PERIOD FROM 1836 TO 1854. 541 



I wish, before closing this despatch, to call your attention to a very 

 important point connected with this general subject. In Lord Aber- 

 deen's letter to me of the 10th of March, 1845, announcing the inten- 

 tion of the Queen's government to allow our fishermen to enter the 

 Bay of Fundy, his lordship says: 



" In thus communicating to Mr. Everett the liberal intentions of 

 her Majesty's government, the undersigned desires to call Mr. 

 Everett's attention to the fact that the produce of the labor of the 

 British colonial fishermen is at the present moment excluded, by pro- 

 hibitory duties on the part of the United States, from the markets of 

 that country; and the undersigned would submit to Mr. Everett that 

 the moment at which the British government are making a liberal 

 concession to the United States trade, might well be deemed favora- 

 ble for a counter-concession on the part of the United States to 

 British trade, by the reduction of the duties which operate so preju- 

 dicially to the interests of the British colonial fishermen." 



Having no instructions on this subject, I was able only to reply to 

 it in general terms, that the government of the United States, I was 

 persuaded, would gladly make any reduction in these duties, which 

 would not seriously injure our own fishermen; but that the encour- 

 agement of this portion of the sea-faring community had always 

 been considered in the United States, as in Great Britain, as resting 

 on peculiar grounds of expediency. 



In the following year, however, and notwithstanding the colonial 

 opposition had, in the meantime, led the home government to abandon 

 the liberal intention of opening all the other outer bays to American 

 fishermen, the prohibitory specific duties of which Lord Aberdeen 

 complained were reduced to a moderate and uniform ad valorem 

 duty. By the operation of another law, called the warehousing act, 

 the fish of the colonies, enters our ports in bond, duty free. In this 

 condition it can be afforded cheaper than our own fish, owing to the 

 enjoyment by the colonial fishermen of those superior fishing- 

 grounds, and superior facilities for carrying on the business, which 

 they secure with so much jealousy to themselves. They conse- 

 quently now monopolize the foreign trade in our ports. Other do- 

 mestic regulations to the disadvantage of our own fishermen have 

 contributed to the same end. In this way, a sudden and powerful 

 impulse has been given to the importation of colonial fish into the 

 United States. It was stated in the House of Representatives, in 

 debate, last summer, by a very well-informed member, (Mr. Scudder, 

 of Massachusetts,) thai the annual value of the imports of codfish, 

 during the four years next preceding 1846, averaged five thousand 

 eighl hundred and fifty dollars, and the average value, annually, dur- 

 ing the ne\t four years, was fifty-five thousand one hundred and 



Beventy eighl dollar-. The annual \alue of the imports of mackerel 



for the four years previous to 1846. was two hundred and nineteen 

 thou and six hundred and twenty-six dollars; and the annual value 

 for the four year ucce'eding L846, was four hundred and sixty-five 

 thousand eight hundred and sis dollars; showing that since L846 

 the importation of colonial codfish had increased tenfold, and that of 

 mackerel more than doubled. The import of mackerel for the year 

 i v .',n '51 was five hundred and forty nine thousand five hundred and 

 twenty-three dollars, being an increase of eighty three thousand 



