter­parts. Postbellum foreign policy makers showed a willingness to buy their way out of prob­lems. The Grant administration met with mixed success in its attempt to simply purchase Ca­rib­bean islands to add to the nation’s growing empire.62 At the Washington negotiations, Hamilton Fish brought the same mentality to the fisheries question, hoping to ascertain the value of the fisheries and have the United State purchase that right in order to avoid ­future clashes. In what was perhaps a bit of po­liti­cal gamesmanship, Fish claimed the fisheries w ­ ere of ­little economic value. Fish, it seemed, wanted the British to name their price, but cautioned that the inshore fisheries w ­ ere often overvalued. The inshore fisheries, the secretary noted, “­were desired more on po­liti­cal grounds, in order to avoid the danger of collisions, than for their commercial value,” and he offered one million dollars to simply purchase this right.63 Throughout the negotiations, Fish and the US del­e­ga­tion insisted on expediency, understanding the contentious fishing grounds more as a po­liti­cal tool to calm transatlantic relations than as commercial, or even ecological, entities.

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The Americans harped on the geopolitical—­not economic—­dimensions of the inshore fisheries. A memorandum communicated by the State Department to the US del­e­ga­tion observed that “the acquisition of the right to American fishermen to fish on the in-­shore fisheries . . . ​is more impor­tant as removing danger of collision than as of ­g reat intrinsic value.”64 During the ­actual negotiations, the US commissioners expressed their desire to secure US access to the inshore fisheries, alongside British and Canadian fishermen, “not for their commercial or intrinsic value, but for the purpose of removing a source of irritation.”65 The longer the question remained open, the greater a chance for violent confrontations. Fish “dwelt upon the importance of a settlement, as removing a dangerous question that might at any time, through the rashness of the fishermen, bring about a collision between the two countries.”66 The British del­e­ga­tion, which included the first prime minister of Canada, Sir John A. MacDonald, found the US scheme objectionable. Authorized by Whitehall to negotiate on the basis of reciprocity, the leader of the British del­ e­ga­tion, Lord de Grey, remarked that the “most satisfactory arrangement” would involve “a reciprocal tariff  . . . ​and reciprocity in the coasting trade,” in exchange for US access to the inshore fisheries.67 The British insistence on reciprocity reflected Britain’s own imperial politics, as Canadian interests seemed to set the terms of the debate. For Britain, Canada’s role was central. In the initial discussions that would, in time, become a full-­fledged treaty negotiation, British ministers plainly acknowledged that what Canada wanted, Britain wanted. During the summer of 1869, in a meeting between Fish, the Scots-­Canadian Sir John Rose, and the Briton Sir Edward Thornton, Rose made it clear that “some years ago” the British government gave their diplomats “instructions . . . ​to act in concert with Canada in ­these ­matters.” “If arrangements satisfactory to Canada could be come to on the subject of commercial intercourse between the two countries,” Rose continued, “Canada would be willing to make such provisions, touching the Fisheries . . . ​as would be acceptable to and be readily embodied by Her Majesty’s Government in a treaty between it and the United States.”68 Reciprocity in trade was, for the Canadians at least, necessary. MacDonald noted “that the entire market of the mackerel fisheries was in the United States, and the surrender of the inshore fisheries without getting the United States market would ruin the Canadian fisheries.”69 Reciprocity was, unsurprisingly, a nonstarter for the Americans. Only five years ­earlier, Congress had repealed the Reciprocity Treaty u ­ nder the assumption that the trading arrangement did ­little for US interests, and to spit in the face of the f­ ree trade–­loving British. Fish made no pretense in expressing that anything approximating a return to the Reciprocity Treaty was po­liti­cally untenable

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in the United States. Any agreement, Fish declared, must “avoid the appearance of the re-­enactment of the Reciprocity Treaty, [which] . . . ​was understood not to be acceptable to Congress.”70 The negotiation had come to an impasse. While both sides recognized the need to once again address the fisheries issue, they disagreed on how to go about it. The crucial difference was how each side valued the resource. British diplomats balked at Fish’s suggestion that the right of US access could be bought for a mere one million dollars. Instead, at Canadian insistence, the British del­e­ga­tion favored a trading agreement that would allow Canadian and British merchants to freely sell fish, along with lumber, coal, and salt, to the United States, in a move that would net foreign merchants millions annually. The Canadian representative, John MacDonald, along with the sole New En­glander on the US side, Bay State native Ebenezer R. Hoar, attempted to reconcile the disparate valuations by resorting to statistical evidence. But the two statesmen could not agree on the interpretation of the data.71 Unable to bridge such a chasm, the peace commission essentially kicked the can down the diplomatic road by agreeing to authorize “an impartial Commission” to determine the value of the fisheries.72 For the time being, u ­ ntil the fisheries commission could meet, the conditions of the Reciprocity Treaty w ­ ere essentially reinstated. The inshore fisheries would be opened to US fishermen, as the US market was to Canadian salt, lumber, coal, and fish. US fishermen would be on a level playing field with their Canadian counter­parts both on the fisheries and in the market, but now without the palliative support of the federal fishing bounty. While the resulting treaty would authorize a similar commission to adjudicate the Alabama claims, the fisheries commission would not meet for another six years, and it remained unclear how the commission would rule.73 The Treaty of Washington was an impor­tant pivot in the history of Anglo-­ American relations. Although the final text seemed to punt on the fisheries issue, it was, in fact, a powerfully suggestive comment on the place of the fisheries in the larger dynamics of transatlantic relations. Through the creation of this “impartial commission,” Anglo-­American diplomats hoped to sequester the fisheries questions from the now more impor­tant m ­ atters of reconciliation. While for nearly a c­ entury the North Atlantic fisheries w ­ ere closely tied to key ele­ments of Atlantic diplomacy—­including international borders and commerce, if not the very notion of in­de­pen­dence—­the Treaty of Washington indicated that Anglo-­American diplomats ­were not content to let their nations come to blows, or even to allow relations to sour, over fish. The fisheries issue did not go away in 1871, or even 1877 when the commission fi­nally met. But the calculus of fishery diplomacy was fundamentally altered as it was

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relegated to the back seat, fi­nally made distinct from the mainstream of Anglo-­American relations.74 Although the fisheries questions remained unsettled, the treaty was tremendously successful in accomplishing its aim of lifting the pall from transatlantic relations. Hamilton Fish was heartily congratulated for orchestrating the détente. Well-­wishers mused that this was a “most impor­tant achievement” that would “promote the highest interests of the Anglo Saxon race, for all time.” The theme of Anglo-­Saxon unity would emerge as o ­ thers paid tribute to Fish for laying the foundation “for a lasting bond of friendship between two countries, which are already so nearly allies to each other by a common ancestry and language.” Fish himself even reflected on this accomplishment by noting that “the ­people of both Countries ­will appreciate the benefits of an assured peace, and good understanding between the two branches of the En­glish Speaking, Liberty loving, common law governed populations of the globe.”75 Canadians, however, ­were not so inclined to appreciate the peace. In a missive to John Young, Lord Lisgar and the governor general of Canada, the Canadian Privy Council spoke on behalf of the nation. The council observed that ­there was “general dissatisfaction which the publication of the Treaty of Washington has produced in Canada, and which has been expressed with as much force in the agricultural districts of the west, as in the maritime provinces.” This dissatisfaction, the council continued, “arises chiefly” from the fact that “the principal cause of difference between Canada and the United States has not been removed by the Treaty, but remains a subject of anxiety.” Even though Anglo-­Canadian diplomats approached the treaty negotiation ­under the assumption that Canadian interests would define the British position, the resulting treaty proved wildly unpop­u­lar in North Amer­i­ca. The Privy Council resolved to “submit their views . . . ​for the information of Her Majesty’s Government, in the hope that, by means of discussion, a more satisfactory understanding between the two Governments may be arrived at.”76 The response from Boston was likewise cold. On his return to his home state, Ebenezer Hoar remarked that “the general Mas­sa­chu­setts sentiment about the Treaty seems to be satisfaction, except as to the fisheries.” Fish would respond by noting that “neither Mas­sa­chu­setts or Canada, is satisfied with the Fisheries,” which, in his estimation, proves the “the arrangement is a fair one.”77 This sentiment found purchase in the popu­lar press, with one paper remarking that “the Canadian press thinks that the concessions on the Fisheries are all on one side, and that in f­ avor of the United States; while on this side of the border ­there are not a few who argue that the Dominion has the best of the bargain.” “The objections raised in both nations,” the paper concludes,

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“may perhaps be taken as a sign that it is not far from being equitable and honorable to both G ­ reat Britain and the United States.”78 The sliding prestige of the fisheries in the US po­liti­cal consciousness would be confirmed six years l­ater, as the international tribunal stipulated by the Washington Treaty would meet in Halifax to s­ ettle the balance sheet. By the 1870s the po­liti­cal, economic, and ecological contexts in which the North Atlantic fisheries existed had fundamentally changed. For all intents and purposes, the fisheries issue, which had been a central part of US diplomacy for nearly a c­ entury, was now a relic of the past. Fishing continued apace in the North Atlantic for the remainder of the nineteenth c­ entury, and into the next, as fishing merchants continued to reap profits from the ever-­g rowing amount of biomass that fishermen pulled from the oceans with increasingly sophisticated technologies. But despite the economic and commercial vitality of the industry, the po­liti­cal and cultural contexts that made the cod fisheries such an impor­tant part of US statecraft w ­ ere no more. King Cod had died, and the Halifax Fisheries Commission would be its funeral.

C h a p te r   7

Abandoning the Fishermen and Embracing the British

When Anglo-­American statesmen left Washington, treaty in hand, they did so u ­ nder the impression they had set the stage for a transatlantic rapprochement that would significantly alter the ­f uture of both nations. And they w ­ ere right. For the first time in the century-­long history of the United States, conciliation, not confrontation, typified the nation’s relationship with ­Great Britain.1 This spirit of consensus extended to the normally rancorous politics of Gilded Age Amer­i­ca as public opinion “was so strongly in ­favor of the treaty that its ratification was secured in the Senate without a party division; national sentiment for once overruling partisanship.” Even in G ­ reat Britain, the treaty was “seen to be so fair and just, that ­after the example set by the American ­people, no party is found strong enough to oppose it with any per­sis­tence.” But perhaps most importantly was the pre­ce­ dent the treaty set by its “manly effort to establish a rule of arbitration, instead of war, for the settlement of international differences.” That “rule of arbitration” would, in time, ­settle the fisheries issue.2 This rosy picture of the Treaty of Washington and the emerging détente in transatlantic relations was, however, not universally held. From the shores of New ­England, ­those who knew the fisheries best r­ ose their voices in dissent. Fishermen, ship ­owners, fish merchants, and industry boosters may have appreciated the goal of transatlantic amelioration, but the cost was too much.

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Fishing insiders recognized the shift the Treaty of Washington occasioned in the fisheries issue. A group of concerned Bostonians petitioned Congress to express their dis­plea­sure with the recent treaty. The petitioners noted that the prospect of turning the fate of the industry over to an international tribunal made clear that “for the first time in our history the fostering hand of Government is to be withdrawn from our fisheries.” Even if the two nations ­were to exchange greater US access for reciprocal trade—­essentially returning to the status quo of 1854 to 1866—­“the price paid for the privilege of fishing in British ­waters, and of retreating unmolested to British ports and harbors, is nothing more nor less than the existence of the very industry” that would now be exposed to “destructive foreign competition.”3 The Treaty of Washington proved to be the crest of a wave of federal indifference, as a fundamental change in the nation’s po­liti­cal economy allowed the fisheries issue to be sacrificed for other po­liti­cal goals. While dwelling on the implications for the ­future of the industry, ­these petitioners, too, had an appreciation for the historical importance of the fisheries to the United States. For them, the Treaty of Washington was a significant break with the past. While once the fisheries had “received the kindest care of the government,” that was no longer the case, the citizens of Boston lamented. Although this new state of affairs obviously struck at the pecuniary interests of this group, they made this appeal to the federal government by noting the place of this resource in the po­liti­cal and diplomatic history of the nation. The memorial astutely observed that the fisheries had “been the turning-­point of some of the most intricate and difficult negotiations known in the annals of diplomacy.” The connection between the North Atlantic fisheries and the history of US statecraft and nation building was deep, and for nearly a ­century, industry boosters used this connection to bolster their arguments about the centrality of the industry to the nation’s po­liti­cal economy. But that was the case no longer. Although the Bostonians ­were correct to identify the fisheries as the pivot on which so much of the nation’s diplomacy turned, the federal government was now content to forget that history in ­favor of its f­uture—­which would be marked by closer Anglo-­American ties. This ­f uture, so the citizens of Boston concluded, came at the expense of the fishing industry.4 The 1870s proved to be the de­cade that spelled the end for the fisheries issue in US politics. The po­liti­cal, economic, and ecological contexts in which the North Atlantic fisheries existed had fundamentally changed. Two impor­tant events that signaled the continued shift of the fisheries in the US po­liti­cal economy w ­ ere the creation of the United States Fish Commission (USFC) in 1871 and the Halifax Fisheries Commission in 1877. Both

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of t­ hese events clearly demonstrated how fishermen, once lauded as symbols of US nationalism and integral parts of US statecraft, ­were usurped by diplomats and scientists working in tandem to undercut the intellectual authority of maritime laborers. The USFC became the leading authority on maritime resources in the nation. Headed by a respected naturalist, Spencer Fullerton Baird, the USFC represented the professionalization of fisheries science. Where once fishermen claimed a seat at the t­able based on intimate and everyday contact with the ocean, now scientists commanded intellectual authority, bolstered by data, statistics, and knowledge enshrined in the printed canon. An integral part of professionalizing science was the pro­cess of discrediting other modes of knowledge. This transition from vernacular to literary knowledge had impor­tant po­liti­cal ramifications. When Anglo-­Americans diplomats fi­nally met in Halifax in 1877 to hammer out what the United States owed ­Great Britain for the use of inshore ­waters, it was not the testimony and evidence of fishermen that formed the basis of the US case. Instead, US diplomats called on “expert witnesses” in the form of agents from the USFC. By privileging knowledge gleaned from professionalized science over knowledge earned through physical l­abor, Anglo-­American elites removed fishermen from the diplomatic pro­cess.

The United States Fish Commission and the Professionalization of Fisheries Science Indicative of the changing role of fishermen in the po­liti­cal order was the increasing professionalization and bureaucratization of fisheries science. For much of the nineteenth c­ entury, fishermen spoke with authority on ichthyological m ­ atters, brandishing knowledge earned from firsthand experience on the ocean. This knowledge did not, of course, go uncontested. Across the first half of the nineteenth ­century, the growth of scientific thinking in the form of published, canonical texts vied with the experiences of ordinary fishermen for authority in understanding the opaque world of the ocean. While for much of this period neither the men of science nor fisherfolk w ­ ere able to dominate this discourse, by the second half of the ­century the authority and expertise of institutionalized ichthyology began to win out. Fishermen experienced a changing ocean that demanded a change in ­human actions. Self-­anointed experts, on the other hand, extolled the powers of science and technology to both understand and remedy any prob­lem that may beset the fishing industry. This story of technological innovation resonated better than a pessimistic

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tale of environmental degradation and periodic calls for restraint. The reification of formal science served to undercut the authority of fishermen and further alienate this group of laborers from the politics of the industry.5 This pro­cess crested in 1871 with the creation of the USFC. Headed by Spencer Fullerton Baird, the USFC had its origins in settling a series of disputes in southern New E ­ ngland as line fishermen—­those employing older methods for catching fish—­blamed their technologically sophisticated competitors using traps and weirs for the marked decline in fish stocks along the coasts of Mas­sa­chu­setts and Rhode Island. Cod and mackerel fishermen largely aligned themselves with the wealthier weir fishermen, as the series of nets and seines that marked the New ­England coast ­were responsible for catching the alewives that supplied bait for the more lucrative fisheries. Baird initially sought to merely study the question and suggest how a scientific approach would remedy the prob­lems of declining catches, but through skillful gamesmanship in Washington he emerged as the head of a new, in­de­pen­dent federal agency. Like the Department of Agriculture, founded less than a de­cade beforehand, the USFC was intended to be an information clearing­house charged with investigating scientific fixes for the most pressing prob­lems facing the nation’s ability to feed itself.6 The enabling legislation creating the USFC passed in the early days of 1871. This new federal agency would be charged with the “protection and preservation of the food fishes of the coast of the United States.” In an era that assumed the ahistoricity of the ocean, Congress openly admitted that the ocean was, in fact, succumbing to history’s most salient feature: change. The bill recognized “that the most valuable food fishes . . . ​are rapidly diminishing in number,” causing “public injury” and “materially . . . ​affect[ing] the interest of trade and commerce.” This statement—no doubt true—­ran c­ ounter to assertions ­people in the federal government had been making for de­cades. Since in­de­pen­dence, US politicians and diplomats had uniformly demanded, claimed, or other­wise lobbied for the expansion of US fishing rights ­under the assumption that the ocean was prodigious enough to supply the wants of all. What sense did it make to limit fishing anywhere if t­ here ­were plenty of fish in the sea? This understanding of the oceanic environment reinforced US po­liti­cal goals and was based on the notion that mere ­humans could in no way affect the ocean and its vast bounty. This bill, and the USFC more generally, at least implicitly recognized that the seas ­were changing.7 Congress charged the new federal agency with two tasks. First, the commissioner of fish would “prosecute investigations and inquiries . . . ​[to determine] w ­ hether any and what diminution in . . . ​food fishes . . . ​has taken place.” Second, the commissioner was to determine “what protective, prohibitory, or

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precautionary mea­sures should be a­ dopted” to address the diminution of commercially valuable fish species. The enabling legislation gave the USFC an extraordinarily large purview in pursuit of ­these goals. Overriding state control of fisheries science and even encroaching on state sovereignty, the commissioner of fish was granted the authority to take fish or other specimens from the “­waters of the sea-­coast of the United States where the tide ebbs and flows, and also in the ­waters of the lakes” in spite of “any law, custom, or usage of any State.”8 Before the commission’s advent, fishery policy was the domain of the states, but in an era that witnessed the consolidation of Washington’s authority, that policy attracted federal interest. Even if the federal government had been inclined to do so, the creation of such a federal agency would have been difficult, if not impossible, before the Civil War. The USFC, stretching back to the growth of federal power during the Civil War and forward to the Progressive Era’s ascendency of expertise, was indicative of significant trends in the extent and aim of the federal government’s power during the second half of the nineteenth c­ entury. From ­simple origins, the USFC represented the centralization and expansion of federal power. Much of the early work of the commission focused on marine biology and the systematic cata­loging of commercially valuable fish in order to understand the emerging fisheries crisis. Baird actively sought to address questions to nature itself to circumvent the subjectivity of fishermen. This shift represented a pro­cess that historian Matthew Mc­Ken­zie describes as “abstraction,” in which the region’s fishermen “­were relegated to mere inputs in a larger industry, inputs whose individual natures had no place in influencing the decisions that affected them.” Furthermore, fish became “mere numbers in a larger balance sheet of marine environmental production.” This process—­supported by the collusion of industrial, scientific, and governmental interests—­further removed fishermen from politics in ­favor of the fishing cap­i­tal­ists, and now fishery scientists, who came to control the industry.9 The abstraction of fishermen and fish into mere numbers was part of a larger pro­cess of professionalization and bureaucratization that swept the federal government during the ­middle de­cades of the nineteenth ­century. Along with agencies such as the Coast Survey, the Naval Observatory, the Smithsonian Institution, the Department of Agriculture, and the Census Bureau, the USFC sought to use professional expertise to simplify the complexities of the ­human and nonhuman worlds, with the goal of understanding them, if not controlling them.10 Men like Spencer Fullerton Baird vied to consolidate professional and intellectual authority within institutions like the USFC. This move ­toward professionalization and institutionalization was not confined to ichthyology, but was a pro­cess that affected fields of knowledge from medi-

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cine to agriculture, to the emergence of the conservation movement in the de­cades a­ fter the Civil War.11 The commission’s activities would not be ­limited to merely studying the nation’s fisheries. Though the legislation that created the agency did not direct the USFC to take an active part in remedying the prob­lems that faced US fisheries, Baird would soon oversee the artificial propagation of commercially valuable fish species. Baird and his colleagues sought to control the entire life cycle of fish, from breeding to maturation to, ultimately, harvest. The potential of what essentially amounted to farmed fish seemed limitless. Samuel Pierpont Langley, the man who succeeded Baird as secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, spoke admiringly of what his colleague accomplished as commissioner of fish. Baird, Langley declared, made the USFC “an agency by which science is applied to the relief of the wants of mankind; by which cheap nutritious, healthful, and luxurious food is to be given to the millions of men . . . ​ thus giving to the gloomy doctrine of Malthus its ultimate refutation, and clearing away the veil of despair from the horizon of the poor.” By Langley’s estimation, Baird had brought the nineteenth-­century environmental proj­ect of taming the continent for the benefit of white Americans to the ocean, declaring that “the sea s­ hall serve man with all the food that can be gathered from its broad expanse.”12 The federal government made a significant investment in this laudable goal. In the first de­cade and a half of the commission’s existence, yearly appropriations ballooned from $5,000 to $2 million.13 A portion of the National Mall was even converted to ponds to serve as hatcheries for an imported species of carp that promised to become a cheap source of protein.14 Fishermen, however, w ­ ere conspicuously absent in ­these schemes. The efforts of the USFC not only undercut the intellectual authority of maritime laborers but also sought to subvert their role in supplying food to the nation. Bit by bit, the commission eroded the value of fishermen in the United States’ po­liti­cal economy. The adoption of the scientific management of fisheries was not confined to the United States.15 French aquaculturists led the way in the artificial propagation of fish, having sustained a government-­funded hatchery in Alsace since the 1850s. By the 1860s, the international growth of fish culture inspired a series of international expositions to explore and promote this new fishery science. The first of t­ hese expositions was held in the French city of Arcachon in 1866. In a missive from the United States minister to France, John Bigelow, to Secretary of State William Henry Seward, the US minister beseeched the secretary of state to send a del­e­ga­tion to France owing to the fact that “the p­ eople of the United States are more extensively engaged in the cod, ­whale, and

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oyster fishery than the p­ eople of any other nation” and the United States was a leader in “the science of w ­ ater culture.” Victor Coste, a French aquaculturist and the leading scientist in the field, convened the meeting with the goal of unleashing the same “intelligence” and “boldness” to develop “the resources of the domain of the w ­ ater” that humanity had long used to cultivate the land. The ­f uture of marine resources lay in the careful propagation of fish species through the collaboration of science and ­labor. Although Coste declared that “the plain communications forwarded by the working p­ eople or by the fishermen themselves, form an essential part of an exhibition of fishery,” the application of technology, “appropriate administration,” and “the solicitude of government” for “more regular, more intelligent, and more complete development” of marine resources suggested that any input of ordinary laborers would of course be guided and mediated by the more authoritative men of science. The international exhibition in Arcachon would prove to be the first such event in a series that would stretch across Eu­rope during the closing de­cades of the nineteenth c­entury.16 But in the United States, at least, the gradual subversion of the fishermen’s po­liti­cal standing served to recast US fishermen not as a forward-­looking national symbol but as a conservative relic of a bygone era.17 Two years ­after its creation, the USFC published its first annual report. Though the report’s scope was l­ imited—an investigation of the decline of forage fish on the southern coasts of Mas­sa­chu­setts and Rhode Island, including Narragansett Bay, Vineyard Sound, Buzzards Bay, Martha’s Vineyard, and Nantucket—­its implications ­were significant. Amid an inquiry into the ongoing dispute between weir fishermen and handliners, Baird and his USFC colleagues made two interrelated points. First, the sea was changing. Weirs and seines, unlike hook-­and-­line methods, capture fish indiscriminately, with no regard for species or age. The maleffects of removing juvenile and mature fish in prime breeding years from the ecosystem compounded to the point that by the early 1870s the effects could no longer be ignored. Fisheries scientists fi­nally faced what fishermen had known for years: fishing changed the ocean. The second point driving the USFC report was the continued effort to discredit fishermen as authoritative sources in understanding the maritime environment. At its outset, the report lauded the ­labor of fishermen while denying their intellectual authority. The USFC was quick to highlight the economic importance of the nation’s fisheries, pointing out “the ­wholesome food which they yield, the pecuniary value of their products, the number of men and boys for whom they furnish profitable occupation, [and] the stimulus to ship and boat building which they supply.” This kind of accounting was nothing new when

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calculating the economic and po­liti­cal value of the fisheries. What was new, however, was how the report addressed the role of fishermen in the investigation. Although the USFC interviewed a number of fishermen in compiling the report, in his final evaluation Baird did not equivocate: fishermen w ­ ere of no use in scientific study. “The evidence of fishermen,” Baird concluded, “whose judgment ­ought to be reliable, was found to be entirely contradictory and unser­viceable.” Yet, the report’s conclusions about the state of the maritime environment mirrored what fishermen had known for de­cades.18 Scientists’ disdain for fishermen was not confined to the United States. A de­cade before, British ichthyologist Thomas Henry Huxley, as part of a commission investigating declining herring catches, observed that “fishermen, as a class, are exceedingly unobservant of anything about fish which is not absolutely forced upon them by their daily avocations.”19 Baird’s report made clear that the fisheries u ­ nder investigation had changed to the point of losing their commercial value. This change, Baird confidently declared, was the result of h ­ uman action. “I have no hesitation,” Baird concluded, “in stating that the fact of an alarming decrease of the shore-­fisheries has been thoroughly established by my own investigations.” Baird attributed this decrease to the “reckless destruction of the fish,” “improper or excessive fishing,” and “the evils that . . . ​follow in the train of such thoughtless destruction.”20 By indiscriminately removing all forage fish—­most importantly, ­those that had yet to reproduce—­from the environment, weir fishing directly threatened the food source of commercially valuable species. Baird likened weir fishing to the “killing of all the mature hens in a farm yard before they have laid their eggs, and then expecting to have the stock continued in­def­initely.” On the other hand, Baird noted that line fishing, “no ­matter how extensively prosecuted, ­will never materially affect the supply of the fish in the sea,” given that fish, “when engaged in the function of reproduction, w ­ ill not take the hook.”21 To remedy the prob­lem, Baird recommended legislation that l­ imited when weirs and seines could be deployed, in order to avoid taking fish during the spawning season. Throughout the report, Baird insisted his observations and conclusions upended commonly held notions and blazed new trails in understanding the maritime environment. Such a claim to novelty was overstated, however. The regulation of weirs to relieve fishing pressures had been practiced for more than three centuries when Baird suggested it as a way to solve the current crisis.22 Even more striking was the language Baird employed when discussing declining catches. In his estimation, this observation was radical. Baird assumed his readers believed in the immutability of the ocean. and that any suggestion that the sea was, in fact, changing would be met with surprise.

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Given “the enormous abundance of fish originally existing in the sea,” Baird remarked that just “a few years ago . . . ​the suggestion of a pos­si­ble failure would have been considered idle.” The reason such a suggestion would have been met with indifference was that “many persons are in the habit of considering that the fish supply of the sea is practically inexhaustible.”23 But this suggestion did not surprise fishermen. Although the general public may have continued to hold onto outdated understandings of the ocean, and scientists had only recently begun to understand that fish communities ­were declining, maritime laborers ­were well acquainted with this fact. Generations of fishermen, in daily contact with the ocean, w ­ ere aware of how their activities had a material impact on the fisheries. As Bolster notes, by the 1850s it was “obvious that many fishermen perceived deleterious changes in the ecosystem,” just as they ­were inaugurating a technological regime—­nothing short of a revolution—­that would fundamentally reframe their relationship with the environment.24 When Baird discounted the perspective of ordinary fishermen to bolster his own scientific authority, he lost access to this body of knowledge. In 1872 he was the most recent, though not the first, to observe changes in the sea. The USFC’s second report, published in 1874, represented a significant expansion of the commission’s work. Moving beyond the commission’s original charge to investigate declining catches along New E ­ ngland’s southern coast, the USFC turned its attention to the artificial propagation of fish stocks to address declining catches everywhere. Baird followed the example of his colleagues in places like Norway, France, and most importantly, Germany in assembling a team of researchers to not only carry out the scientific work of the commission but to continue to press upon the federal government the importance of their work. Germany’s Fischerei-­Verein inspired Baird as “an association composed of several eminent naturalists, physicists, and statisticians” engaged in the work of fisheries research. Notably absent w ­ ere a­ ctual fishermen. The previous year the noted German ichthyologist Rudolph Hessel had moved to the United States to work more closely with Baird—­beginning Baird’s decade-­long obsession with bringing Eu­ro­pean carp to the United States.25 The commission’s second report extensively detailed the efforts of Baird and his colleagues in the scientific management of species including shad, alewives, herring, trout, carp, and multiple species of salmon. The focus on t­ hese par­tic­u­lar species—­the prey of cod and other commercially valuable fish—­was directly tied to the perceived decline of t­ hose fisheries. As Baird observed, “The reduction of cod and other fisheries, so as to become practically a failure, is due to the decrease off our coast in the quantity, primarily, of alewives; and secondarily, of shad and salmon, more than to

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any other cause.” The report noted the importance of reviving the now-­ flagging cod fishery: “What­ever may be the importance of increasing the supply of salmon, it is trifling compared with the restoration of our exhausted cod-­fisheries; and should ­these be brought back to their original condition, we ­shall find . . . ​an increase of wealth on our shores, the amount of which it would be difficult to calculate.” Baird’s study of cod fisheries focused on the Gulf of Maine and the Bay of Fundy, noting that “from thirty to fifty years ago cod could be taken in abundance in Passamaquoddy Bay. . . . ​The same is the case at the mouth of the Penobscot River and at other points along the coast.”26 This observation harkened back to an idealized past of fecundity, showing that Baird—­the most respected fisheries scientist in the nation—­had fallen victim to the shifting baseline phenomenon. To Baird and other observers in the 1870s, the 1820s to 1840s seemed like a time of prodigious environmental production, yet p­ eople of that period saw themselves as being in the midst of a fisheries crisis, as cod catches dipped and mackerel experienced significant booms and busts. Central to Baird’s study of the cod fisheries and the need to employ pisciculture to multiply the fish that cod fed on w ­ ere interviews Baird conducted with Captain Upham Stowers Treat of Eastport, Maine. Baird described Treat as a “gentleman of very g­ reat intelligence and knowledge of the many details connected with the natu­ral history of our coast-­fishes.” But most importantly, Baird described Treat as a “successful fisherman.” On first impression, it seemed Baird had fi­nally given serious consideration to ordinary fishermen in order to understand the environment fishermen interacted with daily. But Captain Treat was anything but an ordinary fisherman. Connected to Maine’s Demo­cratic establishment, Treat’s most substantive connection to the maritime world was pioneering the canning of lobster in Eastport, an enterprise remunerative enough for Treat to purchase an island in Passamaquoddy Bay that continues to bear his name. L ­ ater in life, Treat was recruited by the federal government to travel to Japan to instruct the Japa­nese in the pro­cess of canning meats and vegetables.27 But for Baird’s purposes, Treat was an impor­ tant interlocutor as a fellow investigator of the natu­ral world. “It is to Captain Treat,” Baird noted, “that we owe many experiments on the reproduction of alewives in ponds, and the possibility of keeping salmon in fresh w ­ aters for a 28 period of years.” Although Baird presented Treat as just a fisherman, clearly the captain was far closer to the po­liti­cal and scientific elites who controlled the industry than the ordinary laborers who manned the decks. Each subsequent year, the USFC continued to publish reports on the continued sophistication of pisciculture and marine biology more generally. The necessity of such scientific study and the ability of the United States to deploy

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data that purported to be a faithful reflection of the state of the environment grew as the United States and ­Great Britain met, yet again, in 1877 to ­settle the outstanding grievances connected to the fisheries. Baird was called on as an expert witness in building the US case at Halifax, reifying both his position of intellectual authority and the value of scientific data. But in the aftermath of the Halifax Commission, Baird was convinced of the inferior state of US fisheries science compared to its transatlantic counterpart, and of the need of the federal government to invest even more in the USFC’s work. Although the proceedings at Halifax would uncover the inadequacies of the USFC’s work, it reinforced both the need for such work and the continued ascendency of scientists over fishermen in understanding the maritime environment.

