With these facts in hand Hugh Peter went among his people preaching the gospel of enterprise with as much enthusiasm no doubt as he felt and displayed later in preaching religious doctrines before Cromwell's men. As a result of his work he "procured a good sum of money to be raised to set on foot the fishing business, and wrote into England to raise as much more." Further than that, the General Court, as the governing body of the colony was called, appointed six men to fish "for general account." The Salem people made money from the first. The business spread to near-by Marblehead, and the people there became so much interested that when a minister in the pulpit told them that they ought to seek the "kingdom of heaven to the _exclusion_ of all earthly blessings," one of the congregation interrupted him by saying, "You think you are preaching to the people at the Bay. Our _main_ end is to catch fish." By 1640 the Salem people had made such progress and profits in their fishery that they were able to launch a ship of 300 tons, a monster of a vessel for the day and place. Moreover, Boston people were so wrought up by Peter's enterprise in this matter that they also built a ship at the same time, the _Trial_, of 160 (or 200) tons. Unhappily for Salem, her people had no leader after Peter sailed for England, and Boston soon gained the ascendancy in commerce as in politics. But for many years Salem was a port of vast importance in the story of our merchant marine. In the meantime (1636), the _Desire_, a ship of 120 tons, was built at Marblehead for the fishing business. It is likely that Peter inspired the people there to build her. She was engaged in fishing for two years and then made a voyage in the slave trade, and thus acquired enduring notoriety. Of much more importance than these large vessels in promoting the shipping interests of the colonists were the small vessels, smacks, and shallops, which men of limited means built and used. A seven-ton shallop could be built for £25, and in the hands of her owners she was well able to go fishing. Friends and neighbors united their labor as well as their accumulations of capital in sending the small boats to sea. Even the dugout canoe which a man could make for himself was used in the bay fisheries, and the whole world was within the reach and grasp of a man who had the courage and enterprise to launch forth in a dugout canoe of his own making. It was in and through such men that the American colonists _were gaining the sea habit_.