pplies from the mainland and to
transport the products of the fishery to the mainland. The fact that
there was a bar across the harbor, which made it impossible to bring in
vessels of the size of those engaged in the fishery was fast depriving
it of its supremacy. New London was already a rival.

The scheme for relief was to build what was called "camels." They were
vessels capable of receiving a whale-ship and floating it over the bar.
They were to be made broad, of shallow draught, with air-tight
compartments. These machines were to be taken outside the bar; the
compartments were to be filled with water and the camels sunk. The
whale ship was then to be floated over the camel and the water was then
to be pumped out of the compartments when the camel would rise with the
ship on its back and carry the whaler into the harbor.

The scheme seemed a wild one, but opinions were controlled by party
feeling. The bill passed, the camels were built, and the scheme failed
as a practical measure. Nantucket was doomed as a trading and
commercial town. As a watering place it had a future. In one of the
debates upon corporations Robinson took part, perhaps upon the
Nantucket "camel" question, and made the best speech to which I have
ever listened in defense of the system.

The corporation system has yielded larger returns to Massachusetts
than she has received from any other feature of her domestic policy,
excepting only her system of public instruction.

Robinson lived, probably, on the verge of insanity, to which end he
came finally. When a member of the House, he was restless, almost
constantly walking in the area or through the aisles, running his
hands through his long black hair, engaged apparently in meditation
upon topics outside of the business of the House.

He is immortalized in Lowell's "Biglow Papers,"

"John P. Robinson, he
Says he won't vote for Governor B."

The Governor B. was Governor George N. Briggs, with whom Robinson had
a quarrel about the year 1845.

Henry Wilson, afterwards Senator and Vice-President of the United
States, was a member of the House in 1842 and 1843. He had risen to
notice in the campaign of 1840. He was engaged by the Whig Party as
one of its speakers and announced as the "Natick Cobbler."

He had worked in the trade of a shoemaker, and as the shoe interest was
already a large interest in the State, it was a matter of no slight
importance to give distinction to a re