PROVINCETOWN  , a township at the N. end of Cape

Cod, in Barnstable county, Massachusetts, U.S.A . Pop . (1890), 4642; (1900), 4247; (1910 U.S. census) 4369 . Area about 91 sq. m . The township is served by the New York, New Haven & Hart-ford railway, and by a steamship line to Boston . The harbour, which is important as a harbour of refuge, is protected on the east by land, and the Federal government has strengthened this protection by dikes and groins and other sand-catching devices; it has five lighthouses . There is a magnificent beach stretching 30 M. from Provincetown village to Eastham . The village is a summer resort . Through many generations the inhabitants have gained their living chiefly from the sea; the township's fisheries, however, have greatly decreased in importance (the invested capital diminishing 67.1 % in 1885–1895) . The prosperity it retains is not a little due to Portuguese from the Cape Verde Islands and the Azores, and to British Americans . Provincetown village was long second only to Gloucester in the cod fisheries, which low prices and the introduction of larger vessels and correspondingly costlier fittings have greatly ' Sulla excluded the equites from the list; the lex Aurelia (70) reinstated them . handicapped .

Whaling retains a remnant of its old importance, and there are also

mackerel and shore fisheries, oil-works, cold storage establishments for preserving fish for food and bait, and canning works for herring . The first settlement here was made about 168o; it became a " district " or precinct of Truro in 1714, and was established as a township with its present name in 1727 . Provincetown harbour was possibly visited by Gaspar Cortereal in 1501; Gosnold explored it and its vicinity in 16o2, and John Smith was here in 1614 . It was in this harbour that the " May-flower " compact (see MASSACHUSETTS) was drawn up and signed by the Pilgrims before they proceeded to Plymouth, in 1620; here John Carver was chosen the first governor of Plymouth Colony, and Provincetown was the first landing place (on Saturday the Ilth [o.s.] of November) of the Pilgrims in the New World . A memorial of the " compact," of polished Acton granite, 6 ft. high, with two bronze tablets, was erected before the town-hall by the Old Colony Commission, and on High Pole Hill on the loth of August 1907 the cornerstone of a second memorial (completed in 1909, dedicated Aug . 5, 191o), a granite tower, 252 ft. high, was laid, addresses being delivered by President Roosevelt, James Bryce and H . C . Lodge . In Provincetown harbour, on the 1st of January 1862, James M . Mason and John Slidell, the envoys of the Confederate States to Great Britain and France respectively, who had been taken by a Federal vessel from the British ship " Trent," were restored by the Federal authorities to H.B.M.S . " Rinaldo," after their detention in Fort Warren in Boston harbour .