These fishermen and coastwise sailors fought on the land as well and followed the drums of Washington's armies until the final scene at Yorktown.

Gloucester and Marblehead were filled with widows and orphans, and half their men-folk were dead or missing.
* Marvin's "American Merchant Marine," p.

287.
The fishing-trade soon prospered again, and the men of the old ports tenaciously clung to the sea even when the great migration flowed westward to people the wilderness and found a new American empire.
They were fishermen from father to son, bound together in an intimate community of interests, a race of pure native or English stock, deserving this tribute which was paid to them in Congress: "Every person on board our fishing vessels has an interest in common with his associates; their reward depends upon their industry and enterprise.
Much caution is observed in the selection of the crews of our fishing vessels; it often happens that every individual is connected by blood and the strongest ties of friendship; our fishermen are remarkable for their sobriety and good conduct, and they rank with the most skillful navigators." Fishing and the coastwise merchant trade were closely linked.

Schooners loaded dried cod as well as lumber for southern ports and carried back naval stores and other southern products.

Well-to-do fishermen owned trading vessels and sent out their ventures, the sailors shifting from one forecastle to the other.