soliciting your Excellency to charge with the collecting and furnishing
me this information, some person or persons who may be competent to the
object. Taking a point of commencement at a proper interval before the
year of greatest prosperity, there should be stated in a table, year by
year, under different columns as follows:

1. The number of vessels fitted out each year for the cod-fishery. 2.
Their tonnage. 3. The number of seamen employed. 4. The quantity of fish
taken; (I.) of superior quality; (2.) of inferior. 5. The quantity of
each kind exported; (1.) to Europe, and to what countries there; (2.) to
other, and what parts of America. C. The average prices at the markets,
(1.) of Europe; (2.) of America. With respect to the whale-fishery,
after the three first articles the following should be substituted.
4. Whether to the northern or southern fishery. 5. The quantity of oil
taken; (1.) of the spermaceti whale; (2.) of the other kinds. 6. To what
market each kind was sent. 7. The average prices of each. As the ports
from which the equipments were made could not be stated in the same
table conveniently, they might form a separate one. It would be
very material that I should receive this information by the first of
November, as I might be able to bestow a more undisturbed attention to
the subject before than after the meeting of Congress, and it would be
better to present it to them at the beginning, than towards the close of
the session.

The peculiar degree of interest with which this subject must affect
the State of Massachusetts, the impossibility of obtaining necessary
information from any other quarter, and the slender means I should have
of acquiring it from thence, without the aid of your Excellency, will,
I hope, be a sufficient apology for the trouble I take the liberty of
giving you: and I am happy in every occasion of repeating assurances