Two years
later, Governor John Winthrop launched his thirty-ton sloop
Blessing of the Bay, and sent her to open "friendly commercial
relations" with the Dutch of Manhattan. Brisk though the traffic
was in furs and wampum, these mariners of Boston and Salem were
not content to voyage coastwise. Offshore fishing made skilled,
adventurous seamen of them, and what they caught with hook and
line, when dried and salted, was readily exchanged for other
merchandise in Bermuda, Barbados, and Europe.
A vessel was a community venture, and the custom still survives
in the ancient ports of the Maine coast where the shapely wooden
schooners are fashioned. The blacksmith, the rigger, the calker,
took their pay in shares. They became part owners, as did
likewise the merchant who supplied stores and material; and when
the ship was afloat, the master, the mates, and even the seamen,
were allowed cargo space for commodities which they might buy and
sell to their own advantage. Thus early they learned to trade as
shrewdly as they navigated, and every voyage directly concerned a
whole neighborhood.
This kind of enterprise was peculiar to New England because other
resources were lacking. To the westward the French were more
interested in exploring the rivers leading to the region of the
Great Lakes and in finding fabulous rewards in furs.
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