Halifax, 1877 The Treaty of Washington seemed to have been a real pivot in Anglo-­American relations. Subsequent historians have affirmed this view. Jay Sexton emphatically notes that the Treaty of Washington “opened a new chapter in the history of Anglo-­American relations.”29 But in real­ity, this treaty did not, on its own, occasion an a­ ctual shift in the tenor of transatlantic relations. What it did was put tp into place the architecture necessary to address t­ hose prob­lems that had the greatest potential to turn a constructive relationship into a destructive one. The first step was to fi­nally put to rest the controversy surrounding the Ala­ bama. Article 2 of the Treaty of Washington stipulated that arbitrators would meet in Geneva “at the earliest con­ve­nient period” to fi­nally decide how much ­Great Britain owed the United States for the depredations of Confederate ships.30 The tribunal was an international body composed of representatives selected by the leaders of the United States, G ­ reat Britain, Italy, Switzerland, and Brazil. ­After considering the cases presented by the US and British agents during the summer of 1872, the international tribunal de­cided that G ­ reat Britain was responsible for the direct claims brought against the CSS Alabama, the CSS Florida, and the CSS Shenandoah to the tune of $15.5 million. This decision furthered the cause of détente in Anglo-­American relations and would provide a template for addressing the fisheries issue. The series of Anglo-­ American agreements of the 1870s represented the emergence of new norms in international relations. Previously, US diplomacy had been largely unprofessional, reactive, and unsystematic; treaty making was dependent on the personalities involved—­like the Webster-­Ashburton Treaty of 1842.31 But with the Treaty of Washington came a new paradigm that sought Anglo-­American

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rapprochement through joint high commissions, international arbitrations, and, crucially for the fisheries dispute, expert testimony.32 Like the tribunal at Geneva, the body that would adjudicate the fisheries dispute would be international in scope and judge the relative merits of cases presented by US and British agents. Unlike the Geneva tribunal, however, the fisheries dispute would drag on, as US and British diplomats failed to agree on when to convene the commission and who would sit on the tribunal. Despite the Treaty of Washington’s directive that the fisheries commission would meet in Halifax “at the earliest con­ve­nient period,” the tribunal would not convene ­until 1877—­fully six years ­after the conclusion of the Washington treaty.33 The president of the United States and Her Britannic Majesty would each select one member of the tribunal while the third would be named by the Hungarian ambassador at London. The Rutherford B. Hayes administration opted to send Ensign H. Kellogg, an unsurprising decision given Kellogg’s de­cades of experience in Mas­sa­chu­setts politics. Her Majesty’s Government selected Sir Alexander T. Galt—an early and ardent supporter of Canadian confederation— in a move that demonstrated the continued ascendency of Canadian interests in international fishery politics. The final member of the tribunal, who would also serve as the commission’s president, was Maurice Delfosse, the former Belgian minister to the United States. While the third commissioner was to be appointed jointly by the United States and ­Great Britain, the treaty provided for a neutral third party to select the last commissioner when the two governments fail to find an agreeable candidate. The se­lection of a national of Belgium—­a country with deep historical ties to ­Great Britain—­ became controversial in the aftermath of the commission’s decision. While ­these men ultimately de­cided the award at Halifax, they w ­ ere by no means the focus. The dozens of fishermen, ship o ­ wners, merchants, bureaucrats, and scientists called by both the United States and G ­ reat Britain as witnesses consumed the lion’s share of the attention. Yet, within this group, ­these men w ­ ere not given equal shrift. In an era when diplomacy and science began to rely on expertise, the testimony of fishermen and laborers was clearly devalued next to the testimony of the scientists and cap­i­tal­ists who claimed the mantle of expert. As ­Great Britain and the United States presented their cases to the commissioners at Halifax, this distinction was fully evident as fishermen w ­ ere alienated from the diplomatic world that impinged on their l­abor. The British argument presented at Halifax was straightforward. Since the Treaty of Washington had opened all Dominion ­waters to US fishermen—­ even t­ hose fishing grounds within three miles of the coasts—­British and Canadian interests sought a monetary settlement for the use of t­ hose w ­ aters. At Halifax they calculated the bill. In all, the claim was substantial. The British

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agent at Halifax, Francis Clare Ford, remarked, “The admission of American fishermen to concurrent rights . . . ​is . . . ​in ­every re­spect highly advantageous to the United States’ citizens.” Her Majesty’s Government claimed $14.8 million as “a just estimation of the intrinsic worth of the concurrent fishing privileges accorded to United States’ citizens,” and thus the amount G ­ reat Britain 34 demanded of the US federal government. This sum nearly equaled the $15.5 million Britain paid the United States just five years ­earlier to ­settle the Ala­ bama claims. ­Great Britain justified the amount by cata­loging the advantages Americans derived from the British fisheries. Ford and his colleagues at Halifax identified four areas where US fishermen benefited ­under the terms of the Treaty of Washington. First, and most importantly, US fishermen w ­ ere greatly advantaged by unrestricted access to the inshore w ­ aters of the Canadian Dominion. The British case at Halifax described this as “a very valuable concession to United States’ citizens.”35 Second, the British noted that Americans retained “the liberty to land for the purpose of drying nets and curing fish,” which was “a privilege essential to the successful prosecution of fishing operations.” When combined with the third area British diplomats identified—­“access to the shores for purposes of bait [and] supply”—­the right of US fishermen to exploit shoreside resources gave Americans the ability to complete multiple excursions into British w ­ aters each season, essentially allowing US fishermen to 36 double their profits. Fi­nally, US fishermen benefited from the efforts of the Fisheries Protection Ser­vice of Canada (the counterpart to the USFC), which encouraged the propagation of forage fishes in Canadian rivers, estuaries, and seas that sustained the more lucrative sea fisheries. Although the British case outlined t­ hese four distinct areas, r­ eally it all came down to the US use of the inshore ­waters. The British case relied on eyewitness testimony from Dominion fishermen to prove the point. Her Majesty’s Government called more than eighty men, largely from the Maritime provinces, to testify before the Halifax Commission. Fishermen, ship ­owners, merchants, traders, seamen, and local and national politicians made the case not only that the inshore w ­ aters ­were fecund but also that US fishermen had exploited ­those w ­ aters in the years since the Treaty of Washington went into effect. This, along with scientific evidence complied by Canadian and British naturalists, formed the basis of Britain’s claim for a multimillion-­dollar settlement. For Canadian fishermen, the presence of Americans in inshore w ­ aters was a fact of life. Within a single h ­ uman life span, the treaty that governed the use of inshore ­waters had changed numerous times. The Convention of 1818 was replaced in 1854 with the Reciprocity Treaty, which, though it was repealed in

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1866, was effectively put back in place with the Treaty of Washington in 1871. Yet, despite this series of changes, Americans continued to fish inshore w ­ aters simply ­because that that was where the fish w ­ ere. Simon Chivarie, a Prince Edward Island native who had fished since 1848, noted the omnipresence of Americans. Remarking that he was “a pretty successful fishermen,” Chivarie told the commission that “when I went inside the limit”—­the three-­mile, inshore zone—­“I found the ­whole [US] fleet ­there.” In fact, so many Americans fished t­ hose w ­ aters that Chivarie “almost gave up the idea of fishing at all” on account of the competition.37 William McLeod was the justice of the peace in Port Daniel, a fishing town on the Gaspé Peninsula on the shores of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. A fisherman in his youth, McLeod testified to the importance of the inshore fisheries for US fishing interests. Citing conversations with US skippers, McLeod told the commission that Americans counted inshore fishing as “one of the most essential privileges they can obtain.” If ­those fishermen ­were barred from inshore w ­ aters for an extended period, it would prove ruinous. “In a very short time,” McLeod declared, Americans “would fail, if obliged to keep outside the three-­mile limit.”38 The fact that Americans frequented inshore ­waters should not have surprised p­ eople at Halifax. That had been the case for de­cades, and it was central to both Anglo-­American friction over the fisheries and the success of US fishermen. But proving this point was central to the British case. Americans fished Dominion w ­ aters ­because they had to. By the 1870s, the inshore w ­ aters along the coast of New ­England ­were depleted, so the British case alleged. British witnesses at Halifax testified to this effect, sometimes even belligerently. Walter McLaughlin, the light­house keeper on G ­ rand Manan Island at the mouth of the Bay of Fundy, explained the US presence in Dominion ­waters in ­simple terms: t­ here ­were more fish in Canadian ­waters than in US ­waters. When asked if Americans would be successful fishing solely in US ­waters, McLaughlin answered no, reasoning that if they could be, “they would not come to our fisheries. They would not come so far away. They do not have fisheries of their own.”39 Philip Vibert, an agent for Lloyd’s Bank at Perce, on the tip of the Gaspé Peninsula, compared British and US ­waters before the commission. He pulled no punches. When asked if Canadian fishermen would ever resort to US ­waters, Vibert was incredulous: “I am very certain they would not. What benefit would they derive?” He went on, “Our ­people are not such fools as to go to an inferior fishery.” Americans would have no need to visit Canadian w ­ aters “if ours ­were not superior to theirs.” “It stands to reason,” Vibert observed, “that they would not find it profitable to come that distance if their own fisheries ­were as good.” If any man from Canada left home w ­ aters to fish along

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US shores, he was, Vibert proclaimed, “better fitted for the lunatic asylum than anything ­else.”40 The inferior nature of US fisheries—­and the resulting need for Americans to fish Dominion ­waters—­was a theme ­running through the British evidence. Henry Youle Hind, a Canadian naturalist, confirmed this characterization. Through h ­ uman activity and natu­ral pro­cesses, the New E ­ ngland fisheries had been depleted. “I think ­there can be no doubt what­ever,” Hind told the commissioners at Halifax, “that it is quite pos­si­ble through h ­ uman agency to destroy on the coast of New ­England, the cod fishery, and also, to a considerable extent, the mackerel fisheries, simply ­because the area of cold ­water, which is absolutely necessary for the sustenance of ­those fish, is so comparatively small.” Hind made the connection between cold ­water and the productivity of cod and mackerel. He went on to note that “the United States has 45,000 square miles swept by the Arctic current.” By comparison, the Dominion had 200,000 such square miles. Hind emphasized the profound, if not historic, productivity of t­ hose w ­ aters. “Judging from history and what we see at the pre­ sent time,” Hind told t­ hose at Halifax, “­there are certain localities practically inexhaustible. T ­ here is no portion of the world where t­ here is such a constant and unvarying supply of codfish.”41 In the lead-up to the Halifax Commission, Hind prepared a report that assessed the conditions of the fisheries of the Canadian Dominion. In d­ oing so, he could not help but compare the fisheries north and south of the invisible line dividing the United States and Canada. Discussing New ­England ­waters, Hind observed, “The Coastal ­Waters of New ­England have lost very much of their former value as fishing grounds, and the cod-­fishery, once of vast commercial importance, has been ruined, in a g­ reat mea­sure beyond repair.”42 Americans fishing in Canadian w ­ aters was a m ­ atter of fact; they ­were driven ­there by necessity. They w ­ ere not, however, universally welcomed. William McLeod described the shoreside conduct of US fishermen. “The American colors,” McLeod told the commissioners at Halifax, “cover many characters, and ­there are a g­ reat many depredations, and very serious ones, committed by men on board of American vessels.” In cata­loging the “many instances of rascally conduct on our shores,” McLeod observed that US fishermen “have often torn up bridges on our highways, and barred them,” and, in a comment that begged for elaboration, he noted that “they have also abducted young ­women.”43 ­Whether or not US fishermen committed t­ hese sorts of crimes is not necessarily impor­tant. McLeod’s testimony showed that the perception of the violent and destructive US fishermen existed and perhaps motivated Canadians to press for a more punitive settlement.

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Though some individuals in the Maritimes welcomed Yankee ships as consumers of bait and other supplies, Canadian fishermen knew they ­were competitors cutting into their bottom line. Simon Chivarie told the commissioners at Halifax that “if the American fishing-­fleet had been kept entirely off the coast, it would have caused the mackerel to have been kept at a higher price in the market.” Chivarie knew he and his countrymen labored ­under the fisherman’s prob­lem: any fish Chivarie did not take was a fish taken by his competitor. Chivarie observed that if fish “­were not captured by the American fishing fleet they would be captured by the British fishing fleet, and the price would be so much higher.”44 But the distaste for the US presence in Canadian ­waters went far beyond this concern about greater competition. Canadian fishermen objected to US fishing practices as destructive, and the British case put a dollar amount on that destruction. The ­actual fishing practices of Americans was what Canadians objected to the most. The fishing revolution that took hold in the United States during the ­middle de­cades of the nineteenth ­century left the US fishing industry more capitalized, more centralized, and using dif­fer­ent gear than their Canadian counter­parts. Gear like purse seines and tub trawls required a significant capital investment and ­were certainly more advanced technology than the handlines and weirs on which most Canadian fishermen continued to rely. Critically, though, t­ hese technologies helped US fishermen take more and more fish— so much that the Canadians who testified at Halifax alleged the fisheries had been irrevocably changed for the worse. This testimony was a key part in justifying the huge cash settlement the British demanded. Purse seines ­were, in essence, large rectangular nets. With floats along the top edge of the net and weights along the bottom, purse seines hung vertically in the w ­ ater. When deployed, a purse seine was arranged in a circle with a rope threaded along the foot of the net that was used to cinch the net closed, thus trapping large amounts of fish. William McLeod made direct links between seining and the destruction of the fisheries: “The seining are the cause, and only cause, of the deterioration in the value of our fisheries.”45 Simon Chivarie remarked on this innovation, noting that recent years had seen ­these nets used for the first time. But, Chivarie alleged, even the US fishermen w ­ ere aware of the effect the seines had on the fisheries: “They ­were strongly of the opinion that its effect would be to destroy the fisheries altogether.” Yet the economics of the industry did not allow US fishermen to curtail the use of seines. “Owing to the number of seines owned and the g­ reat amount of money expended on them,” Chivarie continued, “they could not afford to do so.”46 John Nicholson was a fishing captain from Louisbourg—­a coastal community in Cape Breton—­who was unequivocal in his critique of seining. “I think

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it is the biggest injury to the mackerel fishery that ever was,” Nicholson boldly declared. It was a wasteful practice, Nicholson continued, ­because while a seine can “go round a school of mackerel where ­there are 500, 600, or 800 barrels” worth of fish, an average fishing vessel “can only take 250 or 300 barrels; they cannot cure more.” The remainder was left to spoil. This practice “frightens the mackerel,” thus driving ­these fish from the fishing grounds. He attributed seining to the overall decline of the fishery, remarking that the destruction of the fishery “is due to overfishing. . . . ​I know by experience it is nothing e­ lse.” Nicholson called seining “a plague,” declaring that “it is a bad t­ hing; t­ here could not be a worse t­ hing for the mackerel fishery.”47 Hind corroborated this testimony, recognizing the deleterious effects of seining. He focused on the long-­term implications. From an ecological standpoint, seining was so destructive ­because of its indiscriminate nature. All fish—­ large and small, juvenile and mature—­were scooped up in ­these large nets. Thus, fish ­were removed from the ecosystem before or during their spawning period. With so many fish unable to reproduce, this fishing practice would work to the long-­term detriment of the fisheries. Hind observed that seining took “an enormous quantity of spawning fish . . . ​and the effect is felt in the diminution of the vast supply of food ­these would furnish . . . ​on which the adult cod and other species of fish feed.”48 Fishermen at Halifax also noted the destructive capacity of tub trawling. Tub trawls ­were weighted lines with hundreds or even thousands of hooks set along the sea floor. Like seines, they took fish in much greater volume and imperiled the overall health of the fisheries. Light­house keeper Walter McLaughlin explained the situation faced by both Canadian fishermen and the fish themselves. While Canadian handliners had “two men in a boat . . . ​[with] eight hooks,” Americans came “along with the trawl that has fifteen hundred hooks.” “You can easily see where the disparity is,” McLaughlin continued. “It is fifteen hundred hooks against eight. You see what the result is.”49 That result was an increasingly deteriorated fishery. Again, Hind provided scientific corroboration for ­these claims about trawling. While trawl advocates defended the practice, claiming spawning fish avoid taking the hook and thus keep them and their offspring in the ecosystem, Hind observed that this mode of fishing was “very destructive,” and went on to remark, “It is a most serious error to state that ­mother or spawning fish are not taken by the bultow.” Instead, “gravid females,” tending to remain in the benthic environment, are taken by the groundlines.50 Canadian fishermen ­were also highly critical of US fishermen who disposed of fish offal by throwing it overboard. This practice fouled the fisheries, compounding the destruction wrought by US fishermen. Fish ­were flayed and

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preserved aboard US schooners. Fishermen disposed of the by-­products of this process—­fish guts and the remains of the carcass—by returning it to the ocean. John Nicholson confirmed that offal “scares” fish away from the shore. Nicholson highlighted the effect it had on juvenile fish, remarking that “it is also an injury to the spawn in the spring. . . . ​It kills them.”51 William McLeod echoed this concern: offal “­will be injurious to the mackerel fry in par­tic­u­lar. . . . ​If you destroy the young fish it is like cutting down the young forest.”52 And fi­nally, Walter McLaughlin reported that Canadian fishermen told him that cod “swallow the back bone and head [found among the offal] and it destroys them.”53 The enormous $14.8 million sum was largely a payment for US fishermen using—or, as some alleged, destroying—­Dominion fisheries. But the British also made the case that the administration, if not preservation, of the fisheries by Canadian officials directly benefited US fishermen. T ­ hose Americans, the British case argued, should likewise pay for this value added. The Fisheries Protection Ser­vice of Canada played an essential role maintaining the productivity of Canadian fisheries. A British agent at Halifax, Francis Clare Ford, noted that “the Provincial Governments have for many years past applied an or­ga­nized system of municipal protection and restriction, designed to preserve them [the fisheries] from injury and to render them more productive.” This government body ensured the health of sea and inshore fisheries by maintaining the rivers and estuaries that forage fish relied on for propagation. Its work was phenomenally successful. Ford went on to remark that “special care has been devoted to the protection of the spawning grounds . . . ​ and the inshores now swarm with valuable fish of all kinds, which, owing to the expense incurred by the Canadian Government, are now abundant in places hitherto almost deserted.” Americans ­were the direct beneficiaries of the Fisheries Protection Ser­vice’s work, and should thus contribute to it: “United States’ fishermen . . . ​share to the fullest extent, without having as yet in any way contributed t­owards their cost: it may then fairly be claimed that a portion of the award to be demanded of the United States’ Government ­shall be in consideration of their participation in the fruits of additional expenditure borne by Canadians.”54 Henry Youle Hind took the opportunity to si­mul­ta­neously praise the efforts of the Canadian fisheries ser­vice and bash the (as he saw it) more haphazard approach in the United States. The disparity related to differing po­liti­cal systems. North of the border, the “Dominion Government possess entire control over the fisheries of the coastal and inland ­waters,” where “this control has been carefully exercised in the preservation to a very considerable extent of the marine spawning grounds, and in securing uninterrupted access to the

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fresh ­water grounds of the anadromous species frequenting the rivers.” Conversely, south of the border, according to Hind, “the local control exercised by separate State Governments over the marine and fresh w ­ ater fisheries within the limits of each state,” along with “power­f ul lumbering and manufacturing industries . . . ​obstructing the ­free passage of the anadromous fishes to their spawning grounds,” worked together to “render their [fisheries] restoration not only extremely difficult but tardy, and to a certain extent ineffectual.” All in all, Hind concluded, “this difference on the po­liti­cal and industrial status of the two countries, is marked by extraordinary differences in the pre­sent productive capacity of their coastal ­waters.”55 As the British concluded their case and focus turned to the Americans, t­ hese differences in fishery administration would become more apparent. When the commissioners made their decision, the differing abilities of US and British and Canadian officials to marshal evidence about the status of the fisheries was salient. The upstart USFC simply could not keep up with their British and Canadian counter­parts. In some regard this was ironic, as the US case perpetuated the perception that the USFC and the men of science in its employ w ­ ere the most authoritative keepers of knowledge about the fisheries. The US case at Halifax rested on proving that US fishermen no longer fished inshore in Canadian w ­ aters. If US fishermen no longer resorted to the contentious inshore fishing grounds, as the US contingent averred, then the United States was not liable for the damages Britain demanded. Although dozens of US fishermen ­were brought before the commission, their testimony was not a demonstration of their knowledge of the natu­ral history of the fisheries. Instead, their knowledge of the quotidian operation of the fishing industry was put in ser­vice of the larger US argument that the United States owed nothing. US counsels used the testimony of experts—­ship o ­ wners, merchants, government bureaucrats, and scientists—to prove their point. To ascertain ­whether US fishermen fished inshore, the US representatives at Halifax quite sensibly asked the US fishermen themselves. Almost uniformly, they testified that the inshore fishing grounds ­were no longer valuable. James Bradley, a fisherman for twenty-­three years from Newburyport, Mas­sa­chu­setts, contended that since the Treaty of Washington, the inshore mackerel fisheries ­were of ­little value to him, claiming that fishing “right along the land” was “of very poor quality.” Speaking specifically of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Bradley remarked that ­those fishing grounds ­were “of no earthly use to me . . . ​as a fisherman.” Conversely, Bradley claimed that US inshore w ­ aters, which w ­ ere open to Canadian fishermen, ­were “worth ten times as much as the Gulf of St. Lawrence fishery.”56

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James W. Graham, a mari­ner from Wellfleet, Mas­sa­chu­setts, echoed this sentiment. “The Gulf of St. Lawrence fisheries,” Graham noted, “are of no account to us at all,” citing increasingly poor hauls over the “last three or four years.”57 George Friend of Gloucester, Mas­sa­chu­setts, when directly asked, “Is the privilege of using the inshore fishery of any use to you as a fishermen?” plainly responded, “No. Personally I say, no.”58 Dozens and dozens of other fishermen ­were paraded before the nommission and left a singular impression: since the Treaty of Washington was signed in 1871, Americans had no reason to invade Canada’s inshore w ­ aters ­because they w ­ ere no longer of any value to Yankee fishermen. The other group that testified on behalf of the US cause, “experts” who w ­ ere removed from the everyday activities of fishing, at once upheld the central contention that US fishermen no longer fished ­those inshore ­waters while denying that ­those fishermen had any understanding of the natu­ral pro­cesses that governed the fisheries. One such expert was Nathaniel Atwood. A cod-­liver oil merchant from Provincetown, Mas­sa­chu­setts—­a maritime community at the very tip of Cape Cod—­Atwood had fished in his youth. At the Halifax Commission, Atwood detailed the cod and mackerel expeditions into the Bay of Fundy, the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the Labrador Sea he had made more than five de­cades ­earlier when, as the son of a poor fisherman, he followed in his ­father’s footsteps. But he was not called by the federal government to offer expert testimony based on this experience. By the 1870s he was undoubtedly part of the elite cadre of businessmen, scientists, and politicians who had consolidated their control over the fishing industry. Beginning in the 1840s, Atwood began the more systematic study of the fisheries he previously knew only through l­ abor. His transition from fishermen to naturalist was confirmed in 1847 when Atwood was invited to join the elite Boston Society of Natu­ral History. ­Later, he became an interlocutor of Louis Agassiz, the most prominent naturalist in the nation.59 At Halifax, Atwood and the US counsels highlighted the Provincetown native’s intellectual credentials as a naturalist. Although Atwood modestly stated he “hoped to do something for the advantage of science,” he was clearly t­ here to provide testimony as an undisputed authority on the habits of commercially valuable fish. In large part, Atwood’s testimony created an impression similar to that of the fishermen’s: Canadian mackereling grounds ­were depleted, while the US fisheries remained robust. When discussing mackereling since 1870, Atwood remarked that “it has not been so profitable as the cod fishery, and it has declined somewhat. . . . ​This fishery has been very unprofitable. . . . ​During

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this period, almost all our mackerel fishing was done on our own coast.” Atwood continued, “Our conduct certainly shows that we believe our own fisheries to be the best.” Quite simply, Atwood concluded, “the mackerel fishery [in British ­waters] has been a failure since 1873.”60 Throughout his testimony Atwood defended the practices of US fishermen that the British found particularly odious. He countered the claim that fish offal fouled the fisheries. “It is my opinion,” Atwood remarked, “that the throwing overboard of the offal which comes from mackerel . . . ​does no damage what­ever to the fishing grounds. . . . ​I fail to discover that this practice does any such damage what­ever.” He offered less resolute words, however, when discussing seining. Although Atwood suggested that perhaps “fishing in any locality with seines has a tendency . . . ​to increase the diminution and to make fish scarcer,” it was a moot point. When discussing mackereling in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Atwood asserted that “it is not seining that has made them scarce”; it was the shallowness of the ­water and the roughness of the bottoms in the gulf that made seining in­effec­tive.61 While ­these points differed l­ ittle from what fishermen themselves said, Atwood’s testimony was given greater weight ­because he offered scientific explanations for their legitimacy. In the course of his questioning, Atwood detailed the be­hav­ior, life cycle, diet, spawning, and migration patterns of both mackerel and cod. The fishermen-­cum-­naturalist did not merely assert that Americans no longer resorted to British w ­ aters in search of mackerel; he offered explanations that included changes in the fish’s migration, shifts in the kinds of fish preyed on, an increase in predacious fish, and the natu­ral fickleness of mackerel.62 Atwood made a distinction in the types of testimony offered at Halifax. “Fishing from an industrial and commercial point of view,” he contended, “is one ­thing,” and fishing “from a natu­ral history point of view is another ­thing.”63 The industrial and commercial point of view could tell ­those assembled at Halifax where fishermen fished, but could explain why only in terms of money. Atwood observed the s­ imple truth that a­ fter all, fishermen “are apt to be . . . ​swayed by selfish motives.”64 It was the natu­ral history point of view that could actually explain the actions of fishermen in terms of the natu­ral laws canonized by men of science and encoded in authoritative texts. At Halifax, this kind of knowledge seemed more persuasive. Another witness at Halifax, Sylvanus Smith, had a ­career that mirrored Atwood’s. Like Atwood, Smith spent his youth fishing. First ­going aboard at the age of eight, by the time he was twenty-­five he had multiple schooners ­under his command sailing to the banks of Newfoundland. But also like Atwood, Smith left the forecastle and ascended the ranks of the commercial, intellectual, and po­liti­cal elite that came to dominate the fishing industry in the late

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nineteenth ­century. In the 1860s Smith abandoned the shipboard life and founded Sylvanus Smith and Com­pany, a fishing firm that would eventually become “one of the most successful fish producing, curing and distributing ­houses in the business on the Atlantic coast.”65 By the last quarter of the nineteenth c­ entury, Smith was one of the most prominent men in Gloucester, Mas­ sa­chu­setts, a city that was the greatest beneficiary of the consolidation of the fishing industry. Befitting his position as a prominent fish merchant, Smith was intimately aware of the economics of the industry. Throughout his testimony Smith deployed a preponderance of statistics concerning the inner workings of fishing expeditions—­catch totals, price per barrel, wages, provisioning, insurance, taxes, depreciation of the vessel. By taking a holistic look at the commercial side of fishing, Smith was able to tell the commissioners at Halifax what did—­ and what did not—­make a fishing voyage profitable. In his expert opinion, the calculus of inshore fishing just did not make sense for US fishermen. When asked about the worth of fishing grounds within three miles of the coast in British ­waters, Smith was direct: “I never considered them to be of any ­g reat value.”66 Both Sylvanus Smith and Nathaniel Atwood came to the same conclusions as dozens of US fishermen. But, crucially, their testimonies came with a kind of authority that mere laborers could never attain. The most authoritative US witness, however, was yet to come. Spencer Fullerton Baird’s bona fides among nineteenth-­century ichthyologists ­were widely accepted; at Halifax, his reputation preceded him. During Baird’s introduction to the commission, US counsel Richard Henry Dana Jr. remarked that “it was not necessary . . . ​to ask this witness any questions to show his position or general acquaintance with and knowledge of the subject” at hand. In describing his research methodology since he had assumed the leadership of the USFC, Baird emphasized his collaboration with “a force of experts, naturalists, and gentlemen interested in the biology of fishes.” The result of years of inquiry into the US fishery left Baird largely defending the practices of US fishermen but not the fishermen themselves. Like literally ­every other witness called by the US del­e­ga­tion, Baird testified that Americans no longer had reason to resort to inshore w ­ aters. But the fishery scientist focused his attention on the other practices the British found so objectionable: the disposal of fish offal in British w ­ aters and the use of seines. While Baird was squarely against the US habit of getting rid of fish offal by throwing it overboard, his objection had nothing to do with its allegedly harmful effects to the health of the fisheries; he just found it to be wasteful. “The practice of throwing overboard gurry,” Baird remarked, “is in many re­ spects reprehensible, ­because in the first place it is a very ­g reat waste of

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animal ­matter.” He suggested that such waste could be used in the manufacture of fertilizer. But he countered the British charge that the United States should be held responsible for this practice b­ ecause of its harmful effects on the ­future life of the fisheries. Baird then turned his attention to the impact of seining. When asked about the use of purse seines in British w ­ aters, Baird said that while “they destroy and waste a g­ reat many fish,” they do not “affect the total number of the fish in the sea materially.” Again, Baird’s testimony served to ­counter British claims that the United States should bear financial responsibility for altering the fisheries.67 The inability of ­humans to affect the environment became a pillar of the US argument. The US counsels hoped to convince the commission that the vastness of the world’s ocean was beyond the comprehension of any individual. Dana bolstered his argument that the United States owed nothing to ­Great Britain by remarking on the nature of the cod fishery, stating that “­there is no fear of diminution—­certainly none of its extermination.” Quoting evidence provided by Baird that a single cod could produce three to seven million eggs, with one hundred thousand growing to maturity, Dana continued, “Although that is not a large percentage of the amount of ova . . . ​[this annual increase] shows that t­ here is no danger of the diminution, certainly none of the extermination of that class of fish.” Not even the forces of all humanity could diminish the number of fish in the sea, since this resource was “something which the ­whole world combining to exterminate could hardly make any impression upon.”68 Dana refuted the British claim to a large monetary settlement, arguing that the United States should not be forced to pay for degrading a resource that could never be degraded. The Mas­sa­chu­setts native stated that “when the argument is made ­here that we o ­ ught to pay more for the right to fish ­because we are in danger of exterminating what cod-­fish we have—if that argument is made—it amounts to nothing,” for the fishery was and would always be “as large and extensive and as prosperous as ever.”69 But perhaps the most curious part of Baird’s testimony was how he addressed the role of US fishermen. In short, he was dismissive. As part of the ongoing pro­cess of devaluing fishermen as possessors of knowledge about fish—­not to mention the po­liti­cal regimes they operated within—­Baird remarked that “as a general rule, every­body knows, fishermen know less about fish than they do about anything ­else. . . . ​They know how to catch fish and the practical details of their business, but of their natu­ral history they know very ­little.” He went on to say that even though fishermen have a wealth of experience of interacting with the fisheries through their ­labor, “only ­here and

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t­ here w ­ ill you find a man who has observed and noted the facts closely enough to be able to answer your questions.”70 This generally dismissive tone ­toward fishermen was in stark contrast to how Baird discussed the fish themselves. “Cod,” Baird declared, “stands at the head of fish at the pre­sent day. ­There is no fish that furnishes food to so many ­people, the production of which is of so much importance, or which is applied to such a variety of purposes.” The gadoid was, in Baird’s unique turn of phrase, a “brag fish” in regard to its ability to produce millions of eggs in a single clutch.71 This kind of language represented a reversal of de­cades of rhe­ toric concerning fish and fishermen. Once, fishermen had been lauded for the role they played in bringing food from the ocean, but now this provisioning role was assigned to the fish themselves. While perhaps not a watershed moment, this subtle shift demonstrates how men like Baird sought to anonymize fishermen and thus undermine their value. With such remarks, Baird set the tone that the US counsels at Halifax would bring to the commission. The most acerbic words for US fishermen came from the US counsel William H. Trescott. To support the evidence that the US commissioners marshaled in the ser­vice of their argument, Trescott directly challenged the intellectual authority of fishermen. While this rhetorical move resonated during an era when professional ichthyology was winning adherents in governments across Eu­rope and North Amer­i­ca, Trescott’s diatribe demonstrated just how ­little esteem US diplomats had for the fishermen who had once featured so prominently in the nation’s foreign relations. In Trescott’s mind, the difference between British and US evidence mapped onto the divide between canonical science and experience, between capital and l­ abor. “Ours,” Trescott declared, “is the estimate of the cap­it­ al­ist, theirs the estimate of the labourer.” The perspective of ordinary laborers was insufficient in considering such a large question, Trescott continued, as “­there is no g­ reat industry, the cost and profits of which can be ascertained by such partial, individual inquiry.” The expanse of the ocean and its resources could not be ascertained from the perspective of any individual. Trescott bluntly put the question to his audience, “If you wished to invest in mackerel, would you trust the rambling stories of the most honest of skippers, or the most industrious of boat-­ fishers, against the experience and the books of men like Procter, Sylvanus Smith, Hall, Myrick, and Pew?”72 By openly questioning the intellectual authority of fishermen to speak on behalf of their industry, Trescott’s rhe­toric widened the gap between ordinary fishermen and the politics of the industry. The individualistic, enterprising, and patriotic fishermen did not have a place in the US case at Halifax.

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Even the US counsel Richard Henry Dana Jr. affirmed the efficacy of the testimony of the vaunted men of science over knowledge derived from the everyday experiences of l­abor. More than any other American in Halifax, Dana was familiar with shipboard life. Despite his well-­heeled Cambridge upbringing, Dana had spent part of his formative years aboard ships, laboring shoulder to shoulder with a class of men whose knowledge of the environment came in the form of quotidian observations. This experience formed the basis of his wildly popu­lar book Two Years before the Mast and instilled in him a consideration for the trying circumstances of maritime laborers.73 But at Halifax, even Dana described the “evidence to be relied upon” as “the evidence of men who keep books, whose interest it was to keep books, men who had statistics to make up on authority and responsibility, men whose capital and interest and every­thing ­were invested in the trade.”74 Yet again, the US case was built on the evidence derived from cap­i­tal­ists, corporations, and scientists, not laborers and fishermen. That evidence, however, did not prove convincing. In a two-­to-­one decision by the tribunal at Halifax, the federal government was ordered to pay for the privileges US fishermen enjoyed in foreign w ­ aters. The decision—­made along national lines—­left only the American, Ensign Kellogg, voting against the proposed indemnity. What ultimately tipped the scale had l­ittle to do with what Americans actually said at Halifax. Instead, it was the superiority of Canadian and British data that won the day. The commission’s decision was not only a victory for Canadian and British interests, but also a victory for the scientific administration of the fisheries. Despite what was made of Baird’s credentials, the data he supplied was shoddy. Historian Brian J. Payne called the work of the USFC “comparatively elementary” when considered alongside the work done by British and Canadian fisheries scientists.75 In the aftermath of the commission’s decision, Baird even admitted as much. “The American side,” Baird remarked in 1879, “labored ­under a serious disadvantage for want of methodical and regular statistics of the fisheries of the United States,” while “the case was quite dif­fer­ent . . . ​with the other party.” For Baird, the lesson learned at Halifax was the necessity of recommitting the resources of the federal government to the study of the fisheries. As Baird observed, Halifax demonstrated “the necessity of having at hand more accurate statistics of the g­ reat fisheries of the United States . . . ​ [and] the importance of or­ga­nized action to that end on the part of the government.”76 The defeat at Halifax would resonate in US scientific circles for de­cades to come and accelerate a pro­cess that was already underway. While the purview of the USFC would continue to expand, it would come at the ex-

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pense of ordinary fishermen who ­were further removed from the intellectual and po­liti­cal life of the fisheries. Despite the one-­sided decision—­the federal government was ordered to pay the Canadian government $5.5 million—­there w ­ ere complaints on both sides. Dwight Foster, the US agent at Halifax, was apoplectic. In transmitting the commission’s decision to Secretary of State William M. Evarts, Foster could hardly veil his indignation. To his mind, the US case was airtight, thus the commission’s decision was an outrageous miscarriage of justice. “If the Commissioners w ­ ere to be governed by the law and the evidence,” Foster bellowed, “they ­ought not to make any award against the United States.”77 The commission failed to decide in the United States’ ­favor, despite Foster’s observation that “this evidence seemed to me to show conclusively that only a very small fraction of the mackerel taken . . . ​has ever been caught within the three-­mile zone.” In Foster’s view, the US del­e­ga­tion at Halifax “proved conclusively” that mackerel fishing in British w ­ aters was unprofitable and that Americans fished t­ hose ­waters only occasionally. In his missive to the secretary of state, Foster suggested that the commission’s decision “does not constitute a valid award u ­ nder the treaty,” and he did not believe such a decision was ­going to put an end to the friction between the United States and their Canadian and British counter­parts over the fisheries. Recognizing the importance of exporting Canadian fish to the US market, Foster predicted that “control over fish importations w ­ ill constitute the means of eventually securing . . . ​an indemnity against any injustice which we may have received . . . ​ and of preventing any further exposure of such injustice.”78 For Foster, the fisheries issue still raged. But this would prove to be but a momentary outburst. The budding, if uneven, transatlantic rapprochement would overshadow fishermen and codfish in the world of international diplomacy. While Americans had their own reasons to chafe at the commission’s decision, they w ­ ere not alone. Henry Youle Hind, a Canadian naturalist and a key figure in the pre­sen­ta­tion of the British case at Halifax, insisted that the evidence on which the commission made their decision was faulty. Even though, for all intents and purposes, Hind’s side won, he saw the potential for ­f uture friction if the commission’s decision was in fact based on false evidence. In a series of letters to Baird and to the commissioners at Halifax, Hind claimed to have discovered significant discrepancies in the statistics presented in support of the British case. ­There ­were not mere errors made in compiling large amounts of data. Hind charged that the discrepancies amounted to fraud, committed in order to misrepresent the situation on the fisheries to the detriment of the United States. For Hind, the implications ­were dire.

