205 



engaged in it all their lives, they cavnot j)oi7ii ovt a solitary owner who has 

 become wealthy from the irrofits of the fishing business alone, nor a single 

 fisherman, ivith a family dej)endi)ig iqw^i him for sviiport, who has been able 

 to lay up, from the earnings of the bunvess, a siaylus for his old age.''"' 



In 1S4S many crews of fishing vessels owned in Newburyport, on 

 settling with their owners, for six and seven months' hard toil at sea, 

 received only about ten dollars per month ; and on this miserable pit- 

 tance they were to eke out the year. They had obtained good fares 

 offish, but were sufferers from the depressed state of the market. 



With facts like these before us, can we wonder that the more ambi- 

 tious young men abandon the employment at every opportunity? 

 Should we not wonder, rather, that any who seek to marry and to have 

 homes, and who are anxious to "lay up a surplus for old age," remain 

 in if? As a class, their condition has been without change. Sixty 

 years ago Fisher Ames said, in the first Congress, that "the fishermen 

 are too poor to remain, too poor to remove."* 



* The report of a select committee of Parliament iu 1833, on the British channel fisheries, 

 contains many interesting facts touching the same point. This committee was appointed in 

 consequence of the petitions of British fishermen, who complained of their distressful condi- 

 tion. The committee, after inquiries, which embraced the whole coast between Yarmouth and 

 Land's End, reported that the channel fisheries, and the interests which were connected with 

 thein, were in a declining state ; that " they appear to have been gradually sinking since the 

 peace of 1815, and more rapidly during the ten years innnediately preceding the investigation; 

 that the capital employed in them did not yield a profitable return ; that the number of vessels 

 and boats, as well as of men and boys, was much diminished ; and that the fishermen's fami- 

 lies, who formerly paid rates and taxes, were then, in a greater or less degree, dependent upon 

 tlie poor rates." 



The causes assigned by the committee for this deplorable state of things were three ; first, 

 the interference of French fisliermen; second, the quantity of f )reigu-caught fish sold in Lon- 

 don; third, the decrease and scarcity of fish iu the channel. AVith regard to the first, they 

 had evidence that, for a long period, large fleets of French fishermen had frequented the coasts 

 of Kent and Susse.x, and that they had greatly increased in number since 1815, inasmuch as 

 there were no less than three hundred sailing out of Boidogne alone. The I'rench vessels 

 were declared, indeed, to be more numerous than the Englisli vessels, to be of larger size, and 

 to cany, frequently, double the number of men, as well as to use better nets and other fishing 

 pear. The committee remarked, further, that so disastrous to British fishermen had been 

 French interference, that while many were unable to earn a livelihood, some had been quite 

 ruined, or had withdrawn from the business. 



Such statements, it might seem, were sufficiently humiliating ; but the committee averred 

 that the French had been in the habit of meeting at sea boats from the Tliames and elsewhere, 

 which took the foreign-caught fi.sh tt> the London market, where, it is to be inferred, they were 

 sold as of the produce of the British fisheries. This practice they condenmed in strong teniis. 

 Of the third cause of distress, the committee expressed the opinion, that the scarcity of fish 

 in till.' channel was occasioned by the great destruction of spawn, contrary to existing laws on 

 the subject. 



To remedy these several evils, they suggested that foreigners should not be allowed to come 

 within a certain disti^ice to be prescribed ; that such fishermen be required to conform to de- 

 fined and rigid rules; and that officers of the revenue, and vessels cruising upon the coast, 

 should be hi.structed to enforce whatever regulations might be adopted. They suggested, also, 

 the revision of the statutes relative to the destruction of spawn and joung fish, and to the use 

 of particular kinds of nets, and the repeal of other laws not specially relating to coasts whioh 

 they mentioned. 



The story of " figgressions," whether luade by British subjects on this side of the Atlantic, 

 or on the other, is always to be examined before it is received as truth. In tlie case before us, 

 as iu the many tales related by the committees of the colonial assemblies, there is something 

 to be allowed; for it appears that the English were "aggressors," also, on the fishing-grounds 

 of France at the very moment that this report was under the consideration of Parliament. Iu 

 1834, says a British writer of authority, "A rencontre took place between some Jersey fishing' 

 boats which had in tliAi night trespansed within the ristrictcd limits of eight miles off the French 

 coast, and a French armed cutter. One boat was taken, and the master of another shot." The 



