63 



the great naval station of the British government. At the peace of 

 1783, Nova Scotia became the home of many thousands of American 

 loyahsts, who, under the pohcy adopted by the winners in the strife, 

 were compelled to abandon their native land. Many of them were 

 persons of elevated moral qualities, of high positions in society, and of 

 great spirit and enterprise; several were natives of Massaciiuselts, and 

 graduates oi' Harvard University. Others had held prominent rank in 

 New York and New Jersey. From this period, we may date a change 

 in the morals of the colony, and note a partial attention to the fisheries. 

 Omitting the few fragmentary accounts that are to be found scattered 

 through the records which I have examined, we come at once to con- 

 sider this branch of industry as it exists in our own time. And, singu- 

 lar to remark, attention to the fisheries is still partial. No American 

 visits Nova Scotia without being amazed at the apathy which prevails 

 among tlie people, and without "calculating" the advantages which 

 ihey enjo}^, but will not improve. Almost every sheet of water swarms 

 with cod, pollock, salmon, mackerel, herring, and alewives ; while the 

 shores abound in rocks and other places suitable for drying, and in the 

 materials required for "flakes and stages." The coasts are every- 

 where indented with harbors, rivers, coves, and bays, which have a 

 ready communication with the waters of the interior ; scarcely any part 

 of which — such is the curious freak of nature — ^is more than thirty 

 miles distant from navigation. The proximity of the fishing grounds 

 to the land, and to the homes of the fishermen, — the use that can be 

 made of seines and nets in the mackerel fisher}^ — the saving of capital 

 in building, equipping, and manning vessels, — the ease and safety which 

 attend every operation, combine to render Nova Scotia the most valua- 

 ble part of British America, and probably of the world, for catching, 

 curing, and shipping the productions of the sea. 



Yet the colonists look on and complain of us. They will neither fish 

 themselves nor allow us to do so. In the words of a late official report 

 on the "Fisheries of Nova Scotia," "From sev^en to eight hundred 

 [American] vessels are said annually to pass through the Gut of Canso, 

 which usually return home with large cargoes taken at our very doors. 

 There is always a great deal said about their encroachments, and ive are apt 

 to blame them that our Jisheries are not more 'productive than they are. and, 

 instead of engaging all our energies to compete with them, wears cmplirying a 

 host of revenue cutters, S^c, to drive them from our shores. Everj^body must 

 see that the Americans are placed under many disadvantages for prose- 

 cuting the fisheries in British waters, and that if proper enterprise were 

 employed, our advantageous position would aiable us not only to compete with 

 them succes fully, but also to drive them from our shores by underselling them 

 in their own markets. But we find that they almost entirely monopo- 

 lize our deep-sea fishery, while we look idly on and grumble at their suc- 

 ce55." This covers the whole ground ; and coming, as it does, from the 

 pen of a colonial official, is conclusive. 



Judge Haliburton, in his efforts to rouse his fellow-colonists from their 

 lethargy, adopting as his motto, that 



" The cheorful sage, when solemn dictates fail, 

 Conceals th« moral counsel in a tale," 