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In the early days of 1878, Hind informed Baird of the falsified statistics. He ascribed moral significance to this discovery, noting, “Money is dust in the scale, as compared with honest dealing in the relations of the two countries.” Hind predicted this double-­dealing would “inevitably bear and ripen baneful fruit.” This was just the beginning of Hind’s impassioned—if not melodramatic—­rhe­toric surrounding the issue. Hind then brought the ­matter to the attention of the president of the Halifax Fisheries Commission, Maurice Delfosse, with more predictions of ­f uture animosity. If knowledge of the falsified statistics became widespread, Hind argued, “the increase of ill-­will and discord between neighbouring ­peoples is likely to be enhanced.” Letting this grievance go unaddressed would not just be harmful for transatlantic relations, but would also represent a reversal of western pro­g ress: “While the Treaty of Washington was designed to be a step forward in the march of civilization and Christian dealing among nations, the rec­ord I now submit to you throws all back again to the crude devices of craft, in which truth has not part or repre­ sen­ta­tion.” Fi­nally, Hind brought his one-­man letter-­writing campaign to Alexander Galt, the British commissioner at Halifax. Hind portrayed Canada as the party most aggrieved by the falsification of statistics—­certainly, US retribution would be swift and costly. “Canada alone ­will suffer from the duplicity,” Hind proclaimed, as such “nefarious work” would “unsettle and impair the peaceful relations between her p­ eople and t­ hose of her ­g reat and power­ ful neighbor.” If Galt failed to act, it would imperil “the honor of your country and interests of millions of your countrymen . . . ​[and] yield obedience to the biddings of fidelity or disloyalty with equal minds.”79 The stakes, Hind felt, ­were incredibly high. Hind’s concern was met with a shrug. Responding to Hind’s pleas, Galt characterized the claims as a series of “absurd charges.” The British commissioner dismissed Hind out of hand: “I do not wish to be discourteous, but correspondence on this subject must now be at an end.” Delfosse was more careful in his response to Hind but likewise refused to reconsider the case. Hind’s accusations, Delfosse maintained, did not “bear out the accusation of intentional and systematic fraud.” Delfosse went on to defend the commission’s decision by arguing that the cases made by both the British and US agents at Halifax “are distinct from the evidence.” This kind of convoluted argumentation suggests that Delfosse privileged the goals of the commission—­which is to say, more tranquil transatlantic relations—­over the means to achieve them. Essentially, the commissioner felt the decision reduced international rancor and thus could be justified on any grounds.80 Disagreement over the commission’s decisions would characterize the popu­lar reaction in the United States. But despite the degree of protest in

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the United States—­coming most vehemently from the wharves of New ­England—­policymakers clearly privileged transatlantic relations over the interests of the fishing community. Although US fishermen ­were effectively sidelined, they did not hesitate to voice their dis­plea­sure in the aftermath of the Halifax Commission’s decision.

“Our Business Is ­Going to Ruin” By all accounts, the $5.5 million the commission declared the United States owed was an “enormous sum.”81 As news of the Halifax award became public knowledge, the reaction was largely one of resignation. Critics assailed the decision of the commission as unfair, unjust, and unmerited. But outside of the New ­England papers, no one seriously suggested the United States should refuse payment.82 In the popu­lar press and the halls of Congress, despite their significant misgivings about the award, Americans advocated that it should be paid in order to preserve peaceful international relations and defend the efficacy of the arbitration pro­cess. The decision to pay the award sent a clear message: the federal government subordinated the interests of the fishing industry to other, more impor­tant diplomatic goals. Some papers went so far as to explain Delfosse’s appointment as a result of US error. One editorialist reported that British diplomats initially refused to even put Delfosse’s name forward, assuming Americans would protest. Yet, ­later, when the British government made the case for Delfosse’s appointment, Secretary of State Hamilton Fish voiced no objection. Thus, it was Fish’s “fit of foolish magnanimity,” not any kind of British suasion, that lead to Delfosse’s appointment and ultimately, the substantial penalty.83 This kind of resignation to what had come to pass was more typical of the popu­lar response—at least, outside of New ­England. While critical of the amount of the award, papers in New York and elsewhere ­were far more likely to consider the broader po­liti­cal context. Sure, the award was a steep price to pay, but was a relatively cheap way to ensure peace. Immediately ­after the commission announced its decision, the New York Herald recognized the decision for the watershed it was. With only scant mention of anything unjust or excessive, the New York paper did not place the commission’s decision in the century-­long context of the fisheries issue, but instead observed that “the termination of the international drama, which began with the launch of the Alabama, is thus happily concluded in peace and mutual satisfaction.”84 The New York Press called the award “satisfactory,” citing its result of “end[ing] a series of long and ­bitter disputes with Canada and

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­ reat Britain.” In all, the Press concluded, the Treaty of Washington was a G spectacular success. Taking into account the fishery award and the Alabama claims, the United States emerged $10 million richer, so the United States “­ought now to emulate the honorable course of ­Great Britain in the Alabama case by paying the bill without delay or haggling.”85 The notion of honor crept into discussion of the Halifax award. If the United States elected not to make the substantial payment, it would, some observers asserted, imperil the national honor. The award must be paid “for the sake of the national honor,” the New York Herald declared. Surely the United States could not count itself among the ­g reat nations of the earth if it was unable or unwilling to comply with international agreements. In this light, the Herald continued, the $5.5 million award was but “a bagatelle in comparison with the character of the government for honor and good faith.”86 The Philadelphia Inquirer likewise emphasized national honor. “The honor of the nation,” the Philadelphia paper declared, “demands that provision should, without delay, be made for paying the five and a half million awarded to ­Great Britain. . . . ​We, therefore, owe it to ourselves to pay the award without any such delay as would be derogatory to our dignity as a nation.”87 Honor had long factored into the calculus of Anglo-­American relations. But now honor was not to be found in re­sis­tance; honor demanded cooperation. While this debate about honor, peace, and justice in international affairs was a fairly predictable aspect of domestic debate over international relations, the reaction to the Halifax award introduced a new ele­ment. Irrespective of ­those concerns, t­hose who advocated the immediate payment of the award noted that failure to do so would set an ominous pre­ce­dent for f­ uture international arbitrations. When the United States and ­Great Britain agreed to submit their grievances to an international tribunal for arbitration, it was a novel institution that promised to revolutionize international relations. Thus, the United States could not risk a move that would undercut the legitimacy of the pro­cess. The Daily-­Picayune of New Orleans knew what was at stake: “The princi­ple of arbitration, so strenuously insisted on by our Government, would be reduced to an absurdity if one of the parties could escape by simply instructing its commissioners to refuse assent to any award against it.”88 The Philadelphia Inquirer discussed arbitration in messianic terms. “­There can be no question,” the editorialist declared, “that the best interest of civilization demands the highest pos­si­ble re­spect for and the promptest pos­si­ble compliance with the terms of settlement established by the commissions appointed as arbitrators in international disputes.” US compliance with the Halifax Commission—­even if its decision was unjust—­would demonstrate to the world how “­these tribunals can and actually have prevented appeal to the ter-

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rible ordeal of war.” The United States simply could not afford to bring doubt on the arbitration pro­cess, b­ ecause of its promise to revolutionize international relations; as the paper concluded, “We can much better afford to pay $5,000,000 we do not fairly owe than to run the risk of throwing discredit upon arbitration as a civilized method of settling national disputes.”89 The popu­lar reaction to the Halifax award oscillated from outrage and defiance to resignation and compliance. Washington seemed to encapsulate ­these conflicting ideas, producing a mealymouthed response exhibiting outrage at the award while meekly submitting to it. It demonstrated the desire of politicians and diplomats to achieve tranquil transatlantic relations above all ­else. When James G. Blaine, a Republican senator from Maine, addressed Congress in March 1878, he gave voice to ­these contradictions. Understandably, a Mainer would take a hard line on the fisheries issue—or at least feign to in order to make po­liti­cal hay. Blaine addressed Congress to urge the Hayes administration to release the rec­ord of diplomatic exchanges leading up to Delfosse’s appointment as the third commissioner. This rec­ord, Blaine averred, would show Britain’s double-­dealing by “disclos[ing] a designed and per­sis­tent effort on the part of the British Government to secure an advantage in the se­lection of the third commissioner.” This was but the most obvious manifestation of the “extraordinary nature” of the commission and its award. In Blaine’s view, the award was nothing short of a fleecing that threatened to doom the US fishing industry. By his accounting, between the amount of the award and the remittance of the duty on Canadian fish, the United States was in effect paying $1 million a year for the privilege of fishing Canada’s inshore w ­ aters. This privilege was worth, Blaine estimated, a mere $300,000 a year.90 The award was a fiasco for Americans. The underhanded nature of Delfosse’s appointment called the legitimacy of the commission into question, and the huge award smacked of injustice while portending the “certain destruction of a ­great American interest.” Blaine seemed to pull no punches, describing the award as an injustice “so palpable that it is difficult to treat it with the re­spect due to all subjects involving international relations.” Blaine called the treaty that spawned the award “a mockery of justice.” To pay the award would, in effect, be paying “­Great Britain one million dollars per annum for destroying a school of commerce, which properly nurtured, ­will be her ­g reat rival in the ­future.” It seemed Blaine was steadfastly against the treaty and objected to its payment. Looks, however, ­were deceiving.91 Despite issuing such strong words, Blaine concluded that refusing to comply with the treaty would besmirch the honor of the nation and, most importantly, impede the proj­ect of transatlantic rapprochement. Blaine continued

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to insist that the award was unfair but remained a reasonable price to “remove all pos­si­ble ground for imputation, even by the ignorant and the hostile, upon the honor of our Government and the good faith and fair dealing of our ­people.” If anything, Blaine reasoned, paying an unfair award did all the more to sanctify the nation’s honor. “Paying one’s debt for full value,” Blaine noted, “is considered proper and upright course for upright men; but paying a large sum for which we get nothing in return ­ought to be accounted to us for a good deal more of righ­teousness.” Blaine’s ­mental gymnastics to justify paying the award—­and to claim it was a good t­ hing for the nation, no less—­can only be understood in terms of a desire to calm Anglo-­American relations, even if it meant “destroying the entire fishing interest of Amer­i­ca and still further crippling and weakening us as a commercial power.”92 The decision to so meekly accept the Halifax award was unsurprising given the Anglophilic turn in US foreign policy. Blaine’s words in Congress, however, w ­ ere truly astounding and demonstrated the significant degree to which all in Washington ­were willing to sell out the ordinary fisherman to achieve other diplomatic goals. In many re­spects, Blaine was the last senator one might expect to advocate for complying with the Halifax award. Not only did he represent the state that had the second-­largest investment in the North Atlantic fisheries (­after Mas­sa­chu­setts), but he also had a reputation as an avowed Anglophobe. Blaine represented a wing of the postbellum Republican Party that was unmistakably expansionist in outlook. It was this wing that would give rise to McKinley, Roo­se­velt, Hay, and the architects of the Spanish-­American War and the Open Door policy. The Ca­rib­bean, Latin Amer­i­ca, and the Pacific Basin w ­ ere ripe for US intervention. Yet, ­Great Britain stood as the most obvious and most power­ful check on US designs for ­those areas.93 The fact that Blaine saw British power as a competitor to the United States almost every­ where makes his desire to quell transatlantic rancor over the fisheries telling, if curious. If the fishermen could not count on Blaine to uphold their interests in Congress, they ­couldn’t count on anyone’s support in Washington—­and they knew it. The most strident criticisms of the award came from the fishermen’s own backyard. The Boston Daily Advertiser gave voice to this indignation. Calling news of the decision of the Halifax Commission “a most unpleasant surprise,” the Boston paper concluded that the $5.5 million figure was “a ridiculously extravagant judgment.” But, in a line of reasoning that was shared by other observers, this editorialist was not put out by the size of the award, steep as it was. What was most galling was the perfidy that allowed it: “At pre­sent it is impossible to conceive of a state of facts that can have led fairly to this extraordinary decision.”94

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The Cape Ann Advertiser, based in Gloucester, Mas­sa­chu­setts, the center of the US fishing community, played to its readership and took a hard line against the Halifax award. Repeatedly calling the award “excessive and unjust,” the editorialist concluded that “it o ­ ught not to be paid.” To justify contesting the commission’s decision, the Gloucester writer accused the commissioners of disregarding the evidence: “We have no hesitation in declaring that the decision is against the weight of the evidence.” To explain this inconsistency, they pointed to the commissioners themselves. The editorialist charged that Sir Alexander Galt, the British representative on the commission, supported such a large award as payback for the Geneva tribunal’s decision on the Ala­ bama claims. Likewise, Delfosse was predisposed to deciding against the United States, as the editorial remarked, “The blandishments of the Halifax aristocracy, may have had more weight with Mr. Delfosse than the influence of an unpretending citizen of a Republic, or the preponderance of testimony and arguments.”95 While Galt’s bias was a given, Delfosse’s relationship with ­Great Britain became a subject of interest and, critics alleged, was morally suspect. The Treaty of Washington outlined how the commissioners w ­ ere selected. The United States and G ­ reat Britain each selected a representative and the third was chosen by both nations together. Predictably, the nations came to loggerheads over the se­lection of the third commissioner, so, per treaty stipulations, the Austro-­Hungarian minister to London made the se­lection. At the time, the se­ lection of Maurice Delfosse, the Belgian minister to the United States, elicited ­little commentary. But ­after the announcement of the award, US critics charged that Delfosse was not an impartial observer, given the deep historical ties between Belgium and ­Great Britain. The Daily Press of Portland, Maine, noted the “feeling that E ­ ngland has taken advantage of the United States in the m ­ atter of appointing Delfosse,” characterizing his appointment as being attended by “some queer circumstances.”96 Nearly a year a­ fter the payment of the Halifax award, the New York Tribune dispatched a correspondent to Gloucester to take the pulse of the fishing industry. The situation, it seemed, was bleak. The Treaty of Washington and Halifax award w ­ ere still hot topics of conversation. The Tribune’s correspondent reported that opinion along the New E ­ ngland coast was united against the recent turn in Anglo-­American relations, saying that “every­body tells you that our Government has been grossly insulted.”97 The captain of a fishing schooner elaborated on why he and his fellow fishermen w ­ ere staunchly opposed to recent developments. “Our business is ­going to ruin,” he surmised. The Halifax award found few supporters along the coast, as the most egregious aspect of the Treaty of Washington was the

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elimination of duties on Canadian-­caught fish. Canadians, owing to their natu­ ral advantages in fishing, could now undersell US fishermen in the US market. Thus, the captain observed, “­there is no money to be made.” Ports like Marblehead, Newburyport, Essex, and Provincetown had all but given up on the Banks fisheries. Before the treaty, the port of Gloucester “resembled a cedar swamp so thick ­were the masts,” but now men sat idle or left the industry altogether. ­These “best men” w ­ ere replaced by Canadians—­whom Americans had been convinced for de­cades w ­ ere content to make a lesser living—­and Azoreans. This demographic change in the fishing industry served to highlight how the fishing industry and the proj­ect of US nationalism no longer moved in lockstep, as had been the case for nearly a ­century.98 ­These changes ­were part and parcel of the shifts in the relationship between the federal government and the fishing industry, or more specifically, laborers in that industry. Our Gloucester captain was keenly aware of what had caused the misfortune that beset his occupation. “The policy of our Government,” the mari­ner pointed out in no uncertain terms, “is destroying the fishing interest.” The depression that mired North Atlantic fishing was not the result of changes organic to the industry or even to the environment itself, it was a result of a misguided foreign policy. The Tribune’s correspondent empathized with his subject, recognizing the historic nature of the Treaty of Washington and Halifax award as instances in which the federal government failed to center policy on fishing. “It seems strange,” the reporter noted, “that the Government which protects so many avocations on land against injurious foreign competition, should abandon one which trains thousands of brave fellows to b­ attle with the waves and it’s them to man its fleets in time of war.”99 Despite this kind of rhe­toric, the intimate links between the fishing industry and the federal government had been forever changed. As the Gloucester captain finished his interview with the Tribune’s correspondent, he hoped the paper would “say a good word for the fishermen,” knowing few good words remained for them in Washington.100

​Epilogue The World the Fishermen Made

In the de­cade ­after the Halifax decision, despite fears that New ­England’s fishing industry was ­going to ruin, Americans continued to do what they had always done—­catch and eat fish, but in dif­fer­ent ways. Railroads and refrigeration continued to transform how Americans ate fish, as fresh catches could be shipped further and further inland to satisfy the growing demand of more affluent Americans who had developed a taste for, and had the means to buy, fresh foods of all kinds. But ­there also emerged another way of delivering fish to consumers that did not rely on rapid transportation and did not produce a stigmatized “poor man’s food” like salted cod and mackerel. That was canning. Though the preservation of food in vacuum-­sealed containers had been around for nearly a ­century by that point (it was first developed in early nineteenth-­century France to solve the prob­lem of supplying Napoleon’s prodigious army), US packers began canning fish more than a de­cade ­after the French army had threatened to conquer all of Eu­rope. Early canning operations in North Amer­ic­ a set up shop in New York, Baltimore, and on the coast of Maine to package lobsters, oysters, and, most importantly, salmon. By midcentury, seafood canning was, it the words of food historian Andrew F. Smith, “an impor­tant East Coast industry.”1 The industry matured during the second half of the c­ entury as gold-­seekers on the West Coast turned their attention from a few specks of gold dust in California’s rivers to something that was far 217

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more numerous. By 1864 the first industrial cannery was opened on the Sacramento River to turn the region’s salmon into a uniform, well-­preserved, and easily shipped product. Over the ensuing de­cades, canning operations extended north and south along the coast, gobbling up as much fish as fishermen could catch—­salmon, sardines, and, ­later, tuna. Canning gave birth to still-­recognizable brands like Bumble Bee and White Star, which marketed their fish as “Chicken of the Sea.”2 Canners back on the East Coast continued to expand their operations and increasingly became a leading consumer of North Atlantic–­caught cod. With salted cod losing its prominence in the fishing industry, fish that de­cades before would have been heavi­ly salted to feed southern slaves or fash­ion­able Philadelphians now was canned, ready to be shipped across the country, if not the world. One such canning operation was Henry Mayo and Com­pany of Boston. The Mayo Com­pany must of have been one of the leaders in the industry. In 1883, as the prominent ichthyologist and administrator for both the US Fish Commission and the Smithsonian Institution George Brown Goode prepared the US exhibit for the International Fisheries Exhibition to be held in London, he tapped Henry Mayo and Com­pany to prepare a number of samples to demonstrate the superiority of US-­canned seafood. The Mayo Com­ pany sent dozens of products ranging from small cans of plain boiled cod to five-­pound cans of “Breakfast Mess Mackerel.” For its efforts, Henry Mayo and Com­pany received a bronze medal from the exhibition’s organizers for the quality of its canned fish products.3 During the 1880s the Mayo Com­pany produced several trading cards to advertise its more popu­lar products back home, like codfish balls and minced codfish. Benefiting from recent technological advances in color printmaking, the cards featured richly colored images, drawing more attention to its products. The cards featured images like a cartoonishly large cod strapped to the back of a fishmonger, or two finely dressed ladies sitting in a skiff labeled “Codfish Aristocracy.” But another featured two characters who ­were a bit more antagonistic: John Bull and ­Uncle Sam. In the foreground, ­Uncle Sam, wearing striped trousers and a stovepipe hat, lounges against a grassy outcropping. A nearby owl perched atop a US shield watches as further in the distance, John Bull approaches. While John Bull is not wearing his Union Jack waistcoat, he has at his side a lion—­perhaps a subtle threat to U ­ ncle Sam, who, brandishing a riding crop, sits between the approaching pair and a stack of boxes labeled “Minced Codfish.” Above the scene are the words “ ’Tis the National Food. And the Food for International Quarrels.” The advertiser tapped into recent memories of national prominence and international rancor that surrounded the ­humble codfish, which was conspicuously absent from the scene.4 Yet, this card

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Figure 8.  Trading Card for Henry Mayo and Com­pany. Memory of the po­liti­cal and cultural importance of cod remained, even as that importance waned. Source: Collection: 9, Accession Number: 68×164.203, Joseph Downs Collection of Manuscripts and Printed Ephemera, The Winterthur Library. http://­contentdm​.­winterthur​.­org​/­digital​/­collection​/­advertising​/­id​/­639​/­rec​/­1.

was out of date. It had been a generation since cod could have credibly been called “the National Food,” and nearly a de­cade since “International Quarrels” had, for the most part, been laid to rest. It would be disingenuous, however, to say that ­there was no conflict between the nations over the fisheries ­after the Halifax award. Plenty of New En­glanders ­were indignant over the decision, while some Canadian fishermen ­were uneasy with the continued presence of US fishermen in northern w ­ aters. Fishermen would continue to fish b­ ecause Americans would continue to eat fish, and fishermen competing for a finite resource made a degree of conflict nearly inevitable. Unlike e­ arlier in the ­century, though, such conflict no longer had the potential to grow into something bigger. Furthermore, other

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changes that would sweep the fishing industry during the last de­cades of the nineteenth ­century entailed shifts in how, where, and for what fishermen fished. Economic, po­liti­cal, diplomatic, and even cultural forces all pointed to a peace between the English-­speaking nations that would allow for fishing to continue, recklessly, into the twentieth c­ entury. The arrangements, institutions, and norms that came to define North Atlantic fishing by the turn of the twentieth c­ entury would lay the foundation for the crisis of overfishing that we live with ­today. The most impor­tant aspect of this was a federal government willing to foster t­ hose conditions. Before the ink was dry, the new era of post–­Halifax award fishery diplomacy was put to the test. With the agreements reached at Washington and Halifax, US fishermen ­were granted the right to fish inshore ­waters—­a right that US fishermen had enjoyed u ­ nder the 1854 Reciprocity Treaty, u ­ ntil its termination in 1866. The fall of 1877 would see numerous voyages from New ­England set a course for Fortune Bay, a large inlet on the southern coast of Newfoundland, to prosecute the herring fishery, collecting bait for the upcoming spring and summer cod season. Newfoundlanders w ­ ere less than enthusiastic about the return of Yankee schooners to their ­waters. In the early days of 1878, vengeful (or perhaps righ­teous, depending on one’s perspective) Newfoundlanders confronted the US bait fishermen, destroyed their seines, and drove them from inshore ­waters. In an affidavit collected as part of an inquiry into the event, the owner of two of the US ships involved, the Ontario and the New ­England, characterized the actions of the Newfoundlanders as “the most wanton destruction of the property” of US citizens that “was intended to be a warlike demonstration against the American vessels, their ­owners, masters, and crews, and to intimidate them and prevent them from prosecuting the herring fisheries in the w ­ aters of Newfoundland.” The same ship owner went on to say that the violent crowd, which numbered in the hundreds, “made a jubilant demonstration, blowing horns, firing guns, and shouting as if celebrating a victory, to impress upon the masters and crews of American vessels . . . ​that they ­were prepared to stand by and justify what had been done, and that the Americans might expected to be treated in f­ uture in the same manner should they attempt to catch herring in Newfoundland ­waters.” The destruction of the fishing equipment also entailed the loss of two thousand barrels of herring.5 Newfies insisted such crowd action was necessary, given the US refusal to follow local laws and customs that forbade fishing on Sundays. For the islanders, the Americans also represented economic competition. A ­ fter the incident, one Newfoundland fisherman reported that “the Americans’ practice had been . . . ​to purchase herring from the Newfoundland fishermen . . . ​but this year and last year the Americans have

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brought their own seines to haul herring for themselves.”6 With the reopening of inshore w ­ aters, US fishing operations no longer had any reason to buy bait fish from Canadian fishermen. The fishermen aboard the more than dozen US ships who had their seines cut up (and reportedly, burned onshore in a celebratory bonfire) portrayed themselves as the law-­abiding victims of arbitrary vio­lence. The press in the United States ­were quick to whip up a frenzy, calling the incident the “Fortune Bay Outrage.” But as reports of the incident made their way to Washington, and as the State Department complained to British officials, seeking reparations for the damage done to US fishing firms, the issue became a legalistic question about the relationship between international law, which gave Americans the right to fish inshore ­water, and local law, which forbade ­doing so on the Sabbath. While this question would linger for years, with both sides unwilling to relent, it was largely kept distinct from the ongoing rapprochement between the United States and ­Great Britain. This instance of friction on the fisheries may at first look like previous clashes. US fishing rights w ­ ere called into question, leading to a violent or at least pointed confrontation that entailed the loss of property and a fishing season, leaving US fishermen to appeal to Washington in the hope of indemnification. But unlike e­ arlier incidents, it was not the British or colonial navies antagonizing US fishermen at the behest of London, or l­ater, Ottawa. It was Newfoundlanders looking to protect a local resource and defend local customs. In fact, as historian Bryan  J. Payne observes, the Newfoundlanders ­were not united in opposition to the US presence, given the fact that many of the islands’ residents traded with US ships. As Payne argues, “this conflict should not be seen exclusively as a clash between nationally identified groups.”7 The response from Washington and London would show how t­hings had changed, as diplomats overwhelmingly demonstrated that the whims of fishermen would not impede peaceful relations or the business of fishing. Secretary of State William M. Evarts, emphasizing the importance of “the avoidance of any serious interruption to an impor­tant industry,” made it clear that the recent conflict should not impede the amelioration of transatlantic relations in the aftermath of Halifax. “I was exceedingly unwilling,” Evarts declared, “that the simultaneous presentment of the view of this government should be construed as indicating any desire on our part to connect the settlement of t­ hese complaints with the . . . ​abrogation of the Halifax award.” On the specific question of the Fortune Bay Outrage, Evarts did support the claims of the US fishermen that their rights had been unlawfully curtailed by the Newfoundlanders, but he made it known that perhaps more importantly, G ­ reat Britain and the United States needed to work together to find “a means of

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preserving the fisheries at their highest point of production.”8 Earl Granville, the British foreign secretary, disavowed the actions of the Newfoundlanders. Referring to the “conduct of the Newfoundland fishermen in violently interfering with the United States fishermen, and destroying or damaging some of their nets,” Granville declared that “Her Majesty’s Government have no hesitation in admitting that this proceeding was quite indefensible, and is much to be regretted.”9 That being said, the British contended that US fishermen had in fact broken local laws, for which they must be held to account. The generally amicable tone was welcomed in both nations. The New York Eve­ning Post called Granville’s words “direct, reasonable and conciliatory,”10 while the London Times looked on an agreement with “feelings of contentment and relief.”11 Even as Washington and London staked out contrasting positions, both governments indicated that the dispute was about the specifics of the Fortune Bay case and not a referendum on the rapprochement. In the end, ­after years of back and forth over the legality of the US position and Evart’s claim that the US fishermen w ­ ere owed $105,305.02, the British paid a lump sum of £15,000, a figure Washington found acceptable.12 Coming so soon a­ fter the decision of the Halifax Commission, the Fortune Bay Outrage presented an opportunity for the federal government to refuse to pay the $5.5 million settlement in protest.13 But Washington went ahead with the payment, showing that placid transatlantic relations w ­ ere more impor­ tant than the specific grievances of a few fishermen. When John Welsh, the US minister at London, transmitted the payment to ­Great Britain, he enclosed a message that explained the United States’ justification. It had nothing to do with the propriety of the award or with defending the interests of the fishermen. The payment was made, in Welsh’s words, “upon the ground that the government of the United States desires to place the maintenance of good faith in treaties and the security and value of arbitration between nations above all question in its relations with her Britannic majesty’s government.” Though the missive gestured ­toward the federal government’s disagreement with the Halifax Commission’s $5.5 million valuation of Canada’s inshore ­waters, it was clear that the federal government was, in effect, paying for more peaceful transatlantic relations then and into the ­f uture.14 Welsh identified international arbitration as a key part of maintaining the peace. Such international arrangements, which had also been used to s­ ettle the Alabama claims, institutionalized more friendly relations by helping to minimize the potential of individual actors or acerbic bilateral relations to seriously disrupt the peace. In fact, it was arbitration that would s­ ettle the fishing fracas. The remainder of the c­ entury would see repeated clashes on the fisheries, alterations of US fishing rights, and disputes over tariffs and the fish trade.

