APPENDIX TO CASE OF GREAT BRITAIN. 339 



From this survey you cau all judge this question of the fisheries, 

 whicli I ouly state without assuming to detoriiiiiie. You can judge if 

 well stocked fishing banks have been found under such conditions of 

 climate and market as to supply a new and important fishery. Already 

 the peojde of California have anticipated the answer, and their enter- 

 prise has arrested attention iu Europe. The journal of Peterman, the 

 "Geographische Mittheilungen," for the present year, Avhich is the 

 authentic German record of geographical science, borrows from a Sau 

 Francisco i)aper to announce these successful voyages as the beginning 

 of a uew commerce. If this be so, as there is reason to believe, these 

 coasts and seas will have a new value. The futuie only can disclose 

 the form they may take. They may be a Newfoundland, a Norway, a 

 Scotland, or jterhaps a New England, with another Gloucester and 

 another New Bedford. 



INFLUENCE OF FISHERIES. 



An eminent French writer, an enthusiast on fishes, Lacepcde, has 

 dei)i<'ted the influence of fisheries, which he illustrates by tlie herring, 

 calling it "one of those natural products whose use has decided the 

 destiny of nations." Without adopting these strong words it is easy 

 to see that such fisheries as seem about to be oi)ened on the Pacific 

 must exercise a w^onderful influence over the iDopulation there, while 

 they give a new spring to commerce and enlarge the national resources. 

 In these aspects it is impossible to exaggerate. Fishermeii are not as 

 other men. Tliey have a character of their own, taking its comi^lexion 

 from their life. In ancient Pome they had a jxHuliar holiday w ith 

 games, known as " Piscatorii Ludi." The first among us in this pur- 

 suit were the Pilgrims, who even before they left Leyden looked to fish- 

 ing for a sup])ort: in their new' home, on which King Janu's remarked: 

 "So God hath my soul, 'tis an honest trade; 'twas the Apostles' own 

 calling." As soon as they reached Plymouth tiiey began to fish, and 

 not long afterwards appropriated the profits of the fisheries at (Jape 

 Cod to found a free school. From this Puritan origin are derived those 

 fisheries Avhich for a while were our chief commerce, and still continue 

 au important element of national wealth. The cod fisheries of the 

 United States are now valued at more than 2,000,000 dollars annually. 

 Even they are inferior to the French fisheries, whose annnal product 

 is more than 3,000,000 dollars; and these again are small by the side 

 of the British fisheries, whose annual product is not far from 25,000,000 

 dollars. Such an interest must be felt far and near, commercially 

 and financially, while it contributes to the comfort of all. How soon 

 it may prevail on the Pacific who can say? But this Treaty is the 

 beginning. 



Of course it is difficult to estimate what is so uncertain, or at 

 88 least is prospective only. Our own fisheries, now so consider- 

 able, were small in the beginning; they w^ere small even when 

 they inspired the eloquence of Burke in that most splendid page never 

 equalled even by himself. But the Continental Congress, in its original 

 instructions to its Commissioners for the negotiation of i)eace with Great 

 Britain, required as a fundamental condition, next to independence, that 

 these fisheries should be preserved unimi)aired. While this proposition 

 was under discussion Elbridge Gerry, who had grown up among the 

 fishermen of Massachusetts, repelled the attacks upon their pursuit in 

 words which are not out of place here. '' It is not so much fishing," he 

 said, "as enterprise, industry, emjiloyment. It is not so much fish; it 

 is gold, the produce of that avocation. It is the employment of those 



