214 



within a few yenrs, our fishormen have bnd no cause to complain of 

 iheir colonial competitors. It is not so. Those who consult our state 

 papers will find, tliat, as early as 1806, the inhabitants of the counties 

 of Barnstable and Plymouth, Massachusetts, who stated that they pro- 

 cured their livelihood by lishing, memorialised Concress on the subject 

 of existing grievances, and desired redress. They represented that 

 they were much injured in the sale of their fish in consequence of the 

 American market bemg glutted with English fish; that they were firet^ 

 upon and brought to by English cruisers when falling in with them in 

 going to, and coming from, the fishing grounds; that they were im- 

 posed upon; that they were compelled to pay light-money if they 

 passed through the Strait of Canso; that their men were imprisoned ; 

 and that if they anchored in the colonial harbors, they were compelled 

 to pay anchorage money. Thus the complaints in 1S06 were nearly 

 identical with those in 1852. 



In the year 1807 the colonists appealed to the British gtn-ernment 

 on the subject of the fisheries within colonial jurisdiction, and the "ag- 

 gressions" of their republican neighbors. Looking with jealolis eyes- 

 upon the extent of our adventures to their waters, they errjployed a 

 watchman to count the number of An>erican vessels which passed 

 through the Strait of Canso in a season. This watchman reported 

 that he saw nine hundred and thirtj'-eight. As many passed in fogs,. 

 and in the night-time, and were unseen by him, the whole number 

 was not less, probably, than thirteen hundred. Without enumerating 

 other acts of the colonists which show their hostile feelings towTjrds us, 

 I will barely add that many of them preferred that the difficulties then 

 pending between England and the United States should terminate in a 

 war; for, as was believed and said, a war would put an end to our 

 rights of fishing in British America, inasmuch as it would annul the 

 stipulations of the treaty of 1783.* 



The event which so many of our banished couintrymen anticipated 

 with complacency, occurred in 1812. In the year following, a deter- 

 mination was manifested to exclude us from the colonial fishing-gro^iuids 

 on the return of peace. It was represented in memorials, that the Ameri- 

 can fishermen abused their privileges to the injury of his Majesty's sub- 

 jects; that the existence of Great Britain as a power of the first rank, 

 depended mainly upon her sovereignty of the seas; and that sound 

 policy required the exclusion of both France and the Uiaited States 

 States from any participation in the fisheries. It was, furtherm>>re, insisted 



* A highly respectable gentleman, of loyalist descent, related to me the followlnj^ incident,, 

 which will seiTe to illustrate the temper of the time: "I went," saiil he, "to see my uiu-le^ 

 who, as I entered the lioiise, accosted me thus, in fjreat gh'e: 'Well, Willie, rliore'll be war, 

 mvl I siiall die on the old farm after all.' ' How so.'' rejoined my informant. 'How does it 

 follow that, if a war really occurs, you will die on the old larni ?'' ' How!' peStJantly replied 

 the UUcle; "ichy, iron't Eui;litnd vliip the hliislal rebels, and slum't ire nil get our Itinils Ixtek 

 aaain?'' " This loyal old j^entleman is now dead. He was a native of Ncat York, and h)st 

 hi.s property— the "old farm"— under the Confiscation act of that State. At die close of the- 

 Kevolution he settled on the liritish side of the St. Croix, where many persons of his lineage 

 still live. This is by no memis u solitary instance of xXw hojjes entertained as to the result of 

 a conflict between the two nations. In 1^07 many of our banislied countrymen were Hot only 

 alive, but in full vig(u-; and the exj)ectiiti(m was ciunmou ;«iioiig them that, m the eveatof hos- 

 rilicies, their intercut would Ix- prmuoted,. either by Kti|)ulaii()ns iu clieir favo-v in the Wyaty oJ 

 peace, or by the abrogation of our lishiug rights, as stuied in the te-xt. 



