There was one other loss to which too little attention has been paid--the loss of men. The Marblehead men who were killed during the War of the Revolution were among the most enterprising of the coast--they were killed because of their courage and dash. Lost ships could be replaced in the course of one winter; the lost men were not replaced until their sons became men. Then, too, the prosperity of the carrier fleet drained away the best men among the fishermen; for the owners of the carriers knew where to get able seamen. After the War of 1812 the cod fleet averaged somewhat larger than it was before the war, but the increase was not at all commensurate with the growth of the nation. The exports of dried fish declined instead of increasing, and in spite of a protective tariff foreigners began (1812) to sell pickled fish in the United States. These imports increased steadily until 1848, when more than 100,000 barrels were brought in, and the imports thereafter remained above that figure. In describing the situation of these fishermen in 1848, Sabine says:-- "Many crews of fishing vessels owned in Newburyport, on settling with their owners for six and seven months' hard toil at sea, received only about ten dollars per month; and on this miserable pittance they were to eke out the year. They had obtained good fares of fish, but were sufferers from the depressed state of the market. With facts like these before us, can we wonder that the more ambitious young men abandon the employment at every opportunity?" The vessels in the mackerel and other fisheries were, of course, no more prosperous, on the average, than those fishing for cod. From first to last the fisheries of New England are of interest in the story of the American merchant marine chiefly because they afforded an excellent training school for the sailor _of the sail_. It was because of the school afforded that these vessels were subsidized between 1792 and 1866. The annual bounty ranged from $1.60 to $4 per ton, according to the size of the vessel. Pay from the national treasury at the rate of $2 per month has also been given to the crews of fishermen in order to create a sort of sea militia. During the Civil War many recruits for the navy were obtained from the fishermen. Impressed by the precedent thus afforded, and failing to distinguish between the requirements of the old-time and the modern man-o'-war, the Merchant Marine Commission of 1904 proposed to pay bounties to the crews now employed in the fisheries. Of course bounties paid to the crews of tugs and other harbor steamers would be far more effective for the end in view. The tenacity with which our people cling to the idea that a modern sailor needs training on a ship of the sail is one of the discouraging features of the outlook for a revival of our merchant marine. No one would suppose that a training on a Dakota wheat farm was essential to the making of a finished hot-house florist.