Cod_ A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World - Mark Kurlansky [32]
The Boston Tea Party of 1773 illustrates the nature of the American Revolution. Here was an uprising against a tariff on an import, instigated by merchants, including John Hancock and John Rowe, in which the scions of the codfish aristocracy—dressed up as Mohawks—boarded their own ships and dumped the goods into the harbor. Similar “tea parties” followed in other ports. In New York, evidently the Revolution had reached the proletariat, because a zealous mob dumped the goods in the Hudson before the rebels had a chance to show up in their Indian outfits.
The next British move seems even more baffling. In 1774, in response to a crisis originally provoked by the fact that the colonies produced too much surplus food, the British closed down Boston Harbor in an attempt to starve the populace until they reimbursed the Crown for damaged goods. This was not 1620, and no one was going to starve in New England, with or without imports. Marblehead supplied cod, Charleston rice, and Baltimore grain. A flock of sheep was even herded up from Connecticut.
The harshest blow to New England was to come, but communication was so slow that the colonists did not even hear of it until after the shooting had begun. The Restraining Act, effective July 12, 1775, restricted New England trade to the ports in England and barred New England fishermen from the Grand Banks. It was as though the Crown was trying to rally Massachusetts around its radicals.
During the Revolution, the American ability to produce food was the one advantage of the Continental Army. The British Army might have been better trained and more experienced, and it was certainly better dressed and equipped. But the Americans were better fed. They were also better paid, and, thanks to Boston rum, they drank better.
But there was not much cod for anyone. Newfoundlanders and Nova Scotians could no longer sell their fish in Boston. British warships kept New England fishermen from working the Grand Banks, but New England fishermen, with their fast schooners, made their waters dangerous for any pro-British ship. Gloucester schooners were outfitted with gun carriages. Ironically, the first of these armed schooners was named the Britannia. It was rigged with eight old cannons mounted on newly built carriages. This modest firepower was supplemented by small arms. In 1776 alone, such privateer schooners seized 342 British vessels.
In 1778, three years after the shooting began, both sides were ready to negotiate and talks began in Paris. By 1781, only three issues remained unresolved: the borderline, payment of debts to England, and fisheries. Of the three, fishing proved the most difficult.
Massachusetts insisted on fishing rights to its traditional grounds, which included the Grand Banks, the Scotian shelf, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, all of which were off the coast of loyal British colonies. But even France, America’s great ally, did not back New England. Supporting a revolution against England was one thing, but the French did not believe it was in their own interests to allow the New Englanders back into the Grand Banks. The French position was that while all nations had a right to the high seas, offshore grounds were the property of the owners of the coastline. The little islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon still allowed France to be one of the proprietors of the coastline. To this day, the French claim fishing rights in a strip of Canadian waters because of this minuscule possession.
International law of the sea was not clear on this concept. It was still widely held that the seas had no nationality. The first recognized claim on ocean territory, a three-mile limit in the North Sea, did not come into force until after the Napoleonic wars.