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Although, as Fortune Bay had shown, Anglo-­American diplomats w ­ ere not willing to risk disrupting the peace over the fisheries, such incidents did have the potential to raise tensions—­that is, ­until 1910, when at the behest of Theodore Roo­se­velt, Anglo-­American diplomats met for arbitration by an international court at The Hague. The court put the fisheries issue to rest by clarifying the rights of US fishermen as granted by the Convention of 1818, but more importantly, it specified that an “impartial authority”—­which is to say, an international arbiter—­would ­settle any disagreements that may arise between the nations.15 Historian Phillip E. Myers counts The Hague’s decision as among the episodes that “advance[d] the joint commission spirit of the Treaty of Washington,” which was at the core of the Anglo-­American rapprochement. Rather than fighting, Myers concludes, “the arbitral commission made the late nineteenth ­century . . . ​an ­enemy of war in Anglo-­American relations.”16 At the heart of the Fortune Bay Outrage was not just where Americans fished (in inshore w ­ aters), but how they fished (with purse seines). The history of fishing is replete with shifting technologies presaging conflict as tradition-­bound fishermen cast suspicious eyes on their technologically advancing competitors. “Distrust of new fishing techniques is endemic to fishing,” Mark Kurlansky tells us.17 A generation before, the advent of longlining was part of the fishing revolution that transformed the industry and birthed numerous disputes. The late nineteenth c­ entury would be no dif­fer­ent. But as the everyday operation of the fishing industry transformed to accommodate the dif­fer­ent gear used and dif­fer­ent species targeted, the amount of fish pulled from the sea grew enormously. This “avalanche of cheap fish,” as W. Jeffrey Bolster describes it, masked signs of ecological strain. even as individual stocks crashed.18 This pattern would continue well beyond the time when sail gave way to steam. Purse seines ­were by no means new in the 1870s. ­These nets ­were large rectangles with a series of weights on the footrope and floats on the headrope that allowed the net to hang vertically in the ­water. Fishing crews arranged the seine in a circle around a school of fish and used a rope along the bottom of the net to gather the lower edge to form a sack trapping the fish inside.19 Given the intricate work of constructing nets, this new gear required much greater investment than the handlines and groundlines that had been the norm before. Mackerel and menhaden fishers had used purse seines since at least the 1850s. As George Brown Goode reported, “The purse seine has come into general use since the 1850s,” but “the most extensive changes . . . ​have taken place since 1870.” This method had “totally revolutionized” the mackerel fishery in that time.20 Observers ­were astonished with how quickly the seine transformed certain fisheries, with Goode remarking, “The rapidity with

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which this expensive form of apparatus has come to be generally employed in our fisheries seems almost marvelous.”21 Harper’s Magazine called purse seining the method of “taking fish par excellence.”22 Goode also identified the central role of seining in the Fortune Bay Outrage. The fishermen of Newfoundland, Goode claimed, employed gear that was “very crude” and far less efficient, causing ­g reat annoyance and incon­ve­ nience among US fishermen as a result of “the unnecessary expense and the additional time required in securing their cargoes.” Goode argued that Americans had no choice but to introduce seining to the island, since they ­were “accustomed to prosecute the fisheries by means of the more modern and expeditious methods.”23 ­Doing so, however, set the stage for conflict. ­After the confrontation at Fortune Bay in January 1878, the proprietors of John Pew and Sons, a Gloucester-­based fishing firm, and the o ­ wners of the On­ tario and the New ­England, reported that each ship carried a large fishing seine. On the day in question, “the masters and crews of both of said schooners joined their purse seines, thereby making a double seine . . . ​of about twenty-­four hundred feet long and one hundred and fifty feet deep.” The im­mense net, valued at “at least fourteen hundred dollars,” allowed the ships to “secure . . . ​a very large quantity of herring.”24 Peter McAulay, master of the Ontario, claimed that “said seine . . . ​took a large haul of herring, amounting, at least, to two thousand barrels of herring, and more than sufficient to load both of said schooner.” But when the Newfoundland mob descended on the US ships, it made “an attack upon said seine in the most violent manner . . . ​tear[ing] up and carry[ing] off the seine, and thereby let[ting] the herring out of said seine,” thus “prevent[ing] the masters and crews of said schooners from obtaining any of said herring.”25 Another US fisherman, David Malanson, master of the schooner Crest of the Wave, elaborated on the fishing practices Newfoundlanders found so objectionable. “By means of our large purse seines,” Malanson explained, “we can inclose the herring and keep them alive a month, if necessary, as we need to have freezing weather when we take them out to freeze them, to keep them fresh u ­ ntil we get them to market.” This practice, known as “barring,” entailed fishermen affixing their nets to the shore, creating a kind of corral for the fish. Malanson was clear that it was this method of seining that the mob opposed. “Tear up the damned American seines,” Malanson claimed the Newfoundlanders shouted as they set about “tearing and cutting it to pieces with knives.”26 Like fishing on the Sabbath, t­ hese seining practices w ­ ere violations of local statutes. A Newfoundland law from 1862 stated that “no person s­ hall haul, catch, or take herrings in any seine, on or near any part of the coast of this island . . . ​between the 20th day of October and the 12th day of April.” Barring was explic­itly forbidden. Seines ­were to be used “in the usual and custom-

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ary manner,” which did not include “in-­barring or inclosing of herrings in any cove, inlet, or other place.”27 The Newfoundland legislature had banned the practice b­ ecause of its threat to the fishery. In a missive to Washington, the British foreign secretary, the Marquis of Salisbury, described barring as “a practice most injurious, and if continued, calculated in time to destroy the fishery.”28 Newfoundland’s fishermen agreed with this characterization. Alfred Noel, master of the Nautilus, asserted that barring was “most destructive and ruinous to the herring fishery.” Another fisherman, John Rumsey, master of the Briton, echoed the complaint, calling the practice “most injurious to the fishery and [it] must in time ruin the herring fishery” in Fortune Bay. Rumsey continued, “Barring kills a ­g reat many herring, and makes t­ hose who are barred in very poor. I have seen the bottom covered with dead herring ­after the seine had been barred for a week.”29 Furthermore, Noel claimed the practice was foreign to the island, observing that “our fishermen never bar herring, and herring have never been barred in Fortune Bay, to my knowledge, ­until the Americans brought the large seines . . . ​ and used them t­ here to the disadvantage of our fishermen.”30 Certainly, this was not the first time fishermen had accused outsiders of fouling the fishing commons in order to ban potential competitors. In all likelihood, only the more highly capitalized US firms, not Newfoundland’s in­de­pen­dent bait fishermen, would have the resources to obtain and deploy the kinds of expensive large seines the fishermen described. As rapacious as the purse seine seemed to Newfoundlanders in the 1870s, new fishing gear would prove even more so. Across the 1880s and 1890s, fishery pressures continued to increase dramatically. More sophisticated—or rather, more ruthless—­fishing technology and a government that used its diplomatic power to further the voracious consumption of resources by land and sea allowed more and more fish to be taken. Perhaps the most destructive impulses of the po­liti­cal economy of fishing ­were yet to come. In the 1880s US fishermen began experimenting with trawling. Beam trawls ­were conical nets with wooden or metal beams holding the mouth of the net open. Towed by ships, t­ hese nets dragged over the sea floor, scooping up any fish in their way. This gear proved radically efficient ­because it did not require bait and proved ecologically disastrous ­because it caught spawning goundfish (like cod) and other species (like flounder) that did not ordinarily take to baited hooks.31 The federal government, through the United States Fish Commission (USFC), played a key role in the adoption of this technology by US fishing firms. A report published in 1887 featured detailed plans of how to build and employ the kind of trawls that had been used in Britain for de­cades, ready to

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be adapted to US ­waters. Though the report was not optimistic about the ­future of trawling in the United States, given the fact that the some of the most valuable fisheries, like cod, haddock, and halibut, feature fish “that occur in such abundance that greater catches can generally be obtained with line or gill-­nets than it would be pos­si­ble to get in a beam-­trawl.”32 A de­cade before, the USFC had proven the efficacy of trawling in the United States as it used this method to collect specimens for scientific study. Spencer Fullerton Baird called the beam trawl “a favorite piece of apparatus . . . ​for capturing specimens of vari­ous kinds of fishes and other marine objects,” and predicted that “at no distant day it may come into use and our fisheries be prosecuted to a very considerable degree by its aid.”33 In typical fashion, the USFC prioritized more technologically sophisticated gear over caution and restraint, b­ ecause ­after all, the tools of humanity could not possibly affect the limitless sea.34 Gasoline engines and the advent of the otter trawl—­which used a pair of doors instead of a beam to keep the net open, allowing nets to exceed the size of the beam—­made trawling even more efficient. Before World War I the costs of this deadly efficient fishing gear w ­ ere increasingly obvious, at least to some fishermen. Even as catch totals continued to increase, catch efficiencies dropped, meaning that fishermen had to work harder and invest more merely to maintain their catches. Seeing the destruction wrought by trawlers, fishermen in Gloucester pushed for Congress to pass legislation that would effectively ban the gear. In 1912 Mas­sa­chu­setts congressman Augustus P. Gardner introduced such a bill, arguing that it would defend the interests of the fishermen while preserving the fisheries for the ­future. The bill was opposed by the large fishing firms that had come to dominate the industry and that profited handsomely from trawling. ­These firms defended the use of such equipment by arguing that it was safer for fishermen and brought down food costs, and in d­ oing so they portrayed the industry as efficient, modern, and technologically advanced. Gardner’s bill died before even reaching the floor, as capital, not conservation, won the day.35 Some fishermen may have advised restraint, if only to preserve the resource for use in the ­f uture, but in the face of technological change, industrial consolidation, governmental support, and a growing public hungry for fish, ­those calls w ­ ere drowned out. The architecture for the overfishing crisis was already in place, its foundations laid more than a ­century before. The result of this alliance of government and industry was predictable. Fishery stocks crashed with increasing frequency as Americans rich and poor demanded more fish. Perhaps most devastating was the mackerel crash. Mackerel is a fickle fish, and mackerel catches pinged between boom and bust across the nineteenth c­ entury. The 1880s would see both. In the de­cades a­ fter the Civil

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War, US fishermen devoted more and more energy to the fishery, developing more sophisticated ships, seines, and techniques to feed the demand. The year 1884 would set a rec­ord for mackerel landings. Two years l­ater, the bottom fell out, leading to what Bolster describes as a “catastrophic . . . ​failure.” As Americans did the unthinkable and imported mackerel from Eu­rope, Congress passed legislation limiting fishing during the fish’s spawning season in the hope of saving the industry.36 While the mackerel crash plunged sectors of the fishing industry into a period of economic hardship, the lesson remained unlearned. Scientists refused to accept the evidence before them of the changing sea, changes wrought by ­human industry. The po­liti­cal economy of fishing supported by technological innovation could not accept caution or restraint. Fishermen turned their attention to other species, even t­ hose that had not been systematically overfished for more than a ­century. But t­ hose fisheries crashed all the same. Stocks of menhaden, halibut, and lobster all dwindled during the second half of the nineteenth ­century, g­ oing from abundant to scarce in the span of a single ­human generation. While ­these fisheries exploited dif­fer­ent ­waters, employed dif­fer­ent gear, and served dif­fer­ent markets, they ­were all driven by the same impulses that had grown to maturity over the nineteenth ­century. “By the turn of the c­ entury,” Bolster tells us, “American . . . ​fishermen, representing their socie­ties’ values and dreams and ambitions, w ­ ere depleting coastal resources . . . ​ looking to short-­term profit and capital accumulation at the level of the village, com­pany, and trust, and delaying their day of reckoning.”37 Much of this was done with relatively primitive technology. Across the twentieth c­ entury, bigger boats with more efficient engines guided by sonar and GPS, using nets and lines made from stronger synthetic materials, increased the catch exponentially. Coupled with a rapidly growing global population and a government in Washington that consistently used international fisheries policy (i.e., encouraged more fishing among its allies) to maintain its position atop the geopo­liti­cal order, ­these fishing operations have devastated the world’s ocean, and continue to do so.38 But while a twentieth-­century factory ship and a nineteenth-­century schooner may seem radically dif­fer­ent, they both derived their potency from a culture of exploitation and a state willing to use its power to encourage and make pos­si­ble more fishing. In a world grappling with how to confront the environmental crisis, so much activism focuses on consumers and the role of individual choices in creating the world we want to live in. But focusing on the expansive operation of state power reveals just how l­ imited consumer choice is in shaping the world. So long as the power of the state facilitates the rapacious use of the world’s resources, while in most cases remaining hidden from view, l­ittle can change.

N ote s

Introduction. The World the Fish Made

1. “Hon. Daniel Webster’s Reception at Marshfield,” Boston Daily Atlas, July 26, 1852. 2. “Hon. Daniel Webster’s Reception.” 3. “Mr. Webster,” Pittsfield Sun, July 29, 1852; “Speech of Daniel Webster. At Marshfield,” Daily Picayune, August 3, 1852; “The Fisheries Difficulties,” Polynesian, October 2, 1852. 4. Recent work has done much to correct what William J. Novak called the “myth of the weak American state.” See Ariel Ron and Gautham Rao, “Introduction: Taking Stock of the State in Nineteenth-­Century Amer­ic­ a,” Journal of the Early Republic 38, no. 1 (2018): 61–66; William J. Novak, “The Myth of the ‘Weak’ American State,” American Historical Review 113, no. 3 (2008): 752–772. This book is interested less in evaluating how much power the nineteenth-­century US state possessed than in addressing how that power worked. Thus my work resonates with the conclusion of James T. Sparrow, William J. Novak, and Stephen W. Sawyer as they embrace a “turning away from the abstract, metaphysical question of what the state is, focusing instead on the more practical, historical question of what it does. Oppositions such as weak states versus strong states or state versus civil society or domestic versus international politics all tend t­ oward a reification of the state as an end in itself, at the expense of a more empirical and historical explanation of how states are able to accomplish their specific ends.” Sparrow, Novak, and Sawyer, eds., introduction to Bound­aries of the State in U.S. History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015), 5. 5. The projection of po­liti­cal ideas onto environments resonates with Paul S. Sutter’s notion that landscapes are hybrid assemblages of ­human and nonhuman ele­ments, bridging the nature-­culture divide within the environmental history lit­er­a­ture. See Sutter, “The World with Us: The State of American Environmental History,” Journal of American History 100, no. 1 (2013): 94–119. 6. The best recent example of the intermingling of po­liti­cal history and fisheries is Lissa K. Wadewitz, The Nature of Borders: Salmon, Bound­aries, and Bandits on the Salish Sea (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2012). See also Arthur F. McEvoy, The Fisherman’s Prob­lem: Ecol­ogy and Law in the California Fisheries, 1850–1980 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986); Wayne M. O’Leary, Maine Sea Fisheries: The Rise and Fall of a Native Industry, 1830–1890 (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1996); Kurkpatrick Dorsey, The Dawn of Conservation Diplomacy: U.S.-­Canadian Wildlife Protection Treaties in the Progressive Era (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1998); Joseph E. Taylor, Making Salmon: An Environmental History of the Northwest Fisheries Crisis (Seattle: 229

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TO PAGES 4– 6

University of Washington Press, 1999); Christopher  P. Magra, The Fisherman’s Cause: Atlantic Commerce and Maritime Dimensions of the American Revolution (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Christine Keiner, The Oyster Question: Scientists, Watermen, and the Mary­land Chesapeake Bay since 1880 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2009); and Carmel Finley, All the Fish in the Sea: Maximum Sustainable Yield and the Failure of Fisheries Management (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011). 7. Andrew Lambert, Seapower States: Maritime Culture, Continental Empires and the Conflict That Made the Modern World (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2018). 8. The field of early US foreign relations remains an underdeveloped, if quickly growing field. In one of the rare overviews of US foreign policy during the ­middle de­cades of the nineteenth c­ entury, historian Paul A. Varg remarks that t­here is “no overarching theory to explain what took place. The chief characteristic of both policy formation and the conduct of foreign affairs was the multiplicity of ­factors entering decision making.” Varg, United States Foreign Relations, 1820–1860 (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1979). Even as recently as 2000, Kinley Brauer called the study of foreign relations during the nineteenth c­ entury the “­g reat American desert” of diplomatic history. Brauer, “The G ­ reat American Desert Revisited: Recent Lit­er­a­ ture and Prospects for the Study of American Foreign Relations, 1815–1861,” in Paths to Power: The Historiography of American Foreign Relations to 1941, ed. Michael J. Hogan (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 44–78. Though the desert may remain, the recent monographic lit­er­a­ture represents a steadily growing oasis. Exemplary contributions to this field include: Jay Sexton, The Monroe Doctrine: Empire and Nation in Nineteenth-­Century Amer­i­ca (New York: Hill and Wang, 2011); Amy S. Greenberg, Man­ ifest Manhood and the Antebellum American Empire (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005); Brian DeLay, War of a Thousand Deserts: Indian Raids and the U.S.-­Mexican War (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2008); Gerald Horne, The Deepest South: The United States, Brazil, and the African Slave Trade (New York: New York University Press, 2007); Matthew Pratt Guterl, American Mediterranean: Southern Slaveholders in the Age of Emancipation (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008); Caitlin Fitz, Our ­Sister Republics: The United States in an Age of American Revolutions (New York: Liveright, 2016); Matthew Karp, This Vast Southern Empire: Slaveholders at the Helm of American Foreign Policy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2016). 9. “The Definitive Treaty of Peace 1783,” The Avalon Proj­ect: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School, accessed September 14, 2022, http://­avalon​.­law​.­yale​.­edu​/­18th​_­century​/­paris​.­asp. 10. In using the fisheries issue to study the larger dynamics of Anglo-­American relations, this book directly uses Jay Sexton’s work on international finance and US foreign relations as a model. The fisheries issue operated in much the same way as Sexton’s financial networks. Both serve as neglected aspects of US foreign relations history that bring together a host of questions and actors that are frequently estranged, to render new interpretations of Anglo-­American diplomacy while offering a more coherent understanding of US foreign relations. Jay Sexton, Debtor Diplomacy: Finance and Ameri­ can Foreign Relations in the Civil War Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). 11. The intersection of state power in the form of foreign policy and the environment is a growing field, though one mostly concerned with the Cold War. For work in this vein, see Thomas Robertson, The Malthusian Moment: Global Population Growth and the Birth of American Environmentalism (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University

NOTES TO PA GES 7– 9

231

Press, 2012); Megan Black, The Global Interior: Mineral Frontiers and American Power (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2018); Jacob Darwin Hamblin, Ocean­ ographers and the Cold War: Disciples of Marine Science (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005). Studies of foreign relations and the environment outside of the Cold War era include Richard P. Tucker, Insatiable Appetite: The United States and the Ecologi­ cal Degradation of the Tropical World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000) and John Soluri, Banana Cultures: Agriculture, Consumption, and Environmental Change in Honduras and the United States (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005). 12. “Ecol­ogy of the Northeast US Continental Shelf,” NOAA Fisheries Ser­vice: Northeast Fisheries Science Center, accessed September 14, 2022, https://­www​.­nefsc​ .­noaa​.­gov​/­ecosys​/­ecosystem​-­ecology​/­physical​.­html. 13. Dean R. Snow, The Archaeology of New ­England (New York: Academic Press, 1980), 103–105; E. C. Pielou, ­After the Ice Age: The Return of Life to Glaciated North Amer­ i­ca (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 139–140; George A. Rose, Cod: The Ecological History of the Atlantic Fisheries (St. Johns, Newfoundland: Breakwater Books, 2007), 19–25, 34–37; Richard Judd, Second Nature: An Environmental History of New ­England (Amherst: University of Mas­sa­chu­setts Press, 2014), 24–25; Michael Berrill and Deborah Berrill, A Sierra Club Naturalist’s Guide to North Atlantic Coast, Cape Cod to New­ foundland (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1981), 24–29; and Joseph T. Kelley, Alice R. Kelley, and Spencer Apollonio, “Landforms of the Gulf of Maine,” in From Cape Cod to the Bay of Fundy: An Environmental Atlas of the Gulf of Maine, ed. Philip W. Conkling (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1995), 19–21, 29–31. 14. Rose, Cod, 25–28, 43–45, 55; Matthew Mc­Ken­zie, Clearing the Coastline: The Nineteenth-­Century Ecological and Cultural Transformation of Cape Cod (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New ­England, 2010), 8–13; W. Jeffrey Bolster, The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012), 16–22; Deborah Cramer, ­Great ­Waters: An Atlantic Passage (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001), 48–49. 15. Geoffrey Parker, Global Crisis: War, Climate, and Catastrophe in the Seventeenth ­Century (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2013), xvi–­xvii. 16. Donald Worster, “Transformations of the Earth: ­Toward an Agroecological Perspective in History,” Journal of American History 76, no. 4 (1990): 1089–1090. 17. Bolster, Mortal Sea; and Helen M. Rozwadowski, Fathoming the Ocean: The Dis­ covery and Exploration of the Deep Sea (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2005). 18. The historiography on sailors in the Atlantic world and beyond is vast. A sampling includes Jesse Lemisch, “Jack Tar in the Streets: Merchant Seamen in the Politics of Revolutionary Amer­i­ca,” William and Mary Quarterly 25, no. 3 (1968) 371–407; Marcus Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-­American Maritime World, 1700–1750 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987); W. Jeffrey Bolster, Black Jacks: African American Seamen in the Age of Sail (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997); Paul A. Gilje, Liberty on the Wa­ terfront: American Maritime Culture in the Age of Revolution (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004); Isaac Land, War, Nationalism, and the British Sailor, 1750– 1850 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009); and Nathan Perl-­Rosenthal, Citizen Sail­ ors: Becoming American in the Age of Revolution (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2014).

23 2 NOTES

TO PAGES 9– 16

19. Brian Rouleau, “How Honolulu Almost Burned and Why Sailors M ­ atter to Early American Foreign Relations,” Diplomatic History 38, no. 3 (2014): 504. See also Rouleau, With Sails Whitening ­Every Sea: Mari­ners and the Making of an American Mari­ time Empire (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2014). 20. During the nineteenth ­century, the United States was a maritime nation. See Gilje, ­Free Trade and Sailor’s Rights, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 98; Rouleau, With Sails Whitening E­ very Sea, 2–15; John R. Gillis, The ­Human Shore: Sea­ coasts in History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), 111–114; and Matthew Raffety, “Recent Currents in Nineteenth-­Century American Maritime History,” His­ tory Compass 6, no. 2 (2008): 608–609. 1. Fisheries and the Flotsam of Revolution

1. John Adams, Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, ed. L. H. Butterfield (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1961), 4:4–5. 2. Eliga H. Gould, Among the Powers of the Earth: The American Revolution and the Making of a New World Empire (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012), 8–12. 3. Mark Kurlansky, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World (New York: Walker Publishing, 1997), 24–29. 4. Matthew R. Bahar, Storm of the Sea: Indians and Empires in the Atlantic’s Age of Sail (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), 8. Andrew Lipman also emphasizes the centrality of the maritime world and marine resources to Native Americans’ re­sis­ tance to Eu­ro­pean colonization. Lipman, The Saltwater Frontier: Indians and the Contest for the American Coast (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2015). 5. For the transition from seasonal migration to more established colonial enterprises relating to fishing in the North Atlantic, see Peter E. Pope, Fish into Wine: The Newfoundland Plantation in the Seventeenth ­Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004). 6. John Josselyn, Two Voyages to New-­England, Made during the Years 1638, 1663 (Boston: William Veazie, 1865), 79. 7. John Lauritz Larson, Laid Waste!: The Culture of Exploitation in Early Amer­i­ca (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020), 30–31. 8. W. Jeffrey Bolster, “Putting the Ocean in Atlantic History: Maritime Communities and Marine Ecol­ogy in the Northwest Atlantic, 1500–1800,” American Historical Review 113, no. 1 (2008): 25–26. 9. Francis Higginson, New-­Englands Plantation with the Sea Journal and Other Writ­ ings (Salem, Mass.: Essex Book and Print Club, 1908), 96; John Brereton, A Briefe and True Relation of the Discouerie of the North Part of V ­ irginia; Being a Most Pleasant, Fruit­ full and Commodious Soile (London: George Bishop, 1602), 4–5. 10. The Charters and General Laws of the Colony and Province of Mas­sa­chu­setts Bay: Care­ fully Collected from the Public Rec­ords and Ancient Printed Books (Boston: T.  B. Wait, 1814), 113–115. 11. Some colonial New En­glanders extended a similar concern to freshwater fisheries. Daniel Vickers, “­Those Dammed Shad: Would the River Fisheries of New ­England Have Survived in the Absence of Industrialization?,” William and Mary Quar­ terly 61, no. 4 (2004): 685–712.

NOTES TO PA GES 16– 23

233

12. William Cronon, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecol­ogy of New ­England (New York: Hill and Wang, 1983), xv. 13. For the commercial networks that implicated the North Atlantic fisheries in the integration of the Atlantic world, see Daniel Vickers, Farmers and Fishermen: Two Centu­ ries of Work in Essex County, Mas­sa­chu­setts, 1630–1850 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 86–116; Kurlansky, Cod, 48–75; and Pope, Fish into Wine, 349–393. 14. W. Jeffrey Bolster, The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012), 5. 15. Harold A. Innis, The Cod Fisheries: The History of an International Economy (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1940), 135–168, 179–202. For more on how North Amer­ic­ a more generally fit into Eu­ro­pean statecraft during the eigh­teenth c­ entury, see Paul W. Mapp, The Elusive West and the Contest for Empire, 1713–1763 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2011). 16. Christopher P. Magra, The Fisherman’s Cause: Atlantic Commerce and Maritime Di­ mensions of the American Revolution (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 15. 17. Magra, 99–126. 18. Magra, 127–141. 19. Magra, 158, 155. 20. “An Account of the Banks of Newfoundland and the Fishery Thereon,” New York Daily Advertiser, December 6, 1796. 21. “Banks of Newfoundland.” 22. Magra, Fisherman’s Cause, 161–188. 23. Magra, 215–232. 24. John Adams, The Works of John Adams, ed. Charles Francis Adams (Boston: ­Little, Brown, 1850–1856), 10:204; Christopher P. Magra, “ ‘Soldiers . . . ​Bred to the Sea’: Maritime Marblehead, Mas­sa­chu­setts, and the Origins and Pro­g ress of the American Revolution,” New ­England Quarterly 77, no. 4 (2004): 531–562; and Magra, Fisherman’s Cause, 1–3. 25. John Adams to R. Izard, September 25, 1778, in The Revolutionary Diplomatic Cor­ respondence of the United States, ed. Francis Wharton (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1889), 2:743. 26. Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, 3:104;. see also 4:181–182. For Franklin’s instructions, see John Jay to Benjamin Franklin, August 14, 1779, in Wharton, Revolu­ tionary Diplomatic Correspondence, 2:303–305. 27. Magra, Fisherman’s Cause, 6–8, 77–89; Vickers, Farmers and Fishermen, 154; and Benjamin W. Labaree et al., Amer­i­ca and the Sea: A Maritime History (Mystic, Conn.: Mystic Seaport Museum, 1998), 103–104. For the larger economic context of the British Empire, see John J. McCusker and Russell R. Menard, The Economy of British Amer­i­ca, 1607–1789 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1985). 28. The most detailed, if traditional, account of the Paris peace negotiation remains Richard B. Morris, The Peacemakers: The G ­ reat Powers and American In­de­pen­dence (New York: Harper and Row, 1965). See also Jonathan R. Dull, A Diplomatic History of the American Revolution (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985). 29. Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, 3:65. 30. Livingston to Jay, December 30, 1782, and Livingston to Franklin, January 6, 1783, in Wharton, Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence, 6:175, 199. See also Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, 3:61.

23 4 NOTES

TO PAGES 23– 28

31. On American in­de­pen­dence in the larger context of the history of the British Empire, see P. J. Marshall, Remaking the British Atlantic: The United States and the Brit­ ish Empire ­after American In­de­pen­dence (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012); Marshall, The Making and Unmaking of Empires: Britain, India, and Amer­i­ca, c. 1750–­1783 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005); and Gould, Among the Powers of the Earth. Other scholars have noted the unique nature of the relations between the states a­ fter in­de­ pen­dence. See James E. Lewis Jr., The American Union and the Prob­lem of Neighborhood: The United States and the Collapse of the Spanish Empire, 1783–1829 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998); and David C. Hendrickson, Peace Pact: The Lost World of the American Founding (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2003). 32. Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, 3:91. 33. James D. Drake argues for the importance of ­imagined geographies among American colonists in creating the conception of the continent of North Amer­i­ca as “a natu­ral geographic phenomenon, a discrete entity with an under­lying coherence and unity.” Drake continues, “Imaginings of the continent made American in­de­pen­ dence compelling, and the Constitution conceivable.” Drake, The Nation’s Nature: How Continental Presumptions Gave Rise to the United States of Amer­ic­ a (Charlottesville: University of ­Virginia Press, 2011), 2–3. 34. Robert Livingston to Benjamin Franklin, January 7, 1782, in Wharton, Revolu­ tionary Diplomatic Correspondence, 5:91. 35. Livingston does relent that some nations have tried this, but it is an “unjust usurpation . . . ​resisted as such, in turn, by ­every maritime nation in Eu­rope.” Livingston to Franklin, 5:91. 36. Livingston to Franklin, 5:91. 37. Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, 3:73. 38. Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, 3:79, 81. 39. For the environmental understanding of the founding generation, see Mark Fiege, “By the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God: Declaring American In­de­pen­ dence,” in The Republic of Nature: An Environmental History of the United States (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2012), 57–99. See also Henry Steele Commager, The Empire of Reason: How Eu­rope ­Imagined and Amer­i­ca Realized the Enlightenment (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press, 1977); and I. Bernard Cohen, Science and the Founding F­ athers: Science in the Po­liti­cal Thought of Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, and Madison (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995). 40. Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, 3:73. 41. Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, 3:79. 42. Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, 3:73. 43. Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, 3:77. 44. Francois Barbé-­Marbois to Comte de Vergennes, March 13, 1782, in in Wharton, Revolutionary Diplomatic Correspondence, 5:238–239. 45. Barbé-­Marbois to Comte de Vergennes, 239. 46. John Adams to Robert Livingston, December 4, 1782, in Papers of John Adams, ed. Gregg L. Lint et al. (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 2008), 14:14, 112. 47. John Adams to Elbridge Gerry, December 14, 1782, in Lint et al., Papers of John Adams, 14:124–125. 48. John Adams to James Warren, December 15, 1782, in Lint et al., Papers of John Adams, 14:132.

NOTES TO PA GES 28– 30

235

49. The centrality of the fisheries to the Paris peace negotiations is consistent with how the larger maritime world factored into politics in the eighteenth-­and nineteenth-­ century Atlantic. The maritime sector was a hugely impor­tant force across the Atlantic during the Age of Revolution as maritime considerations and the actions of sailors themselves ­shaped the politics of the era. See Jesse Lemisch, “Jack Tar in the Streets: Merchant Seamen in the Politics of Revolutionary Amer­i­ca,” William and Mary Quar­ terly 25, no.  3 (1968): 371–407; Paul  A. Gilje, Liberty on the Waterfront: American Maritime Culture in the Age of Revolution (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003); Isaac Land, War, Nationalism, and the British Sailor, 1750–1850 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009); Denver Brunsman, The Evil Necessity: British Naval Impress­ ment in the Eighteenth-­Century Atlantic World (Charlottesville: University of ­Virginia Press, 2013); Dane A. Morrison, True Yankees: The South Seas and the Discovery of Ameri­ can Identity (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014); Nathan Perl-­Rosenthal, Citizen Sailors: Becoming American in the Age of Revolution (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2015); and Gilje, To Swear Like a Sailor: Maritime Culture in Amer­ic­ a, 1750–1850 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016). 50. See Walter Nugent, Habits of Empire: A History of American Expansion (New York: Vintage Books, 2008), 38–40. 51. “The Definitive Treaty of Peace 1783,” The Avalon Proj­ect: Documents in Law, His­ tory, and Diplomacy, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School, accessed September 15, 2022, http://­avalon​.­law​.­yale​.­edu​/­18th​_­century​/­paris​.­asp (hereafter cited as Avalon Proj­ect). 52. Connections between an ostensibly Atlantic topic such as the fisheries and the seemingly far-­removed world of the trans-­Appalachian West seem tenuous beyond their association at the peace negotiations, but historian François Furstenberg explicates such a connection between the Atlantic and the West. See Furstenberg, “The Significance of the Trans-­Appalachian Frontier in Atlantic History,” American Historical Review 113, no. 3 (2008): 647–677. 53. “Boston, May 16,” Providence Gazette and Country Journal, May 24, 1783. 54. To a certain extent this was not mere bluster, but in fact, an objective of the revolution. When the Continental Congress first considered how the new nation would act on the international stage, the Model Treaty, which was to guide US diplomats, was predicated on ­free ports and the right of neutral trade. 55. Levi Frisbie, An Oration Delivered at Ipswich, at the Request of a Number of Inhabit­ ants on the Twenty-­Ninth of April, 1783, on Account of the Happy Restoration of Peace be­ tween Great-­Britain and the United States of Amer­i­ca (Boston: E. Russell, 1783), 14. See also Drew R. McCoy, The Elusive Republic: Po­liti­cal Economy in Jeffersonian Amer­i­ca (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980), 88. 56. Frisbie, Oration Delivered at Ipswich, 16. 57. Frisbie, 14. 58. Diary and Autobiography of John Adams, 2:149. 59. For Deane’s defense, see Silas Deane, An Address to the ­Free and In­de­pen­dent Citi­ zens of the United States of North Amer­i­ca (Hartford, Conn.: Hudson and Goodwin, 1784). 60. Silas Deane, An Address to the United States of North Amer­i­ca, to Which Is Added, a Letter to the Hon. Robert Morris, Esq., with Notes and Observations (London: J. Debrett, 1784), 61, 68. 61. Deane, 75.

23 6 NOTES

TO PAGES 31– 33

62. Vickers, Farmers and Fishermen, 265–267. During the years 1765 to 1775, the colony of Mas­sa­chu­setts employed 25,630 tons annually in the cod fishery, while between 1786 and 1790 the state of Mas­sa­chu­setts’ annual tonnage was merely 19,185. See Lorenzo Sabine, Report on the Principal Fisheries of the American Seas (Washington, D.C.: Robert Armstrong, 1853), 174. 63. For price fluctuations, see Vickers, Farmers and Fishermen, 266n7. 64. Innis, Cod Fisheries, 220–221; Gould, Among the Powers of the Earth, 119–121. The demands of planters in the British West Indies for provisions from the mainland was most acute in the aftermath of storms, but islanders consistently complained of restrictive British mercantile policy during the 1780s. See Matthew Mulcahy, Hurricanes and Society in the British Greater Ca­rib­bean, 1624–1783 (Baltimore: Johnson Hopkins University Press, 2006), 191–194. 65. McCoy, Elusive Republic, 105–119. For more on the commercial, financial, and diplomatic crises of the 1780s, the so-­called Critical Period, see Gautham Rao, National Duties: Custom Houses and the Making of the American State (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016), 53–61; Max M. Edling, A Hercules in the Cradle: War, Money, and the American State, 1783–1867 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014), 21–31; and Roger H. Brown, Redeeming the Republic: Federalists, Taxation, and the Origins of the Con­ stitution (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993), 141–155. For the longer historiography of this pivotal de­cade, ­going back to early use of the term Critical Pe­ riod, see Frederick W. Marks, In­de­pen­dence on Trial: Foreign Affairs and the Making of the Constitution (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1973); Richard B. Morris, “The Confederation Period and the American Historian,” William and Mary Quarterly 13, no. 2 (1956): 139–156; and John Fiske, The Critical Period in American History: 1783– 1789 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1888). 66. “Boston, April 13,” ­Virginia Journal and Alexandria Advertiser, May 12, 1785; “Philadelphia Town-­Meeting,” Pennsylvanian Eve­ning Herald and the American Monitor, June 22, 1785; “Foreign Intelligence. London,” Pennsylvania Packet and Daily Adver­ tiser, January 27, 1785. 67. John Jay, The Federalist Papers: No. 4, Avalon Proj­ect, accessed September 15, 2022, http://­avalon​.­law​.­yale​.­edu​/­18th​_­century​/­fed04​.­asp. 68. Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers: No. 11, Avalon Proj­ect, accessed September 15, 2022, http://­avalon​.­law​.­yale​.­edu​/­18th​_­century​/­fed11​.­asp. 69. Gould notes that better transatlantic relations ­were a motivating ­factor for drafting a new constitution. Among the Powers of the Earth, 130–131. 70. McCoy makes explicit connections between the commercial prob­lems of the 1780s and the advent of the federal Constitution, especially as Jeffersonians sought territorial and commercial expansion, both of which required a stronger central government. McCoy, Elusive Republic, 120–135. For origins and meaning of the Constitution, see also Max  M. Edling, A Revolution in ­Favor of Government: Origins of the U.S. Constitution and the Making of the American State (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003); Hendrickson, Peace Pact; and Woody Holton, Unruly Americans and the Origins of the Constitution (New York: Hill and Wang, 2007). 71. From Benjamin Lincoln, April 7, 1791, in The Papers of Alexander Hamilton: Feb­ ruary  1791–­July  1791, ed. Harold  C. Syrett (New York: Columbia University Press, 1965), 8:248–249 (first quotation), 249 (second quotation).

