128 GEOGRAPHICAL EEVIEW OF THE FISHERIES. 



cents per quintal on dried and 5 cents per barrel ou pickled fish exported, in lieu of a drawback of 

 the duties on imported salt used in the cure, and imposed a duty of 50 cents per quintal on imported 

 fish. Bounties were doubled. In 1792 the bounty on dried and pickled fish, exported, was discon- 

 tinued and a specific allowance granted to vessels employed in the cod fishery. Sabine says: 



"Boats between 5 and 20 tons were entitled to receive $1 per ton annually; those between 20 

 and 30 tons, 50 cents additional; and to those more than 30 tons, the allowance was fixed at $2.50 

 per ton ; but no vessel could receive more than $170 in one season. By a subsequent act the same 

 year, those several rates were increased one-fifth, to commence in January, 1793, to continue 

 seven years, and thence to the end of the next session of Congress. 



" Still further to encourage the prosecution of the fisheries, an act of 1793 authorized the 

 collectors of customs to grant vessels duly licensed permits ' to touch and trade at any foreign port 

 or place,' and under such documents to procure salt and other necessary outfits without being sub- 

 jected to the payment of duties. This act, which is still [ 1853J in force, has proved extremely beneficial 

 to our fishing vessels in certain emergencies ; but it may be admitted that its privileges are liable 

 to be abused. Four years later, the system of allowances to vessels employed in the cod fishery 

 was revised. Under the law then passed, the smallest class were entitled to draw from the 

 treasury $1.GO per ton annually; and vessels of upward of 20 tons, $2.40 the ton; while the 

 maximum was increased to $272. A second revision occurred in the year 1800, which effected 

 some changes in details, but which provided for the continuance of the rates of allowance then 

 fixed until March, 1811. 



" President Jefferson, in his message to Congress in 1802, spoke of 'fostering our fisheries as 

 nurseries of navigation, and for the nurture of man,' as among 'the landmarks by which we were 

 to be guided in all our proceedings;' and made further allusion to the subject in his annual 

 communication of the following year. His remarks, in the second message, were referred to a 

 committee of Congress, who, in their report, said that there was too much reason to believe that 

 both the whale and cod fisheries had been for some time on the decline, and that it was more than 

 doubtful whether the United States employed as many men and tons in these branches of industry 

 as when they were colonies or previous to the Revolution. As a means to reanimate them, they 

 recommended that ships and vessels actually and exclusively employed in these fisheries should 

 not, in future, be subject to the payment of the tonnage-duty levied on other vessils; that fisher- 

 men and other persons actually employed in catching whales and fish .should be exempt from the 

 usual charge of hospital money; and that the bounty or allowance under existing laws should be 



paid in cases of shipwreck or loss of vessels without deduction. 



****** *** 



"The embargo and other restrictive measures which preceded the war of 1812 produced the 

 most disastrous results in New England. In 1808, and during the existence of the prohibitory 

 acts, a number of citizens of Boston petitioned Congress for liberty to export a quantity of pickled 

 and dried fish in their warehouses, and liable to rot or decay if kept during the summer months. 

 But the Government declined interference, and property of this description was allowed to perish 

 in most of the fishing towns, to the utter ruin of many of its owners. These losses were followed 

 by others; and as the results of the policy of our own rulers, as well as the seizure and confiscation 

 of cargoes of fish in ports of Europe under the memorable decrees of Napoleon, the distresses of 

 all classes of persons engaged in the catching and curing the products of the sea became in the 

 end general and alarming." 



After the war of 1812, further efforts were made to encourage the fisheries. Duties were 

 imposed on imported fish, and by the act of 1819 an allowance or bounty was granted to cod fishing 



