314 



had previously procured, I yet contend that there has been a poshlve 

 decHne, unless the j)J'oduccrs offish have increased as fast as the consumers 

 have done. The population of" the United States was several milhons 

 greater in 1850 than it was in 1840 ; while the means of transporting 

 fish and other ])roductioiis, during this decade, were multiplied beyond 

 example in our history. A corresponding increase in capital and men 

 emploj^ed in the cod and mackerel fisheries ought therefore to be shown, 

 in order to prove that our citizens who are engaged in these pursuits 

 were, as a class, in a prosperous condition. This conclusion will not, 

 it is believed, be denied. 



From my personal observations, I conclude that there was a slight 

 improvement in a part of Massachusetts in 1851, which continued 

 until the spring of the following year. To again repeat the words 

 uttered in the first Congress by Fisher Ames, many of the fishermen 

 are "too poor to remain, too poor to remove;" and thus compelled, by 

 the necessities of their position, to persevere in their adventures upon 

 the sea, they endeavored, two years ago, by greater industry and skill, 

 by a better use of time and a more economical use of outfits, to com- 

 pete with the British colonists, and thus to preserve to themselves their 

 ascendency in the markets of their own country. The course of events 

 on the fishing grounds from July, 1852, to the close of the season, is 

 yet fresh in the public mind, and need not be related here. It is suf- 

 ficient to remark, that the results to our countrymen were disastrous to 

 a degree never before known in time of peace. The presence of her 

 Majesty's cruisers in the waters in dispute between the two govern- 

 ments nearly ruined some, and injured all, who adventured thither, 

 and was the occasion of despondency and suffering at many firesides 

 in Massachusetts and elsewhere in New England. There can be no 

 change for the better while the controversy as to the intent and mean- 

 ing of the convention of 1818 shall continue. The fishermen can- 

 not remain idle: the fishing vessels cannot remain at their owners' 

 wharves to rot. Both, from absolute necessity, must be employed; 

 both — to use an emphatic phrase of the needy and starving — both 

 '■'■must do something.'''' 



Again: the statistics which follow show that the number of men 

 employed in the cod and mackerel fisheries in 1850, in the four States, 

 was 11,860; that the monthly earnings of these men, in Massachusetts, 

 was $137,995; in Maine, $51,829; in Connecticut, $1G,0S2; in New 

 Hampshire, $3,000. The aggregate, ($208,906,) divided, is less than 

 eighteen dollars per month to each mnn. To assume (what, on the 

 average, is not far from the fact) that, including the time of fitting for 

 sea, the fishermen are annually employed eight months, each earned, 

 in 1850, less than one bundled and fijrty-four dollars ; and to add 

 another month, only about one hundred and sixty dollars. 



It will be seen that these calculations substantially correspond with 

 the statements which are contained in the body of this report, as ascer- 

 tained from a different source. I am satisfied that they are essen- 

 tially correct. It is possible that the fishermen who were employed in 

 1852, in waters not in dis])ute, earned the maximum here given ; but 

 those who visited the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and the seas adjacent, 

 could not have received, (if "sharesmcn," as most of them were,) on 