NOTES TO PA GES 33– 40

237

72. Sabine, Principal Fisheries of the American Seas, 159. 73. The Governor of Mas­sa­chu­setts to the Secretary of State, October 25, 1791, in The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: January 24, 1791–­March 31, 1791, ed. Julian P. Boyd (Prince­ ton, N.J.: Prince­ton University Press, 1974), 19:172. 74. Thomas Jefferson, “Report on the American Fisheries by the Secretary of State,” February 1, 1791, in Boyd, 19:208–209. 75. Jefferson, 19:209n2. Jefferson leveled this accusation only in a preliminary draft of the report, and this sort of language would ­later lead partisans to claim that the report suffered from an unacceptable anti-­British bias. While Jefferson’s Anglophobia did to some extent feed ­later po­liti­cal divisions, his denunciation of a “sole empire of the seas” was prob­ably part of a significant commitment to the freedom of the seas. Jefferson’s commitment to the freedom of the seas fit with the larger Jeffersonian vision of f­ree trade during the immediate postin­de­pen­dence de­cades, See McCoy, Elusive Republic, 76–104. 76. Jefferson, “Report on the American Fisheries,” 19:209 (first and second quotation), 210 (third quotation). 77. Jefferson, 19:210. 78. Jefferson, 19:210 (first quotation), 207 (second quotation). 79. George Washington, “December 8, 1790: Second Annual Message to Congress,” Miller Center, University of ­Virginia, accessed September 15, 2022, https://­millercenter​ .­org​/­the​-­presidency​/­presidential​-­speeches​/­december​-­8​-­1790​-­second​-­annual​-­message​ -­congress. 80. Jefferson, “Report on the American Fisheries,” 19:219. 81. Annals of Congress, 2nd Cong., 1st Sess., 362. 82. Annals of Congress, 363–364. 83. Annals of Congress, 391, 393. 84. Annals of Congress, 369–374. 85. Annals of Congress, 375–377. 86. Annals of Congress, 366. 87. Annals of Congress, 369–70. The naval nursery argument was not confined to the rhe­toric of representatives from the Bay State; both Robert Barnwell of South Carolina and Hugh Williamson of North Carolina vocally called attention to the relationship between fishing and fighting. Annals of Congress, 375, 378–380. 88. Annals of Congress, 393. 89. Balance and Columbian Repository (Hudson, N.Y,), November 18, 1801. Fisheries ­were frequently referred to as the “nursery of the nation’s seamen.” See United States Oracle (Portsmouth, N.H.), May 28, 1803; National Intelligencer (Washington, D.C.), November 13, 1805; and Salem Gazette, July 15, 1808. 90. “For the Chronicle,” In­de­pen­dent Chronicle and Universal Advertiser, March 5, 1801. 91. Annals of Congress, 2nd Cong., 1st Sess., 379–381. 92. Samuel Sterrett represented Mary­land’s Fourth Congressional District, which included the major port at Baltimore. Thomas Tredwell represented Long Island, part of New York’s First Congressional District. Cornelius Schoonmaker’s district, New York’s Fourth, was situated along the Hudson River directly north of New York City. Frederick Muhlenberg represented Philadelphia, then part of Pennsylvania’s Second Congressional District.

23 8 NOTES

TO PAGES 40– 45

93. Annals of Congress, 2nd Cong., 1st Sess., 400–401; and Kenneth C. Martis, Ruth Anderson Rowles, and Gyula Pauer, eds., The Historical Atlas of Po­liti­cal Parties (New York: Macmillan, 1989), 71. 94. For the development and fissures of the First Party System, see Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, The Age of Federalism: The Early American Republic, 1788-1800 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); and Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democ­ racy: Jefferson to Lincoln (New York: W. W. Norton, 2005). 95. Perhaps indicative of the similarities in Hamilton’s and Jefferson’s thinking on this issue was the fact that both Hamilton’s “Report on Manufactures” and Jefferson’s “Report on the American Fisheries” ­were compiled based on notes provided by the assistant secretary of the trea­sury, Tench Coxe. 96. Alexander Hamilton, “Report on Manufactures,” December 5, 1791, American State Papers: Finance, 1:123. 97. Hamilton, 123. 98. Hamilton, 135. Both Hamilton and Jefferson advocated the use of protective duties in their respective reports, although Jefferson did not support a general tariff, only one to prop up the flagging fishing industry (134–138). 99. Hamilton, 134. 100. “Proposed Association for Encouraging the Cod-­Fishery,” Salem Gazette, April 17, 1792. 101. William Loughton Smith, The Politicks and Views of a Certain Party, Displayed (n.p: 1792), 4–12. 102. Smith, 26–33. 103. Smith, 34–35. 104. See Bradford Perkins, The First Rapprochement: ­England and the United States, 1795–­ 1805 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1955); Jerald Combs, The Jay Treaty: Po­liti­cal Battleground of the Founding F­ athers (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970); and Lindsay M. Chervinsky, The Cabinet: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution (Cambridge. Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2020), 264–287. 105. From Timothy Pickering to Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Plenipotentiary of the United States at Paris, January 16, 1797, American State Papers: Foreign Relations, 1:572. 106. Alexander DeConde, The Quasi-­War: The Politics and Diplomacy of the Undeclared War with France, 1797–1801 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1966); Albert Bowman, The Strug­gle for Neutrality: Franco-­American Diplomacy during the Federalist Era (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1974); and Greg H. Williams, The French Assault on American Shipping, 1793–­1813: A History and Comprehensive Rec­ord of Merchant Ma­ rine Losses ( Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2009). 107. Thomas Paine, An Oration, Written at the Request of the Young Men of Boston: and Delivered, July 17th, 1799 (Boston: John Russell, 1799), 5–6. 108. Paine, 6. 109. Paine, 18–19. 2. The Limits of Peace

1. The Convention of 1818, while impor­tant in Anglo-­American relations for setting the forty-­ninth parallel as the US-­Canadian border and establishing the joint

NOTES TO PA GE 46

239

occupation of Oregon as well as a watershed agreement on the North Atlantic fisheries, has remained somewhat anonymous in the secondary lit­er­a­ture. Howard Jones and Sam W. Haynes make scant reference to the treaty, while George C. Herring’s lengthy account of US foreign relations completely elides the agreement. Bradford Perkins’s fifty-­year-­old account remains the most substantive of the treaty. See Howard Jones, To the Webster-­Ashburton Treaty: A Study in Anglo-­American Relations, 1783–­ 1843 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977); Sam  W. Haynes, Unfinished Revolution: The Early American Republic in a British World (Charlottesville: University of V ­ irginia Press, 2010); George  C. Herring, From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations since 1776 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008); and Bradford Perkins, Castlereagh and Adams: E­ ngland and the United States, 1812–­1823 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964). 2. For the relationship between the British state and ordinary seamen, see Isaac Land, War, Nationalism, and the British Sailor, 1750–­1850 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). For the role of impressment in the British navy, see Denver Brunsman, The Evil Necessity: British Naval Impressment in the Eighteenth-­Century Atlantic World (Charlottesville: University of ­Virginia Press, 2013). 3. Dane A. Morrison describes how the return of the Empress of China to New York in the spring of 1785 ­after a trading expedition to China was a public spectacle and became enrolled in a narrative about US nationalism. Other similar craft w ­ ere imbued with similar meaning, as US ships also carried the nation’s reputation and image abroad. See Morrison, True Yankees: The South Seas and the Discovery of American Iden­ tity (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014), xi–­xiii. 4. Paul Gilje, ­Free Trade and Sailors’ Rights in the War of 1812 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 90–98. See also Gilje, Liberty on the Waterfront: American Maritime Culture in the Age of Revolution (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004); and Jesse Lemisch, Jack Tar vs. John Bull: The Role of New York’s Seamen in Precipitating the Revolution (New York: Garland, 1997). For the relationship between commerce and liberty in the early republic, see Drew R. McCoy, The Elusive Republic: Po­liti­cal Economy in Jeffersonian Amer­i­ca (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980), 76–104. 5. In the parlance of the day, “chink” was an onomatopoetic reference to metallic coins. 6. Susanna Haswell Rowson, “Amer­i­ca, Commerce, and Freedom,” in ­Great Poems by American W ­ omen: An Anthology, ed. Susan L. Rattiner (New York: Dover, 1998), 18– 19; Rowson, The American Tar, quoted in Gilje, ­Free Trade and Sailors’ Rights, 95. 7. While often overlooked, the maritime perspective has the potential to yield impor­tant and substantive insights on well-­worn topics. For valuable examples of that perspective, see Brian Rouleau, With Sails Whitening ­Every Sea: Mari­ners and the Mak­ ing of an American Maritime Empire (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2014); Rouleau, “Maritime Destiny as Manifest Destiny: American Commercial Expansionism and the Idea of the Indian,” Journal of the Early Republic 30, no. 3 (2010): 377–411; Gilje, ­Free Trade and Sailors’ Rights; Christopher P. Magra, The Fisherman’s Cause: Atlantic Com­ merce and the Maritime Dimensions of the American Revolution (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Matthew Raffety, “Recent Currents in Nineteenth-­Century American Maritime History,” History Compass 6, no. 2 (2008): 607–626; Daniel Vickers, “Beyond Jack Tar,” William and Mary Quarterly 50, no. 2 (1993): 418–424; and Jesse

24 0 NOTES

TO PAGES 47– 48

Lemisch, “Jack Tar in the Streets: Merchant Seamen in the Politics of Revolutionary Amer­i­ca,” William and Mary Quarterly 25, no. 3 (1968): 371–407. 8. For more on the maritime consciousness of the United States in the nineteenth ­century, see Rouleau, With Sails Whitening ­Every Sea, 2–15; John R. Gillis, The ­Human Shore: Seacoasts in History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012) 111–114; and Raffety, “Nineteenth-­Century American Maritime History,” 608–609. 9. Christopher P. Magra describes how fishermen ­were on the front lines of the maritime war during the revolution. See Magra, Fisherman’s Cause, 177–198. See also, for the deep history of fishermen becoming seamen, Wayne O’Leary, Maine Sea Fish­ eries: The Rise and Fall of a Native Industry, 1830–­1890 (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1996), 62–63. 10. The historiography overwhelmingly emphasizes maritime and commercial issues as causing the War of 1812. See Richard W. Maass, “ ‘Difficult to Relinquish Territory Which Had Been Conquered’: Expansionism and the War of 1812,” Diplomatic History 39, no. 1 (2015): 70–97; Troy Bickham, The Weight of Vengeance: The United States, the British Empire, and the War of 1812 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012); Alan Taylor, The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, and Indian Allies (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010); Donald R. Hickey, The War of 1812: A Forgot­ ten Conflict (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989); J. C. A. Stagg, Mr. Madison’s War: Politics, Diplomacy, and Warfare in the Early American Republic, 1783–1830 (Prince­ ton, N.J.: Prince­ton University Press, 1983); Reginald Horsman, The ­Causes of the War of 1812 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1962); and Bradford Perkins, Prologue to War: ­England and the United States, 1805–­1812 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961). 11. Some work positions a desire to annex Britain’s North American provinces as the primary motivation for war, though this interpretation has proven less persuasive, even if the continental theater and invasion of Canada ­were impor­tant episodes during the war. See Nicole Eustace, 1812: War and the Passions of Patriotism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012); J. C. A. Stagg, The War of 1812: Conflict for a Continent (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Walter Nugent, Habits of Em­ pire: A History of American Expansion (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008); Jon Latimer, 1812: War with Amer­i­ca (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007); and Julius W. Pratt, Expansionists of 1812 (New York: Macmillan, 1925). 12. Annals of Congress, 12th Cong., 1st Sess., 1399. 13. For more on the complexity of Anglo-­American relations in the early de­cades of the nineteenth ­century and the pulls of both Anglophobia and Anglophilia in the United States, see Joseph Eaton, The Anglo-­American Paper War: Debates about the New Republic, 1800–1825 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012); Kariann Akemi Yokota, Un­ becoming British: How Revolutionary American Became a Postcolonial Nation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010); and Elisa Tamarkin, Anglophilia: Deference, Devotion, and Antebellum Amer­i­ca (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008). 14. “Stonington, October 12,” Gazette of the United States, October 21, 1802. 15. Newspapers w ­ ere replete with New En­glanders bemoaning the state of trade ­under the embargo, and petitions and memorials from the region poured into Congress denouncing the restriction. See also Paul A. Varg, New ­England and Foreign Rela­ tions, 1789–1850 (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New ­England, 1983), 50–60.

NOTES TO PA GES 48– 53

241

16. Drew R. McCoy places the embargo in the larger context of Jeffersonian po­liti­ cal economy, calling it “an experiment in commercial coercion” and arguing that it “did not represent a significant departure from their [Jeffersonian] traditional conception of a republican po­liti­cal economy.” Elusive Republic, 209–233. 17. Plattsburg American Monitor, August 4, 1810, emphasis in original. Connection between the British ­Orders in Council and the fisheries was also evident in Philadel­ phia Weekly Aurora, July 17, 1810. 18. For more on the phrase “­free trade and sailors rights” in the War of 1812, see Gilje, ­Free Trade and Sailors Rights. 19. Despite the pre­ce­dent set by the American Revolutionary War and the ensuing de­cades of po­liti­cal rhe­toric that tied US fishermen to military ser­vice, ­little in the secondary lit­er­a­ture explic­itly connects the fishing communities of New E ­ ngland to ser­ vice in the War of 1812. Fishermen undoubtedly mustered into ser­vice in both the army and navy during the war years, but more research needs to be done. 20. James Monroe to John Quincy Adams, James A. Bayard, Henry Clay, and Jonathan Russell, January 28, 1814, Diplomatic Instructions of the Department of State, 1801–1906 (National Archives Microfilm Publication, M77, roll 1), Rec­ords of the Department of State, Rec­ord Group 59, National Archives, College Park, Md. (hereafter cited as Diplomatic Instructions, 1801–1906). 21. James Monroe to Envoys Extraordinary and Ministers Plenipotentiary, June 23, 1813, Diplomatic Instructions, 1801–1906. 22. Perkins, Castlereagh and Adams, 69–71. 23. Perkins, Castlereagh and Adams, 123–127. See also Bickham, Weight of Vengeance, 243. David C. Hendrickson suggests that Albert Gallatin supported pressing the fisheries issue at Ghent as a way to reassure New En­glanders that the Madison administration took their interests into consideration and to forestall talk of secession gaining ground among some Federalists in the region. Hendrickson, Union, Nation, or Empire: The American Debate over International Relations, 1789–1941 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009), 63. 24. Perkins, Castlereagh and Adams, 123–127. See also Harold A. Innis, The Cod Fish­ eries: An International Economy (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1940), 224. 25. “Candid Examination,” Portsmouth Oracle, March 4, 1815. 26. “From the Salem Gazette,” Dedham Gazette, February 25, 1814. 27. For the role of ordinary sailors in t­hese Atlantic wide dynamic, see Marcus Rediker, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-­ American Maritime World, 1700–1750 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989); Peter E. Pope, Fish into Wine: The Newfoundland Plantation in the Seventeenth ­Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004); and W. Jeffrey Bolster, Black Jacks: African American Seamen in the Age of Sail (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998). Jack P. Greene and Philip D. Morgan even go so far as to describe “the maritime sector itself ” as “the most obvious leading edge of the Atlantic world.” Philip D. Morgan and Jack P. Greene, “Introduction: The Pre­sent State of Atlantic History,” in Atlantic History: A Critical Appraisal (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 12. 28. Brian Rouleau, “How Honolulu Almost Burned and Why Sailors M ­ atter to Early American Foreign Relations,” Diplomatic History 38, no. 3 (2014): 501–525.

24 2 NOTES

TO PAGES 53– 61

29. On the penetration of US sailors in the Pacific and the attendant po­liti­cal and cultural ramifications, see Brian Rouleau, With Sails Whitening ­Every Sea; Morrison, True Yankees; David Igler, The G ­ reat Ocean: Pacific Worlds from Captain Cook to the Gold Rush (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013); and Dael A. Norwood, Trading Freedom: How Trade with China Defined Early Amer­i­ca (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2022). 30. “From James Monroe to Mr. Baker, Charge de Affaires from ­England, July 18, 1815,” American State Papers: Foreign Affairs, 4:349 (hereafter cited as ASP:FR). 31. “From the Arcadian Recorder,” New York Eve­ning Post, July 20, 1815. 32. “James Monroe to Mr. Baker,” 348. 33. ­Later, John Quincy Adams would blame Henry Clay’s refusal to accept any restrictions on US navigation of the Mississippi as the reason the Treaty of Ghent failed to address the fisheries at all. Clay, the westerner, was loath to see any advantage given to eastern interests at the expense of his home region. 34. “Extract of a letter from Mr. Monroe to Mr. Adams, July 21, 1815,” ASP:FR, 4:349. 35. “Extract of a letter from Mr. Adams to Mr. Monroe, stating the substance of a conversation with Lord Bathurst, September 19, 1815,” ASP:FR, 4:351. 36. “Extract of a letter from Mr. Adams to Earl Bathurst, September 25, 1815,” ASP:FR, 4:352. 37. “Mr. Adams to Earl Bathurst,” 351–353. 38. “Mr. Adams to Earl Bathurst,” 351. 39. For scientific and vernacular understandings of the North Atlantic environment during this period, see W. Jeffrey Bolster, The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012), 88–102. 40. “Reply to the note of Lord Bathurst of October 30, 1815, January 22, 1816,” ASP:FR, 4:358. 41. “Lord Bathurst to Mr. Adams, October 30, 1815,” ASP:FR, 4:354. 42. “From the Demo­cratic Press,” Mechanics’ Gazette and Merchants Daily Advertiser, August 28, 1815. 43. “Daniel Rose to John Quincy Adams, September 10, 1817,” in Canadian Fisher­ ies: Letters, Notes, Reports, Etc., 1816–­1869, ed. R. W. Cutts and E. H. Derby, RG 76 Rec­ ords of Boundary and Claims Commissions and Arbitrations, United States–­Great Britain Fisheries Commission u ­ nder the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854, NC-155, E.145, Box 2, National Archives and Rec­ords Administration, College Park, Md. (hereafter cited as Cutts and Derby). 44. Dane Morrison recognizes a generational divide in the rhe­toric employed by seagoing Americans in the early republic versus t­hose who went abroad during the antebellum period. The ­earlier generation exhibited a more dispassionate and perhaps even, at times, more tolerant understanding of foreign ­peoples, while the antebellum generation, by contrast, displayed the arrogant racism of a more confident and established nation. See Morrison, True Yankees. 45. Testimony of Samuel Love, September 8, 1817, in Cutts and Derby. 46. Rear Admiral David Milne to Samuel Chambers, Captain of Dee, May 12, 1817, vol. 122, FO 5 Foreign Office General Correspondence before 1906, United States of Amer­i­ca, The National Archives, Kew, London, ­England (hereafter cited as FO 5).

NOTES TO PA GES 61– 71

243

47. Captain Samuel Chambers to Rear Admiral David Milne, June  8, 1817, vol. 122, FO 5. 48. Testimonies of William McRowan, Sylvester Pierce, and John M. Reed, September 8, 1817, and Abdon Keen, July 17, 1817, in Cutts and Derby. 49. Testimonies of Samuel Grant, September 4, 1817, and John Rand, Sylvester Piece, and John M. Reed, September 8, 1817, in Cutts and Derby. 50. Testimonies of George Vennard and John Trefethen, September 5, 1817, William Trefethen, September 10, 1817, and Daniel Grant, September 18, 1817, in Cutts and Derby. 51. Subscribers from the District of New Hampshire to the President of the United States, December 23, 1817, in Cutts and Derby. 52. Subscribers from New Hampshire. 53. Henry A. S. Dearborn to James Monroe, June 30, 1817, in Cutts and Derby. For similar comment on how captures would bring ruin to ­these men and their families, see Daniel Rose to John Quincy Adams, September 10, 1817, in Cutts and Derby. 54. Daniel Rose to John Quincy Adams, September 10, 1817, in Cutts and Derby. 55. Richard Rush to Charles Bagot, August 4, 1817, vol. 122, FO 5. 56. Charles Bagot to Richard Rush, August 8, 1817, vol. 122, FO 5. 57. James Monroe to John Quincy Adams, November 20, 1815, and February 27, 1816, Diplomatic Instructions, 1801–1906. 58. Lord Bathurst to Mr. Baker, September 7, 1815, vol. 105, FO 5. 59. Lord Melville to Lord Castlereagh, April 8, 1816, vol. 113, FO 5. 60. Lord Castlereagh to Mr. Charles Bagot, April 16, 1816, vol. 113, FO 5. 61. Lord Castlereagh to Mr. Charles Bagot, April 16, 1816. 62. Lord Castlereagh to Mr. Charles Bagot, March 22, 1817, vol. 120, FO 5. 63. Lord Castlereagh to Mr. Charles Bagot, May 13, 1817, vol. 120, FO 5. 64. Lord Castlereagh to Mr. Charles Bagot, March 22, 1817, vol. 120, FO 5. 65. Public Documents Containing Proceedings of the Hartford Convention of Delegates, Published by Order of the Senate (1815), 11. 66. “Kennebunk, Maine, 15 July 1817,” in The Papers of James Monroe: A Documen­ tary History of the Presidential Tours of James Monroe, 1817, 1818 1819, ed. Daniel Preston and Marlena C. DeLong (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2003), 1:281. 67. Charles Bagot to Lord Castlereagh, June 3, 1817, vol. 122, FO 5. 68. “Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 5 July 1817,” in Preston and DeLong, Papers of James Monroe, 1:274. 69. “Memorandum Relative to Fisheries,” in Preston and DeLong, Papers of James Monroe, 1:422. 70. John Lauritz Larson, Laid Waste!: The Culture of Exploitation in Early Amer­i­ca (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press), 99–122. 71. Steven Stoll, Larding the Lean Earth: Soil and Society in Nineteenth-­Century Amer­ i­ca (New York: Hill and Wang, 2002); Gregory T. Cushman, Guano and the Opening of the Pacific World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 23–74; Ariel Ron, Grassroots Leviathan: Agricultural Reform and the Rural North in the Slaveholding Republic (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020), 169–212. 72. Charles Bagot to Lord Castlereagh, June 3, 1817, vol. 122, FO 5. 73. Charles Bagot to Lord Castlereagh, June 30, 1817, vol. 122, FO 5.

24 4 NOTES

TO PAGES 72– 79

74. John Quincy Adams to Richard Rush, November 6, 1817, Diplomatic Instructions, 1801–1906. 75. “Extract of a letter from Mr. Adams to Messrs. Gallatin and Rush, July 28, 1818,” ASP:FR, 4:378. 76. John Quincy Adams to Richard Rush and Albert Gallatin, Acting as Special Envoys, July 28, 1818, Diplomatic Instructions, 1801–1906. 77. James Monroe to John Quincy Adams, July 8, 1816, and August 13, 1816, Diplomatic Instructions, 1801–1906. 78. The Hive, November 15, 1803. 79. To the Hon. Jeremiah Nelson, December 20, 1816 and January 14, 1817; To General Arnold Welles, January 24, 1818, in Cutts and Derby. 80. James Monroe to John Quincy Adams, August 13, 1816, Diplomatic Instructions, 1801–1906. 81. “Convention of 1818 between the United States and G ­ reat Britain,” The Avalon Proj­ect: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School, accessed September 15, 2022, http://­avalon​.­law​.­yale​.­edu​/­19th​_­century​ /­conv1818​.­asp. 82. “Extracts of a letter from Messrs. Gallatin and Rush to the Secretary of State, October 20, 1818,” ASP:FR, 4:380. 83. “Messrs. Gallatin and Rush to the Secretary of State, October 20, 1818.” 3. The Ruby and Reindeer Affair

1. “For the Boston Patriots,” In­de­pen­dent Chronicle and Boston Patriot, June 22, 1822. 2. “The Mackerel Fishery,” Portsmouth Journal and Rockingham Gazette, December 12, 1829. 3. John Lauritz Larson, Laid Waste!: The Culture of Exploitation in Early Amer­ic­ a (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020), 109. 4. “Toasts,” Essex Register, July 10, 1823. 5. W. Jeffrey Bolster, The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012), 119. 6. Richard Rush to John Quincy Adams, January 28, 1820 and November 17, 1821, Despatches from US Minister to ­Great Britain, 1791–1906 (National Archive Microfilm Publication M30, roll 20, 22), Rec­ords of the Department of State, Rec­ord Group 59, National Archive Northeast Region, Waltham, Mass. 7. Rush to Adams, November 17, 1821. 8. The maritime environment of the Northwest Atlantic provides a counterpoint to Alan Taylor’s conclusion that the War of 1812’s “ultimate legacy” was found in the creation of a clear border between the United States and Canada. Taylor, The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels, and Indian Allies (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010), 439. 9. See Daniel Vickers, Farmers and Fishermen: Two Centuries of Work in Essex County, Mas­sa­chu­setts, 1630–1850 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 132– 138, 175–177, 275–280; Vickers, Young Men and the Sea: Yankee Seafarers in the Age of Sail (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2005); and Wayne M. O’Leary, Maine Sea Fisheries: The Rise and Fall of a Native Industry, 1830–1890 (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1996), 20–24, 40–48.

NOTES TO PA GES 80– 87

245

10. O’Leary, Maine Sea Fisheries, 7–26. 11. O’Leary, 26. 12. “Statement of Robert Small, Master of the Schooner Reindeer of Lubec, Maine, July 27th, 1824,” in “Message of the President of the United States Transmitting Copies of Correspondence upon the Subject of the Capture and Detention, by British Armed Vessels, of American Fishermen during the Last Season,” H. Doc. No.  93, 18th Cong., 2nd Sess. (1825), 11–12 (hereafter cited as “Message of the President Transmitting Copies.”) 13. “Statement of Elisha Small, Master of Schooner Ruby of Lubec, Maine, July 27th, 1824,” in “Message of the President Transmitting Copies,” 12. 14. “Statement of Elias Ficket, Master of the Schooner Diligence, of Harrington, Maine, July 27th, 1824,” in “Message of the President Transmitting Copies,” 13. 15. “Statement of Harding Clark, Master of the Schooner Hero of Dennysville, Maine, and Ephraime Clark and William H. N. Brown, Fishermen, July 22, 1824,” in “Message of the President Transmitting Copies,” 16–17. 16. “Statement of Charles Tabbut, Master of the Schooner William of Addison, Maine, and Thomas Wright, Benjamin Reynolds, and Josiah W. Perry, Fishermen, August 23, 1824,” in “Message of the President Transmitting Copies,” 18. 17. “Memorial of Aaron Hayden of Kilby, Maine, and O ­ thers, July 27th, 1824,” in “Message of the President Transmitting Copies,” 10–11. 18. “Memorial of Aaron Hayden,” 10–11. 19. “Memorial of Aaron Hayden,” 10–11. 20. “To the Hon. John Q. Adams from Inhabitants of the County of Washington, in the State of Maine, Interested in the Fisheries in the Bay of Fundy,” in “Message of the President Transmitting Copies,” 14–15. 21. “To the Hon. John Q. Adams,” 14–15. The fishermen’s claims to avoiding the inshore ­waters may have been a willful obfuscation on their part, as the 1820s came in the midst of the first mackerel boom in the United States. Yet, as Bolster notes, ­these fishermen would have risked losing their bounties had they pursued other fish during their voyages, and thus they had a power­f ul inducement to avoid the inshore w ­ aters. See Bolster, Mortal Sea, 104–107, 134. 22. “More Fishermen Taken,” Eastern Argus, August 3, 1824. 23. “Mr. Addington, British Charge D’Affaires in Washington, to Mr. Adams, October 5, 1824,” in “Message of the President Transmitting Copies,” 26–27. Emphasis in original. 24. “Mr. Addington,” 26–27. 25. “Rear Admiral W. T. Lake to Mr. Addington, Halifax, September 9th, 1824,” in “Message of the President Transmitting Copies,” 28–29. Addington quoted directly from Lake’s letter in his note to Adams when describing the US assault and his estimate of one hundred men included in the US force. 26. “John Jones, Master, to Captain Hoare, of H. M. Sloop Dotterel, July 27th, 1824,” in “Message of the President Transmitting Copies,” 29–30. 27. Jones to Hoare, 29–30. 28. Deposition of William Paine and Benjamin Scott, September 2, 1824, vol. 196, FO 5 Foreign Office General Correspondence before 1906, United States of Amer­i­ca, The National Archives, Kew, London, ­England (hereafter cited as FO 5). 29. Rear Admiral Lake to Mr. Addington, September 9, 1824, vol. 196, FO 5.

24 6 NOTES

TO PAGES 87– 92

30. “Boston. Extract of a Letter from Eastport, July 27th to the Editors,” Boston Com­ mercial Gazette, August 5, 1824. 31. “Robert Small, Master of Reindeer, Sworn before Ether Shepley, November 5, 1824,” in “Message of the President Transmitting Copies,” 34–35. 32. “Statement of Elisha Small, Master of the Schooner Ruby, of Lubce, Maine, November 6, 1824,” in “Message of the President Transmitting Copies,” 48. 33. “Statement of Hebbert Hunt, Skipper, and Daniel Joy Jr., Jeremiah Small, John Hunt, Hands, of the Schooner Galleon, of Lubec, Maine,” in “Message of the President Transmitting Copies,” 36. 34. “Statement of Charles Tabbut, Master of the Schooner William, of Addison, Maine, November 2, 1824,” in “Message of the President Transmitting Copies,” 40. 35. “Statement of Benjamin Small, Hand, of the Schooner Ruby, November 6, 1824,” in “Message of the President Transmitting Copies,” 49. 36. “Statement of Benjamin W. Coggins, Master of Schooner Friend, of Lubec, Maine, November 6, 1824,” in “Message of the President Transmitting Copies,” 51. 37. “Mr. Addington to Mr. Adams, February 19th, 1825,” in “Message from the President of the United States Transmitting a Further Report from the Secretary of State on the Subject of the Capture and Detention of American Fishermen, the Last Season in the Bay of Fundy,” H. Doc. No. 101, 18th Cong., 2nd Sess. (1825), 7–8 (hereafter cited as “Message from the President Transmitting Further Report”). 38. “Evidence of Mr. Touzeau, Midshipman, and the Crew of the Yawl Boat Belonging to H. M. Sloop Dotterel, Relative to the Detention of the American Fishing Schooners ‘Reindeer and Ruby,’ ” in “Message from the President Transmitting Further Report,” 26–27. 39. “Richard Hoare to Rear Admiral Lake, November 26th, 1824,” in “Message from the President Transmitting Further Report,” 39–40. 40. In the captures of the schooners Hero and Pilgrim, British seamen William Payne and Thomas Cassady reported that the Americans claimed ignorance, not realizing they ­were in violation of the treaty. While the Americans may have been living the dictum that it is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, it is likely that they ­were unaware of their location, given the rudimentary instrumentation and knowledge possessed by ­these fishermen. “Evidence of the Crew of the Dotterel’s Tender, Relative to the Detention of the American Fishing Schooners Hero and Pilgrim,” in “Message from the President Transmitting Further Report,” 21–22. 41. “Hoar to Lake.” As Vickers mentions in Farmers and Fishermen, cod fishermen had split and salted fish on board, leaving it to be dried in shoreside fishyards since the eigh­teenth ­century. It would not have been inconceivable for ­these fishermen to dispose of their waste in this manner. See Vickers, Farmers and Fishermen, 175. 42. “Evidence of Mr. Touzeau, Midshipman, and the Crew of the Yawl Boat Belonging to H. M. Sloop Dotterel, Relative to the Detention of the American Schooner Rebecca,” in “Message from the President Transmitting Further Report,” 8–9. 43. Bolster, Mortal Sea, 87. 44. For more on the mackerel jig, see Bolster, Mortal Sea, 88–92, 102–109. 45. Bryan J. Payne outlines the importance of what he calls “a complex system of locally defined codes of conduct” in the inshore bait fisheries of Atlantic Canada, and the resulting friction occasioned by the imposition of outside mandates. See Bryan J. Payne, Fishing a Borderless Sea: Environmental Territorialism in the North Atlantic, 1818–

NOTES TO PA GES 93– 100

247

1910 (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2010), xvi–­xvii, xxiv. For the development of the US “culture of exploitation,” see Larson, Laid Waste! 46. Mr. Addington to Rear Admiral Lake, October 3, 1824, vol. 196, FO 5. 47. Mr. Addington to George Canning, July 2, 1825, vol. 198, FO 5. 48. Charles Vaughn to George Canning, October 31, 1825, vol. 199, FO 5. 49. George Canning to Charles Vaughn, February 8, 1826, vol. 209, FO 5. Emphasis in original. 50. “Monroe Doctrine, December 2, 1823,” The Avalon Proj­ect: Documents in Law, History, and Diplomacy, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School, accessed September 20, 2022, http://­avalon​.­law​.­yale​.­edu​/­19th​_­century​/­monroe​.­asp (hereafter cited as Avalon Proj­ect). For the place of John Quincy Adams in the larger context of early US foreign relations, see William Earl Weeks, John Quincy Adams and American Global Empire (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1992). 51. For the United States’ response to Latin American in­de­pen­dence movements, see James E. Lewis Jr., The American Union and the Prob­lem of Neighborhood: The United States and the Collapse of the Spanish Empire, 1783–1829 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998); and more recently, Caitlin Fitz, Our ­Sister Republics: The United States in an Age of American Revolutions (New York: Liveright, 2016). 52. Jay Sexton, The Monroe Doctrine: Empire and Nation in Nineteenth-­Century Amer­ i­ca (New York: Hill and Wang, 2011), 49–62. 53. Sexton, 50. 54. Sexton, 245. 55. John Quincy Adams to Richard Rush, June 27, 1823, Diplomatic Instructions of the Department of State, 1801–1906 (National Archives Microfilm Publication M77, roll 4) Rec­ords of the Department of State, Rec­ord Group 59, Diplomatic Instructions of the Department of State, M77, National Archives, College Park, Md. (hereafter cited as Diplomatic Instructions, 1801–1906). 56. “Convention between the French Republic, and the United States of Amer­i­ca,” Avalon Proj­ect, accessed September 20, 2022, http://­avalon​.­law​.­yale​.­edu​/­19th​_­century​ /­fr1800​.­asp. 57. Albert Gallatin to Viscount de Chateaubriand, March 14, 1823, vol. 191, FO 5. 58. Richard Rush to John Quincy Adams, August 12, 1824, in “Report on U.S. Negotiations with ­Great Britain,” S. Doc. No. 6, 18th Cong., 2nd Sess. (1825), 93. 59. Henry Clay to Albert Gallatin, June 19, 1826, roll 5, Diplomatic Instructions, 1801–1906. 60. Martin Van Buren to Louis McLane, December 26, 1829, roll 73, Diplomatic Instructions, 1801–1906. 61. “The Fisheries,” Farmer’s Cabinet, September 25, 1824. 4. “Our Living Is Truly That of Fishermen”

1. John Morrow to Louis McLane, April 7, 1834, Despatches from U.S. Consuls in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, 1833–1906 (National Archives Microfilm Publication T469, roll 1), Rec­ords of the Department of State, Rec­ord Group 59, National Archives, College Park, Md. (hereafter cited as Despatches from U.S. Consuls in Halifax). 2. James Primrose to John Forsyth, March 11, 1839, Despatches from U.S. Consuls in Pictou, Nova Scotia, Canada (National Archives Microfilm Publication T479, roll 1),

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TO PAGES 102– 107

National Archives, College Park, Md. (hereafter cited as Despatches from U.S. Consuls in Pictou). 3. “Trade to the West Indies,” New Hampshire Patriot and State Gazette, August 31, 1829. 4. John M. Belohlavek, “Let the Ea­gle Soar!”: The Foreign Policy of Andrew Jackson (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1985), 53–55; John H. Schroeder, Shaping a Mari­ time Empire: The Commercial and Diplomatic Role of the American Navy, 1829–1861 (Wesport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1985), 5. 5. Schroeder, Shaping a Maritime Empire, 4–8, 54–55; Claude Berube, On Wide Seas: The US Navy in the Jacksonian Era (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2021). 6. “December 8, 1829: First Annual Message to Congress,” Miller Center, University of ­Virginia, accessed September 20, 2022, https://­millercenter​.­org​/­the​-­presidency​ /­presidential​-­speeches​/­december​-­8​-­1829​-­first​-­annual​-­message​-­congress; Belohlavek, Let the Ea­gle Soar!, 57. 7. Belohlavek, Let the Ea­gle Soar!, 56–58. 8. “The West-­India Trade,” Pittsfield Sun, October 21, 1830. 9. Times (London), November 8, 1830. 10. “Presidents Message,” Salem Gazette, December 14, 1830. 11. Harold Adams Innis, The Cod Fisheries: The History of an International Economy (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1940), 258; Wayne M. O’Leary, Maine Sea Fisheries: The Rise and Fall of a Native Industry, 1830–1890 (Boston: Northwestern University Press, 1996), 36, 113–116; Brian J. Payne, Fishing a Borderless Sea: Environmental Territorialism in the North Atlantic, 1818–1910 (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2010), 5–6. 12. O’Leary, Maine Sea Fisheries, 113–119. 13. “Mackerel,” Daily Commercial Bulletin, July 27, 1838. 14. J. A. Turner, The Cotton Planter’s Manuel: Being a Compilation of Facts from the Best Authorities on the Culture of Cotton; Its Natu­ral History, Chemical Analy­sis, Trade, and Con­ sumption; and Embracing a History of Cotton and the Cotton Gin (New York: C. M. Saxton, 1857), 134; Walter Johnson, River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2013), 178. 15. O’Leary, Maine Sea Fisheries, 124–127. 16. O’Leary, 131–135. 17. W. Jeffrey Bolster, The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012), 125–129, 173–174; Mark Kurlansky, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World (New York: Walker Publishing, 1997), 154; Ariel Ron, Grassroots Leviathan: Agricultural Reform and the Rural North in the Slavehold­ ing Republic (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2020), 100–103. 18. Schroeder, Shaping a Maritime Empire, 1–6. 19. “December 8, 1829: First Annual Message to Congress,” Miller Center, University of ­Virginia, accessed September 20, 2022, https://­millercenter​.­org​/­the​-­presidency​ /­presidential​-­speeches​/­december​-­8​-­1829​-­first​-­annual​-­message​-­congress. 20. “March 4, 1837: Farewell Address,” Miller Center, University of V ­ irginia, accessed September 20, 2022, https://­millercenter​.­org​/­the​-­presidency​/­presidential​-­speeches​ /­march​-­4​-­1837​-­farewell​-­address. 21. Jason W. Smith, To Master the Boundless Sea: The U.S. Navy, the Marine Environment, and the Cartography of Empire (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2018), 15.

