104 



MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



(unless tliey can yet claim the right under the treaty of 

 1783). British cruisers or officials can seize a vessel now, 

 as they have before, for merely purchasing bait in their 

 ports, and the treaty of Washington cannot prevent it. 



There cannot be any reciprocity in fish. Great Britain 

 now cannot deliver ivhat she has sold. When she sells the 

 bread from her fishermen's mouths, they will prevent its 

 delivery, as tb.ey have at Newfoundland, where tlic poor 

 natives depended, to keep them from starving, mainly upon 

 the purchases, by American vessels, of herring, squid, and 

 caplin, for food or bait. 



You ask, what proof have you of these statements ? INIy 

 reply is, that I have them from the most reliable sources, too 

 lengthy and too dry for this occasion. One of much impor- 

 tance in relation to tlic decrease of vessels of twenty tons' 

 burden and upwards in this county, and in other custom 

 districts of the State, between 1873 and 1879, engaged in 

 satching fish for food, is too important to be left out, and I 

 here give it : — 



DlSTttlCT. 



Number of 



^'cssel3. 



Tonnage. 



Essex County 

 Boston and Charlestown 

 Plymouth . 

 Barnstable . 

 Nantucket . 



Total decrease 



5,338.17 



1,28l>.G4 

 7G2.19 



5,703.08 

 115.82 



13,292.50 



A loss of over one-quarter of the whole fleet of 1873 (of 

 twenty tons' burden and upwards), tlu'owing at least twenty- 

 five hundred men out of active employment in the fishing- 

 vessels, with half as many more at least on land, causes an 

 annual loss in the bare catch in the fisheries of Massachu- 

 setts of over one million dollars as compared with 1873, 

 nearly one-half of which comes from Essex County. This 

 is a loss yearly, to this State alone, of much more than the 

 average yearly amount of the fishery award paid by our 

 government, witli the remitted duties on Canadian fish 

 added. 



