204 



system," a few years ago, estimated that the common fishermen shnred 

 three hundred and thirty dollars each, in addition to the bounty, for 

 three and a half months' labor. He was mistaken. A gentleman of 

 Gloucester, who had been engaged in the fisheries for a consitlerable 

 period, made an accurate calculation, by which it appeared that the 

 average earnings was only one laindred. cnid fifty-seven dollars for a nuui, 

 and seventy-nine dollars for a boy, for fee and a half months'' service in the 

 cod-fishery, and three and a lialf months'' in the mackerel fishery , or for the 

 u-]iole working year of nine months. By adding the bount}" to the earn- 

 ings, the share, per man, was increased to one hundred and seventy- 

 five dolhirs. In the proceedings of a public meeting of citizens of the 

 same town, subsequently, it is stated that the average earnings for the 

 ten i^revious years had Iiardly been one hundred and forty dollars in 

 a season., for each man. 



In the "Memorial of citizens of Marblehead against the repeal of the 

 fishing bounty," &c., presented to the Senate of the United States, 

 March, 1846, the misrepresentations made on the subject of the amount 

 earned by fishermen are thus answered: "And though it has been 

 stated before your honorable body, in support ot" an effort to repeal the 

 aid and protection which the present laws afford, that the poor fisher- 

 man earns his five hundred dollars for what is called "his three and a half 

 months' labor," yet your memoriahsts well know that there is no truth 

 in the assertion. The fishermen of this town, engaged in the bank cod- 

 fishery, are usually employed from March to November and December, 

 from the time they begin the labor of fitting the vessel for sea, until 

 they return to their winter quarters, being a period of eight months on 

 an average; and your memorialists aver, from their own j^crsonal know- 

 ledge, that it is no uncommon occurrence for fshcrmen to be thus constantly toil- 

 'ing through the working j'ortion of the year, and not earn a single dollar 

 (bounty and all included) over and above their outft, €xpe?ises, and the ad- 

 vances during their absence.* And it is thus that, in seasons of scarcity, 

 it often happens that crews cannot be obtained by vessels engaged in 

 the business, except the owner will first guaranty that they shall make 

 something (a sum to be first agreed on) in return for their labor, over 

 and above their shares of fish, after deducting the outfits of the vo}'^- 

 •age." "It is true," continue these memorialists, "that in seasons when 

 fish happen to be plenty, and a good market is obtained for them, that 

 in such cases both owners and fishermen realize a remunerating profit 

 for their capital and their labor. But this state of things is rare rather 

 than otherwise ; and such is the uncertainty, and, as it were, lottery 

 nature of the business, that, in looking around among those who have been 

 s . 



* Fishennen sometimes pursue their avocation when of very advanced an;e. A remarkable 

 instiinee occurred in 1^42, wiieii tiie schooner Elizabeth Rebecca arrived at Beverly with a 

 full fare of fish; her master, Isaac Preston, beini; seventy-two, and one of the crew upwards 

 of eighty years old. The late Cai)tain Andrew Harrington, of Eastport, Maine, an excellent 

 man, used the hook and line without intermission for half a century. 



There was a jubilee at Ghent in 1H41, in honor of a fisherman who had fidlowed his avocation 

 for fifty years; his companions repaired to his house, accompanied with twenty violin and 

 trumpet players, and after greeting the old man partook of a plentiful feast. 



In Wade's History of England there is an account of one Henry Jenkins, a poor fisherman 

 of Yorkshire, who, born in the year 15011, lived in the reigus of eight kings and (jueeus, and 

 died in ItuO, at the age of one hundred and seventy years. Wade speaks also of John 

 Chambers, au English fisherman, who died iu 1752, aged uiuety-uiue years. 



