262 COMMITTEE ON 



interest from the fact, that many ships have gone into those seas, 

 and no soul has survived to tell their fate.' 



" This memorial, coming from an intelligent, hardy, and enter- 

 prising people, who have, for more than thirty years, carried on 

 this fishery, so profitable to our country, without repining at any 

 difficulties they have encountered, or without soliciting aid until 

 the country was able to afford it, should, and will have, its effects 

 on the representatives of the nation in Congress. National and 

 individual interests they are bound to regard at all times ; but I 

 trust these claims will be more promptly attended to, when the 

 additional facts are made known to them ; and they are assured 

 that many of our fearless navigators are now, probably, wasting a 

 wretched existence on some desolate island, in these immense seas, 

 waiting, in prayerful hope, that the generosity of the nation will 

 be aroused to send in search of them, and that, in some distant 

 day, they shall see their country and their homes, and be restored 

 to the bosoms of their families and friends. They have read or 

 heard that the French government sent expedition after expedition, 

 to seek for Perouse and his missing vessels ; and can they for a 

 moment imagine, that those they had left at home are less gener- 

 ous and philanthropic than the people of France, or of any other 

 nation ? They cannot : for they will remember and who can 

 forget it ? that, in our days of small things, the whole country 

 was in agitation by the captivity of a few American citizens, by 

 the powers of Barbary, and the expense of liberating them was 

 spontaneously proffered by the American people. And will not 

 this same people be willing that the nation should do some- 

 thing to ascertain the fate of those enterprising navigators who 

 are, probably, on some reef or island, sustaining life as 

 they can? 



"In this matter, every thing conspires to urge us forward at 

 this time. The advantages of commerce to science and national 