NOTES TO PA GES 108– 116

249

22. Ron, Grassroots Leviathan, 5–8. 23. See Brian Rouleau, “How Honolulu Almost Burned and Why Sailors ­Matter to Early American Foreign Relations,” Diplomatic History 38, no. 3 (2014): 501–525. 24. For an overview of US consular ser­vice, see Charles Stuart Kennedy, The Amer­ ican Consul: A History of the United States Consular Ser­vice, 1776–1914 (New York: Greenwood Press, 1990). 25. See Brian Rouleau, With Sails Whitening E­ very Sea: Mari­ners and the Making of an American Maritime Empire (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2014), 125–127, 159–161. 26. John Morrow to Edward Livingston, May 15, 1833; John Morrow to Louis McLane, October 22, 1833 and April 29, 1834, Despatches from U.S. Counsels in Halifax, roll 1. 27. John Morrow to John Forsyth, February 28, 1837, Despatches from U.S. Counsels in Halifax, roll 2. 28. T. B. Livingston to Daniel Webster, October 16, 1841, Despatches from U.S. Counsels in Halifax, roll 4. Emphasis in original. In this same report, the consul included the deposition of Samuel L. Fear, master of the schooner Egret of Gloucester. The Egret was captured in a manner similar to the Mars, yet Fear’s deposition did not mention the use of US colors by the British ship. 29. James Primrose to John Forsyth, November 1, 1839, Despatches from U.S. Consuls in Pictou, roll 1. 30. T. B. Livingston to Daniel Webster, March 17, 1843, Despatches from U.S. Counsels in Halifax, roll 5. 31. William Doughty, Master of Schooner Argus to John C. Calhoun, August 26, 1844, Despatches from U.S. Counsels in Halifax, roll 5. 32. T. B. Livingston to Daniel Webster, December 1, 1841, Despatches from U.S. Counsels in Halifax, roll 4. 33. James Primrose to John Forsyth, November 25, 1840, Despatches from U.S. Counsels in Pictou, roll 1. 34. U.S. Consular Agent at Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, to T. B. Livingston, Consul at Halifax, May 8, 1841, Despatches from U.S. Counsels in Halifax, roll 4. 35. T. B. Livingston to Abel Upshur, January 12, 1844, Despatches from U.S. Counsels in Halifax, roll 5. Emphasis in original. 36. James Primrose to John Forsyth, March 11, 1839, Despatches from U.S. Counsels in Pictou, roll 1. 37. “Memorial of George Handley, of Halifax, in the Province of Nova Scotia, Merchant” enclosed in John Morrow to John Forsyth, March 20, 1837, Despatches from U.S. Counsels in Halifax, roll 2. Emphasis in original. 38. For more on the mackerel jig and its consequences, see Bolster, Mortal Sea, 88– 92, 102–109. 39. John Lauritz Larson, Laid Waste!: The Culture of Exploitation in Early Amer­i­ca (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020), 1–6. 40. “The Fisheries,” Novascotian Colonial Herald, May 18, 1837, enclosed in John Morrow to John Forsyth, May 25, 1837, Despatches from U.S. Counsels in Halifax, roll 3. 41. Historian Sam W. Haynes is ultimately ambivalent about the success of the Webster-­Ashburton Treaty. While the treaty seemed to mark “an historic moment in U.S.-­British relations . . . ​another emblem of the fraternal feeling that existed between

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two Anglophone nations,” and “Webster could claim a number of significant achievements,” Americans in the Northeast and the Far West, and Demo­crats in all regions, felt the agreement to be “a total capitulation to British interest.” The treaty failed to assuage US uneasiness at the seeming ubiquity of the British presence in North Amer­ i­ca. In his wide-­ranging history of US foreign relations, George C. Herring has only positive words for the 1842 deal. Herring concludes that the treaty “solved several burning issues” at a time when “both sides sought to ease tensions.” And in a c­ ounter to Haynes’s contentions, Herring concludes that the treaty “confirmed U.S. ac­cep­tance of the sharing of North Amer­i­ca with British Canadians,” and in an assertion that smacks of teleology, he claims the agreement “set the two nations on a course t­ oward eventual rapprochement.” In all, Haynes’s ambivalence may be more tenable, as the treaty was successful at addressing some issues but proved that for the time being, the fisheries question was too hot for the diplomats to ­handle. Haynes, Unfinished Revolu­ tion: The Early American Republic in a British World (Charlottesville: University of ­Virginia Press, 2010), 221–222; Herring, From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations since 1776 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 186–187. 42. See Howard Jones, To The Webster-­Ashburton Treaty: A Study in Anglo-­American Relations, 1783–1843 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), esp. xi–­xviii. 43. Jay Sexton concludes that both Webster and Ashburton, and the respective groups of policymakers they represented, recognized that an agreement was necessary to continue the financial integration of the two countries. He remarks that “Webster’s racial, diplomatic, and economic views thus all converged and led to one conclusion: maintaining Anglo-­American peace was essential to the nation’s development and prosperity.” “The Barings’ connection with the Anglo-­American diplomacy of 1842,” Sexton continues, “exemplified the nexus between finance and foreign relations that led statesmen on both sides of the Atlantic to avoid war at all costs.” And in a clear statement of the economic forces that tilted ­toward conciliation, Sexton remarks, “Both diplomats recognized that a failure to resolve the diplomatic controversy would have costs far greater than anything to be gained from the territory and issues in dispute. A breakdown in the talks would result in a complete suspension of British investment in the United States, a reduction in transatlantic trade, and a pos­si­ ble run on banks ­because of the fear of war.” Sexton, Debtor Diplomacy: Finance and American Foreign Relations in the Civil War Era, 1837–1873 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 32–37. 44. Vickers notes that through the nineteenth ­century, more men devoted their entire ­careers to maritime ser­vice, making the kind of mixed economy of fishermen an increasingly rare occurrence. Vickers, Farmers and Fishermen: Two Centuries of Work in Essex County, Mas­sa­chu­setts, 1630–1850 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), 278–282. 45. Mary  C. Ames of Newburyport, Mass. (schooner), Log 961, Journal, June  1–­​ ­August 30, 1847. G. W. Blunt White Library, Mystic Seaport, Mystic, Conn. (here­ after cited as Mary C. Ames Journal). 46. For more on the use and importance of sailor-­written accounts in maritime history and historiography, see Hester Bloom, The View from the Masthead: Maritime Imagination and Antebellum American Sea Narratives (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008). The work of both Brian Rouleau and Dane A. Morrison rely on

NOTES TO PA GES 118– 125

251

this corpus of sailor accounts. See Rouleau, With Sails Whitening E­ very Sea; and Morrison, True Yankees: The South Seas and the Discovery of American Identity (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014). 47. D. Hamilton Hurd, History of Essex County, Mas­sa­chu­setts with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men (Philadelphia: J. W. Lewis, 1888), 2:1731, 1788. For more on the Townsend and Currier shipyard and the shipbuilding industry of the Merrimac River, see Robert K. Cheney, Maritime History of Merrimac Shipbuilding (Newburyport, Mass.: Newburyport Press, 1964), 60–73. 48. Mary C. Ames Journal, 1. 49. Mary C. Ames Journal, 2, 21–24. 50. Mary C. Ames Journal, 9, 10. 51. Mary C. Ames Journal, 3–4, 10. 52. Mary C. Ames Journal, 2, 12, 15–20. 53. Mary C. Ames Journal, 16, 24–25. 54. Mary C. Ames Journal, 7–12, 20–21, 24–25. 55. For the portability of l­abor in the nineteenth-­century fishing industry, see Payne, Fishing a Borderless Sea, xv–­xvi. 56. Mary C. Ames Journal, 19–20. 57. Mary C. Ames Journal, 15–17. 58. See Brian Rouleau, “Maritime Destiny as Manifest Destiny: American Commercial Expansionism and the Ideas of the Indian,” Journal of the Early Republic 30, no. 3 (2010): 377–411. 59. Mary C. Ames Journal, 4. 60. The existing historiography portrays mid-­nineteenth-­century fishermen as largely external, if not indifferent, to the diplomatic world. A study of cod populations on the Nova Scotian Shelf by W. Jeffrey Bolster, Karen E. Alexander, and William B. Leavenworth remarks that while “diplomatic negotiations and international disputes over the fisheries ­were ongoing, nineteenth-­century New ­England fishermen . . . ​paid ­little attention to po­liti­cal bound­aries, even within the three-­mile limit of territorial authority at sea then operative.” Furthermore, Payne, while recognizing the importance of high-­level diplomacy, ultimately concludes that they ­were more invested in and aware of “community codes of conduct.” Fishermen no doubt ­were motivated by their own economic interest, even if that required violating the dictates of international agreements, but taken as a w ­ hole, their testimonies show that they w ­ ere keenly aware of the international agreements that regulated their industry, and they sought to directly influence the lines of formal diplomacy to redress their grievances. Fishermen w ­ ere diplomatic actors, even if their fishing patterns represented the constraints of economics and ecol­ogy. Bolster, Alexander, and Leavenworth, “The Historical Abundance of Cod on the Nova Scotian Shelf,” in Shifting Baselines: The Past and F­ uture of Ocean Fisheries, ed. Jeremy B. C. Jackson, Karen E. Alexander, and Enric Sala (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2011), 92; Payne, Fishing a Borderless Sea, xvi. 61. Mary C. Ames Journal, 5–6. 5. Fishermen at High Tide

1. Portions of this chapter ­were previously published in two journal articles: “For Cod and Country: Cod Fishermen and the Atlantic Dimensions of Sectionalism in

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TO PAGES 125– 128

Antebellum Amer­i­ca,” Journal of the Early Republic 36, no. 3 (Fall 2016): 493–519; and “Transatlantic Diplomacy, North Atlantic Environments, and the Fisheries Disputes of 1852,” Environmental History 23, no. 4 (October 2018): 774–796. 2. For the midcentury Anglo-­American rapprochement, see H. C. Allen, ­Great Brit­ ain and the United States: A History of Anglo-­American Relations, 1783–1952 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1955); Charles Campbell, From Revolution to Rapprochement: The United States and ­Great Britain, 1783–1900 (New York: Wiley, 1974); Howard Jones, To the Webster-­Ashburton Treaty: A Study in Anglo-­American Relations, 1783–1843 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977); and Kenneth R. Stevens, Border Diplomacy: The Caroline and McLeod Affairs in Anglo-­American–­Canadian Relations, 1837–1842 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1989). Also impor­tant h ­ ere are the so-­called postcolonial readings of Anglo-­American relations. See Kariann Yokota, Unbecoming British: How Revolutionary Amer­i­ca Became a Postcolonial Nation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); and Sam  W. Haynes, Unfinished Revolution: The Early American Republic in a British World (Charlottesville: University of ­Virginia Press, 2010). 3. “Hon. Daniel Webster’s Reception at Marshfield,” Boston Daily Atlas, July 26, 1852. 4. For diplomatic environmental history, see Kurkpatrick Dorsey, Dawn of Conser­ vation Diplomacy: U.S.-­Canadian Wildlife Protection Treaties in the Progressive Era (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1998); Dorsey, Whales and Nation: Environmental Diplomacy on the High Seas (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2013); and Thomas Robertson, Malthusian Moment: Global Population Growth and the Birth of American En­ vironmentalism (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2012). Diplomatic-­ environmental histories remain a small, but quickly growing, subfield, with Dorsey even calling the environment “the ­g reat untapped vein of American diplomatic history.” Dorsey, “International Environmental Issues,” in A Companion to American For­ eign Relations, ed. Robert Schulzinger (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 2003), 33. 5. George A Rose, Cod: The Ecological History of the Atlantic Fisheries (St.  Johns, Newfoundland: Breakwater Books, 2007), 60–70; Bruce B. Collette and Grace Klein-­ MacPhee, eds., Bigelow and Schroeder’s Fishes of the Gulf of Maine, 3rd ed. (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002), 229–234; Deborah Cramer, ­Great ­Waters: An Atlantic Passage (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001), 51–53. 6. Rose, Cod, 117–118; Collette and Klein-­MacPhee, Bigelow and Schroeder’s Fishes, 524–528; Geir Ottersen, Jurgen Alheit, Ken Drinkwater, Kevin Friedland, Eherhard Hagen, and Nils Chr. Stenseth, “The Response of Fish Populations to Ocean Climate Fluctuations,” in Ecosystems and Climate Variation: The North Atlantic—­A Comparative Per­ spective, ed. Nils Chr. Stenseth, Geir Ottorsen, James W. Hurrell, and Andrea Belgrano (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 72–84. 7. Brian Fagan, The ­Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History (New York: Basic Books, 2001); W. Jeffrey Bolster, “Putting the Ocean in Atlantic History: Maritime Communities and Marine Ecol­ogy in the Northwest Atlantic, 1500–1800,” American Historical Review 113, no. 1 (2008): 19–47. 8. Rose, Cod, 70–71, 284–286; Ottersen et al., “Response of Fish Populations,” 74– 77; W. Jeffrey Bolster, The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012), 122–124; Kenneth F. Drinkwater et al., “The Response of Marine Ecosystems to Climate Variability Associated with the North Atlantic Oscillation,” in The North Atlantic Oscillation: Climate Significance and Environ­ mental Impact (Washington, D.C.: American Geophysical Union, 2003), 221–222.

NOTES TO PA GES 129– 132

253

9. Rose, Cod, 117–118; Ottersen et al., “Response of Fish Populations,” 80; Bolster, Mortal Sea, 103–104; Collette and Klein-­MacPhee, Bigelow and Schroeder’s Fishes, 234, 527–528. 10. Bolster, Mortal Sea, 163; 121–122. See also Mark Kurlansky, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World (New York: Walker Publishing, 1997), 121–123. 11. John Lauritz Larson, Laid Waste!: The Culture of Exploitation in Early Amer­i­ca (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020), 136–137. 12. Bolster, Mortal Sea, 163–167 (quotation on 163); W. Jeffrey Bolster, Karen E. Alexander, and William  B. Leavenworth, “The Historical Abundance of Cod on the Nova Scotian Shelf,” in Shifting Baselines: The Past and F­ uture of Ocean Fisheries, ed. Jeremy  B.  C. Jackson, Karen  E. Alexander, and Enric Sala (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2011), 80. 13. “Pro­g ress of Free-­Trade in Foreign Countries,” Manchester Times and Gazette, April 4, 1846. 14. For the selected historiography of f­ ree trade in nineteenth-­century ­Great Britain, see Bernard Semmel, The Rise of ­Free Trade Imperialism: Classical Po­liti­cal Economy, the Empire of ­Free Trade and Imperialism (Oxford: Cambridge University Press, 1970); Anthony Howe, ­Free Trade and Liberal ­England, 1846–1946 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997); Cheryl Schonhardt-­Bailey, From Corn Laws to F­ ree Trade: Interest, Ideas, and Institutions in Historical Perspective (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2006); and Frank Trentmann, ­Free Trade Nation: Commerce, Consumption, and Civil Soci­ ety in Modern Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). 15. Daniel Webster to Henry Laytton Bulwer, September 14, 1850, in The Papers of Daniel Webster: Diplomatic Papers, 1850–1852, ed. Kenneth E. Shewmaker et al. (Hanover, N.H.: 1987), 1:683. 16. Webster to Bulwer, June 24, 1851, in Shewmaker, Papers of Daniel Webster, 1:684–685. 17. John F. Crampton to Webster, July 5, 1852, in Shewmaker, Papers of Daniel Web­ ster, 1:685–686. 18. Amy S. Greenberg, “ ‘The Practicability of Annexing Canada’: Or, the Manifest Destiny of Canada, according to the United States,” in Revolutions across Borders: Jack­ sonian Amer­i­ca and the Canadian Rebellion, ed. Maxime Dagenais and Julien Mauduit (Montreal: McGill-­Queen’s University Press, 2019), 283–284; Robert E. May, Manifest Destiny’s Underworld: Filibustering in Antebellum Amer­i­ca (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 245; Richard W. Van Alstyne, The Rising American Empire (New York: W. W. Norton, 1974), 121–122. 19. “Daniel Webster’s Editorial on the Fisheries Question,” Boston Courier, July 19, 1852, in Shewmaker, Papers of Daniel Webster, 1:689–694. 20. For Webster’s diplomacy during this crisis and more generally, see Kenneth E. Shewmaker, “Daniel Webster and the Politics of Foreign Policy, 1850–1852,” Journal of American History 63, no. 2 (1976): 303–315; Shewmaker, “Daniel Webster and American Conservatism,” in Traditions and Values: American Diplomacy, 1790–1865, ed. Norman A. Graebner (Lanham, Md.: University Press of Amer­i­ca, 1985), 129–151; Shewmaker, “ ‘Hook and line, and bob and sinker’: Daniel Webster and the Fisheries Dispute of 1852,” Diplomatic History 9, no. 2 (1985): 113–129; and Shewmaker, “ ‘Congress only can declare war’ and ‘the President is Commander in Chief ’: Daniel Webster and the War Power,” Diplomatic History 12, no. 4 (1988): 383–409. See also Jay

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TO PAGES 132– 142

Sexton, Debtor Diplomacy: Finance and American Foreign Relations in the Civil War Era, 1837–1873 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 31–40. 21. Milliard Fillmore to Webster, July 20, 1852, in Shewmaker, Papers of Daniel Web­ ster, 1:695. 22. “Hon. Daniel Webster’s Reception at Marshfield,” Boston Daily Atlas, July 26, 1852. 23. Fillmore to Webster, July 25, 1852, in Shewmaker, Papers of Daniel Webster, 1:698. 24. Fillmore to Webster, July 25, 1852, 1:699. 25. Webster to Fillmore, August 1, 1852, in Shewmaker, Papers of Daniel Webster, 1:705. 26. John Crampton to Lord Malmesbury, September 6, 1852, vol. 546, FO 5 Foreign Office General Correspondence before 1906, United States of Amer­i­ca, The National Archives, Kew, London, E ­ ngland. 27. Cong. Globe, 32nd Cong., 1st Sess., 1890. 28. Cong. Globe, 32nd Cong., 1st Sess., 1892. 29. Cong. Globe, 32nd Cong., 1st Sess, 1893. 30. Cong. Globe, 32nd Cong., 1 Sess., app., 894–895. 31. Cong. Globe, 32nd Cong., 1 Sess., 1895. 32. “The Fishery Trou­bles,” Boston Eve­ning Transcript, July 21, 1852. 33. “Probable Settlement of the Fishery Difficulties,” Baltimore Sun, July 30, 1852. 34. “The Fishery Treaty,” Baltimore Sun, July 31, 1852. 35. “The Fisheries Again,” New Orleans Picayune, July 31, 1852. 36. Nancy Reynolds Davison, “E. W. Clay: American Po­liti­cal Caricaturist of the Jacksonian Era” (PhD diss., University of Michigan, 1980), 110–113. 37. Winifred Morgan, An American Icon: ­Brother Jonathan and American Identity (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1988). 38. Amy S. Greenberg, Manifest Manhood and the Antebellum American Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 11–14. For more on US foreign relations and gender, see Kristin L. Hoganson’s field-­defining work Fighting for American Man­ hood: How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-­American and Philippine-­American Wars (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1998). 39. Cong. Globe, 32nd Cong., 1st Sess., app., 923. 40. William Speiden  Jr., With Commodore Perry to Japan: The Journal of William Speiden, Jr., 1852–1855, ed. John A. Wolter, David A. Ranzan, and John J. McDonough (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2013), 20. 41. “How Mackerel Are Caught,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 9, no. 53 (October 1854): 674. 42. Michael B. Pass, “A Black Ship on Red Shores: Commodore Matthew Perry, Prince Edward Island, and the Fishery Question of 1852–1853,” Acadiensis: Journal of the History of the Atlantic Region 49, no. 2 (2020): 83–84. 43. Cong. Globe, 32nd Cong., 1st Sess., app., 915, 917. 44. Cong. Globe, 32nd Cong., 1st Sess., 1891. 45. Haynes, Unfinished Revolution, 294–295. 46. Cong. Globe, 32nd Cong., 1st Sess., 1893. 47. “Cod Fishery and Whiggery,” Daily Ohio Statesman, August 9, 1852. 48. “The Imbecility of Whiggery in Power,” New-­Hampshire Patriot, August 4, 1852. 49. “The War Cloud,” Mississippi ­Free Trader, August 11, 1852.

NOTES TO PA GES 142– 148

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50. “A Good Sign,” Plattsburgh Republican, August 14, 1852. 51. “The Fishery Question,” Plattsburgh Republican, August 14, 1852. 52. “West India Emancipation: Speech of Rev. Theodore Parker,” Liberator, August 27, 1852. 53. For more on Perry’s cruise of the fisheries, see Pass, “Black Ship on Red Shores.” 54. “Order to Investigate Fisheries Dispute with Canada,” John P. Kennedy to Matthew C. Perry, July 28th, 1852, in The New American State Papers: Naval Affairs, vol. 2, Diplomatic Acitivites, ed. K. Jack Bauer (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1981), 56–64. 55. Matthew C. Perry to John P. Kennedy, Secretary of the Navy, August __th 1852, Despatches from U.S. Consuls in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada, 1835–1906 (National Archives Microfilm Publication T485, roll 2); Rec­ords of the Department of State, Rec­ord Group 59; National Archives, College Park, Md. (hereafter cited as Despatches from U.S. Consuls in St. John). 56. Bolster, Mortal Sea, 88–92, 102–105. 57. For the ebb and flow of mackerel catches and the expanding footprint of US fishermen during the ­middle de­cades of the nineteenth c­ entury, see Bolster, Mortal Sea, 106–108, 286; Wayne M. O’Leary, Maine Sea Fisheries: The Rise and Fall of a Native Industry, 1830–1890 (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1996), 96–107, 344–349; Harold Adams Innis, The Cod Fisheries: The History of an International Economy (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1940), 323–331; and Lorenzo Sabine, Report on the Principal Fisheries of the American Seas (Washington, D.C.: Robert Armstrong, 1853), 179–191. Brian J. Payne discusses how US expansion into previously unutilized ­waters was underwritten by the fishing bounty and federal support. See Payne, Fishing a Bor­ derless Sea: Environmental Territorialism in the North Atlantic, 1818–1910 (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2010), 7–14, 21–26. 58. Sabine, Report on the Principal Fisheries, 184–186; Bolster, Mortal Sea, 102–109. 59. Perry to Kennedy, August __th 1852, Despatches from U.S. Consuls in St. John. 60. Kennedy to Perry, July 28th, 1852, New American State Papers. 61. Perry to Kennedy, August __th 1852, Despatches from U.S. Consuls in St. John. 62. Although Perry remarked on the friendly disposition of some of the residents of British North Amer­i­ca, he did note that “a number of t­ hese vessels particularly t­ hose employed in the codfishery are commanded and partly manned by citizens of the Provinces in contravention of the law who embark their capital in American bottoms to secure not only the bounty granted by Congress but the privileges also of introducing their fish into the United States ­free of duty.” For ­labor migration, and the consequential growth of smuggling, between the British provinces and New ­England, see Innis, Cod Fisheries, 333–335. Payne also notes the importance of transnational connections between US fishermen and Maritimers and the informal economy that developed around the US expansion into British colonial ­waters. Payne calls the circumstances that surrounded t­ hese interactions “informal codes of conduct” that operated the most smoothly apart from the influence of outsiders and larger geopo­liti­ cal concerns. See Payne, Fishing a Borderless Sea, xi–­xvii, 1–7. 63. Perry to Kennedy, August __th 1852, Despatches from U.S. Consuls in St. John. 64. Israel Andrews to Daniel Webster, August 21, 1852, Despatches from U.S. Consuls in St. John, roll 2. 65. Andrews to Webster, August 21, 1852.

25 6 NOTES

TO PAGES 149– 155

66. Edward Everett to Joseph R. Ingersoll, December 4, 1852, Diplomatic Instructions of the Department of State, 1801–1906 (National Archives Microfilm Publication M77, roll 75); Rec­ords of the Department of State, Rec­ord Group 59; National Archives, College Park, Md. 67. William Marcy to James Buchanan, March 11, 1854, Diplomatic Instructions of the Department of State, 1801–1906. 68. John Crampton to Lord Malmesbury, July 26, 1852, vol. 546, FO 5 Foreign Office General Correspondence before 1906, United States of Amer­i­ca, The National Archives, Kew, London, ­England. 69. Crampton to Malmesbury, September 6, 1852. 70. Crampton to Malmesbury, September 6, 1852. 71. “Some British Liberalism,” Daily Picayune, November 12, 1852. 72. For the revisionist scholarship of Civil War causation that privileges the demise of the Second Party System as the key event that lead to the sectionalization of US politics, see Michael F. Holt, The Po­liti­cal Crisis of the 1850s (New York: Wiley, 1978); Joel H. Silbey, The Partisan Imperative: The Dynamics of American Politics before the Civil War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985); Silbey, Party over Section: The Rough and Ready Presidential Election of 1848 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009); and William  E. Gienapp, “The Crisis of American Democracy: The Po­liti­cal System and the Coming of the Civil War,” in Why the Civil War Came, ed. Gabor S. Boritt (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 79–124. 73. Cong. Globe, 32nd Cong., 2nd Sess., 602, 953–956; Daily National Era, June 14, 1854; Daily Picayune, June 15, 1854. 74. For voting patterns of the Thirty-­third Congress, see Gerald W. Wolff, The Kansas-­Nebraska Bill: Party, Section, and the Coming of the Civil War (New York: Revisionist Press, 1977). 75. Daily National Era, June 17, 1854; Salem Register, July 31, 1854. See also Baltimore Sun, July 27, 1854; and Plain Dealer, June 15, 1854. 76. Boston Eve­ning Transcript, June 6 and August 3, 1854. 77. Daily National Era, June 14, 1854; Newark Daily Advertiser, June 5, 1854. For the broader context of slavery and territorial expansion in the aftermath of the US-­Mexican War, see David M. Potter, The Impeding Crisis, 1848–1861 (New York: Harper and Row, 1976), 18–224. Southern territorial aspirations are discussed in Robert E. May, The Southern Dream of a Ca­rib­bean Empire (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1973); Thomas R. Hietala, Manifest Design: American Exceptionalism and Empire (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2003); Matthew Pratt Guterl, American Mediterranean: Southern Slaveholders in the Age of Emancipation (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2008); and Walter Johnson, River of Dark Dreams: Slavery and Empire in the Cotton Kingdom (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2013). 78. Cong. Globe, 32nd Cong., 1st Sess., app., 917; Daily Picayune, August 5, 1852; Mid­ dletown Constitution, August 11, 1852. 79. Albany Eve­ning Journal, June  8, 1854; Daily Picayune, June  14, 1854; Daily Commercial Register, June 17, 1854; Schenectady Reflector, August 4, 1854; Vermont Jour­ nal, December 29, 1854; Daily National Era, June 14, 1854; Daily National Intelligencer, August 2, 1854; Daily Picayune, June 11, 1854; Allen, ­Great Britain and the United States, 450. Daily National Era, June 10, 1854; Salem Register, June 15, 1854; Daily Commercial Register, June 17, 1854. Boston Courier, August 3, 1854; Salem Register, August 3, 1854.

NOTES TO PA GES 156– 164

257

80. “Reports of the Majority and Minority of the Select Committee on the Origin and Character of Fishing Bounties and Allowances,” S. Doc. No.  368, 26th  Cong., 1st Sess. (1840), 4, 45. 81. “Reports of the Majority and Minority,” 51, 52, 58. 82. “Reports of the Majority and Minority,” 58, 13; Eastern Argus, March 18, 1840, quoted in O’Leary, Maine Sea Fisheries, 57. Emphasis in original. 83. For studies of the Whigs and Demo­crats u ­ nder the Second Party System, see Daniel Walker Howe, The Po­liti­cal Culture of the American Whigs (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979); Harry L. Watson, Liberty and Power: The Politics of Jacksonian Amer­i­ca (New York: Hill and Wang, 1990); and Amy S. Greenberg, Manifest Manhood and Antebellum American Empire, 11–12. 84. “Reports of the Majority and Minority,” 63, 64. 85. O’Leary, Maine Sea Fisheries, 53; Cong. Globe, 35th Cong., 1st Sess., 1991, 1993, 1996–1997, 1934, 1935. 6. Sea Changes

1. Wayne M. O’Leary, Maine Sea Fisheries: The Rise and Fall of a Native Industry, 1830– 1890 (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1996), 53–57; Brian J. Payne, Fishing a Borderless Sea: Environmental Territorialism in the North Atlantic, 1818–1910 (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2010), 13; Thomas Blake Earle, “For Cod and Country: Cod Fishermen and the Atlantic Dimensions of Sectionalism in Antebellum Amer­i­ca,” Journal of the Early Republic 36, no. 3 (2016): 493–519. 2. “Repealing All Laws or Parts of Laws Allowing Bounties to Vessels Employed in the Bank or Other Cod Fisheries,” S. Doc. 1039, 36th Cong., 1st Sess. (1860), 8, 10. 3. Cong. Globe, 39th Cong., 1st Sess., 4070. 4. For the “fishing revolution,” see W. Jeffrey Bolster, The Mortal Sea: Fishing the At­ lantic in the Age of Sail (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012), 163–167. See also Payne, Fishing a Borderless Sea, 13–14; O’Leary, Maine Sea Fisheries, 74–77. Sylvanus Smith, Fisheries of Cape Ann: A Collection of Reminiscent Narrative of Fishing and Coasting Trips, Descriptive Stories of Sandy Bay and the Harbor, Also Some In­ter­est­ing Comment on Fisheries Legislation and the Cause of the Decline of the Fisheries (Gloucester, Mass.: Press of Gloucester Times, 1915), 53. 5. Matthew Mc­Ken­zie, Breaking the Banks: Repre­sen­ta­tions and Realities in New ­England Fisheries, 1866–1966 (Amherst: University of Mas­sa­chu­setts Press, 2018), 24–35. 6. Frances Trollope, Domestic Manners of the Americans (London: Whittaker, Treacher, 1832), 196–197, 226, 239. 7. Miss Beecher’s Domestic Receipt Book: Designed as a Supplement to Her Treatise on Do­ mestic Economy, 3rd ed. (New York: Harper and ­Brothers, 1850), 64. 8. O’Leary, Maine Sea Fisheries, 262–265. 9. Award of the Fishery Commission: Documents and Proceedings of the Halifax Commis­ sion, 1877 u­ nder the Treaty of Washington of May 8, 1871 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1878), 2:2283. 10. O’Leary, Maine Sea Fisheries, 265–266. 11. Joshua Specht, Red Meat Republic: A Hoof-­to-­Table History of How Beef Changed Amer­i­ca (Prince­ton, N.J.: Prince­ton University Press, 2019).

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TO PAGES 164– 166

12. For the ebb and flow of mackerel catches during the ­middle de­cades of the nineteenth ­century, see Bolster, Mortal Sea, 106–108, 286; O’Leary, Maine Sea Fisheries, 96–107, 344–349; and Lorenzo Sabine, Report on the Principal Fisheries of the American Seas (Washington, D.C.: Robert Armstrong, 1853), 179–191. 13. Ariel Ron, Grassroots Leviathan: Agricultural Reform and the Rural North in the Slave­ holding Republic (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press), 186–189. 14. For the Republican Party’s economic program, and its focus on ­free ­labor, see Eric Foner, ­Free Soil, ­Free ­Labor, F­ ree Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970); Heather Cox Richardson, The Greatest Nation of the Earth: Republican Economic Policies during the Civil War (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997); Jay Sexton, Debtor Diplomacy: Finance and Amer­ ican Foreign Relations in the Civil War Era, 1837–1873 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005); and Marc-­William Palen, The “Conspiracy” of F­ ree Trade: The Anglo-­American Strug­ gle over Empire and Economic Globalization, 1846–1896 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016). 15. A l­ater report compiled at the request of Secretary Seward by the director of the US Coast Survey, Benjamin Mills Peirce, described t­ hese far-­north Atlantic fisheries as the “most extensive and among the best in the world” and said that “­there is no part of the world where cod fishing can be so extensively and easily carried on as in Iceland.” Peirce, A Report on the Resources of Iceland and Greenland (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1868), 2, 31. 16. Brian Rouleau, With Sails Whitening ­Every Sea: Mari­ners and the Making of an American Maritime Empire (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2014), 195–199. 17. O’Leary, Maine Sea Fisheries, 69–70. For the structural changes in the US Navy during ­these de­cades, see William P. Leeman, The Long Road to Annapolis: The Found­ ing of the Naval Acad­emy and the Emerging American Republic (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010); James C. Rentfrow, Home Squadron: The U.S. Navy on the North Atlantic Station (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2014); Scott Mobley, Progressives in Navy Blue: Maritime Strategy, American Empire, and the Transformation of U.S. Naval Identity (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2018); and Mark  C. Hunter, “The U.S. Naval Acad­emy and Its Summer Cruises: Professionalization in the Antebellum U.S. Navy, 1845–1861,” Journal of Military History 70, no. 4 (2006): 963– 994. But apart from t­ hese material changes, the postbellum period was a “dark age” for the US Navy, says Stephen Howarth, when such maritime pursuits had l­ittle purchase in the popu­lar imagination, given the lack of a perceived need for a robust naval force. See Howarth, To Shining Sea: A History of the United States Navy, 1775–1991 (New York: Random House, 1991), 217–225. 18. Recent scholarship that looks at secession and the Civil War beyond the United States includes Don H. Doyle, The Cause of All Nations: An International History of the American Civil War (New York: Basic Books, 2015); David T. Gleeson and Simon Lewis, eds., The Civil War as Global Conflict: Transnational Meanings of the American Civil War (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2014); Andre M. Fleche, The Revolu­ tion of 1861: The American Civil War in the Age of Nationalist Conflict (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012); and Paul Quigley, Shifting Grounds: Nationalism and the American South, 1848–1865 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). For Anglo-­ American relations during the war years, see Phillip E. Myers, Caution and Coopera­ tion: The American Civil War in British-­American Relations (Kent, Ohio: Kent State

NOTES TO PA GES 166– 169

259

University Press, 2008); Howard Jones, Blue and Gray Diplomacy: A History of Union and Confederate Foreign Relations (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010); R. J. M. Blackett, Divided Hearts: Britain and the American Civil War (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2001); and Howard Jones, Union in Peril: The Crisis over British Intervention in the Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993). 19. For Confederate diplomacy, the classic in the field remains Frank Owsley, King Cotton Diplomacy: Foreign Relations of the Confederate States of Amer­i­ca (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1931). See also Douglas Ball, Financial Failure and Confederate Defeat (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991); Charles M. Hubbard, The Burden of Confederate Diplomacy (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1998); Sexton, Debtor Diplomacy, 134–189; and Marc-­William Pale, “The Civil War’s Forgotten Transatlantic Tariff Debate and the Confederacy’s Diplomacy of F ­ ree Trade,” Journal of the Civil War Era 3, no. 1 (2013): 35–61. 20. The maritime dimensions of the Civil War have not received the kind of thoroughgoing treatment the terrestrial war has. For an overview, see James  M. McPherson, War on the ­Waters: The Union and Confederate Navies, 1861–1865 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012). See also Michael J. Bennett, Union Jacks: Yankee Sailors in the Civil War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), and for the Trent affair, see Gordon H. Warren, Fountain of Discontent: The Trent Af­ fair and Freedom of the Seas (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1981). 21. Adrian Cook, The Alabama Claims: American Politics and Anglo-­American Relations, 1865–1872 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1975), 15–17. See also Frank J. Merli, The Alabama, British Neutrality, and the American Civil War, ed. David  M. Fahey (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004). 22. Greg Marquis, In Armageddon’s Shadow: The Civil War and Canada’s Maritime Prov­ inces (Montreal: McGill-­Queen’s University Press, 1998), 151, 221–222, 238–239. 23. Cook, Alabama Claims, 43–72. 24. Charles Sumner, The Alabama Claims: Speech of the Honourable Charles Sumner, Delivered in Executive Session of the United States Senate, on Tuesday April 13, 1869 against the Ratification of the Johnson-­Clarendon Treaty for the Settlement of the Alabama Claims (London: Stevens Bros., 1869), 8 (first two quotations), 17 (third and fourth quotation), 15 (final quotation). Emphasis in original. 25. Sumner, Alabama Claims, 14 (first three quotation), 32 (fourth quotation), 17 (fifth and sixth quotation). 26. David Donald, Charles Sumner and the Rights of Man (New York: Random House, 1970), 394–398; Cook, Alabama Claims, 105–109. 27. For more on Britain’s international abolitionist leanings, see Richard Huzzey, Freedom Burning: Anti-­Slavery and Empire in Victorian Britain (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2012). 28. John Lothrop Motley, “Memoir,” Folder: 1869 Se­lections, Box: 308, John Bassett Moore File, Hamilton Fish Papers, Library of Congress (hereafter cited as Moore File, Fish Papers). 29. Donald, Charles Sumner, 391–392; Cook, Alabama Claims, 82–83. 30. Sumner, Alabama Claims, 26–32 (quotation on 32). 31. At the time, Sumner’s speech was wildly popu­lar, if polarizing. Historians have been likewise split in their appraisal. Sumner’s biographer David Donald describes the

26 0 NOTES

TO PAGES 170– 176

speech as popu­lar among a US population still prone to bouts of intense Anglophobia, but ultimately reckless, as such fiery rhe­toric had the potential to seriously alienate British policymakers and thus forestall any chance for reconciliation. Donald attributes Sumner’s motives for the speech largely to a desire to take the reins of the nation’s foreign policy, and in this he was successful, if only briefly. Adrian Cook has harsher words for Sumner. At times attributing the violent rhe­toric to Sumner’s personal frustration on account of a failing marriage and charges of impotence, Cook derides the speech for setting US demands for a settlement unattainably high and thus undercutting any diplomatic efforts. Fi­nally, Jay Sexton notes that Sumner’s speech had the unfortunate consequence that US bonds dropped 10 ­percent on the London Stock Exchange. Donald, Charles Sumner, 377–394; Cook, Alabama Claims, 89–102; Sexton, Debtor Diplomacy, 205–208. See also Palen, “Conspiracy” of F­ ree Trade, 79; and Duncan Andrew Campbell, Unlikely Allies: Britain, Amer­i­ca, and the Victorian Origins of the Spe­ cial Relationship (London: Bloomsbury, 2007), 183–184. 32. “Our Neighbor the Canadians—­Their Chickens Coming Home to Roost,” San Francisco Eve­ning Bulletin, September 19, 1865. 33. Payne, Fishing a Borderless Sea, 31. 34. “Message of the President on Reciprocal Relations with British Provinces, and Condition of Fisheries,” S. Doc. No. 1277, 39th Cong., 2nd Sess. (1867), 12, 18–19. 35. “Report on State of Trade between the United States and British Provinces,” H. Doc. No. 145, 41st Cong., 3rd Sess. (1871), 6, 17, 6, 18. 36. Payne, Fishing a Borderless Sea, 30–35. 37. Richard D. Cutts to William H. Seward, April 2 and 7, 1866, Canadian Fisheries: Letters, Notes, Reports, Etc., 1816–1869, United States–­Great Britain Fisheries Commission ­under the Reciprocity Treaty of 1854, E.145 Box 2, RG 76 Boundary and Claims Commission, National Archives and Rec­ords Administration II, College Park, Md. (hereafter cited as Canadian Fisheries). 38. “Special Instruction to Fishery Officers,” enclosed in Sir John Young to Lord Granville, May 4, 1870, vol. 302, FO 414 Foreign Office Confidential Print, North Amer­ i­ca, The National Archives, Kew, London, ­England. 39. C. I. Hamilton, The Making of the Modern Admiralty: British Naval Policy-­Making, 1805–1927 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 175–176. 40. Cutts to Seward, April 7, 1866, Canadian Fisheries. 41. “Cod,” in The American Cyclopaedia, ed. George Ripley and Charles A. Dana (New York: D. Appleton, 1879), 4:793. 42. Cutts to Seward, January 7, 1869, Canadian Fisheries. See also Cutts to Seward January 9, 1869, Canadian Fisheries. 43. Daniel Sickles to Hamilton Fish (hereafter HF), March  23, 1871, Folder: March 1871, and May 12, 1871, Folder: May 1871, Box: 310, Moore File, Fish Papers. Emphasis in original. 44. William H. Seward to HF, March 6, 1871, Folder: March 1871, Box: 310, Moore File, Fish Papers. 45. Cutts to Seward, January 7, 1869, Canadian Fisheries. 46. Walter LaFeber, The New Empire: An Interpretation of American Expansion, 1860– 1898 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press 1963), 1–61. Much historiography on late nineteenth-­century US foreign policy has centered on the question of w ­ hether the Spanish-­American War, and the resulting insurgency in the Philippines, was the

NOTES TO PA GES 176– 178

261

culmination of US policy or a divergence from long. The followers of Samuel Flagg Bemis long held sway in the discipline in seeing the events of 1898 as a “­great aberration.” See Samuel Flagg Bemis, A Diplomatic History of the United States (New York: Henry Holt, 1936); Julius W. Pratt, Expansionists of 1898: The Acquisition of Hawaii and the Spanish Islands (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1936); Ernest R. May, Imperial Democracy: The Emergence of Amer­i­ca as a ­Great Power (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1961); and H. W. Brands, The Reckless De­cade: Amer­i­ca in the 1890s (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995). Richard Hofstader’s “psychic crisis of the 1890s” is in line with this historiography by understanding the de­cade as fundamentally dif­fer­ent, an aberration in its own right that resulted in the aggression of 1898. See Hofstader, “Cuba, the Philippines, and Manifest Destiny,” in The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays (1951; repr., Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996), 145–187. Since the 1950s the so-­called Wisconsin School has assailed this position, contending that 1898 was unexceptional in the history of the nineteenth-­century United States. This eco­nom­ ically informed argument has, for the most part, become the accepted wisdom. See William Appleman Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (New York: World Publishing, 1959); Robert L. Beisner, From the Old Diplomacy to the New, 1865–1900 (Wheeling, Ill.: Harland Davidson, 1975); and Thomas Schoonover, ­Uncle Sam’s War of 1898 and the Origins of Globalization (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2003). 47. Eric T. L. Love, Race over Empire: Racism and U.S. Imperialism, 1865–1900 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004), 27–72. 48. “Message of the President on Reciprocal Relations,” 19. 49. “Message of the President on Reciprocal Relations,” 28, 54. 50. M. W. Brown to Horace Greeley, April 30, 1869, Folder: January–­March, 1869, Box: 308, Moore File, Fish Papers. 51. George Bancroft to HF, October 8, 1869, Folder: October, 1869, Box: 308, Moore File, Fish Papers. 52. In the Grant administration, which is often derided as marked by scandal and corruption on the part of Grant’s appointees, Hamilton Fish stands out for his competence. Historians have given the secretary of state high marks, calling him “the most capable member of the administration.” Stephen McCullough, “Avoiding War: The Foreign Policy of Ulysses S. Grant and Hamilton Fish,” in A Companion to the Recon­ struction Presidents, 1865–1881, ed. Edward O. Frantz (Malden, Mass.: Wiley-­Blackwell, 2014), 315. The most complete account of Fish’s life and po­liti­cal accomplishments remains Allan Nevins’s magisterial, two-­volume biography, Hamilton Fish: The Inner His­ tory of the Grant Administration (New York: F. Ungar, 1936, 1957). Nevins praises Fish’s tenure as secretary of state, giving him the most credit for the settlement of the Ala­ bama claims and the thawing of Anglo-­American relations. 53. Donald, Charles Sumner, 406–413, 441–458, 463–473; Nevins, Hamilton Fish, 449– 469; Cook, Alabama Claims, 115–123. 54. HF to Thurlow Weed, February 4, 1871, Folder: February 1871, Box: 310, Moore File, Fish Papers. 55. HF to E. B. Washburne, February 20, 1871, Folder: February 1871, Box: 310, Moore File, Fish Papers. 56. Motley, “Memoir.” 57. HF to Bishop McIlvaine, May 25, 1869, Folder: May, 1869, Box: 308, Moore File, Fish Papers.

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TO PAGES 178– 181

58. HF to John C. Hamilton, September 4, 1869, Folder: September 1869, Box: 308, Moore File, Fish Papers. 59. ­Toward the end of the ­century, a growing Anglo-­American rapprochement would come to define the transatlantic relationship, and statesmen on ­either side of the Atlantic ­were quick to comment on the common bonds of Anglo-­Saxonism. See Bradford Perkins, The ­Great Rapprochement: E­ ngland and the United States, 1895–1914 (New York: Atheneum, 1968); Stuart Anderson, Race and Rapprochement: Anglo-­Saxonism and Anglo-­American Relations, 1895–1904 (Rutherford, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1981); and Paul A. Kramer, “Empires, Exceptions, and Anglo-­Saxons: Race and Rule between the British and United States Empires, 1880–1910,” Journal of Amer­ ican History 88, no. 4 (2002): 1315–1353. Of course, Anglo-­Saxonism and racial superiority had long been part of US foreign relations. See Reginald Horsman, Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Racial-­Anglo-­Saxonism (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981). 60. Sir John Young to Lord Granville, July 30, 1869, vol. 302, FO 414 Foreign Office Confidential Print, North Amer­i­ca, The National Archives, Kew, London, ­England. 61. “Report on State of Trade,” 19. This trade-­ off—­ the inshore fisheries for security—­was ­earlier confirmed by Richard D. Cutts, who informed Secretary Seward in 1866 that fishermen favored “the Bay of Fundy, the Gulf [of St. Lawrence] . . . ​the valuable fishing grounds in the Strait of Newfoundland and on the north coast of the Island of Prince Edward; the coast of Labrador . . . ​and the fisheries on the west and on part of the southern coast of Newfoundland,” as ­these w ­ aters “constitute the off shore fisheries and are of infinitely greater value than the in-­shore.” Cutts to Seward, April 7, 1866, Canadian Fisheries. Cutts reaffirmed this point two years ­later, saying that “the American fishermen would be willing to give up the in-­shore fisheries on the Canadian coasts, if, by so d­ oing, they could secure t­hose of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland.” Cutts to Seward, June 24, 1868, Canadian Fisheries. 62. The pre­ce­dent of purchasing new territory was well established by the 1860s, as the Gadsden and Alaskan purchases attest. Attempts had been made to purchase Cuba since the 1840s, and the Grant administration considered d­ oing so, if only to quell the growing unrest with Spanish rule on the island and avoid a confrontation with Cuba. The attempt to annex the Dominican Republic was frustrated as Congress, led by Charles Sumner, dealt the administration one of its most significant foreign policy blows. 63. “Monday, March 20, 1871,” Folder: J. C. B. Davis/Treaty of Washington 1871/ Journal Part II, Box: 311, Moore File, Fish Papers. 64. “Message of the President, Treaty with G ­ reat Britain,” S.  E. Doc. No. A, 42nd Cong., 1st Sess. (1871), 49. 65. “Message of the President, Treaty with ­Great Britain,” 186. 66. “April 14, 1871,” Folder: J. C. B. Davis/Treaty of Washington/Journal Part III, Box: 311, Moore File, Fish Papers. 67. “Message of the President, Treaty with ­Great Britain,” 186. 68. Sir John Young to Lord Granville, July 30, 1869. 69. “Monday, March 20, 1871.” 70. “Monday, March 27, 1871.” Folder: J. C. B. Davis/Treaty of Washington 1871/ Journal Part II, Box: 311, Moore File, Fish Papers. 71. “Monday, March 20, 1871,” and “Wednesday, March 22, 1871,” Folder: J. C. B. Davis/Treaty of Washington 1871/ Journal Part II, Box: 311, Moore File, Fish Papers.

NOTES TO PA GES 181– 182

263

72. “Message of the President, Treaty with G ­ reat Britain,” 186. In one of the more detailed accounts of the Treaty of Washington negotiations, Adrian Cook remarks that the fisheries questions accounted for “most of the trou­ble,” which resulted largely from the Canadian MacDonald’s obstinacy. Cook, Alabama Claims, 171. 73. The international arbitration, the first of its kind, would meet in Geneva beginning in December, and fi­nally decide in 1872 that ­Great Britain was responsible for the depredations of the Alabama, the Florida, and the Shenandoah, but not, to Fish’s chagrin, the Georgia. The final settlement came to $15.5 million, and it made no reference to “indirect claims”—­which is to say, claims supported by Sumner and his followers that G ­ reat Britain’s tacit support of the Confederacy prolonged the war by years, further draining federal coffers. The British had thought the indirect claims w ­ ere dropped at Washington, but the US del­e­ga­tion to Geneva included ­those claims in their case on account of the vague and evasive wording of the treaty. A ­ fter much wrangling, ­those claims ­were dropped and the work of the arbitration commission continued with ­little interruption. Adrian Cook offers harsh words for Fish, calling him “­either a knave or a fool” for allowing the inclusion of the indirect claims in the Americans’ case at Geneva. Cook concludes by saying, “It is not easy to justify his [Fish’s] reputation as a ­g reat secretary of state upon his conduct of the Alabama Claims negotiations.” Cook, Alabama Claims, 207–216, 233–240 (quotation on 216). 74. On the ­whole, historians have concluded that while the Treaty of Washington may not have been a major watershed in Anglo-­American relations, it did lay the groundwork for the late-­century rapprochement. Cook has perhaps the strongest words in his appraisal of the Treaty of Washington, cautioning historians against placing too much emphasis on the importance of the treaty in international history. Despite the treaty providing for the first instance of international arbitration, it did not become a major pre­ce­dent in international jurisprudence on account of the constant quarreling over the indirect claims. But Cook notes that the treaty was impor­tant for Anglo-­American relations b­ ecause the “friendship gained in strength and depth from the testing time of the indirect claims,” although “the flowering of Anglo-­American friendship had to wait u ­ ntil the opening of the new c­ entury, a fresh set of international groupings, and changed national circumstances.” The major motive for peace, Cook observes, was the fact that discord simply cost too much at a time when the United States was in desperate need of foreign investment, a point that resonates with Jay Sexton’s work, which views the treaty as opening “a new chapter in the history of Anglo-­American relations” despite leaving “some of the prickliest issues unresolved,” including the fisheries question. Duncan Andrew Campbell vacillates more than Sexton, remarking that if “the Treaty of Washington did not turn them into good friends,” it did “at the very least make such an event pos­si­ble.” Histories more explic­itly focusing on the fishing issue examine the implications of t­hese po­liti­cal changes on l­abor. Wayne M. O’Leary observes that “diplomatic initiatives opened the door to unlimited Canadian participation in the American fishing industry and made a greatly expanded pool of cheap ­labor available to New ­England’s fish merchants.” The 1870s, then, was a glass half-­f ull, or perhaps empty, as Canadian fishermen w ­ ere both competing in the US market and also providing cheap ­labor, thus reinforcing the capitalization and centralization of the industry during this period. Brian J. Payne observes that the treaty was more problematic, especially for Canadians, as it disrupted ­labor regimes that w ­ ere most often regulated by local norms, not the imposition of outsiders. Cook, Alabama

26 4 NOTES

TO PAGES 182– 188

Claims, 241–245; Sexton, Debtor Diplomacy, 215–216, 239–240; Campbell, Unlikely Allies, 185–187; O’Leary, Maine Sea Fisheries, 205; Payne, Fishing a Borderless Sea, 50–51, 5–56. See also Palen, “Conspiracy” of ­Free Trade, 77–82; George C. Herring, From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations since 1776 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 255; Charles S. Campbell, The Transformation of American Foreign Relations, 1865–1900 (New York: Harper and Row, 1976), 25–49; Caleb Cushing, The Treaty of Washington: Its Nego­ tiation, Execution, and the Discussions Relating Thereto (New York: Harper and B ­ rothers, 1873); Nevins, Hamilton Fish, 470–493; and Harold A. Innis, The Cod Fisheries: The History of an International Economy (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1940). 75. Samuel B. Ruggles to HF, May 25, 1871; Simon Cameron to HF, May 25, 1871; Cyrus W. Field to HF, May 30, 1871; HF to Orlando Mead, May 30, 1871, Folder: May, 1871, Box: 311, Moore File, Fish Papers. 76. Canadian Privy Council to John Young, Baron Lisgar, July 28, 1871, FO 881 Foreign Office Confidential Print (Numerical), 2288 United States: Correspondence British North American Fisheries, The National Archives, Kew, London, ­England. 77. Ebenezer R. Hoar to HF, May 29, 1871, Folder: May, 1871, Box: 311; HF to Hoar, June 15, 1871, Folder: June, 1871, Box: 311, Moore File, Fish Papers. Emphasis in original. 78. “Dif­fer­ent View of the Same Object,” San Francisco Eve­ning Bulletin, June 3, 1871. 7. Abandoning the Fishermen and Embracing the British

1. Philip  E. Myers, Dissolving Tensions: Rapprochement and Resolution in British-­ American-­Canadian Relations in the Treaty of Washington Era, 1865–1914 (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2015). 2. “The Washington Treaty,” San Francisco Daily Eve­ning Bulletin, June 13, 1871. 3. “Memorial of Boston Committee on Fisheries on American Fishery Affected by the Treaty of Washington,” H. Doc. No. 1525, 42nd Cong., 2nd Sess. (1872), 2–4. 4. “Memorial of Boston Committee,” 2–4. 5. W. Jeffrey Bolster, The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012), 90–102. 6. Dean Conrad Allard Jr., Spencer Fullerton Baird and the U.S. Fish Commission: A Study in the History of American Science (New York: Arno Press, 1978), 69–86; Tim D. Smith, Scaling Fisheries: The Science of Mea­sur­ing the Effects of Fishing, 1855–1955 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 39–40; Matthew Mc­Ken­zie, Clearing the Coastline: The Nineteenth-­Century Ecological and Cultural Transformation of Cape Cod (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New ­England, 2010), 112–136. 7. “Congressional Bill Creating Fish Commission, 1871,” Box 67: United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries, 1871–1888, Rec­ord Unit 7002 Spencer Fullerton Baird Papers, 1833–1889, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Washington, D.C. (hereafter cited as Baird Papers). 8. “Congressional Bill.” 9. Mc­Ken­zie, Clearing the Coastline, 133–136. For a discussion of the early work of the commission, see Allard, Spencer Fullerton Baird, 87–131. 10. Susan Schulten, Mapping the Nation: History and Cartography in Nineteenth-­Century Amer­i­ca (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012), esp. chapter 5, “The Cartographic Consolidation of Amer­i­ca,” 157–195.

NOTES TO PA GES 189– 193

265

11. For a discussion of the pro­cess of professionalization during the second half of the nineteenth c­ entury, see Robert Wiebe, The Search for Order, 1877–1920 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1967); Charles Postel, The Populist Vision (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); and Paul Starr, The Social Transformation of American Medicine: The Rise of a Sovereign Profession and the Making of a Vast Industry (New York: Basic Books, 1982). 12. “Compensation: Congressional Rec­ord and Excerpts, 1888,” Box 67: United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries, 1871–1888, Baird Papers. 13. “Compensation.” 14. “A Distinguished Immigrant—­Professor Baird’s Eu­ro­pean Carp,” American Ag­ riculturist 29, no. 1 (1880): 13–14. 15. Allard calls the “program of fish culture” inaugurated by USFC in 1872 as joining “a movement with deep historical roots.” Allard, Spencer Fullerton, 111. Additionally, it was George Perkins Marsh’s experiments with fish culture in Vermont in the 1850s that would l­ater inspire Baird and the USFC. See David Lowenthal, introduction to George Perkins Marsh, Man and Nature (1864; repr., Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2003), xxv, 302–305. See also Allard, Spencer Fullerton Baird, 114–115. Allard also points to the French as having developed modern fish culture (111–112). 16. “Message of the President Transmitting Communication from Minister at Paris on Proposed Exhibition of Fishery and ­Water Culture,” S. E. Doc. No. 1238, 39th Cong., 1st Sess. (1866), 2–5. For more on Coste, see Christine Keiner, The Oyster Question: Sci­ entists, Watermen, and the Mary­land Chesapeake Bay since 1880 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2009), 66–68. 17. For the mobilization of fishermen as conservative images in po­liti­cal rhe­toric, see Matthew Mc­Ken­zie, “Iconic Fishermen and the Fates of New E ­ ngland Fisheries Regulations, 1883–1912,” Environmental History 17, no. 1 (2012): 3–28. 18. United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries, Part I, Report on the Condition of the Sea Fisheries of the South Coast of New E­ ngland in 1871 and 1872 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1873), vii, xiii. 19. Quoted in Mark Kurlansky, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World (New York: Walker Publishing, 1997), 122. 20. Report on the Condition of the Sea Fisheries, xviii, vii, xxiv, xxx. 21. Report on the Condition of the Sea Fisheries, xxx. 22. Bolster cites a Mas­sa­chu­setts law from 1647 that regulated the use of weirs. Bolster, Mortal Sea, 56. Second Report of the Rec­ord Commissioners of the City of Boston; Con­ taining the Boston Rec­ords, 1634–1660, and the Book of Possessions (Boston, 1881), 11. 23. Report on the Condition of the Sea Fisheries, vii, xix. 24. Bolster, Mortal Sea, 131. 25. United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries, Part II, Report of the Commissioner for 1872 and 1873 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1874), viii. For more on experiments with foreign carp, see Glenn Sandiford, “Fish Tales: Optimism and Other Bias in Rhe­toric about Exotic Carps in Amer­ic­ a,” in Invasive Species in a Global­ ized World: Ecological, Social, and L­ egal Perspectives on Policy, ed. Reuben P. Keller, Marc W. Cadotte, and Glenn Sandiford (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014), 72–98. 26. Report of the Commissioner for 1872 and 1873, xiv, xii. 27. William Henry Kilby, ed., Eastport and Passamaquoddy: A Collection of Historical and Biographical Sketches (Eastport, Me.: Edward E. Shead, 1888), 282–283. 28. Report of the Commissioner for 1872 and 1873, xii.

26 6 NOTES

TO PAGES 194– 205

29. Jay Sexton, Debtor Diplomacy: Finance and American Foreign Relations in the Civil War Era, 1837–1873 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 239. 30. “Appendix: The Treaty between the United States and G ­ reat Britain,” in Caleb Cushing, The Treaty of Washington: Its Negotiation, Execution, and the Discussions Relat­ ing Thereto (New York: Harper and ­Brothers, 1873), 267. 31. Robert L. Beisner, From the Old Diplomacy to the New, 1865–1900 (Wheeling, Ill.: Harland Davidson, 1975). 32. Myers, Dissolving Tensions, 1. 33. Myers, 1. 34. Rec­ord of the Proceedings of the Halifax Fisheries Commission (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1877), 63. 35. Proceedings of the Halifax Fisheries Commission, 63. 36. Proceedings of the Halifax Fisheries Commission, 70. 37. Award of the Fishery Commission: Documents and Proceedings of the Halifax Com­ mission, 1877 ­under the Treaty of Washington of May 8, 1871, volume 1 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1878), 1:255. 38. Award of the Fishery Commission, 1:436. 39. Award of the Fishery Commission, 1:744. 40. Award of the Fishery Commission, 1:452. 41. Award of the Fishery Commission, 3:3405–3406. 42. Henry Youle Hind, The Effect of the Fishery Clauses of the Treaty of Washington on the Fisheries and Fishermen of British North Amer­i­ca (Halifax, N.S.: Charles Annand, 1877), xi. 43. Award of the Fishery Commission, 1:437. 44. Award of the Fishery Commission, 1:255–256. 45. Award of the Fishery Commission, 1:442. 46. Award of the Fishery Commission, 1:259–261. 47. Award of the Fishery Commission, 1:644–645. 48. Hind, Effect of the Fishery Clauses, xvi. 49. Award of the Fishery Commission, 1:736. 50. Hind, Effect of the Fishery Clauses, xvi. 51. Award of the Fishery Commission, 1:647. 52. Award of the Fishery Commission, 1:428, 436. 53. Award of the Fishery Commission, 1:735. 54. Proceedings of the Halifax Fisheries Commission, 69–70. 55. Hind, Effect of the Fishery Clauses, xiv–xv. 56. Award of the Fishery Commission, 2:1907–1922. 57. Award of the Fishery Commission, 2:2095–2108. 58. Award of the Fishery Commission, 2:2144. 59. Bolster, Mortal Sea, 115–118. 60. Award of the Fishery Commission, 2:1998, 1999. 61. Award of the Fishery Commission, 2:1987. 62. Award of the Fishery Commission, 2:1988–1997. 63. Award of the Fishery Commission, 2:2020. 64. Award of the Fishery Commission, 2:2011. 65. William Richard Cutter, Genealogical and Personal Memoirs Relating to the Fami­ lies of Boston and Eastern Mas­sa­chu­setts, (New York: Louis Historical Publishing, 1908), 2:935.

NOTES TO PA GES 205– 214

267

66. Award of the Fishery Commission, 3:2545. 67. Award of the Fishery Commission, 3:2806, 2843. 68. Proceedings of the Halifax Fisheries Commission, 274. 69. Proceedings of the Halifax Fisheries Commission, 274. 70. Award of the Fishery Commission, 3:2796 71. Award of the Fishery Commission, 3:2796, 2799. 72. Proceedings of the Halifax Fisheries Commission, 252. 73. Richard Henry Dana Jr., Two Years before the Mast: A Personal Narrative of Life at Sea (New York: Harper and ­Brothers, 1840). 74. Proceedings of the Halifax Fisheries Commission, 271. 75. Brian J. Payne, Fishing a Borderless Sea: Environmental Territorialism in the North Atlantic, 1818–1910 (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2010), 48. 76. United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries, Part V, Report of the Commissioner for 1877 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1879), 12–14. 77. “Dwight Foster to William Evarts,” December 13, 1877, Award of the Fishery Commission, 1:9. 78. “Dwight Foster to William Evarts,” 8–10. 79. “Correspondence Respecting the Presence of Falsified Statistics in the ‘Case of Her Majesty’s Government,’ Presented at Halifax, June 15th, 1877,” Box 25: Spencer F. Baird Private Incoming Correspondence, 1833–1889, Baird Papers. 80. “Correspondence Respecting the Presence of Falsified Statistics.” 81. Payne, Fishing a Borderless Sea, 49. 82. “The Fishery Award,” Cape Ann Advertiser, December 1, 1877. 83. “The Fisheries Dispute,” Kalamazoo (Michigan) Gazette, March 29, 1878. 84. “Canada Wins,” New York Herald, November 24, 1877. 85. “The Fisheries Commission,” New York Press, November 24, 1877. 86. “The Halifax Award,” New York Herald, June 19, 1878. 87. Philadelphia Inquirer, June 18, 1878. 88. “The Canadian Fisheries and the Award,” Daily Picayune, March 18, 1878. 89. “Final Awards,” Philadelphia Inquirer, October 24, 1878. 90. James G. Blaine, Life and Work of James G. Blaine, ed. John Clark Ridpath (Philadelphia: World Publishing, 1893), 285. 91. Blaine, 287. 92. Blaine, 287, 288. 93. Jay Sexton describes Blaine as taking a “paradoxical view” of G ­ reat Britain, at once wishing for the United States to emulate the British Empire in terms of its commercial and financial system while realizing such a course would bring the two into direct conflict. Although Blaine saw himself as a “disciple” of men like John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and William Henry Seward, he was unwilling to co-­opt British power as his forebears, at times, did. Instead, Blaine looked to c­ ounter British power, and during his stints as secretary of state in the 1880s and 1890s, Latin Amer­i­ca was the primary arena for this contest. Sexton, The Monroe Doctrine: Empire and Nation in Nineteenth-­Century Amer­i­ca (New York: Hill and Wang, 2011), 176–178. For Blaine’s pivotal role in the transformation in postbellum US foreign policy, see Beisner, From the Old Diplomacy to the New, 54–57; and Walter LaFeber, The New Empire: An Interpreta­ tion of American Expansion, 1860–1898 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1963), 46–53.

26 8 NOTES

TO PAGES 214– 223

94. “The Fisheries Award,” Boston Daily Advertiser, November 26, 1877. 95. “The Fishery Award,” Cape Ann (Gloucester, MA) Advertiser, December 1, 1877. 96. “The Fishery Award,” Portland (Maine) Daily Press, February 28, 1878. 97. “The Fisheries Question,” New York Tribune, September 29, 1879. 98. “Fisheries Question.” For late nineteenth-­century demographic changes in the fishing industry and its po­liti­cal implication, see Mc­Ken­zie, “Iconic Fishermen.” 99. “Fisheries Question.” 100. “Fisheries Question.” Epilogue. The World the Fishermen Made

1. Andrew F. Smith, American Tuna: The Rise and Fall of an Improbable Food (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012), 27. 2. Smith, 27–34. 3. G. Brown Goode, Descriptive Cata­logues of the Collection Sent from the United States to the International Fisheries Exhibition, London, 1883 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1884), xxxv, 36, 52. 4. E. Richard McKinstry, “Paper Ephemera: Online Collections and Resources,” Col­ lege and Research Libraries News 77, no. 9 (2016): 460–461. 5. Executive Documents of the House of Representatives for the Third Session of the Forty-­ Sixth Congress, 1880–1881, Vol. 1: Foreign Relations (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1881), 557–559. 6. Executive Documents, 573. 7. Brian J. Payne, Fishing a Borderless Sea: Environmental Territorialism in the North Atlantic, 1818–1910 (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2010), 52. 8. “No. 361: Mr. Evarts to Mr. Welsh, August 1, 1879,” Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, Transmitted to Congress, with the Annual Message of the Presi­ dent, December 6, 1880 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1880), 531, 540. 9. “No. 376: Earl Granville to Mr. Lowell, October 27, 1880,” Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 590. 10. New York Eve­ning Post, December 11, 1880. 11. Times (London), December 11, 1880. 12. Phillip E. Myers, Dissolving Tensions: Rapprochement and Resolution in British-­ American-­Canadian Relations in the Treaty of Washington Era, 1865–1914 (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2015), 237. 13. Myers, 237. 14. “The Halifax Award,” New Hampshire Sentinel, November 28, 1878. 15. Hugh M. Smith, “The North Atlantic Fisheries Dispute and Its Arbitration at the Hague 1910,” Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 40, no. 1 (1911): 405–414; Alvin C. Gulek Jr., “Programmed Diplomacy: The Settlement of the North Atlantic Fisheries Question, 1907–12,” Acadiensis 6, no. 1 (1976): 43–70; Myers, Dissolving Ten­ sions, 247. 16. Myers, Dissolving Tensions, 250. 17. Mark Kurlansky, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World (New York: Walker Publishing, 1997), 120.

NOTES TO PA GES 223– 227

269

18. W. Jeffrey Bolster, The Mortal Sea: Fishing the Atlantic in the Age of Sail (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2012), 223. 19. Bolster, Mortal Sea, 172–173. 20. George Brown Goode, The Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the United States, Section V: History and Methods of the Fisheries (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1887), 1:247. 21. Goode, 1:270. 22. “Fish and Men in the Maine Islands,” Harper’s New Monthly Magazine 61, no. 363 (1880): 351. 23. Goode, Fisheries and Fishery Industries, 445–446. 24. Executive Documents of the House of Representatives for the Third Session of the Forty-­ Sixth Congress, 558. 25. Ibid., 559. 26. “No. 375: The Marquis of Salisbury to Mr. Hoppin, April 3, 1880,” Papers Relat­ ing to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 584. 27. “No. 375,” 586. 28. “No. 375,” 586. 29. Executive Documents, 574. 30. Executive Documents, 573. 31. Matthew Mc­Ken­zie, “Iconic Fishermen and the Fates of New E ­ ngland Fisheries Regulations, 1883–1912,” Environmental History 17, no. 1 (2012): 18–20. Callum Roberts contends that “the spread of trawling caused the greatest h ­ uman transformation of marine habitats ever seen, before or since.” Roberts, The Unnatural History of the Sea (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2007), 156. 32. J. W. Collins, The Beam-­Trawl Fishery of ­Great Britain, with Notes on Beam Trawl­ ing in Other Eu­ro­pean Countries (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1889), 402; Mc­Ken­zie, “Iconic Fishermen,” 19. 33. Spencer F. Baird, The Sea Fisheries of Eastern North Amer­i­ca: Prepared for the Con­ sideration of the International Commission Held at Halifax in 1877 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1889), 121. 34. Bolster, Mortal Sea, 256. 35. Mc­Ken­zie, “Iconic Fishermen,” 22–24; Bolster, Mortal Sea, 246–248. 36. Bolster, Mortal Sea, 182–197. 37. Bolster, 171–182, 197–222. 38. Carmel Finley, All the Fish in the Sea: Maximum Sustainable Yield and the Failure of Fisheries Management (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011); Finley, All the Boats on the Ocean: How Government Subsidies Led to Global Overfishing (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017).

Index

abolitionists, 143. See also slavery Adams, Charles Francis, 167 Adams, John in the colonial period, 29 as diplomat at Paris, 10, 13–14, 20–28, 34, 57 Adams, John Quincy as ambassador to Britain, 55–58 as diplomat at Ghent, 49, 51, 242n33 as President, 97, 101–103 as Secretary of State, 65–67, 72–75, 82, 85, 87, 89, 94–95, 97 Adams, Samuel, 27 Adams–­Onís Treaty, 78–79 Addington, Henry, 84–87, 89, 92–93 Africa Squadron, 144 agriculture in Canada, 130–131 the fishing industry and, 22, 80, 105–106, 155 the Republican Party and, 164 reform, 71, 108, 187–189, 191 Alabama claims arbitration of, 12, 179, 181, 194–195, 263n73 British support for the Confederacy and, 158, 160, 166–70, 259n31 the Halifax Fisheries Commission and, 211–212, 215 the Johnson-­Clarendon Treaty and, 167–169, 177 the Treaty of Washington and, 160, 171, 181 Alaska, 95, 176, 262n62 alewives, 187, 192–193 American Revolution. See Revolutionary War Ames, Fisher, 36–39 anchorage fees, 62 Andrews, Israel, 147–148 Anglo-­Saxonism, 178, 182

Anglophobia of Andrew Jackson, 102–103 the Fisheries Dispute of 1852 and, 132–135 of Henry Clay, 51 the Ruby and Reindeer affair and, 91, 96 of Thomas Jefferson, 33–34, 237n75 ­after the US Civil War, 167–170, 259n31 ­after the US-­Mexican War, 124 arbitration, 181, 184, 194–195, 211–213, 222–223, 263n73 Aroostook War, 116 Articles of Confederation, 32, 35 Ashburton, Lord (Alexander Baring), 115–116, 250n43 Ashe, John Baptista, 40 Atwood, Nathaniel, 203–205 Azorean fishing industry, 216 Bagot, Charles, 66, 67–71, 73 Baird, Spencer Fullerton, 186–194, 205–210, 226, 265n15 bait, 120–121, 129, 187, 190–193, 196, 201, 220, 225 Bancroft, George, 176–177 Banquereau, 7 Barbary States, 30, 33, 46–47, 168 Barbé-­Marbois, François, 27 barring, 224 Bathurst, Lord (Henry), 55, 58, 67 ­Battle of Lake Erie, 49, 144 ­Battle of New Orleans, 48, 70 Bay of Chaleur, 144 Bay of Fundy, 3, 7, 54, 64, 71, 73, 76, 79–80, 83, 87, 111, 117–118, 128, 132, 148, 193, 197, 203 Bayard, James A., 49 beef, 17, 164 Bell, John, 135–136 Benton, Thomas Hart, 155–157 Bigelow, John, 189–190 271

27 2 I n d e x

Blaine, James G., 213–214, 267n93 Borland, Solon, 135 bounties, fishing antebellum debates over, 155–158 in the early US republic, 79, 82–83 enactment by Congress, 35–43 repeal of, 160–162, 164 sectionalism and, 39–40, 155–157, 160–161 British fishing industry, 18–19. See also Canadian fishing industry British navy the Fisheries Dispute of 1852 and, 130–131, 134–135, 144, 148 impressment of US sailors, 21, 45–48 as model for the US Navy, 107 seizures of US fishing vessels, 10–11, 53–66, 69, 71–72, 76–94, 110–113, 123–126 Brooks, Preston, 177–178 ­Brother Jonathan, 137–138, 140 Buchanan, James, 149 Bulwer, Henry Layton, 131 Calhoun, John C., 48, 111 Canada border with the United States, 66, 72, 79–80, 96, 98, 115–116, 124, 125, 166 potential US annexation of, 49–50, 126, 131, 136, 152, 154–155, 169–171, 176–177 relationship with Britain, 104, 131–132, 180 Canadian Confederation, 12, 104, 160, 176–177, 195 Canadian fishing industry ­after the Convention of 1818, 113–114 ­after the Elgin-­Marcy Treaty, 159 the Halifax Fisheries Commission and, 196–201, 216, 219–225 the Treaty of Paris (1763) and, 18 the Treaty of Utretcht and, 17–18 the Treaty of Washington and, 181, 263n74 US fishermen’s views on, 122, 139–140 Canadian rebellions of 1837–1838, 131 Canary Islands, 174 canning, 193, 217–218 Canning, George, 93 Cape Bonavista, 7, 17 Cape Breton Island, 7, 17–18, 27, 109, 144, 199–120 Cape Cod, 17, 54, 111 Cape Negro Bank, 60, 62 Cape Ray, 7, 96–97

Cape Sable, 7, 61, 122 Cape Sambro Light­house, 61 Ca­rib­bean islands. See West Indies and Cuba Caroline affair, 116 carp, 189, 192 Cass, Lewis, 135 Castlereagh, Lord (Robert Stewart, Viscount), 67–71 Catholicism, 17, 20, 105–106 Chandler, Zachariah, 161 Chateaubriand, viscount de (François-­René), 97 Civil War, US, 12, 158–160, 165–167, 188. See also Alabama claims Clarendon, Lord (George Villiers), 167 Clay, Clement C., Jr., 157–158, 161 Clay, Edward Williams, 137–139 Clay, Henry as diplomat at Ghent, 49, 51, 242n33 as Secretary of State, 98, 102 on the Spanish-­American wars of in­de­pen­dence, 95 Clayton-­Bulwer Treaty, 166 climate, 112, 127–128, 146, 164 coal, 131, 152, 159, 181 cod biological characteristics of, 127, 146 decreased importance as a commodity, 127–128, 144–145, 150, 162–164, 217–19 importance to Maine fishermen, 84 market for, 17–20, 105–106, 164 population decline, 112, 127–128, 192–193, 200–201, 205 cod-­liver oil, 106, 203 Confederacy, 12, 158–160, 166–170, 263n73. See also Alabama claims consuls, 9, 11, 100–102, 106, 108–113, 115, 147–148 Continental Congress, 20–22 Convention of 1800, 97 Convention of 1818 enforcement of and contestation over, 11–12, 84–85, 88–90, 93–94, 96–99, 122–124, 223 the Fisheries Dispute of 1852 and, 126, 131–136, 140, 144, 147–150 immediate impact of, 76–79 negotiation of, 11, 45, 47, 59, 66–75 the Treaty of Washington and, 160 the Webster-­Ashburton Treaty and, 109–116, 196 cookbooks, 163 Cordilleran Ice Sheet, 6

I n d e x Corn Laws, 103–104, 124, 130 Coste, Victor, 190 cotton, 105–106 Crampton, John, 131, 134, 136, 150 Cuba as a market for US fish, 105 US expansionism in, 141, 152–154, 177, 262n62 currents, ocean, 7–8, 198 Cutts, Richard D., 172–173, 175, 262n61 Dana, Richard Henry, Jr., 205–206, 208 Davis, John, 140, 152, 157 de Grey, Lord (George Robinson), 180 Deane, Silas, 29–30 Decatur, Stephen, 47 HMS Dee, 60–61, 63, 66 Delfosse, Maurice, 195, 210–211, 213, 215 Demo­cratic Party, 139, 141–142, 150, 157 Depot of Charts and Instruments, 107–108 Derby, E. H., 170–171, 176 Derby, Lord (Edward Smith-­Stanley), 131, 136–137 diets of Catholic Eu­ro­pe­ans, 17, 105, 162–163 of enslaved ­people, 17, 105–106, 162–163 of fishermen, 121 in the late 19th ­century, 162–164, 217–218 of urban Americans, 106, 163–164 Dominican Republic, 176–177, 179, 262n62 HMS Doterel, 81–86, 89–90, 92 East India Squadron, 107 ecol­ogy, North Atlantic biological characteristics of cod and mackerel, 84, 127–128, 146 climate and, 112, 127–128, 146, 164 the Fisheries Dispute of 1852 and, 11, 126–130, 143–151 fisheries science and, 186–194 the Halifax Fisheries Commission and, 198–206 glaciers and, 6–7 impact of fishing industry on, 15–16, 71, 91–92, 112–115, 129–130, 144–147, 164, 173–174, 190–192, 198–206, 225–227 natu­ral law and, 57–58 ocean currents and, 7–8, 198 Romanticism and, 117–119 the Treaty of Washington and, 173–174 Elgin-­Marcy Treaty debate and passage of, 150–155 the Halifax Fisheries Commission and, 220

273

immediate impact of, 98, 159–160 repeal of, 164–165, 169–172 the Treaty of Washington and, 171–172, 180–181, 196–197 Elgin, Lord ( James Bruce), 152 Embargo of 1807, 47–48, 52, 65, 69–70 environment. See ecol­ogy, North Atlantic Evarts, William M., 209, 221–222 Everett, Edward, 148–149 federal power and fisheries, 36, 83, 125, 152, 159–160, 188, 202, 216 Federalist Papers, 32 Federalist Party, 43, 47, 49, 69 fertilizer, 71, 106, 115, 206 filibustering, 131, 141, 151–152 Fillmore, Millard, 2, 132–134, 141–144, 148–150, 153 First Party System, 40–44, 69–70, 241n23 fish guano, 106 fish migration, 127–128, 146, 204 Fish, Hamilton, 168, 174–182, 211, 261n52, 263n73 fisheries federal power and, 36, 83, 125, 152, 159–160, 188, 202, 216 national security and, 2–3, 37–39, 126, 132–133, 165, 237n87 US nationalism and, 5, 13–14, 18, 20–23, 28, 32–34, 35, 47, 53, 55–56, 74, 83, 132, 134–137, 216 Fisheries Dispute of 1852, 11, 125–151, 154–155 Anglophobia and, 132–135 the British navy and, 130–131, 134–135, 144, 148 the Convention of 1818 and, 126, 131–136, 140, 144, 147–150 Daniel Webster’s “hook and line, and bob and sinker” speech, 1–4, 132–133, 143 ecological aspects of, 126–130, 143–151 ­free trade and, 126, 130–132, 148, 150–151, 154–155 sectionalism and, 125–126, 142–143, 151–158 Fisheries Protection Ser­vice of Canada, 196, 201 fisheries science, 185–194, 265n15. See also science and scientists fishermen as experts, 57, 77, 91, 108, 129–130, 185–186, 189–195, 202–203, 205–209 as po­liti­cal actors, 10–12, 25–26, 47, 52–54, 57–66, 71, 73–74, 77, 81–82,

27 4 I n d e x

fishermen (continued) 88–89, 100–101, 110–113, 122–124, 134, 184–185, 215–216, 226, 251n60 as po­liti­cal symbols, 10, 12, 20, 25–26, 33–34, 37–39, 47, 64–65, 126, 132–133, 134, 137–139, 155–158, 159–162, 164–165, 185–186, 190 See also US Navy: the naval nursery argument and science and scientists: contestation with fishermen as experts fishing firms, 162, 205, 225–226 fishing industry. See entries for regional fishing industries fishing technology handline fishing, 19, 91–92, 120–121, 145, 199 longline fishing, 91–92, 114–115, 120, 129, 145, 223 mackerel jig and bait mill, 91–92, 114–115, 124, 145 seines, 114, 120–121, 129, 187, 190–191, 199–200, 204, 206, 223–225 weirs, 187, 190–191, 199 tub trawls, 199–200 trawling, 225–226 in the 20th ­century, 226–227 flounder, 225 Ford, Francis Clare, 195–196 Fortune Bay Outrage, 220–224 Foster, Dwight, 209 France claims to the North Atlantic, 17–18, 23, 26–27, 33, 96–98, 113–114 fisheries science in, 189–190, 265n15 relations with the United States, 26–27, 43–44, 47, 96–98 Franklin, Benjamin, 14, 21–23 ­free trade in Britain, 104, 116, 124 the Fisheries Dispute of 1852 and, 126, 130–132, 148, 150–151, 154–155 US opposition to, 166, 170, 180 US support for, 160, 165–166 See also mercantilism French navy, 96–98, 107 French Revolution, 43 Frisbie, Levi, 28–29 Gadsden Purchase, 151–154, 262n62 Gallatin, Albert, 49, 72–74, 97, 241n23 Galt, Alexander T., 195, 210, 215 Gardner, Augustus P., 226

Garrison, William Lloyd, 143 Gaspé Peninsula, 197 gender, 137–139, 158 Georges Bank, 7 German fisheries science, 192 Gerry, Elbridge, 36–37, 40 Giles, William, 36 glaciers, 6–7 Gloucester, 110, 162–163, 203–205, 215–216, 224, 226 Goode, George Brown, 218, 223–224 Goodhue, Benjamin, 37–38 ­Grand Banks, 3, 5, 7, 19, 23–24, 54, 67, 80, 118, 173, 204 ­Grand Manan Island, 7, 80–82, 85–86, 90–91, 197 Grant, Ulysses S., 176–177, 179, 261n52, 262n62 Granville, Earl (Granville Leveson-­Gower), 222 ­Great Lakes, 32, 72–73, 156 Greek war of in­de­pen­dence, 95 Greeley, Horace, 176 Greenland, 128, 165 guano, 71, 115. See also fish guano Gulf of Maine, 7, 79–80, 193 Gulf of Mexico, 154, 156 Gulf of St. Lawrence, 3, 7, 18, 54, 67, 71, 80, 134, 144, 197, 202–204 Gut of Canso, 110–111 haddock, 16, 226 halibut, 162, 226–227 Halifax, 55, 59–61, 71, 85–86, 100, 109–113 Halifax Fisheries Commission arbitration of, 12, 181, 194–211 Canadian testimony in, 196–201 ecological aspects of, 198–206 the Fortune Bay Outrage and, 219–222 impact on the New ­England fishing industry, 183, 215–216 scientific expertise and, 185–186, 196, 198, 202–210 US debate over, 211–215 US testimony in, 202–209 Hamilton, Alexander “Report on Manufactures,” 41–42 as Secretary of the Trea­sury, 14, 32, 40–43 Hamlin, Hannibal, 157 Hancock, John, 33 handline fishing, 19, 91–92, 120–121, 145, 199 Hartford Convention, 69–70 Hay, John, 214

I n d e x Hayes, Rutherford B., 195, 213 headland doctrine, 111, 135, 148–149 herring, 114, 191, 192, 220–222, 224–225 Hessel, Rudolph, 192 Hind, Henry Youle, 198, 200–202, 209–210 Hoar, Ebenezer R., 181–182 Holy Alliance, 95 Huxley, Thomas Henry, 191 hydrography, 107–108 Iceland, 165 ichthyology, 57, 129–130, 175, 186–194 immigration, 106, 164 impressment, 21, 45, 47–51 international law, 57, 62, 135, 221–223 Jack Tar, 46, 53 Jackson, Andrew, 48, 70, 101–104, 106–107 Japan, 144, 193 HMS Jaseur, 54–58, 62 Jay, John, 21–23, 25, 32 Jay’s Treaty, 43 Jefferson, Thomas the Embargo of 1807 and, 44, 47, 52, 65, 69–70 “Report on the American Fisheries,” 33–35, 42–43, 237n75 as Secretary of State, 14, 33–35, 40–43 John Bull, 137–138, 218–219 Johnson-­Clarendon Treaty, 167–169, 177 Johnson, Andrew, 167 Johnson, Reverdy, 167 Kansas-­Nebraska Act, 153 Keats, Richard, 68 Kellogg, Ensign H., 195, 208 Kennedy, John P., 144 Labrador and the Labrador Sea, 5, 7, 54, 73–75, 77, 118–119, 127, 143, 203 Labrador Current, 7 Lake, W. T. (Willoughby Thomas), 85–87, 90, 92 Langley, Samuel Pierpont, 189 Latin Amer­i­ca as a market for US fish, 105 the Monroe Doctrine and, 94–95 US consuls in, 108 US expansionism in, 102, 115, 125, 131, 141, 151–154, 176–177, 214, 262n62, 267n93 Latin American wars of in­de­pen­dence, 94–95 Laurens, Henry, 22

275

Laurentide Ice Sheet, 6 Lawrence, James, 49 leather, 106 Lincoln, Benjamin, 32–33 ­Little Ice Age, 127–129 Liverpool, 106 Livingston, Robert, 22–24 Livington, T. B., 112 lobster, 193, 217, 227 longline fishing, 91–92, 114–115, 120, 129, 145, 223 López, Narciso, 141 Lubec, 71–73, 86–88, 110 lubricants, 106 lumber, 80, 115, 131, 152, 159, 181, 202 MacDonald, John A., 180–181 mackerel biological characteristics of, 127–128, 146 decline as a commodity, 217–218, 226–227 the Fisheries Dispute of 1852 and, 146–150 the Halifax Fisheries Commission and, 199–204, 207, 209 the jig and bait mill, 91–92, 114–115, 124, 145 rise as a commodity, 84, 105–106, 112, 128–129, 143–146, 161–162 Madison, James, 32, 47–52, 70, 241n23 Maine border with New Brunswick, 116 canning in, 217 fishing industry in, 79–80, 82, 84, 105 Mallory, Stephen, 152 Malthus, Thomas Robert, 189 manifest destiny, 94, 151–154 Marcy, William, 149–150, 152 marine biology, 186–194. See also science and scientists Marsh, George Perkins, 265n15 Mary C. Ames (ship), 117–123 masculinity, 137–139, 158 Mason, John, 134–135 Mas­sa­chu­setts fishing industry. See New ­England fishing industry Maury, Matthew Fontaine, 108 McKinley, William, 214 McLane, Louis, 100, 103 McLeod, Alexander, 116 Medieval Warm Period, 128 Menhaden, 106, 223, 227 mercantilism, 28–31, 33–34, 36, 46–47, 104, 130, 236n64. See also ­free trade

27 6 I n d e x

merchant marines, 4, 35, 46–47, 79, 107, 161, 169 Mexican-­American War, 115, 124–125, 144 Mexican Cession, 115, 124, 151–153 Mexico, 115, 125, 151–154, 177 Mississippi River, 27, 43, 51, 242n33 Missouri Compromise, 78–79 Monroe, James as President, 69–74, 94–98 as Secretary of State, 49–50, 55–56, 64–65, 67 Morrill Land-­Grant Act, 165 Morrill, Lott M., 161 Morrow, John, 100, 109 Motley, John Lothrop, 168–170, 177–178 Muhlenberg, Frederick, 40 Native Americans, 15, 122 national security and fisheries, 2–3, 37–39, 126, 132–133, 165, 237n87. See also US Navy: the naval nursery argument nationalism and fisheries, 5, 13–14, 18, 20–23, 28, 32–34, 35, 47, 53, 55–56, 74, 83, 132, 134–137, 216. See also fishermen: as po­liti­cal symbols natu­ral law, 57 Naval Observatory and Hydrographical Office, 107–108 navies. See individual nations’ navies net fishing, 114, 120–121, 129. See also seines New Brunswick, 81, 86, 116, 131, 147 New ­England fishing industry Canadian markets and, 61, 255n62 Ca­rib­bean markets and, 2, 19, 21–22, 29, 30, 98, 101, 104–105 in the colonial period, 17–19 Eu­ro­pean markets and, 2, 17, 18, 21, 30, 34, 56–57 fishing firms and, 162, 205, 225–226 ­after the Halifax Fisheries Commission, 215–216 ­after the Revolutionary War, 29–31, 35, 48 during the US Civil War, 167 the US domestic market and, 105–106 US manufacturing and, 41–42 See also fishing technology New ­England Trade and Fisheries Act, 19 New Orleans, 105–106 Newburyport, 117–119, 121, 202 Newfoundland the Convention of 1818 and, 71, 73–75, 147 decline of cod population in, 128

the Fortune Bay Outrage in, 220–225 French fishing near, 17, 96–97, 113 Romanticism and, 119 the Treaty of Paris (1763) and, 18 the Treaty of Paris (1783) and, 5 the Treaty of Utrecht and, 17–18 Nicaragua, 152 Niles, Nathaniel, 40 North Atlantic Drift, 7 North Atlantic. See ecol­ogy, North Atlantic North Atlantic Oscillation, 146 Nova Scotia, 5, 17, 54–55, 58, 60–63, 71, 73, 110–115, 122, 128, 131, 134, 147 ocean temperatures, 127–128, 146, 198 offal, fish, 200–201, 204–206 Open Door Policy, 214 Order in Council, 47–48 Oregon Territory, 66, 72, 96, 98, 115 Outer Banks, 40 oysters, 173, 175, 189–190, 217 Pacific Ocean and the Pacific world, 174–175, 214 fishing rights in, 174–175 guano industry in, 71, 115 US consuls in, 109 US expansionism in, 214 Page, John, 36, 38–39 Paine, Thomas, 44 paint, 106 Panic of 1837, 117, 146 Parker, Theodore, 143 Passamaquoddy Bay, 193 Penobscot River, 193 Perry, Matthew C., 134, 140, 143–148, 255n62 Perry, Oliver ­Hazard, 49, 144 photic zone, 8 Pickering, Timothy, 43 Pictou, 100, 109–112 Pierce, Franklin, 150, 153 piracy, 46, 107 Pitt Packer (ship), 21 plankton, 128, 146 Pointe Riche, 7, 17, 96 po­liti­cal cartoons, 137–139 Polk, James K., 139 Primrose, James, 100, 111–113 Prince Edward Island, 17, 197 professionalization, 57, 186–194 Prus­sia, 95

I n d e x Quasi War, 44, 47, 97 Quirpon Island, 97 railroads, 164–165, 217 Reciprocity Treaty. See Elgin-­Marcy Treaty refrigeration, 217 religion, 17, 20, 105–106, 162–164, 220–221 Republican Party, 164–165, 214 Restraining Act of 1775, 19 Revolutionary War impact on the New ­England fishing industry, 29–31, 34, 48, 104–105 support from New ­England fishermen, 10, 18, 20, 47, 176 the US Navy in, 20 See also Treaty of Paris (1783) Romanticism, 119 Roo­se­velt, Theodore, 214, 223 rope, 106 Rose, John, 180 Rowson, Susanna Haswell, 46 Royal Navy. See British navy Ruby and Reindeer affair, 11, 76–99, 101, 110, 122–123 rum, 20–22; duty on, 34 Rupert’s Land, 131 Rush-­Bagot Treaty, 73–74 Rush, Richard, 66, 72–74, 77–78, 97–98 Rusk, Thomas, 135 Russell, Jonathan, 49 Rus­sia, 95, 175 Sable Island Bank, 7 sailors, 9, 45–47, 53, 108–109 Salisbury, Marquis of (Robert Gascoyne-­ Cecil), 225 salmon, 175, 192–193, 218 salt Canadian exportation of, 181 duties on, 34, 37, 155–156 for curing fish, 17–19, 22, 42, 104–106, 120, 155–156, 162–164, 217–218 sardines, 218 Schoonmaker, Cornelius, 40 science and scientists contestation with fishermen as experts, 57, 77, 108, 129–130, 149, 173–164, 185–186, 189–195, 202–203, 205–209 fisheries science, 185–194, 227, 265n15 the Halifax Fisheries Commission and, 196, 198, 202–210 hydrography, 107–108 ichthyology, 57, 129, 186–194

277

Scudder, Zeno, 139, 140 Second Party System, 139, 141–142, 150, 152, 157 sectionalism between the East and West, 51, 155–157, 242n33 the Fisheries Dispute of 1852 and, 125–126, 142–143, 151–158 fishing bounties and, 39–40, 155–157, 160–161 the Hartford Convention and, 69–70 between the North and South, 11–12, 69–70, 125–126, 142–143, 151–158, 160–161, 176 the Treaty of Ghent and, 51, 242n33 the Treaty of Washington and, 176 seines, 114, 120–121, 129, 187, 190–191, 199–200, 204, 206, 223–225 Seven Years’ War, 18, 26 Seward, William Henry, 140, 165, 170, 172–176, 189, 262n61 shad, 192 ships and shipbuilding, 29, 34, 117–118, 120, 165, 190, 226–227 Sickles, Daniel, 174 slavery abolition and abolitionists, 143–144, 168–169 enslaved workforces and the fish market, 17–20, 104–106, 162–164, 218 the Hartford Convention and, 69 slave insurrections, fear of, 98, 152 the transatlantic slave trade, 110, 115, 144 Smith, Israel, 40 Smith, Sylvanus, 204–205, 207 Smith, William Loughton, 42–43 soap, 106 Spanish-­American War, 214 Spanish-­American wars of in­de­pen­dence, 94–95 St. George’s Bay, 114 St. John (New Brunswick), 109, 147–148 St. Lawrence River, 131, 152–153 St. Pierre and Miquelon, 7, 17 states’ rights, 152, 188, 202 Sterett, Samuel, 40 Strait of Belle Isle, 7, 54, 74, 121, 127 sugar industry, 17–20, 22, 34, 105 Sugar Act of 1764, 19 Sumatra, first US expedition to, 107 Sumner, Charles, 167–70, 177–78, 259n31, 262n62

27 8 I n d e x

Swift, Joseph G., 71 Sydney (Cape Breton Island), 109 tag boats, 120 Tariff of 1828, 102–103 telegraphs, 172–173 Tenerife, 174 Third Party System, 164–165 Thornton, Edward, 180 tobacco, 22, 61 Toucey, Isaac, 141 trading cards, 218–219 Trans-­Appalachian West, 27, 43 Transcontinental Treaty, 78–79 trawling, 225–226 Treat, Upham Stowers, 193 Treaty of Ghent the Convention of 1818 and, 45, 67, 72, 78–79 impact on the New ­England fishing industry, 52–55 negotiation of, 49–52, 241n23, 242n33 the Webster-­Ashburton Treaty and, 116 Treaty of Paris (1763), 18, 26 Treaty of Paris (1783) Canadian criticism of, 114 the Convention of 1818 and, 67–68, 74 negotiation of, 3, 5, 10, 20–28 the Treaty of Ghent and, 49–51, 56–58, 62 the Treaty of Washington and, 160 US criticism of, 31–32, 43 Treaty of Utrecht (1713), 17, 26 Treaty of Washington (1871) arbitration of, 223 the Convention of 1818 and, 160 ecological aspects of, 173–174 the Halifax Fisheries Commission and, 194–197, 202–203, 210, 212, 215–216, 220 negotiation of, 160, 171–183, 220, 263n74 US fishermen’s criticism of, 184–185, 215–216 Tredwell, Thomas, 40 Trent affair, 166 Trescott, William H., 207 Tripolitan War, 47 Trollope, Frances, 163 trout, 192 tub trawls, 199–200 tuna, 218 ­Uncle Sam, 218–219 Uniacke, James B., 114–115

United States Fish Commission, 185–194, 202, 208–209, 218, 225–226, 265n15 Upshur, Abel, 112 urbanization, 106, 163–164 US Civil War, 12, 158–160, 165–167, 188. See also Alabama claims US Navy the Jackson administration and, 102, 106–108 the Naval Acad­emy and, 144 the naval nursery argument, 2, 37–39, 126, 132–133, 155–158, 161, 237n87 in the Revolutionary War, 20 in the War of 1812, 47–49 in the US Civil War, 165 US-­Mexican War, 115, 124–125, 144 Van Buren, Martin, 98, 103 Vaughn, Charles, 93 Vergennes, Comte de (Charles Gravier), 27 Wabanaki fishermen, 15 Walker Tariff, 139 Walker, Robert, 139 War of 1812 ­causes of, 47–48 the Convention of 1818 and, 11, 45, 66–70, 72, 78–79 impact on the New ­England fishing industry, 48–49, 52–55 Matthew C. Perry’s ser­vice in, 144 New ­England fishermen’s ser­vice in, 65, 176, 241n19 See also Treaty of Ghent War of the Spanish Succession, 17 Washington, George, 35 Webster-­Ashburton Treaty the Convention of 1818 and, 72, 109–116, 196 negotiation of, 98, 115–116, 194, 250n43, 249n41 the transatlantic slave trade and, 144 the US-­Canada border and, 80 Webster, Daniel the Fisheries Dispute of 1852 and, 1–4, 126, 131–134, 136, 148, 150 “hook and line, and bob and sinker” speech, 1–4, 132–133, 143 the Webster-­Ashburton Treaty and, 115–116, 250n43 weirs, 187, 190–191, 199

I n d e x Wellington, Duke of (Arthur Wellesley), 103 Welsh, John, 222 West Country fishing industry, 18–19 West Indies as a market for New ­England fish, 17–22, 29–31, 43, 98, 101, 104–105 slavery in, 17–19, 22, 143, 168 sugar industry in, 17–20, 22 US expansionism in, 151–152 US trade access to, 29–31, 33, 98, 101–105, 236n64

279

whaling industry compared with the fishing industry, 4, 79, 117 fishing bounties and, 156 hydrography and, 107 ­whale meat, 144–145 ­whale oil, 106, 144–145 Whig Party, 138–139, 141–42, 150–152, 157 Williamson, Hugh, 39–40, 237n87 Young, John (Lord Lisgar), 182